The news has many problems, I’ll discuss some of them here.

My biggest gripe is that the news must have balance even when the facts are unequivocal. For example, if climate change is being discused, they’ll get some crackpot who doesn’t “believe” in it to debate some poor scientist. The masses of course without a critical thought in their heads, will assume that the science is not settled and continue believing falsehood. Another example, why do religious groups comment on scientific matters like stem cell research? Why should we give a shit about what some invisible sky magician is purported to have said thousanmds of years ago? Why should we live by the ethics of a thousand or so years ago, today? The beauty of science is that it’s constantly evolving and bettering itself. Religion just assumes it’s right and inserts its fingers in its ears pretending it can’t hear the contrary. This is a double-edged sword however, we don’t want a situation like in America where the broadcast media is biased as is Faux Fox News. The present stance is fine, but where the facts are clear, only have the correct side should speak about it.

Often the BBC will transcribe radio shows as news stories, e.g. From our own correspondent. These often have a very long preamble and the headline only fleetingly refers to the substance of the article. In these cases, I don’t bother reading the article at all or skim it. Often I will not bother reading the end of articles because of the right of reply. The BBC has a habit of putting this at the bottom which is quite good, because it’s easier not to read it. One example is, there’ll be a story about the Tories not adequatley funding the health service. However, the right of reply is a carefully funded PR statement saying words to the effect of “The NHS has never before received this amount of money. The government is committed to ensuring world class care is provided to patients”. Unfortunately, in this time of information warfare, you’d be forgiven for believing the government. Nominally the NHS may be receiving more funding but increasing the budget by for arguments sake 0.1 % amounts to a real terms cut. Couple this with when it has in the past, received budget increases of 5% it is a cut. Imagine if the Nazi’s had PR, I can see the statement now:

The chancellor Herr Hitler utterly refutes allegations of genocide. Herr Hitler is committed to the security of the German people by providing employment, hygiene and the best possible care for the indigenous people of Germany. He is working hard to shape the future of Europe, for a better more equal society.

It is unfortunate that, the newspapers are owned by right wing facist bastards. Rupert Murdoch supposedly only cares about selling newspapers, right wing slants seem to sell so that’s what he gives the public. Paul Dacre on the other hand is a sanctimonius, cantankerous cunt. The cunt of cunts, if you will. He genuininely believes the bile he prints daily, spreading and profiting from fear and hatred. It’s good that print media is in its death throes, however the Daily Heil has amassed the largest newspaper website in the world, by printing so called yellow diarrhea “news”. It’s bad enough, that such newspapers exist but why do television news channels insist on featuring them in their programs? By definition newspapers are yesterday’s news. Broadcast media can surely find their own sources and report on them if they’re newsworthy.

Some sites like The Daily Beast, have an infinite scroll feature where as you finish one story, they’ll put another one up behind it. It is highly effective and keeps you reading. I just want to read the story I opened. Sites are becoming more sensationalized. It’s hardly surprisng, with the amount of competition out there. But even the BBC is doing click bait headlines now.

There is a campaign group called “Stop funding hate”, which encourages proprieters to stop advertising with The Daily Heil and to choke them of advertising revenue. Whilst an admirable aim, it sets a dangerous president as Ian Hislop notes. What’s to stop others from doing the same to left wing newspapers? Advertisers shouldn’t have the power to decide what gets printed. While you’re at it, go for the jugular and just convince people to not buy the paper in the first palce.