Getting the message
I promised to post your comments on the walls of our confession box at the Edinburgh TV Festival and can report that they're doing a roaring trade.
Last night Jeremy Paxman gave his assessment of the state of the industry in a passionate speech calling for a new sense of purpose in television. You can read the whole text here, and if you want to leave your comments on that, we'll put some of those on the confessional too.
Comments
Paxman's comments are largely spot on. What he misses out is that a lack of integrity, intelligence and self respect applies to a majority of those who perform in the media circus, not just TV, and secondly he is an arch exponent of the 'blame, harass and confront' style of journalism which typifies the inadequate and ignorant and totally fails to inform, educate or entertain. At least the media is, at long last, looking in the mirror but I'll be very pleasantly surprised if anything changes.
Problem is none of those people reading the comments will pay a blind bit of notice to them.
Do we really think Heln Boaden or any other News bosses at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ are going to accept that despite the sums spent on them people aren't really keen on the standy-upy presenters with graphic filled 'wonderwalls'behind them?
Are we really expecting less coffee-morning style chit chat and more time interviewing recognised experts?
Will the next flood really take its natural place in the bulletins and wil anyone point out that if people buy homes on flood plains they have to expect the odd flood?
Does anyone really expect technology to get the same level of coverage on News24 as that minority past time 'footie'? Is there ever going to be a day when the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ understands that much of 'sport' is now a business and that all they're doing is advertising someone's product.
And let's not hold out any hope for the appointments of judges or quango chairman to get anywhere near the level of coverage that the changing employer of a football player somehow insanely generates.
Any chance of an mp3 of Paxman's speech being made available?
A journalist who reportedly earns £1 million a year, preaching to an equally overpaid bunch of meeja luvvies about whats wrong with the public perception of TV and how to change it. My granny could tell you the answer for 50p.
Someone at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, possibly you, should commission an investigation into the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. Not a report from a senior member of the great and good but a proper investigation using hidden cameras, covert recordings, planted 'employees' and the like.
A prerequisite to the development of any truly meaningful sense of purpose is to have at its foundation a rock-solid sense of balance; which in turn cannot be achieved without having first eradicated totally, all sense of bias.
As far as I can see neither the word 'balance' nor the word 'bias' appear within the text of the Paxman lecture: which is somewhat surprising given the number of accusations of bias that have been levelled at various sections of the tv media - particularly the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ - over the past few years.
Although paxman says lots of good things he essentially serves the beast he wants to slay. Should he not put his own house in order before he start taking a pop at the rest of the industry, other stations have commercial considerations. Only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ exist outwith the market.
So i guess tell him well done as he has managed to take a bbc problem and make out it is an indusrty wide problem and then be seen as the only one standing against it. Making the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ look like they are trying their best as usual, when in fact all it is is a yearly chin stroke followed by no action.
Humphries rallied against the exact same thing a few years ago - Paxman this tme - why not get somebody from newsbeat next time, they could explain the message in simple terms to us all