Are the media hypocrites? The definitive answer

On the left (this is the Daily Star, but it could have been any of them), a picture of an underage girl complete with references to her breasts. On the right, an article lambasting the 'perv' TV bosses who allowed Chris Morris to broadcast a satirical programme attacking hysterical and hypocritical media pedophile scaremongering (click to enlarge):

And now Brian Hanraha-hanrahan's dead too!

Brian Hanrahan was a decent, reliable BBC journalist who made his name covering the Falklands war, and was on the scene for Tiananmen Square (oh dear, that's me blocked from China).

He was immortalised as the face of churnalism - perhaps slightly unfairly but irresistibly by Chris Morris in The Day Today:

This is the newsssss… God I wish it wasn't

Over at Blossom's place, she's bemoaning ITV News' apparent assumption that their viewers are utter morons. Coincidentally, I gave a lecture this week on genre, mostly contrasting Miss Marple with The Wire to discuss generic conventions, but I did start with a quick discussion of news conventions, starting with the music and credits. I showed the punters these clips:



This is ITV's News at Ten: a classic piece of work which packs authority, hegemony inconsequentiality and pomposity into a few seconds.



Now this is Chris Morris's spoof, The Day Today. When it was made many years ago, it seemed to be an achingly funny spoof of the desperate rubbish masquerading as TV news. Now it looks like the source of modern broadcasters' ideas. Does that make it even funnier or depressing?

Attention Media Students

Chris Morris, as I may have mentioned before, is a certified genius. Check out the Brass Eye Paedo Special: he hates the cheapened, sensation-seeking, celeb-obsessed 'journalism' that masquerades as the Fourth Estate these days.

He's always hated them. His radio show, On The Hour, went directly for them. Here's a glorious example of how media work:

Chris Morris: Bow Down, Mortals

As sophisticated media-savvy types, you'll know all about Chris Morris: The Day Today, On The Hour, Brass Eye, Nathan Barley - the scourge of the vacuity of modern media, politics and culture.

I thought I'd share with you an extract from Blue Jam, his hypnotic, disorienting, freakish and sometimes nightmarish mid-period radio monologues, from the days when Radio 1 actually had a brain. These were on late at night, always soundtracked with this vaguely ambient stuff, so that I would doze off and the monologues would leak into my already disturbing dreams. It's a very unpleasant experience.

I'm doomed…

Over on Bad Science and on Newsnight, Ben Goldacre is ripping Susan Greenfield and another 'researcher' to shreds for the ludicrous claim, as the Daily Mail puts it, that 'Facebook = Cancer'. She says 'there's no evidence for this but…' - which echoes the infamous Chris Morris paedophilia episode in which Dr Fox makes the same claim about crabs and paedophiles sharing genes (can't embed this one, but it's at 1.15).

The basic idea behind this ludicrous story is that use of Facebook etc. = loneliness = susceptibility to disease. Fair enough. In that case, holding tutorials yesterday made me very susceptible, and my daily routine (read books, teach, read books) means that I'm a high-priority case. I demand screening! Compensation! That bastard Gutenberg and his pushers Waterstones, Bangor University, Wolverhampton University, Amazon, ABE and all the other backstreet book dealers should be strung up for this. My entire life has been predicated on George Eliot's maxim: 'the world outside books is not a happy one' - and now I discover that hiding myself away with one will kill me.

Educate, Inform and Entertain

The Daily Star featured Gary Glitter on its front page the other day - something like PAEDO HORROR GLITTER TAKES BUS (really - apparently cab drivers won't take him). Over a few beers, we wondered how Chris Morris would update his famous (infamous?) paedophilia episode. Here's what we came up with:

The Paedo-Files - not sure what the show would be, but it's a good pun.

I'm a Celebrity Paedo Get Me Out Of Here - celebrity paedos appealing for your early release vote.

Celebrity Paedo Big Brother: a 7 year old (some kind of Romanian orphan or one in the 'care' of Haringey Social Services, ie somebody nobody will miss) sits in the centre of the CPBB house, surrounded by CCTV cameras, watching Gary Glitter, Chris Langham and a selection of other internationally-famous pop stars and film directors who've been acquitted or never charged solve puzzles which get them further round the maze leading to said orphan's room. C4 are no doubt filming it now.

Coming soon: Paedo! Which closely-modelled-on-a-celebrity character committed unspeakable acts, with what implements, in which room? Family fun for all the family (not for under 18s).