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In February I blogged about the beauty of news in its purest form and why it is worthwhile reviewing news from the past. My main point was that when news is processed into documentaries for example after the event, that raw instant reaction and early analysis is lost. Yesterday’s broadcast of the BBC’s 1992 election coverage as live on BBC Parliament hammered this point home. Read the rest of this entry »
Today I tried to dig out a few press releases from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website dating back to Peter Mandelson’s tenure as business secretary.
I was a little surprised to find that any press releases dating from before the last election had been archived.
Historical revisionism?
When I visited the archive, I found that I could not longer view the press releases I wanted to read. When I clicked through all I found was a blank page with the following text:
Browse Archive http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=412943&NewsAreaID=2 not found Read the rest of this entry »
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Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future. Although to be fair, I haven’t done much of the thinking myself – there are many people better placed than me to do that. For me, it’s been more of an exercise of observing and listening.
The two areas that have been the focus of this recent bout of crystal ball gazing are news and regeneration. In December and January I attended the Future of News group, a monthly discussion about where the news industry in this country is heading.
Until today, I was a member of a Facebook group called “the BNP are nasty racists and shouldn’t be here” (For non-British readers, the BNP is the UK’s ultra-right wing party). The group was set up a couple of years back to protest against a BNP presence on Facebook and it eventually gained hundreds of members. While casually flicking through my notifications today, I noticed that it had changed its name to “the BNP are nice and should be on here“.
I clicked on the link to find out which joker had changed the name of the group. My boyfriend suspected that Facebook had asked moderators to change its name for some reason. But when I saw the group, I realised that not only had its name changed, but also its description, thus altering its philosophy completely. It now was a pro-BNP group. Worst of all, I was still a member! I promptly left the group (along with many other members) and posted a warning to my Facebook friends via my status update.
A mural in Williamsberg, Brooklyn
Last year we spent several weeks touring America and Obamamania was evidence almost everywhere we went. I have written about this already on my travel blog and for the regeneration magazine New Start.
