Congrats to the TUC’s Duncan Weldon on his appointment as Newsnight’s economics editor. But not everyone is wishing him well. The Tories have made their displeasure known. The Daily Mail aren’t happy either. They’re carrying on as if Yevgeni Preobrazhensky has been appointed. This is Buggers Broadcasting Communism, after all. Replying, Owen Jones has highlighted some evidence that shows far from being a […]
Posts under ‘TV/Radio’
Ed Miliband’s response to BBC license debate
Mar 10th, 2014 by Dan McCurry.The Tories have gotten so excited about the idea of decriminalising the BBC license fee, that it’s difficult to avoid the suspicion that they see this as an opportunity to do down the national broadcaster. Labour needs to have a response, or else the debate will be guided by those who wish to see television […]
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Benefits Street – a deliberate attempt to offend an audience
Jan 14th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.We Brits love our two minute hates, and going by the bile trickling down Twitter this evening Channel 4’s Benefits Street has cornered that market. So a few points. This programme, despite its obvious opportunism, was conceived and produced by metropolitan elite-types. And metropolitan I, of course, mean London. In typical path-to-hell fashion perhaps the filmmakers genuinely […]
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Celebrity Big Brother: hyper-sexualised link bait, and bloody entertaining
Jan 9th, 2014 by Lucy Reese.So what does this year’s Celebrity Big Brother say about our wider culture? Obviously the recycling of ‘reality’ celebrities like Sam or Luisa or Ollie is very much part of the story – we live in a culture where television spawns these creatures on an almost hourly basis. But what strikes me most is how sexualised the house has become – endless talk about orgies, bisexuality, Luisa plotting to win by cuddling up with Jasmine and Lee playing Casey and Jasmine off against each other. Sex sells – gets tweeted, shared, you name it – something known only too well by Channel Five’s proprietor Richard Desmond who famously cut his publishing teeth on ‘Asian Babes’. Celebrity Big Brother is hyper sexualised link bait – soft porn for the masses.
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Tory bias at the BBC
Aug 24th, 2013 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.The BBC is beholden to an agenda that is anti-British, pro-union, and left-wing. Or so the argument goes. Thing is, there’s no evidence for it. Back in November, I had a bit of fun asking if the BBC’s Question Time was biased. This little study, based on the political allegiances of guests appearing on the […]
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Do you speak neoliberalism?
Jun 12th, 2013 by Mark Perryman.The latest installment of the hugely ambitious After Neoliberalism Manifesto from the politics and culture journal Soundings has just been published. Geographer Doreen Massey is the author. In her contribution she makes a key argument that has an increasing currency on the Outside Left, that to construct a radical politics a vital starting point is […]
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Floodgates for Boris Johnson? No, Mair is the exception
Mar 25th, 2013 by Conrad Landin.If you’re on Twitter, Facebook or any outlet of the internet, you’ll no doubt have heard all about the occasion yesterday when Boris Johnson was given a standard BBC grilling. I put it like that because Eddie Mair’s interview was not unusual – it was simply unusual for Johnson. It was still not near the […]
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The compulsive radio of a fascinating, worrying interview
Feb 16th, 2013 by Keir McCormack.“I’m a painfully truthful person often to the point of self-immolation or self-destruction,” said Julie Burchill appearing on Desert Island Discs. Burchill was bound to draw an audience, and only a few weeks after the BBC programme hosted its dream guest Aung San Suu Kyi. We were certainly in for some self-immolation. Burchill’s mantra was […]
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Cathy Come Home: then and now
Feb 11th, 2013 by Lucy Reese.Although I’m a child of the 70s, I’ve always had a fascination with the 60s. A strange time of change and experimentation that seems so different from the world we live in. I love the music, fashion and art of the 60s and am inspired by the radical ideas that emerged from this turbulent decade. […]
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“Morrissey is a dick” – indeed, but he’s right about royal pressure
Dec 13th, 2012 by Conrad Landin.I’ve spent the past few days weighing up whether to write about the tragic death of Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who committed suicide after transferring a phoney Queen and Prince Charles to the bedside of the Duchess of Cambridge. The blame dished out to Australian DJs Michael Christian and Mel Greig has been absurd – […]
