Whether it's for Obama or McCain, I find the idea that you can buy half an hour of US TV air time for your own advertisements pretty weird.
Heaven help us if we are ever subjected to thirty minutes of Brown, Cameron, or Clegg. Yikes.
EDIT: If and when they do arrive on these shores, I hope they lose the label "infomercial", as commonly applied. A political broadcast is not information - it's less than that. But it's not commercial, either - it's more than that.
Views and opinions from a moderate viewpoint. We believe in consensus, reason, realism, and common sense. We do not believe in dogma, hysteria, anger, or distorted perspectives. Well, we believe in them, but we don't like them.
30 October 2008
Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the news media...
If there's one good thing about the whole Brand/Ross/Sachs hullabaloo, it's that it's finally driven the economy off the hallowed top story pedestal on which it has been persistently residing for several weeks, allowing media outlets both print and broadcast to put the willies up audiences with sonorous invocations of coming financial woe. So a thousand thanks for that.
I'm even more grateful that this furore seems likely to see us through until the US presidential election next week, which should pick up the headline spot for a good few days. And even more if there's a nice balloty mess in Pennsylvania or somewhere.
Brand and Ross were crude, then apologised, and this was accepted. I can see that there may be a case for disciplining or sacking either of them if it was live, but the real fault appears to be with the staffer/s who listened to the programme and cleared it for broadcast. That surely is the point of recorded shows - the entertainers are there to try to entertain, while the production team produce the thing. So while I think Brand is overrated, I'm not sure he should have been the one to go.
But what dismays me even more than any of these shenanigans is, as usual, the response: we seem to have two received opinions, one that they are both juvenile, irresponsible, offensive and overpaid and should be summarily dismissed, if not caned; and the other, that they are hilarious geniuses and everybody over thirty should get a life.
Why don't more people just not mind about all this? I'll regret writing this, but...is this story really more important than the economy?
I'm even more grateful that this furore seems likely to see us through until the US presidential election next week, which should pick up the headline spot for a good few days. And even more if there's a nice balloty mess in Pennsylvania or somewhere.
Brand and Ross were crude, then apologised, and this was accepted. I can see that there may be a case for disciplining or sacking either of them if it was live, but the real fault appears to be with the staffer/s who listened to the programme and cleared it for broadcast. That surely is the point of recorded shows - the entertainers are there to try to entertain, while the production team produce the thing. So while I think Brand is overrated, I'm not sure he should have been the one to go.
But what dismays me even more than any of these shenanigans is, as usual, the response: we seem to have two received opinions, one that they are both juvenile, irresponsible, offensive and overpaid and should be summarily dismissed, if not caned; and the other, that they are hilarious geniuses and everybody over thirty should get a life.
Why don't more people just not mind about all this? I'll regret writing this, but...is this story really more important than the economy?
29 October 2008
Picking Palin...
Some early Palin-spotting now seems interesting and/or amusing. I like the reference in this blogger's post in February that Palin would be "like the Republican Party's Segolene Royal." Not a comforting parallel, but we shall see whether it was prescient.
28 October 2008
17 June 2008
5 June 2008
Mugabe, food, Rome, outrage, blah
The reaction to this story seems a little odd to me. What's the point of a conference, if not dialogue? Is the best way to help Zimbabwe's people to refuse to allow its government access to global expertise and opinion on food security?
Of course, there is a sense of deja vu about this. I'm not sure whether this sort of rhetorical flourish is particularly helpful, either.
Of course, there is a sense of deja vu about this. I'm not sure whether this sort of rhetorical flourish is particularly helpful, either.
2 May 2008
On-the-spot reporting in the wi-fi age?
There's nothing so exciting as on-the-spot reporting. This, from the BBC:
1309
The BBC's James Landale at London's City Hall says, with 22% of votes counted, Boris Johnson is ahead in 10 of London's election regions, while Ken Livingstone is ahead in four regions.
Talk about finger on the pulse. Except that the count isn't happening at City Hall, but Alexandra Palace, Kensington Olympia and the Excel centre. I don't think anything official is scheduled to happen at City Hall until this evening.
Still, as long as you have a mobile and a laptop, who needs to be where the action really is?
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