getting a bit political...

Just posted a huge comment on a this New Statesman article, which I caught over at Andy Dickinson (see 'What I'm trying to find time to read , below left) and thought after all that work I should probably blog it too! not strictly media based although I do touch on over commercialism which I believe the mainstream media has a lot to do with.

antileft: "Question: If we were all paid approximately the same amount, why would anyone work more than the bare minimum? I do hope that the answer doesnt involve gulags (the realistic answer), or "loving your fellow man" (the hippie fantasist answer)."

Truths Revenge:The answer is because you take pride in what you do. the problem with this is that there are now far too many jobs that it is nigh impossible to take pride in.

In days gone by you were the best at what you did because it meant you reaped the highest rewards ie - You were the best farmer because that meant you had the most grain at the end of the year.

The problem is there is little joy to be taken from being the best fitter of wingnuts to factory assembled garden furniture or the best filler of jam jars with jam (as i have been in the past) and therefore there needs to be some other motivation for undertaking such employment.

This manifests itself in the form of hard cash allowing you to better enjoy the time you're not at work.

In my opinion the problem we have now is the over commercialisation of society means the importance of economic gain is so overriding. it occurs at the expense of all else.

The bettering of society should be the aim of all political systems. I think that the Left (communism/ socialism) admirably holds this goal in high esteem, but lacks the mechanism with which to achieve it.

An individual following the Right (libertarianism / capitalism) is unconcerned with this aim, but it is really the only way to get the very most out of people.

A combination of the two is therefore needed and a balance somewhere around that of the UK and other western EU countries seems to work as well as can be expected, but the pendulum is always swinging....

X-factor, truth's enemy

I'm sure it will have escaped your notice (because TR readers have better things to do with their lives), but the new series of X-Factor has hurled its obese lazy carcass on to our screens again.

The current series is at the stage still deemed acceptable by those who should know better - the bit where we all laugh at the 'rejects'.

'Hmm,' I hear you ponder, 'why put 'quotes' around the word reject? surely they are rejects plain and simple no need to put '' around it?'

The thing is, they aren't the show's real rejects. they have got further than thousands of others, who will have been turned away, not by Simon Cowell or Sheryl Cole, but by some unknown member of the ITV production team.

This is not shocking, its fairly obvious when you look at the sheer numbers involved, but it is a long way from the consciousness of most viewers.

It would seem (and this is backed up by a friend of a friend who tried out for the show) that you get put into three categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

This is fairly obvious, those who are apparently talented.

The Bad

Not that good at singing in a boring way.

The Ugly

These are the idiots that are so bad they are funny, I have little doubt that most of these are fully aware of how stupid they look but are so desperate to get on TV they exaggerate their foolishness, to guarantee 5 mins in front of Cowell and the camera's .

Obviously only the good and the the ugly get anywhere near the celebrity judges.

This in its self is not what make it so terrible. It's the awful cut aways of judges reactions and their staged 'fallouts'. The even more staged bits in the lobbys

But Charlie Brooker, who I do not always agree with, puts it brilliantly here, far better than I could:

When not to use video?

A change made to this story on the BBC today started me thinking after I linked to it twice at different times.

The earlier edition - at around lunch time had a video at the top showing the cute girl miming, later - around 5pm this had changed and was replaced by a picture (it has since been changed again with two pics side side by side and the video lower down the page).

What are the possible reasons behind this?

Do they have to pay to use the footage? No, the corporation paid up front for some kind of package.

The only thing I can think of is, because the BBC were the sole British broadcasters of the ceremony (and the whole Olympics as this left of centre media love-in demonstrates), they have put alot into the promotion, idents and so on, and they dont want to take the shine off one of the main aspects too much.

They couldn't pull the whole story, as that would be a bit 'China', so to speak.

But they didn't, or someone there didn't, want to make too big a thing of it. It's something that everyone is talking about - everyone is impressed so maybe its a good idea not to worry about it too much.

Anyway, Just a (conspiracy?) theory.

Would like to hear your's...

Also be interesting to hear if you know of any technical/asthetic/journalistic reasons for taking video off a story generally?

• As I write this the story is on BBC Newsnight - which may pour some water on my theory, but was it on the main news?

It still doesnt't answer the question why take the video off the site in the first place?

Fit me into your schedule?

Two great articles in the NY times over the opening weekend of the Olympics.

The first, from Brian Stelter's TV Decoder blog, explains why NBC's attempt to time shift the Olympic opening ceremony for US citizens worked to a certain degree, but pissed a lot of people off.

Only a few people were able to watch any of the amazing (if a little candied (I hearby trademark the use of the term candied - meaning to lie and/or fake parts of an already impressive story or event to make everything seem a little more exciting/perfect.)) events unfold live via a small number of live streams.

It couldn't be called a failure though, as an average of 34.2 million Americans waited until they were home from work and plonked themselves in front of the TV for the 4 hour ceremony.

As Stelter points out many preferred to see it all in full HD glory than on a pokey 240 pixel wide window.

The second story from David Carr refers to Stelter's post but he points out that in the TiVo (Sky+ in the uk - or should that be generic digital hard drive recording facility?!) and internet age, it's the audience that chooses the schedule not the broadcasters.

He links it with a problem faced by many web editors attached to traditional newspapers - the holding of news from the web to retain value at the newspaper. But as he points out:

'If the future of our business is online, then why set up a firewall, delaying the best content to protect a legacy product?'

He also puts forward an interesting theory on the future of print news.

'The horizon line for when a newspaper on the street is serving as a kind of brochure of a rich online product does not seem far off.'

Does anyone have anymore on this concept - I can see it working in London with all the commuters getting tit-bits of news on the Tube before checking out the full stories when they get in to work.

Apologies!

Sorry for the lack of recent posts, my new job sees me sat in front of a CMS for most of the day and is far too similair to blogging to do that the rest of the time!

On the plus side my blogging skills (or should that be skillz) will soon start to see a marked improvement!

I feel I can also blame the silly season being in full swing for my lack of post action, the 'stories' are so inane at the minute they're are not even worth my wrath!

Thank god for China and Russia!

Coren nation

Just in case you hadn't seen this elsewhere, everyone should see this little insight into the relationship between writers and sub-editors.

Highlights include:

'...worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable.'

'...I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i (sic) have never ended on an unstressed syllable. F***. f***, f***, f***.'

I can assure you it's not usually as fractious as this - because most writers aren't as precious as Coren - and as this response from the Sunday Times subs points out, their job is often thankless and involves ploughing through error strewn copy.

I'm sure my new role as content producer (starting on Friday), which requires me to be the last line of defence before copy hits the readers, will put me firmly on the side of the subs!

Shanking out

It's another silly season shanking special!

This time the Sun has taken a stab at Facebook application Superpoke! (their ! not mine).

The developers, Slide, had allowed FB users to 'shank' each other along with all the other actions such as Smack, suckerpunch, kiss, hug etc.

According to the Sun the Shank action was aimed at 'the kids who carry knives' because shank is a 'street-term'.

So praise must be heaped on the Murdoch rag because it contacted Slide who removed it, fortunately not because of any threats from the Sun, but because the 'Shank' action went against the 'fun and often silly' ethos of Superpoke!

But is this removal not against the interest of free speech? I can no longer 'shank' my friends because the Sun has decided this virtual action is 'sick'.

Funny then that on Friday they seemed to be such free speech advocates.

Unofficial Facebook blog, Allfacebook.com, has a take and full Slide response.