Tu Quoque Watch
Oh dear, from NC in the Standard, after moaning on about how the police don't nick those drunken louts (also basing his arguments on four-year-old statistics hack hack hack; not that he's necessarily wrong but would have killed him to look up the right ones?). Nick moves on to talk about the putative fact that he's never heard an anti-war politico given a hard time on the Today program, "not even George Galloway".
All together now ... "and so should the Observer".
The best BBC reporters think their way out of it and are among the most admirable people in journalism as a result. But on programmes such as Today the prejudices are now so open they are tainting the whole corporation.
The solution is to appoint broad-minded editors who can point out to their staff – forcefully if need be – that a political philosophy is not necessarily moral or coherent or true just because everyone you eat with and sleep with shares it.
All together now ... "and so should the Observer".
posted by The Rioja Kid at 12/16/2005 02:27:00 PM
5 Comments:
I think there's a lot of "last chair" about this post, as it seems very similar (in statistics and quotes) as this publication, from a body I've never heard of, though which is based in the town my parents live in.
http://www.ias.org.uk/factsheets/crime-disorder.pdf
It's both-ways kind of stuff as well. If alcohol-related arrests had been soaring he would have written a near-identical column.
I also like his bit about west london and arts graduates and you're going to get this bias. Maybe if we're talking about smoking in pubs he might have a point, but why does he believe arts graduates in west london are a particularly anti-Iraq war lot? Where does he believe the BBC should find its staff that wouldn't have the view?
The solution is to appoint broad-minded editors who can point out to their staff – forcefully if need be – that a political philosophy is not necessarily moral or coherent or true just because everyone you eat with and sleep with shares it.
Oh dear, now NC's recycling the old 'the BBC's full of lefties who read the Guardian' canard - maybe the Money Box Live staff could all be recruited from The Economist or something. Besides, the same argument could apply to the self-reinforcing positions of the pro-war left, not least their self-image as 'the only gays in the village'.
Notice: "given a hard time." Not "questioned more rigorously" or "challenged where their answers seem evasive or illogical". But "treated as though perpetrating a heartless fraud on pensioners..."
Even more "hack" about the piece is that he could have strengthened his case enormously by noting that the vast majority of the decline in the numbers was due to the Metropolitan Police, who began a policy of 'informal warnings'.
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199900/cmhansrd/vo001121/text/01121w15.htm
It seems he is feeling more and more isolated....
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