Headline Watch: No new swine flu cases in update

The headline: "No new swine flu cases in update."

Musings: the BBC is showing a sudden awareness of the likelihood of being parodied if it had gone with the obvious temptation - "No new swine flu cases in Scotland." Instead, it has found the magic formula which makes this news: it's not the lack of new swine flu victims which is news, but the fact that somebody has reported that there are no new cases.

Even worse than this apparent discovery of a justification for non-news" (It's not "not news", it's "no-news news") is the additional rationale: that the swine flu story has become so huge that it probably is newsworthy to report that it's not happening. The default view is no longer that nothing newsworthy is happening until we are told otherwise, it's that anything which runs counter to the public expectation created by the news is itself newsworthy.

Of course, the BBC must faithfully report news without passing judgement on whether or not it ought to be newsworthy. Which neatly sidesteps questions about the role of the BBC - and, of course, all the other media outlets - in inflating this particular story in the first place, and creating that public expectation which it now falls to them to moderate.

Headline Watch: "Demons 'harmless', says Vatican

The headline: "Demons 'harmless', says Vatican.

Natural assumption: Catholic church makes surprising U-turn on controversial theological issue.

Actual story: Vatican cardinal comments on new Dan Brown movie.

Result: BBC score 4 out of 5 for misleading content, 4 out of 5 for cashing in on controversial issues, but a fortunate 0 out of 5 for needless headline puns, mercifully absent from this little bit of drivel.

Nobody's banning anything!

It may well be that local councils need their language simplified, but it seems that the news media might need to be taught how to write accurately, too.

The Local Government Association triggered a story with a press release beginning like this:

"Council leaders have today published a list of 200 words that public bodies should not use if they want to communicate effectively with local people."

and continuing in this vein - "words and phrases that all public sector bodies should avoid".

But this sensible, if relatively meek, measure has been beefed up by journalists with a fondness for a story about titanic power-struggles between huge public bodies. The BBC proclaims "Councils get banned jargon list" and proclaims "COUNCIL JARGON BAN" on its front page, while The Telegraph fails in both spirit and accuracy with "Perplexing council speak such as 'rebaselining' banned in LGA guide" (it's even described in the same sentence as just a guide!). The Aberdeen Press and Journal rather floridly calls it "a hate list". Even Computer Weekly falls for the line with "Council leaders ban business jargon".

It's perfectly possible to report accurately - like the Guardian, ITV News or even, Heaven help us, The Sun (description of an LGA "crackdown" notwithstanding), which makes the BBC's and the Telegraph's overegging of the pudding that bit more disappointing. It's not as if the LGA - which has no power to "ban" councils from doing anything - even sexed up its own press release to get attention.

It's small fry, and not the most exciting story in the world, but the principle is an important one. The media blame the politicians for widespread disengagement with public life - but who's misrepresenting the way things work here?

Hurrah for "big beasts"

We at the Station heartily commend Ken Clarke to the house. It's not through any diehard attachment to the same political banner; it's rather because he is, or at least projects the idea that he is, a rational politician rather than a career one. Rationality in politics has taken a kicking over the latter Blair/Bush years. Clarke oozes it, and his appointment now has a feel of damned good common sense about it, Tory or not . After all, there aren't many bigger beasts (cliche alert!) than Peter Mandelson, but there are none bigger than the original Ken. Business, enterprise and regulatory reform just went from stultifyingly dull to greatest show in town; if only they could go head to head across the despatch box. Lord Clarke of Rushcliffe, perhaps? Surely a grand idea.

Histrionics = success!

There's some seriously weird nitpicking going on in America. Is that really an effective way to get a message about abortion across?

Perhaps if you believe that all publicity is good publicity, then we, and The Stranger, are dancing to the American Life League's very tune. But surely, hopefully, it still requires more than a high profile to win an argument, more than histrionics in a press release to be persuasive...doesn't it?

How extraordinary.

I visited CNN's website today, a habit I picked up during US election season and see no reason to crack just yet. As is the way with websites from time to time, upon my arrival I was exhorted to answer a survey, during which I was confronted with a bizarre question which gave me a ten-point scale and an option at each end: "I like to form my own opinion" at one, and at the other, "I want to be told the facts."

It seems vaguely worrying to me that a serious news outlet either produced, or failed to veto, a question which seems to suggest that forming one's own opinion is the opposite of getting the facts. What market researchers can deduce from the responses to such a question is anybody's guess. Weird.

No, really. Enough about Obama, already.

Oops. Of course, Nebraska still has a dangling vote. So it could be 365-173 and yah boo sucks to 270towin.com. We still wait patiently, principally because nothing of comparable interest has diverted my attention back to Britain. They know how to put on a show, these Americans.