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Jeremy Paxman: regional news fan
[J]ust look at almost any regional news programme, with its tawdry catalogue of misfortune, recited in deadbeat vocabulary. You’d think that every child in the city was being sexually abused, every journey every day disrupted, resulting in ‘pure misery’, every teenager a drug-crazed psychopath. Does it alarm? Sure. Does it help us understand? You must…
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The CBS Evening News business
How would you fix a problem in TV News? Say, the Couric Evening News? Before you send in your running order and personnel tweaks, your graphics ideas and story suggestions remember you are a journalist not a network boss. This is how bosses think (my italics): Karmazin, the former chief of CBS (CBS), was asked…
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Great writing
Never really had a chance to see the writing of Malcolm Muggeridge – I remember him as a faintly embarrassing figure of fun. But here’s a lovely excerpt of Muggeridge describing America in the 1950s: What they all want … is what the Americans have got – six lanes of large motor cars streaming powerfully…
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Why you shouldn’t allow comments on news stories…
Because sometimes readers aren’t stupid. Take the innocuous-looking piece above from AdAge. Someone called Roger has actually read it and asks:If you followed the link, you might just agree with him. There’s no reply from AdAge (your opinion is requested but presumably not valued), but if you are going to allow comments and recycle press…