Blogging in favour of Asylum Seekers

Some disgraceful coverage last week in the British press of the forceful clearing of the so called “Jungle” camp of asylum seekers near Calais. The epithet ‘Jungle’ seemed to be used with some glee by various commentators in the press, the clear implication for me being that those in this temporary camp were somehow akin to animals – certainly different from you and I. Even the BBC to its disgrace used the epithet when reporting on the clearing – never to my knowledge – drawing attention to the racist undertones of the term.  Marie Barbier, a journalist from ‘l’Humanite’ the daily paper of the French Communist Party has been regularly blogging about the plight of the ‘sans-papiers’ (those without papers – ie authorisation to stay). Her blog – ‘laissezpasser.info‘ (in French) is a good example of trying to give a voice to those who do not get into the traditional media.

BBC Trust to review BBC TV services

The BBC Trust – the body set up to monitor the BBC on behalf of licence payers has announced a review of BBC One BBC Two, BBC Four and the Red Button. This is part of the Trust’s regular series of reviews and will be the largest and most significant service review held yet. Essentially the Trust is asking the public to tell them the extent to which these services meet audience expectations. A 12 week public consultation has now been launched which will end on December 18th.  The review will look at all content on the channels including news and nations and regions output, although the question of television production quotas including programme and network supply and the costs of on screen talent are out of scope as they have been reviewed separately in recent years. The on-air portrayal of the different communities within the UK is also outside the scope of this particular review as during the course of 2009/10 the Trust will be working with the four Audience Councils to examine questions of portrayal.

Despite these limitations the review comes at a time when the Scottish Government are arguing for a different type of Broadcasting Corporation in this country, and critical friends such as the Audience Council Scotland have argued for better Scottish coverage and portrayal. Meanwhile embittered critics such as James Murdoch, scion of the Murdoch media empire are hoping to set the agenda for a ‘nuclear option’ the total abolition of Britain’s Public Service Broadcaster claiming that “The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.” In an unprecedented rebuttal of the News Corporation spokesman, Mark Thompson the Director General of the BBC referred specifically to Murdoch’s recent MacTaggart lecture claiming he was out of touch with audience sentiment. Thompson quoted a recent Guardian ICM poll which found that  four out of five people said the UK should be proud of the BBC – “a much higher figure than when ICM asked the same question five years ago”. He also confirmed that the BBC would fight proposals to share the licence fee with rival broadcasters – a proposal which seems to have gained favour within the Labour Party of recent months although is bitterly opposed by representatives of the Scottish audience such as the Audience Council. Members of the Public and those who may be particularly effected by possible changes to the services in question (such as postgraduate journalists – Ed.) can download and contribute to the review here.

Security Council Vote may help Postgraduate Journalism

The United Nations Security Council yesterday unanimously approved a resolution to rid the world of nuclear weapons, a move seen by some as a prerequisite for preventing a future nuclear holocaust in which the majority of humanity – including postgraduate students would perish. In what was seen as a historic vote, Russia, China, the UK, France and the developing nations supported the US sponsored motion, something which may give some impetus to the process of nuclear disarmament – an idea which has seen very little real progress since the end of the cold war. Britain had earlier in the week announced that its Trident submarine fleet would be reduced from four to three – a move which government spin doctors heralded as a major change in approach, although critics from the Peace Movement while generally being positive in their response, pointed out that this was not a major change, given that the fourth submarine was always seen more as ‘insurance’ and not a key part of the UKs nuclear arsenal.  At the same time Brian Quail the secretary of Scottish CND called for some honest reporting by journalists of this issue, claiming that the phrase ‘nuclear deterrent’ was in effect an example of ‘weasel words’ and that the phrase ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ was a more ethically correct phrase. Quoting Confucius he said that the way to ‘restore honour and virtue to the state’ was by ‘giving things their proper name’ and that there should be a veto on ‘this most vile of euphemisms’

Scots Nats argue for Scottish Broadcasting Corporation

Mike Russell SNP Minister for Culture

Claims that Scots were “still being short-changed” within the current British broadcasting system were made yesterday in the Scottish Parliament by SNP culture minister Michael Russell.Claiming that the UK government, had totally ignored the call of the Scottish Broadcasting Commission for a new independent Scottish channel, Mr Russell pointed out that this has been totally ignored in the much publicised Digital Britain report released last month.The minister was making a statement to MSPs on progress in broadcasting in the last 12 months since the publication of the SBC report.

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