Skip to main content

The media's distorting lens

I wonder how many times when one of us gets a story on the radio or television about a subject we know about, we go "that is not very accurate". I paraphrase here.

For me, I find it happens more and more often and in stranger ways.

The noise of the media was drowning out information anyway, but here is an example for you.

The BBC thinks that a story about a film about a Norwegian film about gay penguins is more important than

1) Russia, under new tyranny, is killing far more than just prominent journalists
2) North Korea will detonate a second nuclear bomb- according to local sources
3) Several more countries are pulling troops out of Iraq
4) The Queen is having a successful tour in the Baltics, and condemns Russian brutality
5) Segolene Royal is more likely than ever to be the first woman President of France
6) "Borat"- a fictional character gets an invitation to Kazakhstan.

OK, OK. Gay penguins it is... You silly twisted boys.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The public is doing the distorting, the media just reflects what the public is interested in. Frankly, everything on your list I was aware of already. But gay penguins, now that's news. Guess which story would get more inbound links on the BBC News website?

It's up to politicians and campaigners - yes and bloggers) to raise public awareness and interest in the things you list. It's not the media's job to dictate what the public should be interested in.
10:03 am
Cicero said…
I agree that "those that have the appreciation should make the discernment"- and make some noise.

However the media is not a neutral instrument, merely relecting "our readers" (or viewers or listeners).

The media most often has an independent agenda for "what is news"- whether Mr. Murdoch's or somebody elses. That agenda does not have the best interests of the readers at heart but a whole range of other factors that shape it.
5:50 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop
Post a Comment
Read more

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo
Post a Comment
Read more

One Year On

  Head vabariigi iseseisvuspäeva! Happy Estonian Independence Day! It is one year since I stood outside the Estonian Parliament for the traditional raising of the national flag from Tall Hermann tower. Looking at the young fraternities gathered with their flags, I was very sure that Estonia too would soon be facing the aggression of the criminal Russian regime. A tragic and dark day. 5 eyes intelligence had been clear: an all out invasion was going to happen, and Putin´s goals included- and still include- "restoration" of Russian imperial power across Europe, even to the Atlantic. Yet there was one Western intelligence failure: we all underestimated the guts of the Ukrainian armed forces, the ZSU, and its President and people. One year on, Estonia, and indeed all the front line states against Russia, knows that Ukraine saved us. Estonia used that time to prepare itself, should that "delayed" onslaught ever be unleashed, but equally the determination of Kaja Kallas,
Post a Comment
Read more