Thursday 28 May 2009

MPs standing down, but not just yet

Watching Question Time.

So why can MPs who've abused their expenses funded by taxpayers and been found out, then agree to resign after pressure from taxpaying constituents and the media but decide to stay on for another year, and earn more wages?

In what other job would an employee have such control over their destiny?

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Wednesday 20 May 2009

Journalists vs PR: surely no contest?

Commenting on Roy Greenslade's MediaGuardian article: Truth-telling hacks defeat the flacks

The Media Society and the Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR) jointly hosted a seminar/debate, "Hacks and flacks: can there ever be a marriage?"
It's when there's so much PR copy being published as news by overworked or understaffed news organisations that the line becomes blurred between journalism and churnalism.

I mean no offence, as PR staff have a valid job to do, but its the use of their content in an ever-challenging news content environment that's creating a problem.

There's surely no competition between a theoretically unbiased, trained journalist against a PR employee directly leaning towards their employee's viewpoint.

Same goes for council 'newspapers'. The lines become blurred for the public until they can't recognise the difference.