Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Bill is right

My reader Bill says that he had already read, almost word for word, the item that I posted yesterday about fears for Brits abroad if the Eurozone collapses. Of course Bill, and others must realise that the newsy items on my blog come from somewhere else after all I am not a paid journalist. However, I do try and re write a lot of what I read but inevitably the odd sentence or paragraph will slip through in the mix. I also try and add in my own opinions, for what they are worth.

In this case, Bill says that he thought my source was the Daily Mail. Sorry to disappoint you Bill but it was actually the Telegraph.

I do glance at the Mail but rarely find anything in the online version that catches my eye. To my mind, there is very little true journalism in the Mail. Most of the so called stories are in reality articles about anything but news. And those that purport to be newsy tend to be depressing stories about the doom and gloom of modern Britain. It is a good paper to read if you want to know which B list starlet has recently bared her bosom for the press or what is going on in “the Jungle” (I’m a celebrity get me out of here). Other than that it is generally a waste of time!

The paper has several scapegoats, teachers being one of them. Any dirt that they can find about teachers who overstep the mark or who fail to provide adequate education for their pupils is a source for a major attack on the whole profession. As an ex-teacher that irritates me because I know from experience that most teachers are hard working professionals. I feel that it is unfair to cite the bad apples in the barrel as the norm.

Most newspapers have a bias towards one political party or another, the Express and the Telegraph for example are clearly pro Conservative. The Mail on the other hand seems to be prepared to slate whichever party is in power. The paper really had a down on the Labour party -Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in particular. Now the targets seem to be Liberal politicians who are hindering the Conservatives from achieving good government.

Bill,  it could be worse, I might start taking the Sun newspaper as my source of information! 

2 comments:

Bill said...

Noted - however I, like most other bloggers (I've been blogging for almost 10 years in my main blog and over 4 in my Spanish blog)), when taking a story from a published source, do embed a link to the source publication and generally quote only brief excerpts as it may infringe copyright to quote verbatim without so attributing it. That was really the point I was making, obviously too opaquely. Now that you mention it, as well as being in the Mail (where I saw it on-line), it was also in my Telegraph, which I get via my Kindle every day.

Bigastroandbeyond said...

Duly noted, I will try to be more circumspect in future.