Korea's lesson
Going nucular!
So, who's more dangerous? This man:
Or these men?
Obviously, only one of them has a nuclear bomb and is an eccentric playboy despot who rules over a totalitarian state that worships him as a tubby deity because he tells them to, but the news that North Korea has tested its first weapon of mass destruction has not only put "the world" in a spin (it's definitely the whole world, the news has checked), but destroyed all pretence towards objective and sensible news reporting at ITN. Hence, Mark Austin (left, who's never looked comfortable in a suit) and Washington correspondent John Irvine (right, just took up the post in April), losing all sense of decorum last night on the ITV News. The facts seem to be that, after years of diplomatic pressure, a bellicose N Korea exploded a nuclear bomb in a mine, perhaps just to piss of S Korea, whose foreign minister has been made UN Secretary General (enjoy those negotiations with your neighbour in the future!). This officially makes N Korea the ninth nuclear power on earth. The other nuclear powers don't seem too happy about welcoming a new member to their exclusive club. Another fact: this affects the balance of power between China, Japan and the other Korea. Where the reporting goes wrong on ITN is the emotive, persuasive way it is put across.
For a start - and my beloved Channel 4 News also do this - anchorman Mark Austin presented the entire programme from Beijing, and kept going on about it. All it meant was that he was stood on a hill in the early morning, rather than sat at his desk or marching up and down the Americanised ITV set in London. So what? We went over to John Irvine in Washington, who was stood in front of Capitol Hill in case you wondered, and whose key billing at least told the top story (that President Bush is very angry, and what he thinks is the only news in town). Irvine emoted and sensationalised wildly, editorialising in Fox News style, and the thrust was one of barely-concealed macho glee that there might be a punch-up, and that America had every right to be cross. Obviously either a big fan of Chris Morris, or he's never seen The Day Today, Irvine said this of the bomb test: "It's a nuclear-sized slap in the face [to President Bush]." Let's run through that again. A nuclear-sized slap. What size is "nuclear"? Is it bigger than an atomic-sized slap? Clearly it's bigger than a conventional-sized slap. John Irvine wrote this sentence and it must have been at least glanced at by his producer, and then he said it, live, to the nation, without a shred of embarrassment.
Back in the studio, again leaving behind common sense, Mark Austin said that because Bush had, in his first State of the Union, identified N Korea as one of his "axis of evil", their nuclear test meant that "his prophecy had come true." Now, was his address a prophecy? Or was it just a convenient grouping-together of rogue states to help create an identifiable "enemy" for the American people at a time of great confusion and invisible foes? Had Bush or his speechwriters actually said, "I predict that N Korea will join the axis of evil," it would have been a prophecy, Mark. We hear a lot about how the N Koreans are kept in the dark with their specially-piped-in news. Ours is supposed to be good. It isn't, is it? It's showbiz.
As usual, I switched off the news knowing less than when I had turned it on. Still, last week's Extras (the Baftas one), which I watched on my Sky+, was the very best episode of the series. It could have stood alone as a half-hour comedy play.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 9:02 AM
16 Comments
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16 Comments:
I've actually always thought that Mark Austin looks terribly dapper. However, ITV news is utter pish - in fact everything on ITV is utter pish except....erm, except....no it's all utter pish.
Don't get me started on Parky.....
Never mind the threat of nuclear armageddon, kids, the Sun's headline this morning was a cracker:
'KIM WILD'
I agree that ITV news is appalling - it makes me feel thick just by watching it
Justin, Bath
Justin
Hate to be a pedant but that was The Mirror's headline. The Sun had "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Korea" which was just that little bit better still. Agree with Andrew wholeheartedly about the "news" though - I thought they were supposed to report what happens.
Simon James
Not only is everything on ITV pish, anyone with any talent at all who has taken the ITV shilling instantly becomes pish, it's like a Midas effect, but obviously one where the turning things to gold thing is replaced by pish.
Don't forget there's always Pish Extra, Pish Behind The Inside Story, and Pish Above And Beyond The Call Of The Barrel on ITV2.
I thought this week's Extras was the weakest so far, and by a long way. Maybe I was in a bad mood.
The only non-pish on ITV is Harry Hill. Fact! (except when he does the talking over videos of dogs falling over and children eating poo and...)
which makes me wonder if Harry Hill wouldn't be a "bigger" (you know what I mean) star if he wasn't on ITV ?
I'd certainly be more familiar with him. I cannot recall the last time I watched anything on ITV. It's not on the standard Sky EPG here in Ireland.
One thing about ITV that has probably tainted it for me is that we are more familiar with the Northern Ireland version "UTV". During the 1970s it was so depressing: regular "police messages" about suspect devices interrupting programmes most evenings.
The bottom line is the bottom line at ITV. Of course that applies in most broadcasting organizations but I get the sense, based on my viewing, that at the BBC it's not always about the bottom line and sometimes it's about art/creation/touchyfeely.
Lord I miss being in a band ;-)
... and while I'm at it...
what happened to ITN ?
In the early-1980s the News At 10 was the news.
Right before Hill Street Blues you could be sure that ITN would bring you up to speed on the world.
ITN told me Elvis was dead.
Now ITN would possibly tell me where he'd been spotted recently....
Is there not just the teeniest contradication between, on the one hand, laying into a news media that increasingly wears its ideology on its sleeve and, on the other, comforting yourself by cuddling up with Rupert Murdoch?
In any case, I'd argue, it's very dangerous to allow yourself to believe in some sort of Platonic ideal of News (i.e. the possibility of wholly neutral, truthful representation of an unbiased selection of real events). You certainly shouldn't kid yourself that, say, Channel Four News is any more "objective"; it just happens to be subject to an ideology which you find less intrusive because it's more in sympathy with your own world-view.
(Mine too, I'd add. After all, I'm not a cretin.)
I don't see a contradiction in laying into the news media and subscribing to Sky. What? Having Sky+ disentitles me to criticise the news media? Channel 4 News, my preferred of a less-than-perfect bunch, is just as prone to sensationalising and pointlessly having its presentes in foreign locations for "colour". I have problems with the reporting of my favoured newspaper too, the Guardian. I wish some of these programmes and publications did have an ideology! At least something to counter the status quo spoon-fed to us by ITN and the BBC.
No one's disentitled from criticising anything 'round my gaff. But I would argue that your three-paragraph critique of monolithic, reactionary news is – at the very least – somewhat undermined by a concluding paragraph that is conspicuously uncritical of by far the most egregious purveyor of precisely that which you bemoan.
My conclusion has always been that, by signing up to Sky, I would be – directly and of my own volition – funding exactly the kind of execrable thought-police bilge from which I spend the rest of my life recoiling. However, if you can put forward a convincing argument as to how you square what seems, to me, an obstinately circular circle, I'd be delighted to hear it. Really: overjoyed. I'm gagging to follow the cricket this winter but, until someone talks me out of it, my principles (real or imagined) are standing in my way...
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Surely it's fair enough to say that Channel Four News is better than ITV News not because its ideology is closer to yours as a viewer but because it's capable (sometimes) of talking about, say, a problem involving cats without immediately sticking library footage of cats on the screen. Almost all TV news programmes assume the viewers are idiots to a greater or lesser extent. Channel Four News does it less than most.
I worry that lighthearted contribs to this erstwhile fun-filled blog are being given over to earnestness and endless criticism - albeit well-meaning - of one thing or t'other, which most of us can get during our respective daily grinds. Anyone got a joyous anecdote or bon mot to take our minds off of nukes, Iran, Murdoch, Blair vs Brown, McLaren's woes, SNCF train crashes,etc? More frippery and comic interplay would go down a treat in these angst-filled days. I would get the ball rolling but I used all (both) of my jokes up in the pub tonight. Call it a Korea opportunity.
Justin
My take on this whole thing is pretty much the same as your Andrew. A little more flippant maybe, but we're reading from the same hymn sheet. This would normally have me in a highly disturbed state as I try not to seek consensus but considering all the barking mad nonsense surrounding this story, it's quite reassuring to see someone call it like I did. Yay for the nonplussed!!
I really liked this blog, great stuff.
Theodor Bierhoff makes a point and I liked his evocation of a lesser-spotted "egregious"
I defend everyone's right to act like a hypocrite.I mean, what kind of world would it be if nobody was a hypocrite?
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