Comb Overs and Cricket - Hampshire County Council Meeting

The old saying 'a camel is a horse designed by committee' is one which I wholeheartedly agree with. As a result of this I was somewhat sceptical about sitting in on the latest Hampshire County Council meeting, lavishly held in the grounds of Winchester's Great Hall. Indeed this feeling was somewhat increased upon seeing the selection of councillors entrusted with the decision making of the county, without wishing to be unkind they could all be found queueing in the post office on a Thursday morning. I wouldn't like to guess at the total age of the predominantly male council but 1,204 wouldn't be far off. The original conversations that I overheard concerned stereotypical comments on cricket and the weather. Given that 'broadband' was also on the agenda I questioned how much knowledge the room would possess on this, especially as there were technical issues from the start and the speaker questioned why his voice was 'so echoey' after inadvertantly turning his microphone on.

The first issue discussed (and at over an hour in great detail),  was 'The Contribution Policy for Adult Social Care'. The proposal was to adapt the current system in order to consider each case individually, potentially leading to 1/3 of disabled adults having to pay more for social care (although 40% would still pay nothing). It was agreed that the maximum weekly charged of £440 per week be removed whilst plans to raise the expense to 100% of net income and charge carers for their service were rightly rejected.

After this came the discussion on improving broadband in the Hampshire area. Far from being the technological neanderthals I was expecting - most of the council proved to have a detailed knowledge on 'computers' with one gentleman even flashing an i-phone and all agreeing that faster broadband should be provided in rural areas.

The next item on the agenda was a brief discussion on the budget, with special emphasis on the expense of gritting the roads during the snowy weather and the financial costs of restoring the Gosport village green. The meeting was then over for us as the next item was not available for public viewing - stirring up all sorts of images of what was being discussed.

In all seriousness however, the people at the Council were very welcoming, giving us a tour around the building, refreshments and ensuring that everything that was discussed was explained so that we could understand and I would like to thank them for their generosity.

Churnalism

We're all pretty familiar with all the rubbish newspapers often churn out. As something of a warning to my fellow students I found this website www.churnalism.com that basically exposes lazy journalists who simply copy stories from press releases without adding much to it at all and then pass it off as their own work (something we would never do of course - I'm often amazed at how often wikipedia copied my homework).

On the site you type in the story you've read and it shows you how much of it was from a certain press release and therefore how much of their own input the journalism has included.

http://churnalism.com/

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was a British writer and philosopher who lived between 1759 and 1797. Her many writings on the role of women in society have led her to be considered in some circles as 'The Mother of Feminism'.

Wollstonecraft's most famous piece of work was 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' which was published in 1792. As part of my history and context of journalism module we considered chapter 4 of this book, 'Observations on the state of degradation to which woman is reduced by various causes' (yes, her style is this unnecessarily long-winded throughout!).

Wollstonecraft's main problem with the female perception of society appears to be the courteous way in which the men of this period treated them. This may seem a strange argument at first, however Wollstonecraft explains that this politeness is merely 'hollow respect' and is limiting female instinct and potential. She uses a the wonderful imagery of a bird in cage to describe this, adding that all women have to do is remain in the cage and plume their feathers. This suggests that Wollstonecraft felt that although chivalrous treatment may make a woman feel special, it is merely another example of men exerting dominance and is condescending. This is extended further in the example of a man holding a door open for a woman, the woman could easily do it for herself and therefore this is yet another example of men showing physical dominance. Wollstonecraft suggests that women could be as strong as men, its just society and a lack of willingness preventing them. This appears to be her most prominent criticism of women - they are simply not doing enough for themselves. Indeed the way she launches this attack almost makes it hard to believe that the author herself is female. 

Wollstonecraft's solution to these problems is education. This lack of education places women in a pigeon hole and as a result little can be expected of them. Wollstonecraft seems to criticise the male use of education, stating that they see it merely as a 'practical guide to life' rather than the first step to advancement. Indeed that Wollstonecraft was effectively self-educated, having been a great reader, shows that she saw the potential of education in the expansion of our minds, rather than simply learning how to do what you're taught.  She adds that men are prepared for profession, whilst women are prepared for marriage, suggesting that whilst pleasure is the main business of a woman's life they cannot advance in society. She quotes Rousseau in this passage (someone who's theories she appears to have a hot and cold attitude towards) in stating 'educate women like men and they will have less power over us'. I think Wollstonecraft disagrees with this - she does not want women to have power over men (indeed any power they did have was shallow), but for them to have power over themselves. Her ideas are similar in some way to a great 'equaliser' from the enlightenment John Locke (though how much equality his ideas really had is open for debate). Wollstonecraft's ideas remind me of Locke's blank slate - her belief that education was key suggests that she too felt we were all born equal and can only improve ourselves by experiencing and learning new things.  

Wollstonecraft compares female attitudes at the time as similar to someone who is born rich. They have no real need to use their brains or have any talent as their role in society is a superficial one. She seems to favour the hardships of the 'middle rank of man', suggesting that these men are of the most virtue. Wollstonecraft also praises the direction that they have, always something to work towards, something to achieve. This is clearly an attitude she feels is lost on the rich, and something women need to adopt. She adds that 'a King is always a King and a woman is always a woman' which suggests that the ordinary man can be whatever he wants. She feels that if more women had a more direct attitude then there would be less of a distinction between man and woman. She does not want women to be seen as 'heroines or brutes' but simply reasonable creatures. 

Wollstonecraft was fascinated by the French Revolution which began in 1789. Louis 14th (see image) is a prime example of her attitude towards the rich. He is described as a model Prince who no doubt lived for the extravagant manners and flair that typified the aristocracy at this time. She believed that as a result of this the nation suffered. She would have been excited by the revolution and its 'we the people' motto which suggested equality amongst all.

Strangely Wollstonecraft also seemed to have been something of a Romantic, often advocating the benefits of love. The only time where she felt there should be a gender distinction was in a loving relationship. In Chapter 4 she describes her dislike of Polygamy stating that there is no practical positives to it and nature intended man to have one wife. She adds that a faithful woman demands respect. I think that this aspect of Wollstoncrafts theory is somewhat hypocritical considering her private life. She seemed to fall in love hard and was romantically linked with several men including artist  Henry Fuseli, American adventurer  Gilbert Imlay (and was registered as his wife in France) and British philosopher William Godwin (who fathered daughter Mary Shelley future author of Frankenstein). Wollstonecrafts chaotic love-life included two failed suicide attempts and it is this image that has perhaps hampered her reputation amongst some feminist groups. Indeed it is hard to take her views on Polygamy seriously for example, as she apparently once proposed a platonic, polygamous relationship to Fuseli and his wife.

Despite this controversy however I think that Wollstonecraft does raise some interesting ideas. Her strong belief in education as key to advancement is something that I wholeheartedly agree with and her preference towards the middle man and belief that they have more direction and ambition is something I can also relate to. There can be no doubt that she played a vital role in the advancement of women in society and I think that she perhaps deserves more prominent recognition in the feminist movement as she was clearly a strong woman who led by example to show women how to achieve equality. 

Day 20 in the snow.....panic everywhere.
Thank God i've got tins in

Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist and political writer who was born in 1667.

Although he is perhaps best known for his novel 'Gulliver's Travels' the piece of Swift's work that I looked at was his satirical essay written 1729 entitled 'A Modest Proposal'.

Swift begins this essay by outlining his 'great intentions' to help the poor people of Ireland. The exaggerated grandeur of such language was undoubtedly a subversive mocking of Empiricist writing, as it is very similar to the pompous tone used by followers of this school such as Locke.

Swift highlights the plight of the poor and emphasizes the need to find a cheap and fair way to help them, help themselves. Swifts ingenious idea to achieve this is for Irish people to start eating babies.

Under this plan, Swift says that as children are not of much value to their parents anyway and are expensive to raise, selling a child between the ages of 1 and 2 when, according to his 'American friend' (a narrative trick Addision also used) they are at their most delicious as a luxurious food, would bring in income for poorer families and save them the money on raising the child anyway.

Swift outlines a number of surprisingly convincing advantages of this proposal. The first point he lists is that it would lower the number of Papists, who he implies breed too much as it is. This humorous attack on Catholicism was very in keeping with the general attitude of many at this time as it was widely believed that they could not be trusted and harboured allegiances abroad.
Swift proposes that selling their babies to the rich would also mean that the poor had something valuable to trade with that would both make and save them money.
He adds that taverns would also benefit, famine would decrease, the economy would improve and debt and poverty would be reduced as a result of this scheme.
My favourite of Swifts advantages for his proposal however, is that it would prevent men from abusing their pregnant wives by methods such as kicking them in the stomach, as they would not want to risk harming their unborn money-making child. Swift seems very anti-abortion and this plan would mean that such a practise would also be made redundant.

Although from a modern day perspective this cannibalism seems inhumane, I couldn't help but think that economically speaking Swifts proposal made a lot of sense. Indeed considering the hunger and suffering that the poor endured during this period in Ireland, his argument that the children would be saved from a life of misfortune and pain anyway makes his idea sound somewhat kind. The essay is so well written that Swift makes an idea that when first heard seem so far-fetched appear very reasonable. This is due to the brilliance of his satire of Empiricist style writers and his economically accurate and logical hypotheses.
So good in fact, that I'm contemplating how much my new-born niece would fetch on the black market......and whether she'd taste good with gravy.


Click here for a great 'rap' video summarizing Swift's Proposal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf0LH8FtHAc

The Daily Telegraph and Radio 1 Newsbeat

As part of my latest presentation, I looked at the News Agenda of The Daily Telegraph and Radio 1.

The Daily Telegraph was founded in June 1855 by Colonel Arthur B. Sleigh, an army officer and travel writer. It was originally published to air Sleigh’s complaints about the Duke of Cambridge and to expose what Sleigh saw as the truth of the Crimean War. The paper was not a success however and as a result Sleigh was forced to sell it to his publisher Joseph Levy.  Levy was experienced in this field as he was involved with other newspapers around at this time and he decided to launch the Telegraph as a cheaper alternative to those already on the market. His sons who succeeded him later coined the slogan ‘the largest, best, and cheapest newspaper in the world’.

Nowadays, however, the Telegraph is owned by identical twin brothers, Sirs David and Frederick Barclay, who made their £1.8billion fortune in a variety of businesses including hotels, casinos and department shops. They purchased the Telegraph and its sister companies in 2004 from a Canadian business for around £665m. Their time in charge has been somewhat ruthless and eventful with one hundred journalists made redundant in 2006 and a further seven editorial changes to the Sunday and Daily Telegraph since their ownership began.

The Daily Telegraph is traditionally considered to have a right-of-centre political alignment and as a result has conventionally been considered pro-Conservative Party. Its affiliation with Tory leaders actually led to Private Eye magazine dubbing it ‘The Torygraph’. There is some suggestion however, that under the Barclay brothers the Telegraph is eager to move away from being associated as 100% Tory. In a recent interview David Barclay stated that the Telegraph would not be ‘the house paper of the Conservatives’ adding that ‘where the government are right, we shall support them’. Despite this I believe the Daily Telegraph to still be a centre-right newspaper. I have found numerous references to this relationship in my recent reading, from subtle quotes such as ‘targets concerning waiting times and cancelled operation, introduced by Labour, result in managers pushing Doctors’, showing a desire to emphasize blame on the previous Labour government. There was also some more obvious pro-Conservative content featured, such as the headline ‘Mrs. Thatcher was right’. I think that Barclay’s statement regarding The Telegraph’s political persuasion was a somewhat pragmatic comment on his behalf. He may well have wanted to avoid the paper being completely associated with the current government as if they were to prove unpopular, the newspapers sales would be likely to dip.

The Daily Telegraph itself usually has something of a busy front page layout. The ‘Win Free Sex’ box at the top of the paper is not as crudely obvious as many of the tabloids often are, but it is often brightly coloured, advertising promotional give-a-ways or articles from feature writers.   
The main headlines of the day of course feature on the front, and are usually politically based, rather than entertainment news for example. There are usually three or four main stories on the front page, each with a reasonably large section of reporting and this is again in contrast with the one story front page approach favoured by the tabloid and mid-market papers.

Along the right hand side of the second page runs a news in brief column which features short bulletins of both serious and light-hearted stories. 

The Daily Telegraph features a World News section towards the back middle pages of the paper. I was surprised at how far back many of these world affair stories were published as they were often important reports including violence in the Middle East and the G20 summit. Even further towards the back is the Comments and Features section, where feature writers and special guests write much more in depth pieces. There is also a significantly sized letters to the editor area in this section.

The Daily Telegraph describes its target audience in its online rate card as being affluent, loyal, influential and elusive. This claim of loyalty appears to be justified as 81% of their readers look at no other daily quality. 

The Telegraph has the oldest average readership of any national paper and on average it takes fifty-six minutes to read. This suggests to me that The Telegraph is mainly targeted at someone with more time to spare reading the news, and its high age of readers suggests many of them will be retired. The Telegraph can therefore afford to feature longer articles and features as it understands that many of its readers can afford the time to view them.

In terms of social groups 59% of the Daily Telegraph’s readers are AB1. This means that they are upper and middle class with a further 28% lower middle Class. This would imply that the vast majority of Telegraph readers are wealthy and well educated. As a result of this the Telegraph can use different language and more complex sentences than a tabloid paper. The Plymouth University’s guide to working out a reading age shows that the Telegraph use an average reading age of a nineteen year old whilst The Sun’s is that of a twelve year old.

The Daily Telegraph also has a 56% male majority of readers.  One example that I regularly found which may show their awareness of this was that more often than not the front page featured a photograph of an attractive woman.  These women tended to be more culturally high-brow than say Cheryl Cole for example (and usually in less sexually suggestive poses), but including these images may be a deliberate acknowledgement of their male majority audience.

The adverts featured in the newspaper also tell us much about their audience. I found that the brands of car and watch that are often advertised were usually at the reasonably high-end of the market, with Audi in particular embarking on an almost daily campaign. Similarly the supermarkets that advertised in the Daily Telegraph were Waitrose, Marks & Spencer’s, Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s, highlighting the Telegraph’s predominately middle-class audience, as cheaper brands such as Aldi or Lidl did not.

The Daily Telegraph is the bestselling quality daily with an average circulation of 678,252 between April and September 2010, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation. This is estimated to mean they have around 1.8m readers (National Readership Survey). This circulation is 35% more than the nearest daily rival The Times and amounts to 43% of the quality market. Despite this, in keeping with the general decline of newspapers, sales for The Telegraph are down by around 2.5% in the last year and nearly double that in the last five years.

With other former broadsheet newspapers such as The Times deciding to change their broadsheet format to something smaller, it is interesting that The Daily Telegraph did not. One possible reason for this could be to ensure that it still stands out. Given that all the other daily qualities now use a smaller format I believe that this is certainly a valid point. I also think that given the older nature of their main readers, many will be retired and therefore can spare the time and space to unfurl the paper over their table. Also given the great emphasis on loyalty that the Telegraph places on its audience, they may have been reluctant to change this particular area, despite making technological innovation with other aspects.

The Telegraph launched its online version in 1994, becoming the first daily web-based newspaper in Europe to do so. www.telegraph.co.uk is now in the top 3 most popular UK newspaper websites, receiving an average of 1,669,773 unique browsers a day, each spending roughly thirteen minutes on the site. Though The Telegraph had fallen somewhat behind online in recent years, its exposure of the MP’s Expenses Scandal has seen it climb back up in the last eighteen months.

I will now look to compare The Daily Telegraph with Radio 1’s own news coverage.

BBC Radio 1 was launched in 1967 in an attempt to modernize the BBC’s radio coverage. Its use of jingles was also a BBC first and was an attempt to attract the young listeners who previously had often listened to ‘pirate’ radio stations such as Radio Caroline, that had recently been outlawed.

Radio 1 has a public service broadcasting obligation to provide news, under Ofcom regulations, as it is an organisation intended for public benefit rather than purely commercial reasons. The result of these restrictions is Newsbeat, Radio 1’s flagship news programme.  It began in 1973 and was a response to the less traditional news bulletins that were popular on commercial radio stations at this time, making it very different from the formal, old-fashioned style of BBC Radio’s news reporting.

Nowadays Newsbeat is broadcast at 12.45 and 17.45 during the week, lasting for around 15minutes, with shorter bulletins played throughout the day every thirty minutes. This is structurally the complete opposite to The Telegraph, which has a lengthy average reading time and as a result reports each story in much more depth.  

Newsbeat tends to open by outlining the stories it intends to discuss, with brief snippets of upcoming reports and interviews. The various regulations imposed ensure that it too must provide important political stories; however it often features basic question and answer style information to explain more complex reports. In addition to this nearly every report tends to feature interviews with the general public asking for their opinions. This is a clear contrast to The Telegraph, where the readers own thoughts are located near the back, taking up just half a page.

Most Newsbeat episodes feature entertainment news, usually with at least one celebrity interview. In addition to this there is usually one story featuring education based events as a result of their target audience. Recently for example, stories about the rise in tuition fees have featured and are very pro-student biased. In contrast to this The Telegraph was very critical of lecturers who took part in and praised the recent protests.

The tone of Newsbeat is very informal. The language used is a clear representation of this. One person interviewed used the word ‘crappy’ in the broadcast and this is something that I would not expect to find on any of the other BBC news programmes. Presenters and reporters talk to each other colloquially as well with one example being where the main presenter linked to the next reporting by saying ‘Alright Dave’. This is yet another contrast to The Daily Telegraph as we have already seen that they have the highest readership age of the national newspapers.

There is music played throughout Newsbeat, rather than just at the beginning or end of the broadcast. This emphasises that Radio 1 is a predominately music based channel and could also be used to keep their target audience interested during the news break.

These examples of tone and content clearly show that they are aiming at younger listeners and indeed their target audience age is between fifteen and twenty-four. The BBC’s own Radio 1 audience rate card emphasizes this adding that the young do not often associate the BBC with things that are relevant to them. They perceive the BBC as generally ‘old fashioned’, ‘introspective’, ‘slow’ and ‘corporate’. This suggests that Radio 1 takes very deliberate attempts to appear ‘cool’ and appeal to a younger audience.

The dominant social group of Radio 1 listeners are C1, with C2 close behind. These are the lower branches of middle class mainly made up of white collar workers and skilled manual workers. The entertainment content of the news broadcast perhaps best represents the difference between Radio 1’s target class and The Telegraphs as Newsbeat for example discusses movies, rather than the opera or the theatre, which are often reviewed in The Telegraph.

Radio 1 receives an average of 11.81m listeners per week according to Rajar’s last quarterly figures. This is just over 9% of total radio listeners and makes it the BBC’s second most popular radio station. I would assume that Newsbeat’s figures are similar to that of Radio 1 as a whole, as the feature is so short that I would doubt many listeners would turn over during the broadcast.

One area where The Daily Telegraph and Radio 1 could be seen to show similarities is in their online content.  Newsbeat Online generally features similar stories to that of the radio however, I found that there was much more entertainment news and lighter hearted stories online, perhaps as it is less restricted in the content it is obliged to provide. A great deal of focus is placed on interaction, with listeners given plenty of chances to have their say, and to use Newsbeat on every modern day social network or application.  This is a clear attempt from the BBC to provide news in the format that they believe young people want, they summarise this in their target audience briefing, by stating that most young people  are ‘technologically literate’.
The Daily Telegraph online also features opportunities for ‘citizen journalism’ and interaction, as well as providing many modern day services such as Podcasts and applications.
To conclude both Newsbeat and The Daily Telegraph appear to understand the current requirement to provide news online. Both have been the innovators in their respective fields and this shows a clear understanding that modern day users need much more interaction and online availability of their news.  This could perhaps be an admission by each side that these two separate forms of old media are dying out and in order to survive, online content is a must. 

The Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act became operational in 2006 after being drawn up in 2000 – no doubt to give certain organisations time to ‘lose’ certain information in that six years!
It applies to the availability of information in the public sector, allowing the public to get hold of such information or documents.

The Act states that ‘any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled to a) be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request and b) if that is the case, to have the information communicated to them.’

A large part of the Act, however, is taken up with exemptions; particularly regarding national secrets, security and military operations.

One problem of the Act is the definition of the information itself. Information can only be requested if it has been recorded down and this has led to the practise of ‘sofa government’ where leading figures of government or organisations discuss certain matters more informally and avoid recording the meetings.
Confidentiality is another hurdle – many organisations can refuse information regarding a specific person.
One further obstacle is the Cost of Complying, whereby if the information is too expensive for an organisation to gather it, even if they do have it, a request can be refused. An average amount considered to be too much is around £600 though it varies on the organisation.

Every organisation is required to have a designated Freedom of Information Officer. If a request is rejected however, you can appeal to a Information Commissioner who can adjust whether your FOI application should be granted.

Although appealing for information via the FOI can be very bureaucratic it seems to me to favour the journalist as long as they’re prepared to fill out the paperwork, be forceful in their demand and not take no for an answer.