Post your crap post-bombing journalism examples here:

[Wookey]

And for 'famously unquashable' read 'ludicrously annoying'. I, for one, do not feel represented by Del Boy and Rodders, despite living in London and am not particularly moved or inspired by their fictional example. Particularly when they're on the front page of the Hate Mail to flog a crappy old DVD.

This time next year you'll regret saying that....

I do, of course, see what you mean about the juxtaposition, it might well be that the Sales dept has signed a placing agreement that couldn't be gotten out of, which guarenteed the top third of the splash? I wouldn't do that, but this is the Daily Mail, innit?

I just hate this faux seriousness that many outlets take on in times like these, special commenortive black-lined editions, see pages 2 to 82. (cf: Diana), I thought you were calling for more of that.

Who would be a good London emblem/symbol then, if not the Trotter boys?

I guess Ken's been quite defensive, shame about the Boat Race. Mayor Giuliani kinda became a NY focal point.

Maybe we just don't need or want that type of thing?

(considers Vera Lynn and wonders....)

 

[Idaho]

Just heard about a new low for journo-scum the world over. A friend's cousin died in the Kings Cross bomb - the Mirror phoned up the parents prentending to be the Murder Squad to get info...

Other papers seem to turn a blind eye to such stories - no doubt because they don't want ethics to take hold in their profession.

 

[Cloo]

There's rather a lot of 'heroic men' 'poor victim women' sort of stories about, it seems to me.

 

[slaar]

Good comment on the disgraceful Fox coverage here:

http://www.masnet.org/articleinterest.asp?id=2605

 

[Wookey]

Just heard about a new low for journo-scum the world over. A friend's cousin died in the Kings Cross bomb - the Mirror phoned up the parents prentending to be the Murder Squad to get info...

I heard of one family who are on their second support worker. The first one asked for all their photos of their dead son (I think it was a son), and then disappeared. He turned out not to be a support worker, and they've never seen the photos since.

In the days since the bomb, the grief has made several people easy victims. It's disgusting, and it's unfortunate that these people are allowed to call themselves journalists.

There's too much money involved, that's one element that needs addressing. If there was no financial incentive these scum wouldn't do this.

 

[kea]

wookey - do you think that some kind of formal registration for journos - similar to accountants, solicitors etc - would help address such abuses? it's being discussed within the nuj i believe, but i haven't made up my mind what i think of the idea tbh.

 

[laptop]

wookey - do you think that some kind of formal registration for journos - similar to accountants, solicitors etc - would help address such abuses? it's being discussed within the nuj i believe,

It is? Ooooh, PM please.

but i haven't made up my mind what i think of the idea tbh.

AFAIK the NUJ has always been against it. You'd end up with something like the Southern European systems where there's a Press Card Committee, a third of its members being from government, that gets to decide who's a Proper Journalist.

Whereas here, I am reliably informed, union reps can meet with (for example) the head of Public Order at the Met and ask: "so are you telling us that the Times are Proper Journalists and Indymedia aren't? Is that your job?" and watch them blush... which, I am reliably informed, is cool to watch...

 

[Ryazan]

Yes, it's nasty. And the actual cover-line from this morning is subtly nastier, despite it being the Sun trying in a strange kind of way...

"Two beautiful decent women. One Christian, one Muslim."

Was thinking about Photoshopping up a spoof page 3, but no...

The Guardian is pretty tasteless too. In one of their weekend supplements-

In between a centre page article about poverty and unsanitary conditions among housing shanties in Africa, they had a readers pull out of special offers on designer homewear. Lovely watering cans for 70 quid a pop, along with bathroom knick knacks for the fickle that were overpriced like the watering can.

 

[Idris2002]

Yesterday's Irish Sunday World had a journo doing a 'Will Ireland be next?' piece - the jist of which was that the people who protested against the American troops stopping off at Shannon airport on their was to bomb Iraq, were irresponsibly bringing us the attention of al quaeda, and therefore it would be the protestors fault if Ireland got hit next. How twisted is that logic?

That's beneath contempt even by the Irish media's standards. Letting the yanks use Shannon as a base (but hey we're still neutral! ) does make Ireland a potential target. But we should carry on tugging our forelocks to the international gentry, regardless.

 

[Hollis]

Many journalists reporting on the Tube bombs will have known, or been frantic about, people they thought were in the Tube system. Somehow they over-ride that human fear, and carry on working. The parallels I make with the emergency services aren't lazy of lame, they face a very similar situation; one has to subsume oneself for the sake of the story/victims.

Don't make me laugh!

 

[JTG]

tbh, I can make similar parallels between jobs I've done in the past and aspects of the emergency services.

But then I realise how silly they are.

 

[nightowl]

nice to see sweeping phrases on here like 'journo scum' etc. of course if someone mentioned something like the word 'chav' in a thread half the boards would be up in arms

 

[Cloo]

Evening Standard board signs 'Bombers wanted to be martyrs'

You would have thought, yes.

 

[john x]

'99% of Express readers support the Death Penalty for Suicide Bombers'

Wankers!

(Saturday's Daily Express)

john x

 

[Donna Ferentes]

A possibly more serious example. The Guardian today (and, I think, other newspapers) printed the addresses of the families of the suspected bombers, as well as the name of the chip shop run by one of the suspected bombers' fathers. It might be interesting to hear the opinions of professional journalists about this, but my amateur opinion, which I've conveyed to the Readers' Editor, is that doing this may have put the families at risk.

 

[kea]

i agree, justin.

laptop - i'm sure i read something about it in the nuj newsletter a few months ago. i'm not 100% sure whether they were merely reporting it being discussed in other quarters, or supporting the idea, though, i should clarify.

 

[LJo]

'99% of Express readers support the Death Penalty for Suicide Bombers'

Wankers!

(Saturday's Daily Express)

john x

Erm...are they missing something fairly obvious here?

Erm...

<gives up>

 

[R.I.C.O.]

...

I don't know about you lot, but that Onslow has been writing some real bullshit on this board over the past few hours...

 

[Donna Ferentes]

We've been writing some crap as well.

 

[R.I.C.O.]

Erm...are they missing something fairly obvious here?

Erm...

<gives up>

What a corker! I already knew that Daily Express was a pretty retarded paper but that takes the piss!!!!

 

[Zak Bionic]

Bomb Scare Suggests Blair Knew and Did Nothing
High alert level, Israeli intelligence warnings indicate government 'looked the other way' as bombers struck

Paul Joseph Watson/Propaganda Matrix | July 9 2005

Evidence of specific plans to target transport links in major UK cities was known to the Blair government two days before the attack but was purposefully ignored while the terrorists moved in for the kill.

The northern city of Sheffield was buzzing with talk of bomb scares on buses two days before London was hit with four deadly explosions, one of which decimated a number 30 bus near Russell Square.

A number of sources in different areas of the city have confirmed to this writer that all Sheffield buses were delayed for an hour or more as they were sent back to the depot to be checked for bombs. This occured early Tuesday evening, less than 48 hours before the London attack.

Sheffield's supertram system was also affected by the bomb scare. The supertram is basically an identical system to the London Underground, but it operates on standard ground level roads.

The bomb scare was the topic of every bus and tram terminal conversation in the city center. A high police presence was also visible at many terminals in the area.

Strangely enough the local print and television media didn't cover the bomb scare at all, this in a town where a traffic accident is top story for three days running. This suggests the police passed on a directive not to report on the incident.



The BBC did carry an article suggesting the bomb scare was due to a package being placed outside a government building. If this is the case then why were buses and trams that didn't even pass Bridge Street also diverted for an hour or more? And why, as many others subsequently reported, were police stopping red Subaru cars all over the city?

Although a major city, Sheffield hasn't been bombed since world war two and even bomb scares are very rare occurances. A bomb scare in Sheffield that impacts public transport less than two days before the London bombing and the blackout of the media in covering it is highly suspicious.

More so in light of the fact that intelligence sources are indicating that Israel warned the British government of attacks two days before the London bombing and also that other similar attacks had been aborted (the empty package outside the Sheffield government building?) The intelligence sources say Blair turned a blind eye to the warnings because he didn't want his visit to G8 being disrupted or call off visits by foreign dignitaries to London.

Did government officials in Sheffield and possibly other cities heed the warning that Blair chose to ignore?

Source




Particularly liked how most of his hysteria has been directly delved upon from the unbearable Sheffield Forum, particularly the bit about Red Subaru cars - which if you check into Sheffield Forums uber-bizarre Red Subaru Alert Thread is actually a plea from some young girl to get hold of the phone number of some asian lad she fancies.

Brilliant.

...and awful.

 

[Hollis]

A possibly more serious example. The Guardian today (and, I think, other newspapers) printed the addresses of the families of the suspected bombers, as well as the name of the chip shop run by one of the suspected bombers' fathers. It might be interesting to hear the opinions of professional journalists about this, but my amateur opinion, which I've conveyed to the Readers' Editor, is that doing this may have put the families at risk.

Yep - the Independent had a full run down of brothers and sisters and what they were doing

 

[Orang Utan]

Fox News have got the idea that Leeds is in the East Midlands:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162358,00.html

 

[JTG]

Fox News have got the idea that Leeds is in the East Midlands:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162358,00.html

Leeds, Leicester, it's all the same innit.

To be fair, there's plenty of people here, especially within the M25 in my experience, who are just as vague about the geography of the country they live in.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

I'm sure it was on here, quite a time ago, that somebody posted about how they'd amused themselves by taking a map of the country round at work and inviting people to identify the location of various Northern towns.

 

[Orang Utan]

I'm sure it was on here, quite a time ago, that somebody posted about how they'd amused themselves by takinga map of the country round at work and inviting people to identify the location of various Northern towns.

I'm going to do that.
Liverpool.
Manchester
Hull
Leeds
Bradford
Sheffield.
Anywhere else?

 

[JTG]

I'm going to do that.
Liverpool.
Manchester
Hull
Leeds
Bradford
Sheffield.
Anywhere else?

It's not in the north obviously but try asking people which county Bristol is in. Always good for a laugh that.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Try them with rugby league towns, that'll be a laugh. Castleford, Wakefield, St Helens, Warrington, Widnes.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

It's not in the north obviously but try asking people which county Bristol is in. Always good for a laugh that.

Did I mention before that one of my flatmates when I lived in Acton once asked me, "Justin, where's Northampton?"

"In Northamptonshire, Dave", I said.

 

[JTG]

Try them with rugby league towns, that'll be a laugh. Castleford, Wakefield, St Helens, Warrington, Widnes.

Featherstone, Keighley, Whitehaven.

'Everton, is that near Liverpool then?'