Listening to the news shows, how much they contradict themselves, how much they are opinion lead, are they any better than an end of term web series?
News is disappointing, not because their is bad news, it is because news editors feel they have the ability to preach. I think the public have got wise to this, have stopped trusting even old standards like the BBC and Radio 4 as well as politicians. It reminds me of the film NETWORK, when Peter Finch goes to the window and shouts, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Now it is important to state here that that is actually what he says. He is more often as not quoted as saying 'I'm mad as hell', not 'I am as mad as hell'. Is this important? Yes, because I think that the public have gone to the voting booths and screamed that they are not going to take it anymore, and voted. They have voted Brexit and Trump.
The press are still delivering opinions. Let's lay this out. Forget your opinions but just take on board the facts. The morning after Trump was elected the markets in the UK dropped by 1.4%, then clawed back to .75% loss within an hour. Radio 4 took on board an expert who explained that and gave those figures just before the news. The news then started with the headline, and this is the BBC radio 4, that the markets had dropped by nearly 2%. It is not just a contradiction, but an insult to the expert they employed before the opinion led headline. It is as wrong as mis quoting Peter Finch, and it is why the public have voted.
You may be able to lead a horse to water, but apparently you cannot make it drink. I am now going to quote Radio 4 news again as headlining that the Croydon Tram was doing nearly four times the speed limit at the bend. The facts are that is has been released that it was doing 43 miles per hour on the blend which has a 12 mile an hour speed limit and the BBC's own Radio 5 lead with the headline that the tram was doing three and half times the speed limit.
So, is Radio 4 currently being edited by an opinionated red top journalist who wants to guide the public? It is just a question, because the real news is that the rail the tram was on had a speed limit of 80km per hour or 49 mph coming out of the tunnel just before the bend, and that is within the legal and accepted speed limit. Given the trams full laden weight I have heard it explained that it would take 120 meters to stop.
Using BBC maths, which has no bearing on what would happen in reality, that would require tests, for the tram to slow down to 12 miles per hour, a reduction of four fold, or one quarter, we might suggest it could take 90 meters of the 120 meters suggested it would take to stop. So the real question is why is the 12 mph speed limit sign not 90 meters back from the bend because on hitting the sign is may be too late to be able to slow. So what is the real news?
Is the real news just great adjectives and headlines to grab the viewer, stirring opinions to have people talk about it? It the news has turned in to Jeremy Kyle type magazine programming, then society has lost it's rudder, and that is an important observation. I was honoured to be at a lecture, or think tank as I like to call it with the head of OfCom's Sharon White in the chair, recently. The audience were all heads of broadcasting. A serious meeting where all agreed that news coverage had hit an all time low pre Brexit with claims of house prices escalating, world war 4 and the like, and news editors just taking unchecked fact and expanding on them. All agreed how disgraceful it was yet no one is doing anything about it.
Most of my movies have been politically driven. Freight is about sex trafficking, but it is more about the fact that UK politicians threw quotes about how bad Britain was to get elected then did nothing about it. Devil's Gate was about incest within the family and the absence of any child protection. Even The Scarlet Tunic was about the attitude towards Catholics in 1802 but the executive producers totally removed that story line from the movie and I think damaged what was a wonderful film. So, the simple web series Shades Of Bad is full of political parallels, and hey .... lets be an editor when we can. But it is drama not news and one hopes for a distinction.
I thought I would share something I have just read which I can take no credit for, and I encourage you to read the whole article. It is perhaps one of the most sensible things I have read in the whole Brexit and Trump era. That may mean that no one wants to read it, and the press will totally ignore it, which is why I decided to give it the Peter Finch treatment and shout about it.
The full link is below and a click on this line, and you may leave me now because I am just going to quote from it, but I will try to do it without opinion.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reflections-trump-presidency-one-week-after-election-ray-dalio?trk=eml-b2_content_ecosystem_digest-hero-22-null&midToken=AQHosgkCW7d0xg&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=1qvUiAgvbffDw1
I do suggest you read the article which is from people who invest your pensions and investments. Just taking a headline in a complex and well balanced piece, it includes....
.....Our very preliminary assessment is that on the economic front, the developments are broadly positive—the straws in the wind suggest that many of the people under consideration have a sufficient understanding of how the economic machine works to run reasonable calculations on the implications of their shifts so that they probably won’t recklessly and stupidly drive the economy into a ditch.
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