Friday 29 January 2010

How to report the news


Just read the news. I'll understand.

Caution: Profanity

3 comments:

Neil said...

Great post, thanks. Charlier Brooker is brilliant.

Some of your other posts are a bit dodgy though. Calling the current US president "The One" makes you sound like one of the fringe right-wing cranks unfortunately populating the AM airwaves and Fox "News".

Criticize his policies, by all means. The churlishness is a sign of a writer in need of maturity and reason, style and wit. Such barbs don't diminish the president, only the author.

Cheers.

David said...

I agree I've been making too many Obama posts lately, but Barry has been having such a bad month and his reactions have been so tin-eared that there's a lot of material out there. The temptation of low-hanging fruit, I suppose. As to The One references, I see your point and agree that I should be clearer about who I'm digging at. When I take shots like The One or Barack Hussein Obama it's really more a shot at the media for their cult of personality and their open willingness to carry the can for the President. I only mean it to reflect on Obama when he believes his own publicity and goes into Jimmy Carter "how dare the people not follow me" mode.

Honour the office, if not the man is always the best policy–especially in the US where the President is also head of state, but remember I come from a country where the head of government is merely that and anyone can call him a bounder and a cad without a second thought. If Obama were PM, his State of the Union address would have been a riot of catcalls, jeers and laughter from both parties as they went after him and one another instead of like the Queen's speech where solemnity is expected.

So, I guess I must plead ingrained habits in part.

Neil Russell said...

Couldn't it also be said that Big O inherited 8 years of the acceptablity of calling the president everything and anything unpleasant? Mr Gibbs likes to point out something or other that was inherited every day, although it's never something like the amount of growth in the economy or the dropping of the unemployment rate we had before the soviets came back to power in 2006.
Or is criticism of the president something that only the uber-clever lefties are permitted?

And I'd love to hear the Statist for the Unions make a speech before Parliament, I bet there'd be a lot more than the polite snickering that met Bitter Barry's clinging to the global warming hoax.