Mayor Of London Says Internet To Blame For British Press Sins
from the piffle-and-tosh dept
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is something of an institution in the UK, famous for his blond mop of hair and outrageous opinions. He's also been a journalist on and off for two decades, and is close to Rupert Murdoch, so it should perhaps come as no surprise that he's penned a characteristically witty defense of British newspapers. They're currently under threat of having governmental regulation imposed upon them in the wake of the UK's Leveson Inquiry, written in response to years of journalists breaking the law in search of hot stories, as Johnson acknowledges:
They have shoved their slavering snouts into the parlours of weeping widows, and by their outrageous lies they have driven the relatives of their victims to suicide. When you read Leveson in full, you are left to ponder the mystery of how people can behave like this. Are these journalists that much nastier and more cynical than the rest of the human race? Why do they seem to have got out of control? The answer is simple. The press are no nastier than anyone else; quite the reverse. On the whole, journalists are highly intelligent, amusing and frequently idealistic.
But if that is the case, how is it possible they have been shoving their slavering snouts all over the place? Johnson has a simple explanation:
for some papers the costs are becoming prohibitive. Every year, every month, they are losing ground to blogs and Twitter and Google News; every year the internet eats more destructively into the business case for old-fashioned journalism. That is at least one of the reasons why some journalists have been driven to behave so disgracefully, squawking ever louder, no matter how erroneously, in the hope of being noticed.
Yes, it's all the Internet's fault. Those poor journalists lost their otherwise robust moral compass because Big Bad Google and friends have been progressively stealing their daily bread. Of course, we've heard this narrative about Google destroying newspapers many times before. It's what publishers around the world are saying, while asking for a cut of Google's revenues. It's what Rupert Murdoch has been saying, although he still wants to be included in Google's search results.
But this whole idea is "an inverted pyramid of piffle", to use a famous phrase of Johnson's. It wasn't Google and the Internet that destroyed traditional journalism, it was the newspapers themselves by refusing to evolve as new technologies have come along that changed the relationship with the reader in significant ways. Johnson's attempt to deflect blame away from the guilty parties onto the agents of technological change is simply shabby.
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Filed Under: boris johnson, internet, journalism, london, mayor, press
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Boris Johnson
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Re: Boris Johnson
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Re: Re: Boris Johnson
Yes, he has his moments. That's what makes him so amusing.
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Re: Boris Johnson
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And it's not my fault that I cheated on my wife with 5 other women, it's... the Internet's fault, specifically google's fault! If I hadn't seen other people cheating on their wife I would have never cheated on mine... honest!
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Refutation
For example the Sun's disgraceful treatment of the Hillsborough Tragedy?
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Re: Refutation
oooh... What do I win??? What do I win?
hmmm A date with a page 3 girl.. woohoo!!
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Re: Refutation
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Makes sense
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He's obviously channeling Anna Russell
The lesson this has taught;
That everything I do that's wrong -
Is someone else's fault."
-- Jolly Old Sigmund Freud
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Murdoch
Is simply explained by one fact - the dominance of the British press by Rupert Murdoch.
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Re: Murdoch
To oversimplify and say it is Murdoch's fault is every bit as bad as saying it is the internets.
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Print journalists children at heart and mind.....
Sure, that totally sounds like "highly intelligent, amusing and frequently idealistic" people to me.
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Re: Print journalists children at heart and mind.....
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Oh puh-leeez...
What a load of bollocks. Tabloid journalists behave disgracefully because they are unprincipled shits and know no other way to behave. It's not like this behavior is anything recent. I worked for a company in England, in the early 1990s. One of my colleagues kept on his desk a radio scanner and a cassette recorder. When I asked him why, he told me that we were within range of a cell tower that was, in turn, within range of a Royal residence, and back in those days, cell tower relays were analog and unencrypted. Occasionally, if you paid attention, you could catch one side of a conversation between a princess and her lover, for which Rupert Murdoch's Sun tabloid would pay handsomely. He had already sold them several.
As for the internet, back in those days I'd be surprised if any journalist had ever heard of it. I myself had only read stories about it in Phrack.
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Boris is rulling class. Rulling class wants Censor and Control
journalists....... who just print press releases on stuff that really matters.
Journalists my arse ��
���
Bunch of bullshitters, spamming bullshit everywhere, more-like.
Just don't offend the powerful masters, while out bullshitting up the place... �k ? �� journalist ?
Thank fuck for the internet, I say.
A place where real journalism lives, away from corporate stooges and government censorship.
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Re: Boris is rulling class. Rulling class wants Censor and Control
He is against press regulation by the state. Therefore he is against (in this case) censorship and control.
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Re: Re: Boris is rulling class. Rulling class wants Censor and Control
Pretty much the main recommendation from Leveson is that the PCC can pass that information on without the consent of the defendant, be it a newspaper or a particular journalist. Which isn't really that much.
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Re: Re: Boris is rulling class. Rulling class wants Censor and Control
OR the people who investigate and report facts on the 6,000 Londoners aged 18-24, that will be made to do 13 weeks' unpaid work as a condition of claiming their �56-a-week benefit.
Somehow I think he wants that* type of real journalism regulated.
He does want press releases to be regurgitated ad nauseum to spin the slave labor.
After his last slave labor scheme that had people working at Tesco for nothing, it's obvious he wants it.
Boris Johnson's former right hand man takes PR job with News International
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/28/boris-johnson-unpaid-work-young-people
No current conflict of interests either.
""He is against press regulation by the state."" bullshit.
Against regulation....... bullshit. (regulating benefit for poor people, making slaves of them)
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The Mayor of London
Aaahoo! Werewolves of London. Aaahoo!
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Is this quote really in support of the actions?
Too bad they acted badly when put under pressure.
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Re: Is this quote really in support of the actions?
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IF you do kill journalism, where's the replacement?
2nd point; of course you're blowing smoke as usual without any reference to specific numbers:
"Little change in newspaper circulation numbers"
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2012/10/30/largest-us-newspapers/1669117/
3rd, aren't you re-writing here, about whatever comes up in the dinosaur journalism outlets -- for free -- "in the hope of being noticed"? -- Where exactly are YOUR original contributions to journalism, Glyn Moody? Quit stealing from BBC and The Telegraph!
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Re: IF you do kill journalism, where's the replacement?
Now, fuck off.
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Re: Re: IF you do kill journalism, where's the replacement?
OOTB doesn't have time for that!
Do you have any idea how long it takes for him to gather strands of Masnick's hair for his doll?
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Re: IF you do kill journalism, where's the replacement?
The article mentions that there were 613 newspapers in the previous 6 months they checked, then 528 in the latest 6 months. Of course each newspaper grew circulation as a percentage, because there were 85 fewer newspapers.
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Re: IF you do kill journalism, where's the replacement?
Notice how all the papers have AP by their article titles?
That means they just "stole" from the Associated Press.
So, where's the original contribution to journalism, eh?
Oh, right, there IS NONE!
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Re: IF you do kill journalism, where's the replacement?
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Re: IF you do kill journalism, where's the replacement?
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It's not what you know, it's who you know - and they went to Eaton, prep school of the rich and titled.
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Many forces at work
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Re:
The internet didn't cost the newspapers my business. Their own lack of doing real journalism did.
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Please Read Boris Johnson's Article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9718041/It-is-the-web-not-the-press-that-must-be-brou ght-under-control.html#
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Re: Please Read Boris Johnson's Article
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Please Read Boris Johnson's Article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9718041/It-is-the-web-not-the-press-that-must-be-brou ght-under-control.html#
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