I have similar feelings about the Daily Mail. If ever an actual investigative piece on, say, child abuse rings or even (dare I say it) the death of a prominent figure is in the paper, it's completely overlooked, slightly understandably, because of all the casual racism and sexism it carries.
That's surely a massive problem. There seems to be no critical thinking in the country at the moment when it comes to checking news sources.
You're bang on the money there. The Mail, for all that it's awful, has oftentimes put its neck on the line as all papers have. Naming and shaming the swine who killed Stephen Lawrence springs to mind ... but who cares about that when there's fish in the barrel to shoot?
By reducing satire to 'let's have a go at the Tories', you balls up satire. By all means have a go at the Tories and their supposed mouthpiece, the Mail, but don't bury your head in the sand about the failures of previous governments, the limp-wristed efforts of the opposition, the lunatic fringe that's pretty much demanding you tear them to shreds, the lords, the royals, the clergy, etc. etc. etc.
When the only satire of note we've got left is the tiresome Have I Got News For You and the under-appreciated Private Eye, you don't redress the balance by throwing four trendy left-wingers who get all their information from the Guardian together to make snide remarks about David Cameron. A satirist should be an equal-opportunities side-swiper.
''deferring to him like sheepish sixth formers who'd been joined for a beer by their aggressive PE teacher'
This made me LOL more than I remember doing during the first series of Ten O'Clock Live.
I felt the same about the first season; Brooker's screenwipe bits were good, and David Mitchells' soap box was good, but these were both lifted from other formats, and the rest is sub stadnard variety sktech fodder.
The first season wasn't fit to tie the Daily Show's boots up. I wish they'd stop trying to make the English version, and just bring it back, hopefully with the Colbert Report. The rare instances they mentioned English politics were serene.
And, if I ever feel sorry for the Mail, I just remember the time they used the suicide of a teenager to print a 'ZOMG MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS A DEATH CULT WATCH UR KIDS' article.
Anybody involved in that whole sorry episode should have been taken out back and shot.
BPP - Exactly. Apparently you have to take sides. The floating voter concept's gone and non-voters are made to feel like outcasts. Add to that the fact you're considered a maniac for being able to pick out the actual news from a source, be it the Mail or the Socialist Worker, and we're all in deep trouble. The media, at the moment, seems determined to put us in a box and pit us against each other. Time for The Government Of The Pub, where PMQs go down in the car park, with sleeves rolled up.
U - The Daily Show is equally as biassed... and spends 10 mins per episode showing us that presenter's gurning face in lieu of forming punchlines. It has its occasional moments, granted.
Ugeine - take a look at some of Media Lens stuff on The Guardian's behind the scenes antics. At least with the Mail their propaganda is so ludicrous it's obvious. The Guardian's been twisting the facts so subtly it's almost hard to fathom.
I follow it on twitter Liam. I'm not disagreeing with your sentiments. I agree with both of you about The Guardian.
I'm not sure what you mean about The Daily Show, however. It's bound to have some kind of bias, but to say it's no different is a bit much. The central theme is that the left wing and right wing media have gone too far, and that's something they regularly get chastised for by proper liberals like Bill Maher.
Bill Maher is a complete arse, as well. That's not really relevent but I like pointing it out.
Fair enough, Ugeine. And you're right, Bill Maher is a total twit.
10 o'clock live is a bore apart from being crude and distasteful. I deplored Brookers skit on the Diamond Queen - too personal, out of place and not remotely funny, and when comedians need to use bad language to create a laugh they have lost the plot. Lauren Laverne is pathetic rather than amusing and if I were Jimmy Carr or David Mitchell I would find other partners to work with. I enjoy good satire not a left wing stab at the establishment. I won't watch again and would welcome the BBC taking it off the airwaves.
It's on Channel 4, Peter.
When a critic bangs on about unconnected reasons for not liking a programme and they include him or her trying to claim humanitarian creds, isn't it a necessity for them to balance the 'argument' (if it's even claiming to be one) ...... y'know, make a case, prove the opnion is informed?
Sooooo. would this little member of Pixie like to confess that they would prefer that Iraq is still as it was up till 2003 (and when doing so to prove that they do know how it was for Iraquis and had been for over 20 years)?
Step up Liam.
Well said.
The above belongs with Peter Vowle's post.
My job is to review a TV show, not debate politics. But to answer - as far as I can recall, the war in Iraq was started on a false pretext. That's the point, surely?
If memory serves, the war in Iraq was sold on false pretences here and on ass-kicking purposes in the USA. At least the Yanks maintained a shred of honesty with their 'regime chcnge' line, unlike our lot with their dodgy dossiers and claims that WMDs could be whistling our way within 45 minutes.
I don't know what this has to do with a crappy 'satire' show, mind.
I was in the crowd last night and it was just full of students who had no idea what had happened that week in the news. They might as well as cut the swearing and ran it against CBBC's newsround!
It was a poor show and I couldn't see the point of staging it live anyway.
@Peter: The BBC could help take it off considering it was filmed at one of their studios!
Too right, your job is to comment on a TV programmme, not to comment about the histories of its guests, when you say what your job is perhaps it's you that needs to remember to avoid politics?
I find people like you exploitative, you exploit the dead of Iraq since 2003 and are cosy to ignore all those thousands that died at the hands of sSaddam Hussein, his cousin,their army and their poisoned gas and the sanctions on their country since the late 70s (which the UN have admitted killed more per month than died in any month since the invasion).
Stick to commenting about the programme itself or you risk sounding as spoon-fed as Laverne.
Those UN sanctions you mentioned, you mean Oil For Food? The UN imposed the sanctions and crippled Iraq. Have you actually looked into that or are you repeating whatever you read in the papers?
Ask Hans Von Sponek, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator what he thinks about it. He resigned over what he called 'genocide' caused by the UN.
You sound like you approve of war without pretext. That's fine, you're welcome to your view of the world. Personally I'm not keen on Western countries toppling despots for the fun of it and installing a World Bank friendly system in their stead. It reeks of colonialism.
Campbell taking part in a satirical news programme and not being ripped to shreds is plainly ridiculous, even if you forget his political past. He's a spin-doctor - one of satire's greatest enemies.
But I'll go back to reviewing TV shows, thanks for the chat.
Actually, reading your comments with Campbell's tone of voice in the back of my head, you could well be him. 'Eebygum' - isn't he from Bradford?
Fishy.
Do you really think Campbell would be so cowardly?
Talking of cowardly and as I said at MY start, when a paid commentator drags up the serious decisions someone was involved in in their past and makes such right-on populist 'I'm a pacifist' fist shape (from a distance) you OWE it to your post to say what you would prefer to be the status-quo in Iraw now.
So do it.
Don't exploit many many dead people to abuse someone with, that makes you the user.
Scroll down to the chapter re Effects and that titled Estimates of Deaths
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq
before you think of answering the question you so conveniently pretended does not exist when you made your personalised popuylist crappy comment.
I do think he'd be that cowardly, yes. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
The lack of a logical pretext for war (no WMDs) makes it an illegal invasion no matter what the regime is like now. Even if the regime were better now (which it arguably isn't), the pretext was false, a lie, based on manipulated figures. That's the key issue. Everything else is moot. Moot!
Iraqi civilian deaths pre-war were in the millions chiefly because of the UN sanctions, which were savage and hit the people hardest. So the British government and he UN have been relentless in their campaign against Iraq from day one, starving civilians then bombing them.
Regime change means Iraq is now part of the world bank, and a few generations of Iraqis (and British soldiers) died for that prolonged and cynical grab. Alastair Campbell played a part in these events. And that is where I'm coming from. You are welcome to disagree, but trying to force me into comparing the two regimes is just stupid.
As for me exploiting dead Iraqis - that's a joke. You're defending the indefensible from where I'm standing. Which is apparently a completely different planet from yourself.
I genuinely do have to go and review something else now. Enjoyed the sparring.
There's the problem, Mr. Bygum. You think Wikipedia is a legitimate source for political data. You probably think the BBC is too. Oops.
Hoisted by his own petard!
Let me know a source that could be linked here so easily and do bogoff but instead of going to watch some other silly TV programme why not correct Wiki if you know it to be wrong?
It's all THAT easy.
LOL re your " lack of a logical pretext for war (no WMDs)".
You must think it was AOK then that those he and Chimcal Ali hid inside thousands of his own people ?
No scarpering off and avoiding the issue.
Admit you feel easy about exploiting dead people to find a way of insulting someone. How very very pathetic and sad.
09/02/2012 - 10:39
I saw one epsiode of this bilge the last time it dragged its transparently biased carcass across our screens last year. Awful, I thought. Where's Armando Iannucci when you need him?
The point of satire, surely, is to dig under the ribs of the establishment regardless of their political persuasions? As you say, cock gags and the now shudderingly tedious stabs at the Daily Mail from all corners (making me begin to suspect the paper's been intentionally set up by a gleeful left-wing cabal headed by puppetmistress, Polly Toynbee, to make right-wingers look like buffoons) does political satire a massive disservice.
At least Spitting Image had the guts to rip everyone apart.