In conversation with spiked editor Brendan O’Neill, the documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis captured well the admixture of emotionalism and narcissism encouraged by the formal immediacy of much of contemporary journalism: ‘We’ve created a journalism that feeds contemporary emotionalism brilliantly. The Orla Guerins, the poetic Fergal Keanes — they feed it with these cubist blips of description. Dark. Dangerous. The horror. It’s very much of its time, of its emotional time. But by doing this, we are amplifying and increasing people’s emotional sense that everything happens inside their heads. We are contributing to a feeling of being trapped in our heads and our emotions and a feeling of disconnection from a more political, physical world.’
This, the journalism of attachment, the journalism in which subjective feeling becomes objective fact, reaches its apogee in the actions of BBC war reporter Jon Donnison. Seeing that someone called Hazem Balousha had posted a picture of an injured child with the words ‘Pain in #Gaza’ on Twitter, Donnison could not resist and retweeted it, with the words ‘Heartbreaking’. Which it was. But what it was not was a picture of an injured girl from Gaza. The picture was actually of an injured girl from the conflict in Syria.
The lesson is clear. When emoting and feeling become the substance of journalism, then facts, and the truth, suffer.
Tim Black, “Roll up, roll up, behold dead Palestinians”, sp!ked, 2012-11-27
November 27, 2012
QotD: The “journalism of attachment”
November 21, 2012
McGuinty’s resignation sends Andrew Coyne into wrathful froth
A fascinating set of Twitter updates from Andrew Coyne this afternoon:
Oh good lord. @jasonfekete: McGuinty: “I have offered my resignation as energy & natural resources critic to my leader, and he has accepted”
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
This is absolutely ridiculous. At worst — at worst — his comments were impolitic. But a resigning offence? Holy creepola.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
If it is now beyond the pale for members of the national Parliament to urge other members of the national Parliamnt to take a national view…
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
I mean I understand the context (thanks helpful tweeters), but we should just pause to acknowledge the absurdity of what just went down.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
What we in fact need is for more MPs to call each other out for being parochial little shills for local or regional interests.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
And I would say that for every one of the parochial little provinces in this parochial little country.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
Can we just be clear on this? All of you: British Columbians, Albertans, Saskatchewanians, Manitobans, Ontarians, Quebecers…
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
… New Brunswickers, Nova Scotians, Prince Edward Islanders, Newfoundlanders – sorry, Newfoundland-and-Labradorians …
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
– no, fuck it, Newfoundlanders — you are, all of you,impossible to take: brittle, flinty, convinced the rest of Cda is out to get you…
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
… and not prepared, ever, any of you, to put the national interest ahead of your own precious little piece of the planet, and your own…
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
… death-grip on the national purse.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 21, 2012
November 13, 2012
Rapidly retreating freedom of expression in Britain
It’s almost as if Britain is in some sort of demented race to get rid of freedom of expression altogether:
At 9pm last night, with a knock on the door of a 19-year-old man, Kent police hammered another nail into the coffin of free expression in the UK.
Earlier in the day the unnamed man from Aylesham had allegedly posted a photo of a poppy being burned, with a crudely worded (and crudely spelled) caption. He was arrested under the Malicious Communications Act and held in the cells overnight to await questioning.
It is of course just the latest in a succession of police actions against individuals deemed to have caused offence: mocking a footballer as he fights for his life on Twitter; hoping British service personnel would “die and go to hell”; wearing a T-shirt that celebrated the death of two police officers; making sick jokes on Facebook about a missing child, the list goes on. A few months ago, these could have been dismissed as isolated over-reactions or moments of madness by police and judiciary. Not any longer. It is now clear that a new criminal code has been imposed upon us without announcement or debate. It is now a crime to be offensive. We are not sleepwalking into a new totalitarianism — we have woken up to find ourselves tangled in its sheets.
News of the arrest was first announced on Kent police’s Twitter feed, and it didn’t take long for users to spot the painful irony of their official avatar, which simply says Kent police 101. The number is taken from the non-essential police phone number, but as we all know, Room 101 was where Winston Smith was taken in George Orwell’s 1984 to be tortured and eventually persuaded to recant his individual beliefs and fall into line with officially sanctioned viewpoints.
October 23, 2012
The tweet police are watching you
In sp!ked, Patrick Hayes points out that you don’t need to agree with — or have any sympathy for — BNP party leader Nick Griffin to recognize that the “twitch-hunt” against him is a very bad sign for all of us:
Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party (BNP), currently has 19,356 followers on Twitter. Given the events of the past week, it seems many of these are not following Griffin because they enjoy his rants on anything from fracking to Islamists. Rather, the majority are following him in order to monitor his newsfeed, seemingly just waiting for an opportunity to report him to the police for offensive tweets.
[. . .]
Without doubt, tweeting the address of a gay couple, and threatening to give them ‘a bit of drama’ in the form of a demonstration, is an idiotic thing to do. But did anyone really think that a militant wing of the BNP was going to swoop down to Huntingdon and pay the sixtysomething gay couple a visit? Certainly not the couple themselves, whose chilled-out approach — as Brendan O’Neill has pointed out in his Telegraph blog — contrasts sharply with the hysteria of the Twittermob. Any demo, the couple said, would be a ‘damp squib’. Furthermore, ‘it would be difficult for people to gather as we live in a small village and there’s nowhere to park’.
Such cool reasoning was not shared by members of the Twittersphere, or by some gay-rights campaigners. In the words of a spokesperson for gay-rights group Stonewall, Griffin’s behaviour was ‘beyond words, unbelievably shocking. It is a real example of the hatred still out there towards gay people.’
‘Out there’ — it is a revealing phrase. It seems that this Twitter-stoked furore is not just about the loon Griffin, who has for many years developed notoriety for spouting offensive rubbish. It speaks also to the fear of some sort of silent, bigoted majority that Griffin supposedly represents. All it takes, it seems, is a tweet from Fuhrer Griffin and the gay-bashing hordes will arise. They won’t, of course, because they don’t exist. Yet, that someone widely known as a bit of a nutjob is seen as a ‘real example’ of hatred towards gays says more about a culture of offence-seeking than actual attitudes towards homosexuals in twenty-first century Britain.
October 9, 2012
October 3, 2012
One for the (male) gaming geeks
A few Twitter updates from “Muskrat John” Kovalic (of Dork Tower and Munchkin fame):
Craigslist: “Topless female DM needed for Adult D&D bachelor party.” THAC0 indeed… http://t.co/JVZwVHzT (via @whisperjeff)
— Blue Czech Mark (@muskrat_john) October 3, 2012
“Experience in 3.5 preferable.” God, I love the fact that they are edition-specific.
— Blue Czech Mark (@muskrat_john) October 3, 2012
“Must be able to provide a picture including the face and body (No nudes please.)” <<— LAST thing you want, seeking a topless female DM.
— Blue Czech Mark (@muskrat_john) October 3, 2012
@muskrat_john I think that is a good thing. Using 3.5 means no-one will be tempted to grapple.
— GragSmash@kind.social (@GeeCaret2) October 3, 2012
@muskrat_john What I'm most confused about is why they want her topless when you wouldn't be able to see her behind the screen.
— Morbus Iff (@morbusiff) October 3, 2012
“Each of us are gentlemen and will treat the Dungeon Master with the utmost of respect.” <— Which would be a first for D&D…
— Blue Czech Mark (@muskrat_john) October 3, 2012
https://twitter.com/GeekyGeekyWays/status/253497061922721793
September 29, 2012
Disabusing Canadians about mercantilism, one tweet at a time
Stephen F. Gordon is waging a lonely campaign to persuade Canadians that free trade is better than the managed, mercantilist “free trade” most of our governments have wanted since the NAFTA negotiations:
Not enough people understand the benefits from the unilateral opeining of borders. (1/2)
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 29, 2012
The benefits we get from foreign investment are not conditional on how the other govt treats foreign investment.
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 29, 2012
The gains from the Nexen takeover have *nothing* to do with how China treats foreign investment.
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 29, 2012
Martin Wolf once called GATT a mutual disarmament treaty for mercantilists. That mindset is still too dominant.
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 29, 2012
Too many people think that Canadian investors are our hostages and that we should demand some form of compensation for releasing them.
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) September 29, 2012
September 9, 2012
Winner of the Democratic convention? Conservative trolls
Dave Weigel on the fascinating fact that a few conservatives were able to successfully troll the Democratic convention in Charlotte:
Whatever lessons the Democrats take from Charlotte, whatever it did for the president or for the ambitious senators and governors who stalked delegate breakfasts and whispered “2016,” this is a fact: The convention was successfully trolled.
I don’t use troll in the pejorative sense. Actually, I may be trying to craft a neutral meaning of troll where none previously existed. The term, in its modern Internet usage, refers to people who want to start fights online to bring the universe into an argument on their terms. It comes not from Grimm literature, but from a fishing technique in which multiple lines are baited and dragged to haul in the maximum amount of cold-bloods.
Democrats did not expect to spend Wednesday arguing about the capital of Israel and the appearance of the word “God” in their platform. There were, reportedly, 15,000 members of the media in Charlotte, of whom maybe 14,980 could have given a damn about the party platform. On Tuesday night, when the Obama campaign and the DNC released its platform, none of the bigfoot media outlets in town spent time on the text.
[. . .]
Maybe the word “historic” is out of place for the modern convention. To say that they’re clichéd and staged is, in itself, a staged cliché. But who thought, just 11 months after the launch of the Occupy movement, that 99 percenters would have less influence on the platform than conservative media?
This is what I mean: We live in the age of trolling. Any comment made online, if it’s given the right forum, is as relevant as any comment made by some media gatekeeper. Think about a politician or a journalist on Twitter, and what he sees. If a colleague wants to tell him something, it appears in his feed with an @ symbol. If someone who just logged on and wants to bait a nerd logs on, he will send a message that appears with an @ symbol. Both are equally valid, at least in how they appear on-screen or on a phone. There is no ghetto-izing of comments into the bottom of a page, or into media that you don’t pay attention to.
August 13, 2012
English law in the age of Twitter
At The Register, OUT-LAW.COM outlines the things to avoid saying on Twitter:
Debates in Parliament, home visits from the police and distressed celebrities have all left tweeters a little unsure as to what is and what is not acceptable by law on Twitter.
The list of those offending and those offended keeps growing with recent high profile reports referring to Louise Mensch, Tom Daley, Guy Adams, Steve Dorkland, Helen Skelton and Kevin Pietersen. This guide discusses 10 legal risks which apply, or potentially apply, to Twitter, in the context of recent media attention given to the lawfulness of tweets.
This is not just of intellectual interest to those of us living outside England: American, Canadian, Australian, Dutch, Indian, or Zimbabwean Twitter users can be sued in English courts (your country may or may not have laws shielding you from this kind of legal action, but most currently do not: the law lags well behind the technology).
August 10, 2012
Who’s more dangerous to a random American citizen, terrorists or police officers?
According to Jim Harper at the Cato@Liberty blog, you’re eight times more likely to be shot by the police than killed by a terrorist:
It got a lot of attention this morning when I tweeted, “You’re Eight Times More Likely to be Killed by a Police Officer than a Terrorist.” It’s been quickly retweeted dozens of times, indicating that the idea is interesting to many people. So let’s discuss it in more than 140 characters.
In case it needs saying: Police officers are unlike terrorists in almost all respects. Crucially, the goal of the former, in their vastest majority, is to have a stable, peaceful, safe, law-abiding society, which is a goal we all share. The goal of the latter is … well, it’s complicated. I’ve cited my favorite expert on that, Audrey Kurth Cronin, here and here and here. Needless to say, the goal of terrorists is not that peaceful, safe, stable society.
I picked up the statistic from a blog post called: “Fear of Terror Makes People Stupid,” which in turn cites the National Safety Council for this and lots of other numbers reflecting likelihoods of dying from various causes. So dispute the number(s) with them, if you care to.
I take it as a given that your mileage may vary. If you dwell in the suburbs or a rural area, and especially if you’re wealthy, white, and well-spoken, your likelihood of death from these two sources probably converges somewhat (at very close to zero).
July 27, 2012
Twitter joke trial comes to the correct result, eventually
Taken 2 years for British judges to hear a definition of Twitter that they understood. Welcome to the 21st Century, chaps. #TwitterJokeTrial
— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) July 27, 2012
Kelly Fiveash at The Register on the Twitter “bomb threat” case:
A bloke found guilty of tweeting a “menacing” joke about blowing up a UK airport has had his conviction quashed by the High Court today. A collective sigh of relief was heard moments later from comedians addicted to the micro-blogging website.
Paul Chambers, 28, was waiting to fly from Doncaster’s Robin Hood airport to Belfast to see his girlfriend, whom he met on the social networking site, when snow closed the airfield and delayed his flight.
He vented his frustration in a series of tweets to his squeeze Sarah Tonner, now his fiancee, including a suggestion that he had considered “resorting to terrorism” to ensure he could visit her.
[. . .]
Mr Justice Owen and Mr Justice Griffith Williams said in the High Court today that the facts needed to be considered in context, pointing out that the tweets had clearly appeared to be a reference to the airport closing due to adverse weather conditions.
“There was no evidence before the Crown Court to suggest that any of the followers of the appellant’s ‘tweet’, or indeed anyone else who may have seen the ‘tweet’ posted on the appellant’s time line, found it to be of a menacing character or, at a time when the threat of terrorism is real, even minimally alarming,” the High Court heard.
July 5, 2012
June 11, 2012
We can’t “save” capitalism, because we don’t “have” capitalism
James Delingpole in the Telegraph (the italicized opening paragraph is a quite from Tim Morgan):
Reforming capitalism so that it serves the majority, and strengthening the individual against the collectivist and the corporate, are inspiring visions. This is where government should be taking Britain.
Easier said than done, of course — as I was reminded yesterday when I Tweeted it under the headline “How to rescue capitalism….” only to have some Twentysomething smartarse Tweet back “Rescue it? Bury it!”
This is the kind of fifth-form, sub-Banksy political analysis which passes for conventional wisdom these days. It’s the dominant strain of thinking at the Guardian, at the BBC, among the studio audience at Channel 4’s apocalyptically lame 10 O’Clock Live, on Twitter, in the right-on brains of groovester opinion-formers all the way from Ben Goldacre to Graham Linehan to Polly Toynbee — and, of course, across the world in the entire Occupy movement. Capitalism, they all maintain, has failed.
No, capitalism has not recently been tried: that’s the real problem. And what I particularly like about Morgan’s report — well worth reading in full — is that it addresses this extremely important point. What we’re experiencing around the world at the moment is not laissez-faire, self-correcting, authentic, free-market capitalism but an excedingly corrupt and bastardised form thereof.
What we’re seeing is a grotesque stitch up between the banking class, the corporate class and the political class — at the expense of the rest of us.
One day, I like to hope, those of us on the libertarian right will find common cause with (at least some of) the Occupy crowd and unite against our real enemy.
May 23, 2012
April 30, 2012
Twitter’s “Red Guard” of flag-spam abusers
Some nasty tricks being played by some Twitter users, abusing the report feature that is supposed to help cut down on spam posts to attempt to shut down opinions they find offensive:
Shortly after their video “If I Wanted America to Fail” went viral, Free Market America found themselves kicked off Twitter, a popular social media resource that allows users to post very short messages. After a few hours of confusion, their account was reinstated.
This past Sunday, the Twitter account of Chris Loesch, husband of conservative pundit Dana Loesch, was abruptly shut down. After a massive outcry, and the creation of a Twitter topic called “#FreeChrisLoesch” that swiftly became one of the hottest “hash tags” on the network, Chris’ account was reactivated… for a couple of hours. By Monday morning, he was gone again, after his account was restored and removed several more times.
What did Free Market America and Chris Loesch do to warrant suspension? After all, people like Spike Lee and Roseanne Barr flagrantly, openly, defiantly violated Twitter’s terms of service, and put human lives in jeopardy, by distributing personal information about George Zimmerman, the shooter in the Trayvon Martin case. Their accounts have not been suspended. What violation of Loesch’s compares to using Twitter to target someone for assault by an angry mob — and, for that matter, sending the mob to the wrong address?
These suspensions were apparently the work of “flag spammers,” digital brown shirt gangs that make coordinated attacks to silence conservative voices by abusing Twitter’s spam flagging feature. Al Gore coined the term “digital brown shirts” to describe the online squadrons supposedly unleashed to “harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.” Of course, he was talking about President Bush, and there weren’t any actual “digital brown shirts” at the time, but this is precisely the sort of behavior he was describing.
