The circus of justice

[bmck 117]

I was thinking about it, and I'm not sure it's possible to take the moral posturings of the media seriously at all anymore; they've just given up on even pretending to protect public interests any more and just descended into pure theatrics. They're light entertainment at best; you eat your morning roll and get worked up over the papers. They're like Jeremy Kyle. Wherever I agree with their analysis I can't shake the feeling that they're just saying it for show anyway; they didn't give a fuck, they just wanted to provide entertainment. All their little dilemmas and heroes and villains are just part of an ongoing show for our amusement, and nothing more.

 

You think back to old London town and public hangings. The guy getting his head chopped off looking one last time at the crowd and seeing people on a day out; eating food from vendors, laughing and joking, boo-ing and cheering, before justice parts him from his head. While he might be rightly punished, it would be hard for him to see genuine moral outrage in all people he was looking out at.

 

So, while I might think it might be right for someone to goto the gallows, or be arrested for sectarian chanting, or chastised for being an idiot when representing their country, it's not suprising that things like that happen. It's when you turn around and see all the 'good' people working up self-indulgent rage, paying so that they can read about it, getting all worked up and phoning phone ins, at the bidding of journalists who're more circus ringmasters directing easily-pleased punters than protectors of the public interest, that you're puzzled.

 

As one reads history, not in the expurgated editions written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time, one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted

- Oscar Wilde

 

If a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime, then it's infinitely more triviliased by the habitual employment of a panto press, not by the occasional idiocy of politically incorrect fans or childish footballers.

 

If you pay them money, you give them hits, reference their articles, it's your fault.

[Frankie 8,552]

Spot on mate. In today's News24 internet age journalists are often more celebrity than the subjects they cover.

 

Every different 'storygate' isn't about debating issues to improve our national sport or our social problems but simply to feed egos.

 

We're the John and the likes of Traynor are the ones turning tricks for 25p a time.

[biggordy 0]

It's a fact that when reporting crime, either newstime on TV or in your redtops, of the crime reported 80% will be violent and 20% non-violent. When actually, of all crime, 5% is violent and 95% non-violent.

This serves to make people more fearfull of crime than they should be. It makes people more likely to stay at home, read more newsprint, watch more TV, and, make them believe the world outside their door is a very nasty place.

All they need is a small element of truth to start things off, after all they can't print lies can they,but they can bend the truth. They can make heroes and they can make villains, depends on their own personal leanings.

eg. Two young, fit lads, just having put in a hard shift at their work go back to their digs where the boss has laid on some eat and drink. It's now their day off so they take advantage of their boss's kind hospitality as young lads are prone to do, and things go on longer than perhaps they should do. One of the bosses tells them to go to bed. They reply by telling him to go away, after all it is their day off.

The following day a newspaper who doesn't particularly like these boys gets to hear of this and those same boys end up getting sacked from their part-time job, suspended from their main job and vilified by the entire nation.

Job done.

All because someone at a newspaper doesn't like them and sees an opportunity to exploit the truth and column inches to the extent of 1% short of pure fiction.

Now after many hours of media reporting on this matter, two young men have their reputations as good professionals in tatters and are in great danger of losing their livelihoods.

This "news" paper's motto should be " Believe what you want to believe "