When it comes to the coverage of German football in the media it seems we are destined to always hear the same old tired lines.
On Tuesday, football commentator Clive Tyldesley – a man apparently
constructed in an ITV laboratory out of an idiot and some old episodes of
Dad's Army – greeted Borussia Dortmund
reaching the Wembley final of the Champions League with a cry of "THE GERMANS
ARE COMING".
I imagine he was standing up in his commentary box waving a bayonet with one hand and his standard issue ITV tin helmet with the other.
The Sun also went with "THE GERMANS ARE COMING" once Bayern
Munich had secured their place in the Wembley showpiece alongside Dortmund, riffing
topically upon a war which ended 34 years before the oldest Bayern player was even
born:
THE GERMANS ARE COMING... and to prove it, here's a picture of Dutch footballer Arjen Robben.
For those impressed that Tyldesley and The Sun had at least
managed not to declare "ZE GERMANS ARE COMING" there is always the Daily Star:
However, forget for a minute the specifics of the story and just marvel at how anybody managed to get this headline...
MailOnline, 14 April 2013
...out of this quote, used in the same article, from Ceri Thomas, head of programmes at BBC News:
"I need to be absolutely clear that if we had any suggestion that
lives were at risk or anything approaching that - either the BBC team's lives
or the lives of the students - then we wouldn't have gone anywhere near
this."
It's not exactly "risking students' lives was worth it".
And it's not just the Mail. The Independent also went with the headline "Panorama was worth risking lives for, says BBC chief" despite running an accompanying video alongside the article of Thomas stating quite clearly:
"There is absolutely no evidence that we were risking the lives of these students. Had we had any kind of assessment that said we were putting lives at risk we would have pulled out of the trip."
In case you have missed this story, a storm has been brewing over the weekend after the LSE accused the BBC of endangering students by sending Panorama journalist John Sweeney and a cameraman into the country, posing as members of an LSE student trip. It has been claimed the BBC misled students taking part in the trip. The BBC has denied any suggestion it endangered students or misled the party.
The BBC has revealed the breakdown of 766 complaints received about its coverage of Margaret Thatcher's death:
A balanced result? Given how polarised the Thatcher debate was always going to be, it looks like the BBC has done a fair job of striving for balance, annoying the three main complaining groups in almost equal measure. However, there have been marginally more complaints about the coverage being too 'pro-Thatcher' compared to those suggesting the BBC was 'anti-Thatcher' in its coverage.
In an article criticising a lack of respect shown to Margaret Thatcher by the BBC, The Daily Mail claims this picture shows Huw Edwards not wearing a black tie.
They're right of course. He's wearing a pink stripy tie. But he's also wearing a poppy. And it turns out the picture of Edwards that the Mail has used dates from November 2006 - as this story from the Daily Mail's own website shows:
As Cridland has pointed out, The Daily Mail perhaps felt it couldn't use a picture of Edwards as he was actually dressed to deliver the news of Thatcher's death because he was wearing a rather sombre dark blue tie, which wouldn't have seemed nearly as controversial as a pink stripy tie.
The Daily Mail has now removed the picture from its website.
If yesterday's media coverage of Margaret Thatcher's death, and
the public reaction which greeted it, reminded us of anything it's that she was
a lady who polarised the country.
In any debate between polar opposites anybody striving
for the middle ground will invariably be accused of bias, often by both sides. It's the reason
why both sets of football fans at a match are simultaneously capable of believing the referee
is against their team. And so it is that the Daily Mail has inevitably accused
the BBC of left-wing bias in its coverage of Margaret Thatcher's death.
It should be pointed out the
BBC has also been heavily criticised for a pro-Thatcher bias after
broadcasting gushing tributes to the controversial Prime Minister and a rather misty-eyed documentary which interviewed a host of her friends and admirers.
You only have to look at the Mail's own coverage and that in The Telegraph to see this is a woman who some people still believe did little wrong. So it's unsurprising then that the BBC daring to mention strikes, poll tax, poverty and mass unemployment - let alone Pinochet and Apartheid - has jarred
with those intent on remembering a
rose-tinted version of Thatcher's time in office.
The Mail has picked out a few tweets which support its claims of "disgraceful bias". Tweets such as:
"Shameless Marxist
BBC, Ken Livingstone. Tony Benn. You name the socialist, they've interviewed
them to try and ruin the memory of this great lady."
"Baroness Thatcher a great leader of 20th Century, BBC
brings on the haters and emphasises insignificant disturbances. Angry about the
bias"
That will presumably be "insignificant disturbances" like the poll tax riots and the miners strike.
While trawling for such blinkered criticism of
the BBC it seems the Daily Mail missed a great many more tweets like these...
"The volume of pro-Thatcher reporting across the BBC over
the last 36 hours is actually starting to disturb me now. #bias"
"At last! 26 hours of pro-Thatcher propaganda on #BBC and
finally Alexis Sayle is first voice of dissent.”
"Do something good...sick of the Chris Patten led pro
Thatcher diatribe across the BBC? Then complain..."
"Shame on you, BBC. Revisionist lickspittle cap doffing
cowards. Your pro-Thatcher bias is quite disgusting."
"BBC outdoing itself in pro thatcher toadying. For balance
they found a soundbite of scargill sounding like hitler."
"We are going to have put up with so much pro-Thatcher
nonsense in the media and on the bbc for the next few weeks."
"What's with all the pro-Thatcher propaganda on the BBC?"
The Telegraph and The Daily Mail have expressed shock today that the BBC marked the closure of Television Centre with a party for staff.
Readers of a gentle disposition might want to sit down for this next bit.
Apparently there was drinking. And dancing. Somebody may or may not have smoked indoors and there may even have been some sex - either in a studio or an office, The Telegraph isn't quite sure because it's pretty much cobbled together its entire report based on a couple of tweets and an article on the Daily Mail's website:
The Telegraph reports:
"The farewell gathering, held in three recording studios, was a raucous affair at which BBC employees drank and danced until the early hours."
The Heathens!
Helen Williamson, a producer, wrote: "At the BBC's 'goodbye TVC party'...did a nostalgic walk of the donut & heard someone s------- in one of the offices. Sackable offence?
Now, I REALLY hope the word The Telegraph has timidly censored there is "shagging".
If it is "shitting" I don't even want to know.
But if two consenting adults had sex at a staff party is this really news?
There's part of me that hopes that they were also dressed as Pudsey the bear and a Cyberman, doing it against the TARDIS. But it still wouldn't be news.
The Telegraph continues:
"Just days earlier, the BBC was accused of "over indulgence" after broadcasting extensive coverage of its lat [sic] days at Television Centre... Viewers branded the coverage "self congratulatory claptrap" and pointed out that it was not a story for anyone who did not work for the BBC."
Among the many things The Telegraph doesn't quite find room to mention in its article - such as the fact BBC staff had to buy tickets for their party which had a cash bar - is the fact that a great many viewers enjoyed the coverage. A survey of Media Blog readers found the majority supported the amount of coverage dedicated to Television Centre by the BBC.
Funnily enough, The Mail also overlooked the detail of the party being self-funded by BBC staff and the similarities between the two articles don't end there or with the use of exactly the same tweets...
The Mail: However, presenter Vernon
Kay – married to Strictly Come Dancing host Tess Daly – was reportedly stopped
by security as he left the building with a dressing room sign.
The Telegraph: Presenter
Vernon Kay, who is married to Strictly Come Dancing host Tess Daly, was
reportedly stopped by security as he left the building with a dressing room
sign.
The Mail: In a second
evening of celebrations on Friday, Madness performed live outside the building. Journalist Julia Raeside said: 'Drunk watching Madness. Might smoke indoors. It's that kind of night.'
The Telegraph: The following evening, last Friday, Madness performed live outside the building. Journalist Julia Raeside wrote on Twitter: "Drunk watching Madness. Might smoke indoors. It's that kind of night."
The Mail: Presenter Dave Berry added: 'Off to ghost town BBC television centre to work a stunning TV show project and also to pinch some stuff.' The day after the farewell party, photographer Ray Burmiston said: 'Feels like a ghostown [sic]...
The Telegraph: Presenter Dave Berry wrote online: "Off to ghost town BBC television centre to work a stunning TV show project and also to pinch some stuff." The day after the farewell party, photographer Ray Burmiston said: "Feels like a ghostown (sic)...
The Mail: Although most of the interior had been stripped of furniture and equipment...
The Telegraph: Although much of the building, in White City, west London, had been stripped of furniture and equipment...
Perhaps when it comes to giving the BBC a kicking the two newspapers are happy to share the workload.
London Mayor Boris Johnson has had a mixed week. On Sunday he was subjected to a pretty brutal interview by Eddie Mair on BBC1 in which it was put to him he is "a nasty piece of work", based on selected highlights from a BBC2 documentary the following evening.
But by the time the BBC2 show came around it became clear it was actually little more than a shameless puff piece for Johnson.
Some Mair on Mayor action on Sunday. (Credit: BBC)
Sure, it contained a review of past scandals: Johnson's lies and affairs. But these weren't presented in
order to skewer Boris. It was done in order to get it all out in the open once
and for all. This was Boris - on his terms - getting some tricky questions out of the way in order to clear a path to the Tory party leadership.
Guppy began by addressing Mair's criticism of Johnson for being sacked from an early journalism job at The Times for making up a quote:
"Eddie Mair has more front than Harrods. Consider this: a
member of the British Media, Mr Mair, berates another former such member, Boris
Johnson, for making up quotes! What planet are you living on, Mr Mair? Making
things up is what people in your profession do for a living!"
File this next one under 'With friends like this...'
"Next, Mr Johnson, a politician, is criticised for lying to
another politician... That's what politicians do ...And they fiddle their expenses and they pervert
the course of justice and they commit perjury..."
"Tell me, Mr Mair, which do you
think will cause Mr Johnson the greater difficulty on the Day of Judgement:
making up some quotes as a journalist or the ritual humiliation of his wife and
children?"
"But should being 'a nasty piece of work', as Mr Mair put it, preclude Mr Johnson from high office?"
It's a good question, but possibly one Boris would prefer his friends weren't asking.
If you've not yet had your fill of nostalgia for BBC Television Centre, then you really must watch this wonderful video, created by television producer Ed Stradling, paying tribute to a rich history of classic television:
The BBC has come in for some criticism online for its extensive coverage of the closure of Television Centre. Some suggested the BBC elevating its own "office move" to the main evening news was a bit self-important. However, the majority of Media Blog readers (of 1,309 surveyed) said the BBC was right to consider the closure of such a historic building a news story - although more than a third did say there had been too much coverage.
Here are the results of a quick poll run by The Media Blog showing a clear interest in - and affection for - BBC Television Centre:
1. Do you think it's right that the BBC has covered the closure of BBC Television Centre as a news story?
2. Do you think there has been too much coverage, not enough or a reasonable amount?
3. Television Centre: Is it 'a historic cultural icon' or 'just an office... get over yourselves'?
Here's one of the most awkward television interviews you'll see for a while, as double Olympic gold medal winner Mo Farah struggles on gamely in the face of some car crash questioning and apparent studio-wide ignorance about who he is...
One story that certainly caught the eye today was this exclusive from The Sun:
That's right, superheroes such as comic book characters The X-Men will be walking the streets of the UK within 30 years. And this isn't just The Sun telling us this for the sake of an eye-catching headline. It's "boffins", from the Ministry of Defence no less.
The Sun even used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover this incredible story:
Now you might be wondering which X-Men in particular?
So within 30 years we will see superhero mutants such as Storm.
If you're not familiar with the X-Men, Storm is a comic book mutant whose special powers allow her to control the weather. Storm can summon hurricanes, thunderstorms and blizzards. It's not just a clever name.
Ministry of Defence
But before you go buying up shares in lycra and capes, a word of warning. It seems this story may include a slight exaggeration, despite claims this came straight from the secret corridors of the Ministry of Defence.
The Freedom of Information request from The Sun received a response from the MoD which included this statement:
"Advancements in gene technology could lead to a class of genetically superior humans by 2045... Human augmentation is likely to increase over the next 30 years."
And that has become "X-Men a reality in 30 years".
The Mail tried to recruit an angry mob to complain but its pleas fell on deaf ears. Even after several articles had appeared in the Mail and online, Ofcom received fewer than 200 complaints, leaving the Mail to quietly back away from an increasingly embarrassing campaign.
"After careful consideration, Ofcom has taken the decision not to investigate this issue. In reaching this decision, we concluded that the programme was scheduled post watershed; it was preceded with a clear warning of 'strong language and adult humour'; and was consistent with audience expectations of a satirical quiz on Channel 4."
Former Daily Star journalist turned tabloid tormenter-in-chief Rich Peppiatt has set out on a series of irreverent online videos aimed at shining a light on "Fleet Street's good, bad, ugly, dumb, dumber and downright deceitful", written in association with some bloke from something called The Media Blog.
Every now and again, wading through Ofcom's Broadcast Bulletin of the complaints it has investigated throws up a rare gem of regulators and lawyers arguing over something truly surreal.
Today's update included a dispute between Ofcom and ITV over a trailer for comedy panel show Celebrity Juice, which aired before the watershed and featured the pop star Example and host Keith Lemon (played by Leigh Francis).
The point of contention which exercised the lawyers was whether or not the trailer featured Example wearing a pink strap-on dildo.
Ofcom tells us:
"There was... one shot featuring Example with Keith Lemon... Example was shown wearing around his waist and over his clothes a pink object which, in Ofcom's view, appeared to resemble a strap-on dildo."
Having been caught out by the eagle-eyed dildo-spotters at Ofcom, ITV was left to argue its case and claimed the item was not a dildo at all but a "pricket bat" - "an implement to play an invented game called "Pricket".
"[ITV] said: "The pricket bat was not a strap-on prosthetic phallus... If it had been a strap-on dildo, we would obviously never even [have] considered including it in a pre-watershed trailer."
Got that? It definitely wasn't a strap-on dildo. It was a "pricket bat" which is totally different and should under no circumstances be confused with a strap-on dildo:
Anyone for pricket? Definitely NOT a strap-on dildo.
Is that a pricket bat in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?
Sadly, ITV's creative protestations fell on deaf ears and Ofcom found ITV in breach of Rule 1.3 which governs the protection of children from unsuitable material by appropriate scheduling.
Whatever you might think about the late Michael Winner's movies or his car insurance commercials, here he is in 1994 telling Richard Littlejohn exactly what he thought of him. Hopefully this clip makes it into the evening news obituaries...
But having seen off the Mail's protests it seems Channel 4 isn't ready to now let the paper forget the debacle. Last night Channel 4 taunted the Daily Mail and the handful of readers who were recruited to complain to Ofcom.
Introducing a new series of 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Channel 4's on-air announcer warned "readers of morally questionable newspapers" that the programme "contains comedy".
When a helicopter crashed in a densely populated part of London around 8am today, next to one of the busiest trainlines in Europe and a large bus station, the news was always going to be broken, within seconds, by members of the public on Twitter, armed with camera phones.
Twitter user Craig Jenner was one of the first to put a picture on Twitter which was shared far and wide:
What happened next is indicative of the way the media are increasingly playing catch-up on such stories, moving from reporting to aggregating (or curating, if you must) - images, eye-witness accounts and videos. Journalists were asking to use the picture with a credit and were trying to get Jenner on the phone:
The problem for newsdesks with a story breaking far and wide on social media the very second something happens is it creates an even longer news vacuum for the media to fill with comment and speculation before facts come in.
The race to get on air and the desire to give the impression the story is developing all the time is more aggressive than ever.
Cue "aviation experts" and eye-witnesses being asked to speculate on what they saw.
In this climate of rapid newsgathering, conflicting accounts and mistaken reports abound and spread very quickly. One eye-witness interviewed on camera praised the emergency services for being on the scene in under a minute. Another said it was 15 minutes.
A lot is taken on faith when putting people on camera who claim to have witnessed an event.
Inevitably, some media outlets were also quick to start asking about terrorism. Naturally, they were just keen to rule it out but it's unclear who was trying to rule it in. Certainly reporting that 'Police believe it is not an act of terrorism' carries a higher degree of sensationalism than saying 'Police believe it was an accident'.
And even after terrorism was ruled out a BBC journalist on the scene was still keen to ask an eye witness if they thought it might have been a terrorist attack:
BBC journalist: "Did you think it was a terrorist attack...?" Eye-witness: "No."
He wasn't the only talking head not playing ball this morning. Asked to speculate on what may have happened, an aviation expert told the BBC:
"There's far too much speculation at the moment..."
UPDATED: Seasoned self-publicist Piers Morgan is certainly getting maximum mileage from a US campaign to deport him. Here, Morgan attempts to interview the shouty conspiracy theorist Alex Jones who started the campaign:
Following his appearance on Morgan's show, Jones, a radio talkshow host who believes cartons of juice are a government conspiracy to turn children gay, posted a video to YouTube, which is even more disturbing than his incoherent on air rambling. It begins with Jones claiming Morgan threw him off his show:
"The producers ran in, the head producer was crying and
saying "it wasn't meant to be like this". Piers Morgan said "get out!". The
security people were like "get out!" "get out right now, you're coming with us!"
Which seems entirely reasonable, but from there is goes very quickly downhill.
Among a series of increasingly bizarre claims is the suggestion that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was planning to have Jones assassinated while he was in New York:
"When we got to the hotel I noticed off duty cops with guns,
talking into their ear pieces... a few hours later I noticed more undercover cops
looking at us...with pure violence in the eyes... They're like cops from the movie
Goodfellas... Bloomberg's men were out there."
"The way this will work is they'll say 'oh, some crack
dealer shot him... If something happens
to us and we're killed by crackheads it was the NYPD or the mafia they hired."
"I think putting this video out will protect us."
Morgan clearly knew what he was doing getting a man like Jones on his show. It's not moved the debate on but it's created a lot of headlines.
It is surely no coincidence that 'Splash!' is both the noise a massive turd makes when it hits the water and the name of ITV's craptacular new celebrity reality TV show.
'Splash!' the programme is as monstrous a product of televisual bowel squeezing as you're ever likely to see and it hit the water and our television screens on Saturday night.
It is based on people you don't know jumping into a swimming pool and... well, that's about it.
Nominally fronted by diver Tom Daley, whose role is limited to having a name which makes teenage girls scream whenever mentioned, this is ITV's contribution to our Olympic legacy and as such the worst possible advert for continued lottery funding, lest we win more medals in 2016 and have to endure further shows like this.
Pat Sharpe
Of course we've seen celebrity diving competitions on TV before. Remember Pat Sharpe versus MC Romeo in The Games on Channel 4? You probably don't, because it wasn't a very good idea then and it isn't today.
But at least in The Games the diving was relatively brief.
ITV has taken the diving section of The Games, reduced the number of dives, fitted it into the standard template for every other reality TV competition and somehow managed to make it last what felt like a week-and-a-half in the process.
Presenter Gabby Logan played her part setting a new world record for the 'dramatic pause' when announcing the results.
I actually left the room, got a beer from the kitchen and returned to the lounge with enough time still in hand to take down the Christmas tree and put the decorations back in the loft before Logan delivered the verdict.
Jo Brand
There is nothing original about Splash! It's sole differentiator hinges entirely on it just being worse than anything else out there. Strictly has a dance-off, X Factor has a sing off. Dancing On Ice has a skate-off. So obviously Splash! has a dive-off - or a Splash-off to be precise. There's also the obligatory phone vote and a celebrity judging panel which in Splash's case includes Jo Brand.
No, really.
The celebrities included actor and comedian Omid Djalili from the MoneySupermarket adverts, Jennie Falconer from the lottery programme, Helen Lederer from the early-nineties, Jade Ewen from one of the less well-known line-ups of the Sugababes and somebody called Jake Canuso (no, me either).
Camera fodder
Even the presenters couldn't really be bothered to get the contestants' names right so inconsequential were the camera fodder teetering on the edge of a diving board and staring into the hopeless abyss of a programme so awful it could sink even the healthiest of careers.
Most bizarre of all perhaps was the fact a couple of the celebrity dives were actually pretty impressive, though they didn't win.
Omid Djalili won this week's competition with a dive that looked like a body being thrown into the sea from a pier. But he did it from the 10 metre board so he got the biggest cheer of the night.
Any glimpse of genuine achievement was all too brief in a show which appears to have been designed with the single-minded purpose of ascertaining just what level of utter dross the viewing public will endure.
ITV presumably knows the country is a bit hard-up and thinks people will stay in and watch TV whatever half-baked rubbish fills the screen - hence shows such as Take Me Out and recent ITV canine talent show That Dog Can Dance. And now Splash!. To be fair to ITV, around 6 million tuned in for some of Splash! but having satisfied their curiousity it's easy to imagine many will not return.
There is an oft-quoted and very apt point of reference for these increasingly ridiculous shows, courtesy of I'm Alan Partridge.
When writer Armando Iannucci dreamed up a list of bizarre television formats for Partridge to desperately pitch to the BBC, he came up with Monkey Tennis, among other ideas.
At the time it was mean to be a hilarious extreme. But now, it's easy to believe the only reason ITV hasn't made Monkey Tennis is because monkeys have better agents than the cast of TOWIE and are probably more expensive to hire and insure.
Partridge also pitched Youth Hosteling With Chris Eubank which is no less ludicrous than Joanna Lumley: The Search for Noah's Ark which ITV screened over Christmas.
Meanwhile Partridge's Cooking In Prison has already been done as a Gordon Ramsay vehicle by Channel 4. And I suspect as we speak, ITV is booking contestants for Arm Wrestling With Chas and Dave.
