How do you get people to do what you want them to do? There's obviously a wide spectrum of options here going from "asking them nicely" to "putting a chip in their brain" but this is the basic question of the Leveson inquiry: some journalists did things that are bad, what is the mechanism for...
Read more →Yesterday's Everyday Sexism Project column introduced the internet to what is highly likely to be a new urban legend: Slut dropping. The full story goes: He described a group of excited male first-years who told him about a new trend: “slut dropping”. The process, they explained, involves driving around town with friends in the early...
Read more →The Independent has finished it's investigation into the Johann Hari saga and while Hari has apologised, it's in such a way that reinforces the idea I've seen in a few places that at least partly due to Hari being plucked right out of the university and missing some of the fine points of the journalistic...
Read more →A colouring book setting out to explain 9/11 to kids is obviously walking a mine field of every variety, but looking at the site what I found most bizarre was the media excerpt section – Take this quote from the New Yorker: Most of the children in elementary schools today were born after September...
Read more →It's inevitable with breaking stories that the media is going to call some things wrong, what's more concerning is that it tends to do this in ways that are revealing of deeper problems. Immediately after the attacks in Norway the commentariat's initial reaction was to blame it on Islamic terrorism, which is understandable because...
Read more →It's tough being a tabloid newspaper sub-editor. Generally, it's agreed that articles are easier to read if they have a picture, but it's too expensive to send a photographer to get an original photograph for every story. So, to fill the gap, stock photo companies, such as Alamy, build massive databases of weird and...
Read more →A rather amusing leader piece from a 2009 edition of the News of the World has come to light today as the NOTW releases its final issue. LAST week the News of the World was the subject of some ferocious and, at times, hysterical attacks on its credibility, integrity and journalistic standards. The onslaught...
Read more →I wrote my initial blog post regarding the phone hacking affair just hours after the story about Millie Dowler broke on Monday night. The post was partly fuelled by disbelief and shock, but still tried to make a few predictions about how the whole thing may pan out and what the ultimate effect would...
Read more →While new revelations on the saga are pouring in by the hour, The Magistrate's Blog points out that there's a fair amount of repeat revelation as Wade admitted to paying police officers for information years ago. In other news, Michael White is busy brandishing his insider credentials and reminds us that the NOTW isn't all bad as some of...
Read more →We knew it was bad, but not this bad. Tabloid hacks have to go some distance to really shock people with their antics these days, as stories of raiding through bins in order to find evidence, paying police officers for information and dressing up as nurses to interview terminally ill patients have pushed the...
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