http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog media, politics, sarcasm, comment Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:16:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The prevalence of PR masquerading as newspaper copy has become a tub-thumping topic for me lately, but I really don't think people realise quite how pervasive it is. We're only a weekly newspaper and we get sent all kinds of bollocks that isn't of any use or relevance to us ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/09/05/not-in-the-news-week/ After finishing the excellent, if densely written, Unspeak by Steven Poole which analyses the hidden persuasiveness attached to various words and phrases commonly used in politics and the media, I've been paying a lot more attention to the words I use when writing. Without wanting to sound egotistical, everything I ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/07/29/word-choice/ I discovered something other day. It is very difficult to write a letter objecting to a planning or licensing application without sounding like a reactionary idiot whose common sense filter has been clogged with the dust of unwarranted outrage. A friend told me she was planning to object to the conversion ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/07/29/not-in-my-back-yard/ I have now finished the really excellent Flat Earth News by Nick Davies. And although my initial reaction was that I should find a handy gun and shoot myself in the head before I become a part of the corporate news factory that he so derides, I have since hit ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/07/07/the-manufactured-reality/ I didn't include these anecdotes in the last post, as it was growing rather unwieldy, but today I ran into two obstacles to my attempts to avoid the PR trap. The first was when I couldn't explore an unusual angle in a story I received two press releases about because this ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/06/17/broken-resolutions/ A good few years ago, I remember listening to a report about a London prison on the Today programme. At the time, my mum worked in that prison and was able to point out several inaccuracies in the report. I remember thinking then, if there were that many mistakes and ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/06/17/what-am-i/ The title of this blog post is my attempt to capture some of the confused, nay schizophrenic, thinking about children in our society that seems to be pervading both the media and political climates right now. The genesis of this post came while I was listening to PM on Radio 4 ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/06/09/wont-somebody-plz-thnk-of-teh-chldr3n/ While my Christian credentials may be somewhat dubious, I am nothing if not a feminist, in the truest sense of the word. To me, feminism means simply this: that you believe in equality between men and women. Not subjugation of men by women, not compulsory castration of men by women, ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/06/03/the-house-of-bishops/ The BBC Radio Listen Again service is amazing and wonderful and useful, but in this instance, it is frustrating, because although I can find the programme I want, the section of it I want to highlight is not available to be heard again. But this proves that Dr Elaine Storkey ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/05/24/were-all-going-to-die111/ It's not quite as snappy as Voltaire's original, but this is in essence what this post is trying to say about proposals to outlaw the possession of extreme pornography. In the same way that players of violent video games do not all go on to become rapists and murderers, not all ... http://www.in-media-res.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/05/19/i-may-not-agree-with-the-way-you-shag-but-i-will-defend-unto-the-death-your-right-to-shag-the-way-you-like/