Quality Reporting (ii)

[caddyman]

Last Thursday, Armistice Day, there was a news report amongst the general coverage of the commemorations, of a group of Muslim youths who held their own little demonstration during which they burnt a large poppy and "screamed insults" about British war dead. The Sun has tracked them down and named them.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association  raised nearly £21,000 for the Royal British Legion by selling poppies at railway stations over a 13 hour period on 1 November 2010.

One of these events makes the headlines, the other a mention in an opinion column. Guess which is which?

Comments

[keith-london.livejournal.com]

One of those actions is unremarkable (as it ought to be in this country) and the other seems shocking and unacceptable (and presumably designed to attract publicity!) (Find me a Christian based group that tells British soldiers to burn in hell, and burn the poppy.) I note that the SUn itself had both the headline, and the counter opinion on the same page.

I would also question whether the islamic sect you mentioned does represent accurately the British muslims' attitude towards Armistice Day. Just as those few anti-poppy muslims do not represent the vast majority of British muslims, I suspect the Ahmamdiya group are in a similar position. For me the true test would be - how many British muslims might wear the poppy with genuine pride? (I have seen one muslim, a politician, Labour's Sadiq Khan wear one - but I admit, I don't get around that much these days).

[agentinfinity.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of media coverage of racial issues in this country is deeply unhelpful. I dunno if it is outright racism or just another by-product of general media bad practice.

Apparently bad news sells more papers.

There are some good books about this sort of thing, plus issues with rolling news mentioned in your previous post, if you're interested.

Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman is a really interesting look at TV as a medium for serious content, it's a bit too technologically determinist for me, but it's still very good. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/014303653X

McChesney, Herman and Chomsky, in different combinations of partnerships have all written interesting things about the way American news media work which are also interesting from a British point of view. (They're lefty but also very informative).

Also, a search on Galtung and Ruge's work on News Values will get you some stuff about news values which is widely used in media theory.

Anyhoo, that's enough media waffle from me.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

I know which should have been given more space in the paper, but somehow I can't see that meeting the Sun's editorial policy.