Think of the war effort, Winston. Our boys are nearly winning on the Malabar front. Think of the children and of those immigrants we have to get rid of (hm, that'll be me...)
In 1984 all the pundits had a lot of pleasure pointing out how Orwell had got it all wrong....
There was an item about this on C4 News, which continues to be the best news on TV AFAIC, but the broader picture is not good.
It's almost as if many media outlets have given up on reporting on protests, or marches of other kind (didn't hear much about the Dykemarch either).
Blair started this, as you note, when a million peaceful marchers did nothing to change his attitude to the Iraq war. Of course those same people went out and voted for him in the next election so maybe you can see his point.
This is continuing the worrying trend of people finding they are using Twitter to check the BBC’s reporting rather than the other way around.
If they have any justification at all I would assume it is along the lines that what makes the news is based on unexpectedness, not importance. So, for example, bicycling deaths sometimes make the news whereas pedestrian casualties don’t-because they are too commonplace. There are protest marches in London most weekends and even enormous ones like Pride get near-zero coverage. I think they are wrong & should give more prominence to people doing stuff rather than watching footie on TV but what the hey.
A cynic might argue that given the gist of the speechifying by Russell Brand was that our collective wishful thinking will solve everything without any hard work or inconvenience to himself, it is good that it did not get more coverage than it did.
If I ran the BBC I wouldn't report either. I'd have a nice word with them to say if they move the protest to somewhere much less inconvenient to the BBC then I'd report on it. I mean seriously, who's going to encourage more people to protest outside their office by giving them the very publicity they crave?
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In 1984 all the pundits had a lot of pleasure pointing out how Orwell had got it all wrong....
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It's almost as if many media outlets have given up on reporting on protests, or marches of other kind (didn't hear much about the Dykemarch either).
Blair started this, as you note, when a million peaceful marchers did nothing to change his attitude to the Iraq war. Of course those same people went out and voted for him in the next election so maybe you can see his point.
Reply
If they have any justification at all I would assume it is along the lines that what makes the news is based on unexpectedness, not importance. So, for example, bicycling deaths sometimes make the news whereas pedestrian casualties don’t-because they are too commonplace. There are protest marches in London most weekends and even enormous ones like Pride get near-zero coverage. I think they are wrong & should give more prominence to people doing stuff rather than watching footie on TV but what the hey.
A cynic might argue that given the gist of the speechifying by Russell Brand was that our collective wishful thinking will solve everything without any hard work or inconvenience to himself, it is good that it did not get more coverage than it did.
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