When reviewers get lazy...

[Richmond Clements]

People only read the local paper to is if anybody they know is pictured in it, or has been in court.

I hate it when jurnos use the phrase 'A Catch 22 situation', or report a 1-0 score in a football match by saying, 'It couldn't have been closer'.
Yes it bloody could, it could have been a bloody draw you idiot!

[Trout]

Our political coverage, two weeks ago, called one local constituency "a two-horse cliffhanger".

I laughed and laughed and laughed.

sob

[Banners]

A Catch 22 situation

What were 'Catch 22' situations called before "Catch 22"?

M@

[House of Usher]

Not a great reader of newspapers myself. One thing I have noticed though is that there's a difference between rural and metropolitan news reporting.

The Whitby Gazette has stories about very elderly pensioners' birthdays, the theft of two milk bottles from someone's doorstep, and a window being broken by vandals.

The local paper for Looe in Cornwall has stories about Morris dancers and photographs of local schoolchildren celebration Trelawney Day.

Go to a slightly bigger town and you got thinly-veiled racism in the Leicester Mercury, c. 1995: Hindu festival fireworks scare my dog, etc; and homophobia masquerading as news in the Swansea Evening Post ("what gays do in publivc lavatories made me feel physically sick", says eye-witness).

The South Wales Echo (we're covering a slightly wider area here) has a mixture of Joy-rider Fighting For Life After Collision With Tree, neighbours killing each other with alarming frequency, taxi-driver questioned over car-park sexual assault, football manager storms out, and celebrity raises money for cancer charity.

The Evening Argus in Brighton is a bewildering daily mix of car crashes, murders, controversial traffic schemes, politics, world news, internet romances, marriage proposals (in front of a press photographer, naturally), school plays, and derelict buildings gone to waste. The letters page is dominated by retired teachers, colonels, magistrates and current councillors and taxi drivers all blaming somebody for something or other: litter, discarded needles, dog mess, fast food restaurants, immigration, not enough hanging baskets, too many beggers, not enough sun, etc.

What the reporting must be like in London, Birmingham or Manchester I can only imagine, but extrapolating from the further provinces, it must look something like Grand Theft Auto with a bit of Carmageddon thrown in. "on acid".

[GordonR]

Which reminds me...

One of my brothers-in-law is the chairman of a local branch of - how should I put it? - a well-known national political party.  The other day, he came round to ask me and my missus to sign and/or address a whole bunch of phoney letters that he was sending to the local press:

"Dear Sir, I've been a Lib-Dem supporter for 20 years, but this election I'll be voting for [insert other political party name here] because..."

Am I the only one to be slightly morally outraged by this kind of shoddy electioneering shennaningans?

Today it's phoney letters to the local paper, tomorrow it's postal ballot fraud or lying about weapons of mass destruction...

[House of Usher]

Wow, Gordon! Damn those Tories and their dirty tricks. Go to the papers with your evidence. Squeal your brother-in-law up immediately!

[House of Usher]

"Today it's phoney letters to the local paper, tomorrow it's postal ballot fraud or lying about weapons of mass destruction..."

Heh. Labour too !

[Trout]

Yeah, go to the papers today and you could warp the election result!

[Adrian Bamforth]

Another hopeless bit of journalism is lazily using the term "cult" because something is a certain genre such as sci-fi or fantasy. I even once read that Rambo was a "cult" film - okay, show me the pictures of the costume parade from this years Rambo convention. Similarly, journalists automatically describe something as "controversial" regardless of whether anyone has made a complaint or not - take Britney Spears videos for example which seem to always be controversial beforer anyone's even seen it.

Lazy boring journalist slags, to quote Lee and Herring.

ADE

[GordonR]

He's doing it off his own back - I don't think the constinuency party know anything about it.  He's a nice guy, but I generally file him under 'well-meaning idiot'.

The worrying thing is, come the next local elections, he'll probably be on the city council.  Hurrah for the usual high standards of local government democracy!

[Trout]

Heh, heh.

"Controversial"? Guilty!

- Trout

[Adrian Bamforth]

"Anyone remember 'Lee Evans is like Norman Wisdom on Acid' on the sadly missed sunday spark of originality that was 'This Morning with Richard not Judy'."

I remember it well, though was amused to see TMWRNJ's Emma Kennedy use the crap "on acid" line during a recent TV review.

ADE

[johnnystress]

Stupid radio DJs!- mentioned a couple of times already

But you'd think if it's your job to play "popular" music you'd make sure to ..know a bit about your subject

many many instances but one that comes to mind

"And today is so-and-sos' wedding anniversary, so let's play something appropriate here's..Luka by Suzanne Vega"

[House of Usher]

TMWRNJ!

"Ter-Woom-Rurn-Jer", as it used to be known.
Fantastic days they were.

[longmanshort]

Gordon: No such clever subterfuge from our local county council candidates - they just write in using their real names but they just don't mention that they're a candidate ... in the vain hope we won't mention it.

This campaign has been particularly pathetic as I've discovered that, upon joining the Conservative Party, members are implanted with a small microchip that makes them inately paranoid and means they will automatically accuse anyone involved in the media of being biased and anti-Tory. I wouldn't mind so much, except that this time I've gone out of my way to be fair to them all :-S