Place of Stuff

Back in February, I discussed a book called Flat Earth News.  If you still haven’t read this book, please do so.  You will find yourself nodding your head and agreeing with so much of it; the book is all the more powerful because it is written by a journalist about journalism.  The snowball started by Nick Davies has now grown, The Churner Prize is the latest result of the book.  On the FAQ page, there is a video of an interview/discussion with Davies.

So what is The Churner Prize (apart from being a pun on “The Turner Prize”)? Well, the Why? Page has a go at answering the question.  Basically, a huge chunk of news out there isn’t news, it’s simply press releases from companies or rehashes of older stories put out simply because the story is relevant to a new program or documentary.  Sadly, few people recognise these rehashes because we are all used to the news being packaged and delivered to us and we accept that it is both news and new without question.

In Flat Earth News, Davies highlights a news story which appears in UK papers every time the World Cup is nearing.  It tells us that an average member of the public is planning to take out an insurance policy to cover the emotional trauma he will feel if England loses.  (For anyone reading along, in the hard back copy this is on page 49).  The book says:
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Thanks to the Private Eye for running excerpts from this excellent book in the magazine. To step away from my main story, you should try to read at least one copy of the mag, it is the only real satirical magazine in the UK and the only publication which investigates and attacks all the parties and all the people who shape our lives. It has long had a history of hard hitting investigative journalism and prints the stories the papers and TV don’t want to or dare not.

Flat Earth News is a book about the media and written by a journalist. Nick Davies explains, throughout, where the once proud tradition of journalism has now become “churnalism”. Where once a journalist may spend weeks tracking down and verifying a story, they now rewrite PR pieces, government pieces and whatever they can get from the newswires. He takes us through the means by which outright and blatant lies can be placed on the front page of every newspaper and why they are never challenged. And the book is somewhat frightening.

If you get your world news and views from the media, you are being very subtly (and not so subtly) manipulated to think the way “they” think you should think. This is the sort of thing that would be at home in a Cold War thriller or science fiction story, and yet is happening right now and has been for many years. Welcome to the future.
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Misogyny has to be one of the ugliest things on the web. I like to consider myself to be intelligent and rational and fair minded. I pride myself on having friends that are the same. And yet, this is the internet. A place where all of us, no matter what we look like in the outside world, can pride ourselves on being better than everyone else in every way.

The BBC is reporting on death threats received by a prominent female blogger. Basically, Kathy Sierra was due to attend a conference until a bunch of random asshat trolls started offering up death threats. Link to the story i her own words is here.

Now, here’s the thing and this is what makes it especially abhorrent to me: if I receive an e-death threat or a threat of any kind I will laugh it off. I am a man and that is what we’re supposed to do. Even more than that, I am totally unknown outside of a very small circle of people. Not in a mysterious “only special people know who he is” way, but in a “who he?” way. And in general, I don’t care for your threats, threaten away if that’s what gets you off.
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In a massive turnaround, Microsoft mouthpiece Robert Scoble says

“Microsoft’s internet execution sucks (on the whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks. If that’s ‘in it to win’, then I don’t get it.”

As reported by The Times online. Scoble has often being criticised for taking the Redmond dollar and for reporting whatever they wanted in a positive light. But now he has turned on them.

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