You are currently browsing the daily archive for December 7th, 2006.
A severe tornado ripped roofs off homes and tore down walls in a residential area of northwest London on Thursday, injuring six people…
At just after 5 PM, my Dad rang. Someone had seen the story of the tornado on a news program in the States before he did and told him. I pointed out that it happened about ten miles away from where we live now. I also told him that calling to our land line might not have been exactly the best way to find out what was going on — for having gotten me on the phone, clearly our house is still standing. (About a year ago, something blew up not very far away also.)
Oh, by the way, Reuters’ abject failure in that report to include a mention of Iraq, George W. Bush and Israel might well lead one to consider the report perhaps as being indicative of a minor shift in journalistic emphasis . . .
…The Met Office spokesman said it was impossible to tell if global warming had a role to play in the London tornado…
. . . but if you did, fear not, for they did get in a mention of global warming.
The BBC reports:
General Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the Army, has criticised the way in which the Ministry of Defence (MoD) runs the armed forces.
Speaking at the annual Dimbleby Lecture, he said soldiers’ wages were “hardly impressive” and “some accommodation” was “frankly, shaming”…
…”We’re actually spending 2.5% of our GDP this year - which is our lowest since 1930 - but at a time when our commitments are rising.”
BBC defence correspondent Paul Adams said the comments were “bound to cause offence in some circles” and were likely to be “taken seriously” by those high up within the MoD…
This report is a perfect example of the seeming “Groundhog Day” which our blessed media inhabits. Joined up thinking regarding, say, the War on Terror can hardly be expected from them. After all, their even remembering one day to the next is apparently just too much of a mental burden.
Whether it’s right or wrong is not the point. OF COURSE General Sir Mike’s correct that the Forces are a low funding priority. For just yesterday were we not all treated to media headlines proclaiming how this chancellor’s budget priorities are “schoolsandhospitals“ (that’s one word here in Britain) and not defense?
We saw “Casino Royale” yesterday. Excellent film if it’s your sort of thing. But this isn’t meant to be a film review.
Just a couple of thoughts on media issues the film brushes up against. First, the product placement: Bond driving a Ford Focus at one point we could accept; but the repeated Sony Ericsson and Sony Vaio placements were a bit too obvious. (Actually, I’m typing this post on a Sony Vaio: it’s a good laptop. But that isn’t necessarily a commercial endorsement of the product by this blog, of course.) Secondly, in what has to be an English language major film first, I think we even got two glimpses of “news” being broadcast on LCI (the scenes flew by so quickly, I would have to see the film again to be sure), which many Americans may have never heard of: it’s a French attempt at their own cable TV news channel.
Lastly, speaking of news coverage, I thought it also worth remarking here that the scene in which we see a quick cut to a “web story” (by I believe LCI) entitled “British agent kills unarmed prisoner” (or something like that) hits a rather familiar note given the War on Terror . . . considering “the story” was based on momentary CCTV footage which naturally didn’t capture all that had transpired before Bond shot the guy. Yes sometimes films do indeed reflect a measure of “real life” . . . in that case, by providing us with a wry summation of the nature of much of today’s “in-depth” media reporting.
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UPDATE, December 8: LCI never quite having made a splash in the wider media world (probably because it is in French!), we now have “France 24“, and it is available en anglais:
Discover the world with the 24/24hr internationnal news channel !
FRANCE 24, uninterrupted chain of information, accounts the current international events with a French sensitivity and glance…
Such is indeed very necessary . . . given that blogging so many of the “old reliables” has become almost tiresome and predictable. New material is always needed! Joe at ¡No Pasarán!:
…So far the product itself is less substantive than a small-town paper. It’s first take at the Israeli-Palestinian issue had the even-handedness, balance, and honest reporting of Pravda-like tractor production figures…
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