Wednesday, June 06, 2007

How does Gordon Brown work?

In the hope that completing the exams doesn't mean AS students will have stopped following the news altogether, there is an interesting story here, on Iain Dale's blog, about Gordon Brown, the use of spin ,and the weekend coverage of his tough line on anti-terrorism. Some things, it seems, don't change.

UPDATE: Having had a chance to read the fascinating comments thread on the original Iain Dale post, above, it is perhaps worth noting that some of the journalists whom Dale accuses of going along with the Brown spin have responded pretty robustly. As it stands, the post and comments are an interesting dialogue - some of it pretty bad tempered - about the relationship of politics and journalism. One warning though - any comments place anonymously should be treated with serious caution. And while Mr. Dale rightly subjects the paper press to a thorough-going critique, blog commentators like himself, who are taken seriously as political commentators, also need to be open about their sources, and their stories are capable of the same critique that we should be applying to paper articles. If every reader is duly cautious and questioning, democracy emerges a winner.

3 comments:

fofufou said...

Marshall, how nice to see you updating regularly nowadays. I may have a cigarette to celebrate.

C H Daly said...

Hmmm very interesting, having read the results of the online media jousting competition I remain unconvinced by Dale. Interestingly, Hennessey's threatening of legal action has highlighted quite how seriously people are taking these blogs; especially as you highlight those of political commentators like Dale.

C H Daly said...

P.S. Your new blog header is even more tragic than the Olympic logo; shameless contextual satire.

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