Blind side

Editing and history are a strange combination. Listening to the documents 'released' under the thirty year rule, about the political difficulties of the last  Labour government, the Message was very clear. 'Plus change'. The editing was so very careful you see. Stories which were actually rather unrelated, if taken in there full context, were juxtapose to make them appear to be the same (Cameron and Thatcher are rather different, but you would not of got it from the program). The Message was simple. Here we go again - this is the End of the Labour government  -which is of course a cheap story in itself. History is then made to appear  'current', and a plot line which the media have been pushing for the last three months or so,  made into almost into  'historical fact' in its own right.

 Problem of course is the very claim makes this ruth so much the more likely.

For more of the same go
here

The sad truth out Youth

Was it just me - or was Nick Cleggs failure to know the 'fairy Tale of New York', the oddest thing in the news last week. One wonders whether than man ever does christmas shopping at all ( surely why the song is so popular, is it is less irritating than all the rest of the Christmas-play horrors).

What of course it does show is the deep problem about wanting to have 'young' political leaders. If one is under fifty, and capable of going through all the tedious rigmarole necessary to be elected leader of a political party, one is almost be definition a Geek. 

In effect two political parties are therefore lead now by that weirdest of creatures, Geeks who have been puffed up into pretending they are some how normal. Men who are then, even as we speak 'studying normality', as best they may. Men who will strive to be as typical as possible: Until of course one has those delicous moments (like last weeks) when they are suddenly caught on the hop - and they abnormality is revealed to all.

 We could all have a lot of fun here! But personally, when it comes to government, and not comedy  I prefer to have honest weirdo's n charge, then Geek you are striving to be normal...

For more of the same go:
here

Whispering Pomposity

That is really what the problem is. We are all used to the problem of chinese whispers and the rumour mill. We all know a truth based on what they said to them about those, who had it from 'thingy' is at best the worst and most dubious of possible 'truths'. 

 Problem of course is that are News coverage is now simply the media playing a version of elaborate whisperings. And yet here on needs to get the problem. The problem is not that this is so. In a sense of course it is so (and most news has always been this). What however appears different is firstly that any pretense that anything else is possible has long since slipped by the wayside. This by itself would perhaps not be that significant, as the news would simply devolve into farce. It is the second point that is the killer. The Media has not dropped its 'truth claim'. On the contrary as the truth become more and more the game of a whispering campaign,the urgency and even more the pomposity by which that truth is viewed by the media has become more and more extreme. With the result that anyone doubting the elaborate 'factions (their world) of he media, is attacked without mercy.

Now that is the killer...

For more of the same go to 

here

That is alchemy!

It is a strange thing about the law: it makes thing seem serious!

 Take the current 'finicial scandal' consuming the Labour party. The degree of wrong doing is minimal. A new raft of legislation passed in 2000 to prevent widescale corruption is being used to beat the labour party of really rather small levels of corruption... I for one am left wondering so what?

The real joke being that the conservatives are also fund raising and using rather dodgy practices to do so. And yet because they remain in the letter of the law these practices are invisible - in spite of the fact they are rather more shady and suspect then anything the Labour party was doing!

That is the magic! 

For more of the same go 

here

Tit for Tat

it kind of had to happen.

 we jail some poor teenage Girl for calling herself 'terrorist', and writing vicious poetry, they jail a school teacher for allowing a bear to be called Mohammed. 

The really worrying thing about both these exchanges is that they are clearly the product of the merging of cultures: goth-Muslim and Primary teacher- Islam. What is not being tolerated in either case, is the very exchange that, in a world of many faiths and many believes, is likely to become the norm.

Now that is really a worrying thought....

For more of same go 

here

Wasting police time.

Given the current folly of UK opposition parties in calling for yet another police investiation  into Labour party here, i am left thinking that we really ought to invent a new 'crime' of waisting police time. Perhaps the crime could be defined as:  invoking the name of the police and a police investigation, in the hope that there is an investigation (and therefore a scandal can be allowed to wander on for weeks); and in the knowledge that if no investigation is held, one can call cry cover up; and to do so when  evidence suggests that the 'crime' committed is little more than very routine criminality, akin more to speeding than anything more sinister.

  

The real problem of course is that without such a crime, one is likely to have endless 'revenge' actions (which of course this itself is), as each party endelssly cry sleaze' at the others innocent (if idiotic) corrutions - and make the country quite ungovernable in the process.

For more of the same go
here

Well it is nice to know

Isn't nice when ones would be tyrant boasts of the oppressive webs they spin? 

At least it is honest -well nearly.

By admitting what everyone knows, that he controls the 'Sun' (wot wun it) editorial line, Murdoch is clearly opening up a very public bidding war between the main political parties in the UK. The paper paper will clearly support the politician who offers Murdoch the most : unless that is, it is simply too unlikely that that party will actually win, in which case Murdoch the opportunist will of course have to back the winner anyway.

 Let us just hope that our craven politicians do not give away too much in their quest for power....

For more of the same go

here

Look at me!!!!!!

Perhaps it is inevitable that we endless reproduce our own our political soul in some form or other.

In days gone by, it was of course in those wonderful categories 'the working man' or the 'taxpayer' or even the migrant. And perhaps part of the problem with modern political life is that much of the confidence so necessary to the production of such souls has been lost, as such souls become at once personal and secretive. Where the soul was once given in the membership of some collective identity, all of whom were subsumed under a statistical  rubric, it is now tied to a set of figures and facts which we are meant to carry engraved within our hearts (and never to reveal even to our loved ones).

 Hence the losing fact and figures (which were protected by passwords), it is thought to matter quite so much. That is, as we do not seem to understand the principle of safety in numbers anymore (realistically a scam involving even 100000 of the 25 million lost would be likely to stand out, and so the chances of its 'being you' are probably smaller than the chances of being caught up in a road accident). We see only the personal worry-  the personal risk to our own  finances. Moreover there is a real oddity in the entire hysteria here. It is clear that in a sense we have confused ourselves with a set of statistics - and feel a personal loss when  the government looses yet another set of figures (which is no doubts a hardly rare occurrence). I suppose politician really had better take note though, if those statistics really are our new political-souls then the no doubt everyday and run of the mill lack of efficency in any government department, might be so easily taken as something diabolitical.


for more of the same go 


here

It still has bells on it!

Well it had to happen!

 If the Great Snake Kaa claimed to have been mistaken for a plumber by a model, then the Labour Equivalent, the little Mole Miliband , (a Man trapped in the magnitude of his office) clearly must do the same.  Like a monty Python Yorkshire man, Moley no doubt dreams of being mistaken for a plumber by a model; all that happens to him is that is thought to be an electrician by a child. The Guzzzzump is almost tangible! None of your models, none of you plumbers (with their connotations of leaky pipes), the Mole is mistaken doing his (stage managed) duty by that perpetual (if non voting) presence in political life ' A child'.

 Presumably the other would be star of this Triumvirate of over blown talent, ' Nick' Clegg, will claim in the course of the week to have dreamed of being mistaken for plumber by a model or an electrician by a child,and 'claim' to have been mistaken for a nurse by an M-difficil virus (or some such equivalent!)

For more of the same go here

here

Notes Towards modern Media Definitions:

Please note this Dictionary is always interesting in expanding so if you have some definitions of your own (How about some non-BBC ones?) , either email me  or leave a comment...

" Academic"

as is he is more an academic than a leader.

def: Academic is of course one of the worse insults in the entire in a the lexicon of certain section of the media. Here the image is painted of a sphere removed from the world, in the groves of academe, where cloud compellers and logic chopper engage in endless argument. the strange thing about this critique is that it is not purely critical. The dwellers of these groves are not condemed, but rather tolerate, the same way one would tolerate madmen or 'foreigners'. What they do is there own concern therefore (as long as they do not waist to much public money) so long as it does not effect the rest of us! This 'toleration' is of course more damming then any direct criticism. Most critical it is used to set up a barrier between thought and leading. Any really thought leader, or rather any leader who sees it as his job to encourage and create thought in others is immediately told to go back to this mystical land of cloud compellers. An absolute barrier is therefore imposed upon thought. Any one who encourage the first hesitant step of thinking in others  (which always are always slow and very difficult ) is derided and condemned as some how beyond the pail. the possibility of a thought national debate (or at least one not start and arrange by the media, for the partial purpose of entertainment) slips into being impossible. 

Note: the effects of this war of thought are merely the latest variation of that very old philosophical chestnut, which asks the question why people fight for the slavery more fiercely than they fight for their freedomn (more taxes less bread, not less taxes more bread). People will fight for their right not to think, therefore, with greater vicousness than they will fight for their right for thought. the problem with academics is that they do not understand with idiotic fact about what calls itself the 'real world'.

"Admit"

as in Gordon Brown admits wrong doing.

def: Admitting is used to imply an extra dimension to a wrong doing, real or merely 'admitted' on behalf to a politician. To admit is not to confess, or  to 'come clean', or even to state, that one has made a some mistake. It differs from these terms as it makes the very 'admittance' itself an additional fault. The key point being here that admissions are something that one is forced to do. A politician who 'admits' is therefore bound up in forces which are beyond their control, their weakness thereby becomes apparent for all to see. To  be forced to admit something is to be doubly worsted: One looses the ability to act is a certain way, but are also punished for ever undertaking such an activity (that might well be fully or partially legitimate).

 " and now"

as in and now the police men strike.

def; And nowism is of course the cri de coeur of many a 'news' paper. The essence of 'And Nowism' lies in the light footed nature of the moves it invokes rather than in the stories; its aim is to report (or better invoke) an impression rather than report on anything real.  Each and every story might well(indeed usually are) false or at least not quite what they seem, but that really does not matter, just so long as each serve to herald another story, and yet another. The point is of course not ever in the story actually reported, but rather in the' story' (or prejudice) which is never (necessarily) formally stated, and yet what is implied by that and now. This implication is actually rather complex. take for example the classic 'and now' which strings together the fabrication which past muster for reporting on political correctness. Most (if not all) these stories are absolutely false (some a based on some truth, but not often), and yet the 'and now' offers  certain tabliod (The Bum, the snail and the sneer) good copy, by which both the deep knee jerk prejudice against anything liberal can be articulated, but also in the same breadth the labour party castigated. To 'And Now' is not therefore simply to articulate one or many prejudice, but is also to allow the prejudices to comment on each other in diverse ways ( the labour parties is both responsible for political correctness, but is also molded by it, the two and therefore conjoined in some manner, while remaining also distinct).  

"another..."

 as in Labour are facing another scandal.

def: 'anothering' as a general term of course marks the point some long running plot line encompasses yet another story. Often  unrelated events are thereby threaded together in the interest of over arching stories. However anothering extends beyond this usuage in that it is highly pro-active in manufacturing the overarching story. Stories which are in themselves rather minor and hardly a scandal at all are by the magic of 'another', turned into something significant. This process is essentially indirect. The more insignificant the 'another' story is, the more potent appears the power of the overarching story (and the more pervasive its influence is revealed). There is therefore something unutterably cocky in the very phrase 'another'. It is the point the journalist knows there stories are more important than any sense or proportion.

"Answer the Question"

as in  kindly answer (alt 'stick') to the question, minister.

Def: this is a semi-mystical phrase, which allows the Journalist to don the role of the great champion of liberty and freedom. The remark is often (although not always) used to occlude the  inadequacy of the questions asked, which are frequently  unanswerable (or idiotic) ; and habitually, are more about the interviewer prooving their mettle against the politician, than they are  in themselves substantive. The inestimable advantage of this phrase of course lies in the fact that historically (and still occasionally), it is the case that the mythic roles of sharp eyed journalist, and oily Politician are appropriate, and so the phrase is liable to trap in unwarily listener into accepting the journalist and their questions at face value.  Once again  any awkward problems about the viability or appropriateness of the questions are simply avoided,  as  the frequently hapless politician end up taking the rap  (but what else are they for?).

 "at the eye of a media Storm"

as in the women at the heart of the media storm.

def: The storm is the 'gift' of celebrity - and therefore open to chance elements, and random events. The individual at its heart is frequently bemused at all the hussle and bussle which surrounds them. Such an emotion is of course natural enough. The storm is by an large a fiction constructed around the individual around the individual at it heart. This situation is by itself potentially problematic. The 'centre of the storm' has nothing to do with the story itself, and therefore there is a real risk that that centre might act in a way that somehow devalues the story that has been built up around them. This possibility is removed by this phraze, whose clear implication is that the center of a storm  is naturally different from its surrounding storm winds, so the individual at the heart of a media story, does not really 'know' the nature of the storm they have create. The reality of the storm is ensured, even when its the person at its centre appears to deny it.

"Blind Spot"

as in he has a blind spot of the effect of tax increases.

def: te appeal to biology is interestingly problematic both in scope and application. In scope the original blind spot of the eye is not the point one cannot se at, but rather the point one assumes within sight that one can see, and that everything is just the same as everywhere else. Surprises are therefore hidden in a blind spot. It us in politics is however rather different. And event or any number of people of social groups, particular those which have been of concern to journalist themselves, can become a politicians blind spot. that is the issues or  people they appear destined to ignore. A reality of government, namely that one cannot do everything at once, is thereby biologified, and becomes in some way a defect. Blind spots become then almost synonomous with achilles' heals. Politicians are constantly encouraged to return to the drawing board, and re-throw all their choices (and so include in sight what lay in their blind spot before). The result is that government becomes at once irratic, and uneven as some blind sides are allowed, while others are ruled out of order.

 Moreover a genuine blind spot (in the biological use of the term) emerges between politicians and the people they are attempting to govern. So used are politicians to the constantly nagging of the media and their appeal to what is unseen, that they becomes utterly unable to tell when real blind spot elements emerge (that is surprises which had lain unseen in the mind). Uses whic are self evident to the general public (and the media) can then very easily surprise and overwhelm the said politician. Fake blind sides breed real ones...

 

" Break the Story"

as in our reporter, Nick, first broke this story. 

Def: The moment of complicity between politician and journalist. On a vulgar level this complicity is a matter of simple exchange. The politician gets the story they desire in the media, while the journalist gets an ego trip. However  there is a far more sophisticate (and general use), where on the one hand the politicians managed to open a complex can of worms, while on the other the media receives, usually very gratefully a new can to play with.

  Note, in both these cases to moment of complicity involves an instantaneous exchange (hence break). The can of worms the politician wishes to be opened, and the one the media actually opens only collide at the moment of breaking. Hence, for a politician to allow a story to be 'broken', is synonymous with the phrase 'to play with fire'.

"Calls for"

as in there have been calls for the PM to resign, to nationalize, to privatize, to invade, to cut and run, to investigate, to set up a public inquiry, to dance the fadango...

def: 'Calls', are made without account. The game here is a double one i) any policy, no matter how impractical or daft, can become the subject of call made by some political opponent. Their game here is not to present a real alternative so much as the fact that the act of calling, itself produces an impression that 'something Must be Done'. In a sense therefore a successful 'call' for a certain policy,  by the opposition, is never direct call for a  policy that the government can or will follow. It is merely an act of provocation. A successful 'caller' s one who can pitch a policy which immediately sounds good (in spire of being quite unworkable). The aim of such a call is to up the profile of the caller, but also, by increasing pressure on the government to increase the chance that the eventual decision will be a bad one...  ii) The second possible game involves those actions, on behalf of government,  which the opposition reckon must be done (and at whatever the political consequences of those actions are). The game is to call for these often unpopular measures in advance; and gradually to up the tempo of these calls, as the decision becomes more and more pressing. The government thereby gets the blame for an unpopular decision, all the more so as it apparently 'dithered' for political reasons, while the opposition get cheap credit. 

 The danger of calling  is of course that if a party makes too many daffy  'calls', then it will throughly discredited. Successful opposition is therefore a  game of calling just the right amount.

Note:While the two senses of calling are essentially mutually exclusive, at any one time, this does not mean that the same call (say to nationalize a bank), might at different times be caught up in one or other calling.

"Circus"

as in this has turned into a media circus

def: Circusing is a one of the most beautiful moments of collective denial that dot through our culture. The Circus and the media are of course one and the same. And yet it calling themselves a circus the media change who is blamed when a feeding frenzy. By accepting a little of the blame, and yet ensuring that blame is then in their 'circus form' two things are achieved: a) The media's tendency to make up stories and become obsessed with a certain story, becomes not a thing endemic in the media itself, but rather merely a production of a certain circus. By accepting a part of the blame, they contain a more general criticism. b) A circus shares the blame. One cannot have a circus without having other participants. Everyone is to be blamed, and blamed as circus participants, and the media peculiarly place in the proceedings is quietly obscured.

"Clever"

as in General Dante (or the constable of North wales) is a clever man so why did he say or do that?
Def: Phrase used to denote that the responsibility for the effect of a story always lies with someone other that the journalists themselves. The sense is then that here is a clever man, and so he ought to know that we, the journalist would all behaved like a bunch of disturbed and neurotic two years olds, so why did he make us do it?
Note on usage its is part of the grandiloquent set of phrase that use phraze to at once dam the individual praised, while also exonerate the the individual who praises. It is therefore in the same family of phrazes as 'with the greatest respect' meaning do not be a raving idiot; and 'novel' meaning Mad. although also note the refinement in this case, as the phraze is less condemnatory and more self justificationary than the norm.

" Competency'

as in the government appear not longer to be competent.

def:It is a much remarked fact that governments are necessarily incompetent. it is less clear what competency itself is. Or to put it better, no-on ever notices what a government when it is 'competent, for such competency is utterly invisible. Visible and tangible competency, is therefore always defined in the negative. It is what the government is not doing (but should be doing). This is of course a highly movable concern. What  a government should be doing changes week on week, and so how it is thought to be competent, (that is the criteria by which it is gauges) changes. Recent attempt to cease control of the competency agenda have by and large failed. Performance target represented the government attempting to define what competency was. However this proofed impossible as, the criteria itself became caught up in events (and therefore could itself be portrayed as somehow incompetent).

Note: competency is almost always caught up in the politics of the lobby system. A lobby journalist stigmatizes a government as some 'incompetent', when they feel personally betrayed. that is, when the fact and figures they have been told (in confidence) proof to be inaccurate - for whatever reason, a fact that makes the smug journalist feel daft. Cries that a government is incompetent is muddled up with pettiness... 

"Confidence"

as in, what all governments fear most is a perception of incompetence, and the gradual erosion of confidence that goes with it.

def: Phraze originates in the nineteen nineties when journalists first tasted the joy of running a prolonged witchhunt against a government. The said witch hunt involving a subtle mixture of disasters for which the government could be held responsible,but also those that they are clearly only partially responsible for , as well as those that they can have no responsibility for at all. Indeed it is the latter stories that are perhaps the most critical in developing this hunt, as they imply that the idea of the government itself has become unlucky. 

Note: usage is undergoing continued development as the media try, and try again to uncover the secret to inspiring a really good witch hunt. What is being balanced here is the conflicting demands that while the one hand the claim that the hunt is on is very much a part of the initial instigation of the hunt itself; but on the other, as this call has to be made as a condition for the hunt to be at all, it is perfectly possible to call a hunt too early or inappropriately. The danger being of course that if too many false hunts are called, the public will loose faith in the ability of the media to play the role of witch finder general. Thence it is possible that the phraze will eventually pass out of use altogether, although it is more likely that its cautious application will dog political life for many years to come.

"Connect with the voters"

 as in Sunny Jim really connected with the voters

def: Connection is of course the nightmare of the journalistic classes. That is, they fear a politicians who in spite of all anything the world or the media itself throws at them, and no doubt by chance and the accident of mannerism as much as anything else , still remain popular. The problem of course being that any too blatant attack on such an individual will rebound against the journalists themselves. Their strategy in such cases is two fold. i) to make this ability to connect itself the story, and thereby turn the politician into some kind of 'freak show'. Any success the politician has, can be attributed to this 'animal magnetism', and as such dismissed. ii) the second strategy involves indirect critique, and mockery (think 'slick Willy here'). The very ability of a politician to connect with the voters, open then up (as one of the family) to a series of 'personalized' jokes: one feels one knows the said politicians, and therefore are entitled to gently laugh at them. the maid will then gradually warp this laughter, making it  less and less gentle...

"Consumerism"

 As in one can consume more information on the Website.

Def: Consumerism is a portmanteau word combining various highly disjunctive elements: a) The root word is synonymous with devouring and destruction; use highly negative. b) It describes the alleged  right one has to have ones right to 'consume' guaranteed; consumerism therefore has a usage akin to political activism. c)  is a grandiose term held to be equivalent to using. 

One consumes  both in the destruction of finite resource (we consume the world's resources) but also use the the word where no real destruction is necessarily the case (we consume information). The effect of this synthesis is to neutralize the otherwise worrying implications of our polluting our own environment in the cause of satisfying our lesser whims.  Consumerism is therefore at once a problem and the solution, and a right and a duty, and difficult questions become ignorable. 

"Cover-up".

As in was the home security guilty of a cover up over the numbers involved.

Def:  Complex usuage.

  (i) The politician or Policeman or indeed any non-journalist professional, was guilty of not leaking figures (or even worse partially leaking some of the figures). Sense is then 'We' (the journalists)  know we were lied to, because someone expected us to do research (rather than simply hand us the story on a plate). 

  (ii) To accuse another of a cover-up is also in accuse them of attempting to uncover all the information before telling the journalist. So that policies are then based on hard, and reasonably well understood information. The Journalist thereby looses the right to endlessly speculate about what the policy should be before all the information has been assessed... 

(iii) Relates to any activity by the victim of media Lynch mob to hide.

 ( iv) Quaintly archaic (and still very occasional use, in some unenlightend parts of media) describing pre-mediated attempt to deceive or lie. Essence lies is occasional crimes, and not widescale application (otherwise all professional life, including all editorial are a 'cover-up').

"Crisis"

as it the government appears to be in crisis

def: The most important aspect of modern crisis theory (and its management), is its implicit volatility. So for crisis one might read panic. And yet there is a clear different, as where panics are almost by definition an over reaction to nothing in particular, a crisis implies a real, and justified cause, at least initially. To be in a crisis (and its talks) is to be caught up in facing down  reality, even if that catching up, also involves panicking and all the illusions that creates. The advantage is clear. To manage a crisis becomes itself a deep test of leadership and resolute response , in a way that simply panicking does not. The appeal to crisis therefore allows the story to change register, and to also become a story about whether an individual leader is up to the task or not. A crisis on sterling becomes a crisis  of leadership almost be default. The advantage being twofold. i) each story get more bang for its buck. That is, a good crisis easily spawns new crisis, and they yet others, until a leaders authority is quite blown away. ii) It also enhances  a carefully constructed hybrid reality, between an acknowledged (or merely alleged) reality and the story itself. Managing the report (and listening to those reports) become itself a part of the action. We all become dimension in the drama that radiates out from the point of crisis.  The News thereby itself becomes a part of the reality of the crisis - and is thereby transmuted into reality' TV, rather than passively reporting reality. To be is crisis - to be caught up in a crisis and its management is thereby to at once radiate an elaborate fiction, from a single point of reality; while it is to allow that fiction to then become the subsequent reality (a crisis) itself.

"Culture"

 

as in there was a culture of Spin.

def: culture has thee interlinked usages.

a ) When  story has run and run, without any real criminal or even scandalous activity being uncovered, the entire story becomes about a 'culture'. It is somehow the culture which was to blame. The fact that the story itself was to a degree a fiction, is thereby transcended as only a fiction is of course 'big' enough to uncover the workings of a culture.

b) Culture is used very much in the same sense that nature was used in the nineteenth century. If something is cultural is it beyond all criticism. It justifies not only itself, but also any air time that can be filled with stories about it. Packages of profound blandness are thereby presaged with a brief discussion designed to proof that what is about to be discussed (be it an Album, or 'celebrity chefs or whatever) is a 'cultural phenomena' (as if everything else was not!)...

c) Culture is used to obscure the media's complicity within a story. Spin, which is of course the bastard child of the media's laziness, become itself a cultural artifact, and they are by implication exonerated in the process.

Note: These three rather different meanings of the word cultural are used back to back in succeeding interviews, or even in the same interview, making it at once very hard to fathom all the implications of any questions (and thereby providing the journalist with a ready source of 'come backs').But also making it rather hard to hold the media to account, as they always defend the most defendable of the definitions.

 

"Damage Limitation"

as in it was very much a damage limitation exercise.

Def; Moment of holding back within a story. It is then the point at which the journalist wonder whether to  invest more time in developing some scandal or whether it might be better to drop the chase, realize their capital (that is the damage they have inflicted) , and then turn to consider some other topic. Hence the fine nuancing in the phraze. Those undertaking 'damage limitation' have at once received their punishment and are trying to regroup, and yet also in trying to regroup they are still behaving somewhat suspectly. They do not simply answer the charge or apologize or resign, they limit (and thereby imply that more could be said). 

"Defense"

as in the bishop defended his view on...

def: Modern defense has acquired, in the hands of the media the extra dimension, that it always carries with it the charge that any defense is, no matter how justified it might appear to be, is really a defense of the undefendable. The Origin of this undercurrent is possibly the innocent and unintended effect of the attempt to present a balanced picture . The Same medium which thought it worth while running a story is the media in which the story, is expected then to also publish the critique of the same story. Journalists therefore are expected to look in two direction at once. It is only naturally then, that a degree of, often rather unjustified, and yet understandable scepticism creeps into their treatment of  such defenses. Be that as it may, the hapless defender is often made to look shifty (or merely bigoted) by the attempt to make a defense of their position. The dilemma of course being that if they make no such defense, and even worse allegation will be put to them...

"Dodgy..."

as in dodgy dossier or dodgy donations.

def: the use of dodgy is   very recent, dating from the Iraq war and the infamous dodgy Dossier. The word, which is always in the form of an alliteration, created a moment of humor which resonates across several registers. i) The alleged author of the 'dodgy' product, is the butt of the joke. They are, the insinuation goes, the veritable Keystone cops of the criminal world - so incompetent that they cannot even get corruption right. ii) The product be it register or donation is shown to be an irritant - akin to a 'dodgy' curry. It might be bad. It might make you wish you had not done it (it might even make you stop doing it), but the entire effect is funny. iii) but (and apparently running counter to the last point), the accusation is made there is something rotten in the heart of government. Government, and things it does have become somehow problematic; and our only friends are those who we can share in the graveside humor of laughing at that fact. That is, our only friends are media, the revealers of all things dodgy. iv) Governance has been revealed to a mere trick, akin to a card trick. It has become a dodge, to be done artfully or not. The effect of the dodgy-alliteration is thereby to at once produce a wide scale stinging attack on the nature of goverance, while interweaving that attack to a particular case, and subtly avoiding all criticism, by that staid onld calim it was all just a joke.

"Do the Maths"

as in, do the maths a hung parliament is a possibility.

Def: Defined, by long custom as a courtesy tag, which serves to allows the reporter to introduce a sequence of delightful speculations supposedly illustrated by one set of figures. The tag in usuage here operates almost in exact reverse to real mathematics. Where real mathematics will look to analyse and re-analyse differing shifting possibilities, from which a cautious conclusion is then formed. 'Doing the Maths' by contrast, uses a certain supposed set of figures, to create a fixed number of set options (without necessarily the need to distinguish too greatly the chances involved in this set of possibilities). Long terms concerns, or question or stories or whole 'plot lines' of news, are thereby given a veneer of mathematical  respectability.  Doing the maths has the inestimable advantage of allowing in one series of options entirely separate 'plot lines' to be (albeit temporality) conjoined. A single story might then be also illustrative of a number of long terms journalistic bugbears.

"Especially amongst... "

 As in Hilary Clinton tears helped her, especially among women.

def: Tag is used when the media have got an election call totally wrong, and they feel the need to account for that error. The tags works therefore be in effect finding a group to 'blame' for the unexpected success. That is this group are said to have reacted in a way that somehow 'went against' received political wisdom (in a rehash of the old 'not logical tag'); or to it it another way, are blamed for having opinions and feeling which are radically at odds with the believes and political prejudices of the journalistic elite.

"Ethnic (or Tribal)"

as in this violence has an ethnic/ tribal dimension.

def: The existence of ethnic politics reveals a real blind spot in reporting. Namely (as ironically,  given many other entries in this dictionary) its inability to understand the effects of history. The problem with ethnicity is almost invariably reported as something primitive that other people do. What is forgotten is that much of the ethnic violence actually stems from the fact that the rigors of the post colonial world demanded the creation of nation states, where none has existed before. The culture (and the politics which is caught up in that culture ) simply does not pull in the same direction as the arbitrary boundaries which once foistered on a 'country' by the 'inter nation community' become more or less sacrisanct. Then, when, division (almost inevitably) open up within such artificial  'states', it is blamed on a suppose  'ethnicity' (with the implication of primitive or brutual/backward), and not on the failure of the post colonial world to devise models of 'statehood' subtle enough to cope with diverse cultural/political realities.

"Exit Polls'

as in the exist polls show

def: exit polls always had a curious status. Traditionally  they exist in that fold of time after the election is over, but before the result is known. there are therefore a reporting of something that has happened, in the name of (and in the name of) something that will happen. The past is thereby shaken up to reveal the future. However it is clear that into the temporal ambiguity a new dimension has been added. Exit polls offer journalists a quick and all too easy story, which turns an election into a morality play about a virtual war, which is being said to being arranged between various groups in society. One therefore takes an exit polls to discover how blacks or women or the young or the old voted. This group is then treated as a bloc or fictional army, which rallies to a certain cause en masse. What could have been a good news stories (there is something very positive in the Democratic choice) becomes yet another story of division in the deep south or mid west or wherever of America. Election are thereby metamorphosised into a virtual war - which makes good copy, even if it makes government so very difficult.

"Facing further Questions..."

as in the prime minister is facing further question...

 

def: 'Further' questions, mark the point a story gently slips away from an investigation of a real scandal, and becomes rather about forcing a politician (or any other leader) to account for what passes as normality within a complex system. One faces further questions when the unremitting (and highly distorting) prism of media examination, is bent upon an entire organization (and therefore is no longer tied to any specific problem). Questions at such times become necessarily never ending, and always beg further ones, and they yet further. The story is then freed up to run and run.  The only thing which eventually limits this fact is the attention span of the media and their perceived public. But this lack of attention does not of course stop the fact, that there will always remain those 'further' questions, which blight the reputation of a politician, and warp their judgement as they might be tempted to devise policies to answer these essentially unanswerable questions.

"Feeling on this one"

 as in as no polls are allowed, what feeling are you getting about the opinion of a party 

def: This is another expression to cover not only the absence any hard facts, but also the absence of a story. The softest of stories, and least interesting (and often snidest), of reports can then be dressed up as 'taking the feelings;  of a group of people. The Journalist involved can thereby pose as 'serious' and even as performing some public function, when of course they are merely filling air time!

"Flood"

as in there is a flood of people coming in.

def: Human flooding s a strange phenomena. It changes the resonants of whatever disaster has occurred, all too often  taking the emphasis of the actually cause (for no one directly causes the flood), and places, instead a degree of blame of the people doing the flooding (for everyone hates the water which floods them out). Refugees thereby become the target if not of blame, at least of something rather similar to it.

"...-gate"

 as in it is water/Iran/any Bloody nothin -gate.

def: -Gating has of course gone beyond Irony. Anything/everything, any scandal however daffy or fictional is a gate. the power of --gating' is to conjoin elements of mockery (every little scandal') , elements of injustice  ( a -gate= media feeding fenzy), and elements of serious journalism (Water-gate was after all Watergate). In this conjunction the media at once appear to mock itself, but also in that mockery to subtly praise itself, and justify its own action, that is its own production of a 'story' (where would watergate be without the journalists that 'broke' it or the feeding frenzy it inspired). A single slippy axis is thereby produced, where serious investigations , are mixed with threats, innuendo, and mockery. This axis is of course invaluble as it ensures whatever the outcome of the story the journalist will the appear or have miraculously predicted it (or perhaps allowed for it) ! Any which way the media wins.

" Gathering Momentum"

as in there is a gathering momentum for the PM to resign

def: Portmanteau term, conjoining two passions within the journalist. i) Is expression of laziness of the part of the journalist. once momentum gathers, their job becomes so much easier, and any serious engagement with the story ceases: The story becomes momentous. ii) Is a statement of glee at fact that a story , the media started now has its own 'momentum.  The claim is therefore akin to a furious chuckle, which claims 'we did that'. Once again the cod physics is vital here. It is only this physics that 'naturalises' the lazy odium of the above sentiments, synthesizing them into something apparently 'real'.

"half"

as in Tiger population will halve in 25 years time

def:Halfing is part of that general media campaign which sees in statistics easy stories. critical in these stories is that the figures must be simple (we all know what a half is) , but all details (for instance the number of tigers now, or whatever) which allow one to judge the story are missing. Moreover the story itself is pitched in the fore knowledge that such figures are essentially unnecessary - in that the majority of listeners will to ask for further clarification. the result is a story which mount o a smile without a Cat. It lone and meaningless figure, which worlds as a story, but not as reporting. moreover the problems here as of course greatly complexified by the fact that, agencies feeling that even this meaningless coverage is better than nothing, will connive in the presenting of meaningless figures, and thereby behave as if those figures meant something.

"Heard"

as in we have been hearing about people to accept there really is a problem with white working class culture

def: The Heard is a complex pun. By 'hearing' certain individuals, the media develop a language by which a whole series of often rather unrelated gripes can be articulated, under the principle that if one tells someone they are oppressed they can always find examples of that oppression. The act of hearing, creates a self defined Herd, which can then be defined, and articulated by the same journalists who went with the story in the first place. To be one of the herd/heard is therefore to be one whose gripes and moans are contained within a certain fixed story: t is therefore to be one of the represented (albeit by the media), and of the labeled. One hears in making a herd.

 "Hearts and Minds"

 as in one needs to win over hearts and minds on this one (ad nauseam).

 Def:  Used when journalists really have not a clue what will happen next. The use of the phraze is then as a catchall explanation; if a policy which the journalist clearly endorsed fails in some way, one can invoke a battle of hearts and minds to explain that failure. One useful effect of this phraze is that it prevents the necessity for real thought. All the complexities of advocation and persuasion become thereby reduced to a metaphor of battling and are thought to be akin to the actions soldiers or sportsmen. It thereby becomes impossible to understand the complexities of position beyond this simple analogy.  A move which has the inestimable advantage of greatly simplifying the job of the reporter.

 

"i"

 as in i-news or i-blog

def : Ruse for cheap broadcasting that allows listeners to set agenda, and so meet duties to reflect an audience while avoiding need to spend much money. Moreover, phrase clearly useful because it errodes the power of real stories to matter, and thereby frees up editorial choice. That is,  the editor who wants to run with 'my Goldfish has Bunions' and not famine in Dafur, can use i-format as pretext (as it is what the listeners want). The News is thereby torn from tedious plot lines of reality, and freed up to be what it should be, proper entertainment!

"I am afraid"

as I am afraid the NHS is screwed

def: a remark (invariably used by a political opponent), which uses cod concern to express at once glee and  relief. However the phraze itself needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. The fear is often far from genuine...

"immigration"

  

as in there is a real concern with the number of immigrants 

def:Migration is a modern collective myth. there is little problem with assimilation and relatively little problem with migration ( we actually need to make up for the numbers of British people leaving.). But that is of course jot the point. We all 'know' as a country that there is a problem, irrespective of the truth. it has become then a modern myth. A myth media (who like running the story) and politician (who get a cheap policy) can easily and directly respond to. The fantasy rumbles on,in a space utterly detached from reality or sense. The problem of course is that the poor and the innocent are often caught up as collateral damage in this modern myth. We end up thereby behaving as an Aztec priest prepared to sacrifice go knows how many people in the name of a blind faith.

" inundate'

 

as in we/they have been inundated by the public with calls of this one.

def : Point at which a story changes character. Where before the inundation the story was merely a story, presented to the public, for their reaction; after the inundation that reaction itself has become part of the story. This move of course has the advantage of greatly extending what can be said about the story, and the delightful speculations one can fill air time with about its over all effect. The refrain here being, that after the point of inundation, the 'fear' of the collective 'public' has now become something tangible, and must also be addressed, else it will be whipped up into something truly dreadful (see you and yours entry).

"In Tatter"

as in the government policy is in tatters.

def: Tattering is of course point the media habit of attacking the government from all sides bares fruit. After weeks of banging on, the politicians finally become unable to resist any long, and tatter a policy. That is they resolve it into the parts that come closest to the multitude of conflicting policies the media has been running with. tattering is in many senses opposes to the mechanics of the compromise. A compromise involves a pact between different individuals each who gain and lose in the exchange. Tattering is a far more problematic affair, as a policy implodes into a series of squalid little appeasment, which satisfy no one (save the reporters caught in a lust of tattering power).

“Irrational”

As in (and this is a quote from memory, also from yesterday’s “Black Monday” news): “For the last four years we have seen an irrational exuberance in the markets, which has not been replaced by an equally irrational pessimism. Of course, it’s completely understandable for people to think this way…”

def: Here the journalist is trying a clever trick to redefine reality as a phantasm by claiming that the perception of a reality staring one in the face is merely the product of irrational fear. Like “technical term,” this can help save us from a coming catastrophe by suggesting that we simply need to use different words. Note, however, the caveat that is inserted, even though it confounds the statement: “Of course, it’s completely understandable…” This is the journalist’s escape route in case his call for people to calm down goes unheeded, which will, of course, ensure that this so-called phantasm remains the reality that stares one in the face. If the irrationality continues, it turns out not to be irrational after all, because it’s completely understandable: logically considered, now was the time for people to have an irrational outburst.

"I Take Full Responsibility"

as in I take full responsibility for this decision 

def: Responsibility is a complex modern doctrine which revolves not around blame, so much as liability. To claim responsibility is  to deliberately draw all the media fire onto oneself (and thereby saving others, guilty or not). Such a claim being akin to an ordeal by fire or water; if the hapless individual survives they will grudgingly be allowed to remain in office (this time).  Thence responsibility does not involve the concept of blame because it is designed to answer a necessities set by a media witch hunt, which itself has nothing to do with the truth. That is, as such a hunt does not involve any sober investigation of the facts, it does not provide for (nor could it be limited by) a simple acceptance of blame (which can only exist in relation to a set of established facts). To accept the liability by contrast is to take responsibility for whatever stories (false and well as true) are thrown up n the course of a witch hunt.

"Joined up Government"

as is let us have some joined up government here.

def: Mythic appeal to  utopia. In a world where there is by definition a gap between policies and their application, and an even profounder gap between the debate that induced that policy, and the effect the same policy has, joined up government is by definition, an anathema. It is the nature of governing to make constantly individual decisions based of particular circumstances, and so any 'joining up' between distinct way of governing is impractical (if not actually impossible). However, this simple fact flies in the face of one of the key assumptions of modern democracy (and its media). That is, that one can elect a government to simply do what it says it will do. If one cannot, (or does not) , the rational 'assumption' on which democracy is based slips by the wayside. It is into the gap thereby opened between what a party wants to do, and what it can do, that the modern media media locates itself . 

    The job of the media is here in a sense to keep alive the myth that 'joined government' is possible (or even desirable). They do so by identifying endless slips between policy and its application. These slips are then 'traced' back to an alleged failing in the policy itself (experts, who judge with all the luxury of hindsight are critical here). The government is thereby blamed for what is in fact a inevitable consequence of the system itself.  A systemic problem of liberal democracy, is thereby absorbed within mundane argy-bargy of political life. Politicians become the whipping boy (or better living sacrifice) whose apparent 'failure' allows the entire system to function (that is to absorb what in effect ought to undermine it).  In this respect the demand for 'joined up government' is the archetypal appeal of opposition. For the  opposition knows it will only come to power, when the ruling parties pretense to join up its policies has publicly collapsed.

Note: It is this ability to create a feedback process between policy and its application that defines the importance within a 'liberal democracy' of a 'free press' If this press is lacking, and therefore no feedback is set up, there is nothing stopping the centralized policies and their local applications, from drifting apart, leading to tyranny in the centre, and corrupt in the periphery.

"Lessons must be learnt"

As in we will be sure that the lesson's are learnt on this one.

def: Phraze habitually used instead of more simple plea for mercy. The burden of the meaning of the phraze being that the organization (or politician) has taken enough of a beating and should be left no to lick its wounds in peace.; although only  after  first confessing to the inquisitor, and thereby confirming to the 'general public' that the torments that they underwent, were indeed justified (and the media therefore a just judge and executioner). If one is lucky at this point the plea is enough, and the department is then left to run itself once again. However a modern variation, sees the media story genuinely being taken seriously by the organization, which will then attempt to make amends by ensuring that if exactly the same thing happened again, no media frenzy would be possible- and do so by whatever means possible. This ruse on behalf of the organization is of course bound to failure, as in attempting to ward off what has gone, the same organization, opens itself up for fresh disasters.

"Looking over their shoulder at what critics in (some newspaper) are saying"

as in the drafters of this legislation are looking over their shoulders to see what the papers are saying.

def; The act of Looking of ones shoulder has become a curious multi-dimension affair, where the eye might see many things, in a highly complex and intricate horizon..

a) The first object of their gaze is no doubt various newspaper journalists who function as the immediate main audience for pretty well most of a politicians activities. In a world where politicians are at once dependent upon voters for their job , and yet cut off from them, within the halls of Westminster, the importance of this audience, with its boastfully (and highly contentious) claim to be the VOX POP, is difficult to exaggerate. The politicians need the journalists to somehow 'represent' the people, while the media are vain (and blinkered enough) to accept this role on face value. Major policy decisions are therefore made, in the name of  a very smaller number of highly prejudice individuals, whose vestige interest lies in selling papers, and not governing a country...

b) In the middle distance, the politician sees their party and their colleagues. These together form some kind of congregation, and yet a rather limited one. It is an axiom of post Foot politics that a party which thinks only about what it wants writes suicide notes. The Glance one spares for ones party most be a hasty affair. One needs their support, and yet one also needs to push that support to the limit of what it can do... By the same logic, a distinctly wary eye needs to be kept of ones potential rivals in the party , without staring at them alone...

c) This middle ground is also occupied by officials. The problem with modern 'consensual' government is that the role of the officials has clearly shifted somewhat. Once politicians to all intense and purposes abandoned 'big ideas' in favour of 'big speeches' and micro differences in policy, then the power of the official to cock up and up everything was greatly enhanced. One cock up and the entire difference between parties is either simply lost; or (even worse for a government), the oppositions claims to micro-manage everything might seem to be attractive. Modern politics involves the government keeping one mad paranoid eye, constantly scanning for cock-ups which are by their nature invisible. 

d) Beyond these audiences, there is that far wider audience who never bother themselves about politics at all, or rather, who only bother at the time of a general election. This audience is fed a routine diet of pap, to keep them happy (by other journalists in 'other' newspapers). And yet as they constitute the majority of the population, their political 'opinions' are likely (if significantly  marshaled in the one direction) to swing an election. Politics has in this regard become the game of appealing to those who care not for it. The game here is clearly to ensure that at any one time (and always near a general election) the media and the newspapers are full of an on running debate, which resonates in someway with these non-political mass. That is, it is to create the impression of a long running (and well thought through) discussion within which individuals (who lack the interest to follow complex argument) can  readily locate themselves and (once every five years or so) feel a part of. The Glance over the shoulder is the glance towards these masses, and to the type of debate that might be being formed within the wider media (and country), into which these people will then locate themselves when the time comes.

e) Beyond this group of people of people at the furthest reaches of knowable political space, are the real world problems of environment, poverty war etc. This real world needs to be scanned from time to time, in order disasters can be forecast (to a degree at least). It would however of course, be political suicide to too greatly concern oneself with this reality. 

"Luck"

as in Gordon Brown was a very lucky chancellor.

def; luck is the strangest of assets, as it is more defined in the negative than the positive. A politician is said to be lucky, when they are defied a sequence of media predictions. Praise is given, and yet at a critical point reserved. The Man was simply 'lucky', not skilled (although it is not absolutely clear where luck and skill hook up together). The right is therefor reserved to bring all the old scandals back, in the face of a fresh crisis: the man was never competent the cry is at such times, merely lucky. Luck thereby effectively queries success, and makes old possible failure haunt, and re-haunt the present. Politicians might need to be lucky, and yet luck is hardly something any politician should really actively want, even though unluck is certainly something they need to dread.

"Media watcher/expert"

As in 'we asked media analyzer (or better watcher) Roy... for his comments on this story'.

Def: The Expert's role is to treat the media as if they were part force of nature and part innocent child. Their analysis therefore always consists in two parts. Firstly they accuse anyone who under almost any circumstances critiques the media of, at some point or other, having connived with it, as if this neglates their criticism (after all the same could no doubt be said of an almighty God). The Second strand is to re-describe the media's behavior as some unstoppable force, which everyone needs simply to accept...
Note on usage. These experts are always caught up in wide campaign, run by the media to carefully delimit the power of academic voices. By ensuring that media experts are of the most vaccuous kind, they at once free themselves of all real criticism, and devalue the entire idea of critique!

"Message"

 as in I am sending out such and such a message to the voters.

def: messaging has become an important line of resistance against the Babel howl of current journalism. a message is a single piece of information, which must be represented in one chunk. In transmitting messages, therefore a politician or a business (or any other public body), act less like a transmitter of morse code, and more like a marooned sailor writing a message in a bottle. The Message is wrapped up in the bottle of a single text, and cast adrift amongst the 'stormy ocean' of media criticism. The aim of the message then being to somehow ride out the storm of that criticism, such that when it is 'read out' but journalists (who are often as not engages in 'critiquing' or just mocking that message), it still resonates with its intended audience.  From this last fact, it follows that the exact content of the 'message' is less important that this ability to create a resonance which is founded on impression and by and large subterranean (as the journalist are very unlikely to want to admit its existence, as that would of course compromise their own power). 

It goes without saying that the need to 'message' the voters, warps the kind of politics which is possible. The  politicians who can message the voters are almost invariably not the ones who are best at governing the country.

"...Must be hoping that they have done enough"

 as  in the Prime minster must be hoping he has done enough to answer his critics.

def: A complex move which aims to extend a story that is clearly in danger of fizzing out, by describing the feelings of one of the principle  protagonists involve. The phraze thereby buys the often all important day, during which the story can be kept in the headlines in spite of the fact that nothing new has happened. It goes without saying that this day can be of critical importance, as it will allow time for other treads in the story to be uncovered/invented. A story which is in fact a series of highly disparate investigations (spread over a number to days) can thereby be effortlessly stitched into a single thread.

"My Favourite..."

as in my favorite moment in the campaign was...

def:  Favouritism involves a heady brew -of boast, anecdotes, and triviality. Each journalist, fondly imagines that their 'favourite moment will capture something human in a campaign, and thereby communicate that extra hidden dimension. And this does indeed from time to time happen . However the current mania to talk of their 'favourite moment' (and with it confirm 'their' status as one of the 'greats' of the media world) transforms the entire language of favourities. Favourite moments become a matter of course. Such moments reveal far more about the journalists conceit than much else. Reporting becomes a bad species of travel writing. Moreover when the 'real world' of politics' does intrude into the onanism, is is often of a curious kind. Namely, the personal take of a story which the journalism themselves were instrumental in whipping up in the first place. The effect of such accounts is to at once prolong, but also naturalize, and generalize a long running story. The story thereby become almost invariably about the person, and not the issue. Bad jokes, (and reactions to bad jokes) become passed of as reporting, and the entire way one locates oneself within a political world (populated by both people and policies) is subtly shifted.

"Naive"

as in the family, or minster must have been very naive about how the story would run.
def: Used when a story as taken a sudden and slightly unexpected direction which might, if a moments reflection was allowed make the journalist feel uneasy. In order to stop this happening someone else's naivity is invoked, there by implying that the entire direction the story has developed should have been forecast by someone else (usually the initiator of the story).

"National debate"

as in we need to have a national debate on the number of immigrants

def: Media run national debates are one of the curses of the modern age. they have no aptitude for it, and conversation devolves into two elements. i) there are those agreeable cheap problems where so called experts give a few opinion, and pander their ego a little. The trouble with these experts is that they are often those who like appearing on the media, and are therefore not necessarily those best qualified to start any meaningful debate. ii) the far worse sequel involves the inevitable 'exchange of view' of media run web page. Such exchanges bear no ressemblance to anything like a debate, and are rather a mere 'swapping of opinion', as one swaps stamps (or slaps for that matter in the childhood game). The entire debate is therefore effectively pointless. And yet it is used by the media outlet to illustrate that it they and no other outlet, that allow people to articulate their 'thoughts' best.

"Need to know the truth"

as in we need to be told the truth on this one.

def: Used frequently by political opponents when they fear that a story might be in danger of going away which they wish to keeping the public eye. the appeal to truth having two effect. a) most simply it implies lies. b) But more subtly it is in effect an unanswerable. if one flatly denies it then the story rumbles on, as it will if one attempts to counter it with further facts and figures. it one ignores it then of course it looks like one either has no answer, or wants to hide something. The only real danger in this appeal to the truth is that the relevant government department actualy has kept accurate figures, and so a truth is demonstrateble that disadvantages the truth seekers in someway. However this is usually thought to be unlikely.

"(the) new Global Warming"

as in terrorism is the new global warming...

def: One of the profoundest shocks to face modernity is that other systems behave with rules akin to (and yet delimiting upon) humanity. That is, it had been a working assumption for two hundred years or so that if one abolished God, one could simply substitute man (or some man made organization - such as the economy), into the space which God had occupied. The possibility that there might be other 'non human' system was lost (or expressed in terms of UFO's). The possibility that these other systems might feedback into any man made system, and pull it asunder was dismissed as mere science fiction: Human creativity the battle cry went up, would be quite enough to cope with any eventuality. It is this paradigm that global warming shatters, by not only  imposing hard limits upon humans, but also doing so in the name of some other complex system (or better systems). Humans are thereby forced to become accountable not to to 'nature' , but rather to the far more complex sliding register which interlaces numerous highly interactive natures. 

 This very modern shock is in the process of quietly traumatizing the language.It becomes the role model for other similar shocks (that is moments where some complex system forces a hard 'reality' check upon human reality). And yet is unwinding these other shocks, the media clearly introduce  three  and rather problematic elements to the account. They thereby quietly 'humanize' such shocks in three distinct ways. i) They apply the paradigm  to very human problems, such as obesity. The profound, almost religious element of the shock of the unknown, is obscured (if not lost). ii) They absorb the 'environment' into the normal political hurly-burly. It becomes merely one problem (amongst others), and not perhaps the dominant and profoundest shock of modern times. iii) They marginalize any attempt to respond to the profundity of the shock,by developing a parallel debate about religious extremist (or extremism in general). A debate, which lies at hand to absorb, and pervert,what would perhaps be an authentic response to the problem we face.  It is this battle ground for expressing the traumatic, which is very much one of the deep fault lines of  the modern media, and its language usage.

"Olympics" 

as if the the torch is the symbol of world good will.

def: if the olympics were merely about sport no one would want them. Sport is a rubric or  a constant within which is pinned a very modern franchise. Each country which 'wins' an olympic bid gains the right to the claims that the entire affairs is about sport (and so innocent), and a few extra symbols of continuity (torches, loops etc), and a whole lot os meaningless spiel about global unity. They are then free to inhabit the spiel and the symbols as they choose. What it more they are free to rebrand the 'games' anyway they wan, while claiming at the same time the rights that this is a global 'brand'. countries gain then the temporally right usually given only to coca-cola and other mass global poisons, the right to instant recognisabilty, the right to claim to be the Global village for a while. into this branding they are the free to pour a welter of conflicting political views and values. The game must be not to make these two overt or rather those that are too overt will be ineffective). One must rather somehow set oneself up as the global idea. that is one must allow whatever values ones own country has to appear to  bit the desirable ones for the global community. Hosts gain the right to behave therefore as if they were beacons of light,  illumine the path to that mythic global unity, . that is they gain the right to bridge for a while that impossible gap between a nature desire (or ache) to be a globalised and so harmonies) community, and the desire to be a nation state. Each nation sate gets the right to play globalized for a bit (and everyone connives in this game). the entire affair is therefore necessary highly political, even when it is not party or state political.

"oh, I almost forgot"

as in oh, I almost forgot what the prime minster said.

def: The Mock incompetence here is of course designed to suggests that it is the politician, who suggestion was too ludicrous too be worth reporting, that inspired the 'error', and not merely the slackness of a journalist who would rather be recounting their own opinions than doing anything any more serious (or stressful). The delicious laziness implicit in a form of opinion based reporting , is therefore highlight, (after all the confession of failure on part of the journalist is a real one, and yet laid not at the journalists feet, but rather the politicians , who do not deserve any better from the journalist that feed upon them...).

"Ominously Like..."

as these crises are ominous like the sleaze allegations.

def; The media has long since  adapted the old Marxist dictum that history really must repeat itself - and if it does not, one better simply pretend that it had. However, they add the additional dimension that each story must repeat itself more than once as why waist a really good plot-line? Moreover a really good story, if repeated more than twice, will begin to 'repeat' itself. All one needs to do to have story, is to remark the scandal is ominously like...and everyone knows exactly were they are, what to look for and what to believe. Moreover there is a clear additional benefit in that the mere intoning of the 'like', is enough to reinforce the idea that history really repeat itself. One thereby not only makes news reporting easier, but also stories, and even more importantly the audience more predictable or even docile...

"Once again"

as in once again the government have been but to turmoil over...

def:Macmillan's old adage that it was events dear boy events, which most up set governments, is of course a maxim which delight the media, as it in effect hands power over to them on a plate. for it is of course the media who, to a very large extent control coverage of event 9r at least the kind of effects Macmillan was talking about). In this process the 'once againing' has its critical role to play. Any series of events are stitched into as continuos narrative of cock-up and mishap.  Events are articulated, or perhaps better become  the musical notes in the score composed,  by the media . Once this has happen has happen the government will be sucked into a sinking sand of event. Event is piled on event (once again), and even good new stories become transmutable into disasters. Moreover (as Macmillan suggested/instigated) this slippage into chaos will invariably (and quite inaccurately all things considered) be laid at the foot of the prime minster. They will invariably then take all the blame, even though it is of course their political party that suffers the consequence (years of opposition).

"Opinion poll say'

as if opinion poll evidence suggests 58% of people want to execute their neighbours.

def: it is an old truism that opinion poll evidence is at once meaningless in itself, and yet will also serve as a good story to fill empty pages of print. However a further problem needs also to be added. The opinions one gives when first asked a question is often rather different to subsequent thoughts on the matter. And yet it is of course this first impression (or rather the sum of first impressions) that are  published within such polls. There is therefore a deep inbuilt bias in opinion polls towards the most simple explanation for any problem (that is the answer most people say, when first asked a certian question). A solution that of course appeals to Media and politicians alike, even though it is far from clear that it is in any sense the best possible. 

"Orthodoxy"

 

 as in the orthodoxy is that hilary Clinton will loose this one. 

Def: Media orthodoxies revolve around simplifying thought. An orthodoxy emerged if it makes a story both easy to report, while also apparently giving that same story a 'media' edge. Orthodoxies need their to be just a 'little wacky' - and seeming to open the mind to a difference of opinion, while all the while conforming to a wider story line (as such the Clinton's are always in every occasion devious...). There is of course a variation on the orthodoxy theme in that once established differing with the orthodoxy in little ways is also the stuff of political  journalism (or better it is a very easy story, with a free plot line). These critiques though are invariably measured. the game is not to blow the idea of orthodoxies out of the water all together, but only to modify whatever orthodoxies there are, or even to replace them with a new orthodoxy. The critique is therefore at once a new encouragement to a quick quirky additional thought  to the orthodoxy, while at the same time apparently precluding the need for further thinking. 

" Perceived"

as is there was a perceived rift between government and...

def: Perception is an important myth to defend a story which all parties involved within the story have denied, and yet which at some point had been reported as 'truth'. The story is now said to be perceived to be true, and this itself is said to be a problem. That is the story shifts to be about reporting of the story, rather than the story itself. Lazy journalism, and repeated failures to move beyond agreeable lunches and the lobby is thereby covered up- or better made someone else's problem.

 "Performance figures/targets"

as in the hospital or school or whatever has or hasn't reached so many of the target set.

def: This is best current defense against the what he 'listeners/viewers tell the media' see entry below). The aim strategy of this defense rests in setting up a set of meaningless figures as a decoy device. The rat-pack will almost invariably attack these figures (and whether they represent anything) rather that the politician. the joy of this defense is or course that as both sets of information are inherently valueless anyway, the entire debate is thereby side tracked into a meaningless and distinctly 'theological' discussion, and away from an really dangerous!

"Personality"

 

as in it is personality that matters these days not policy. 

def:The cult of personality rife in political (and media) life, is of course the point at which one is allowed to turn ones brain firmly off. Hence one is connived at to follow feelings and half thoughts rather than indulge oneself in any more rigors examination of the facts. The supreme sanction here being that even if one or two individuals do make the effort and engage in critical thought, they will be simply over born by the deluge of people who judge according to 'personality'. Thence it is far better to 'go with the flow' and choose the personality one prefers, rather than ending up with the one other's might choose. The entire act of making policies and reporting on those policies is reduced to a matter of presentation, making the entire mucky business so very much easier...

"Put Meat on the Bone of That" 

as in let's put meat on the bone of that report.

def: Used when the story actually rests on a highly dodgy opinion poll, which would not actually stand any rigorous mathematical examination. None the less when meat is put on the bone,  those figures are illustrated with a sequence of interviews or subsiduary stories, all of which are predicated on the fact that the initial survey was valid. Very contentious points are thereby made to appear not just substantive but also self evident. All the more so, as that story is the frequently used as an introductory 'package' to a subsequent interview. A politician is then expected to respond to it (and made to appear slimy if they demur). And so a story then becomes treated as if it were true, quite irrespective of the any actual evidence for it.

"Pressure"

as is Gordon Brown is facing mounting pressure to...

def: Unlike many other phrazes the theory of pressure is of no recent phenomena. Dickens used it in Little Dorrit, to describe an alleged conjunction of emotion and physical causes capable of killing man (a claim it turns out which is quite spurilous).  A Meaning that has long since passed into population use (which blithely ignore the irony of Dickens formula). However in the political context, two extra dimensions are developed. i) The pressure has ceased to become internal to the person feeling it. Such an individual is no engine in danger of blowing up, but rather a mere cork caught up in forces beyond itself. ii) Pressure operates by externalizing a 'story' - in order to become a part of that story. Pressure builds, as a story simply rumbles in one basic direction   (as differing interested parties attempt to jump in the bandwagon, or merely to keep it going). Pressure like narrative implies, and externalizes  this process. A 'single directions' becomes synthesized and thereby naturalized (pressure built,the story had to go this way...) However the cod physics of pressure adds the extra dimension that the appeal to pressure, not only synthesize distinct elements, but also enhances and directs them. The pressure thereby becomes 'the problem' is it also explaining, and intensifying... 

 

Note: The above formula of : 'story is problem, is explanation, is intensification' is perhaps the greatest of modern journalistic formulas. A secret formula which clearly has a role to play for journalism akin to the 'causa sui'  (cause of itself), in seventeenth century rationalism. It is the founding principle, the point beyond the system, which nonetheless is vital that the system function at all. As such in almost all the other definitions in the dictionary overtly or covertly revolve around this formula.

" Recent Report"

as in a recent report has found the whitest place in Britain

def: Recent reporting operates as the curtain raiser to a subsequent season of stories. The game here is for such a report to predate the season by about to weeks. it serve therefore to wets the appetite, and raises the issue. It is of course the case, that these reports are never simply false,it is rather that they are rather un-newsworthy, unless that is supported by a subsequent season. case that these reports are simply false. it is also often the case that the seasons themselves would be rather thin and useless unless the news report had 'proved' its validity first.

"Serious..."

 

as in there are serious questions still to raise

def: The appeal to seriousness has a vital part in manufacturing plot line. Standing on the juncture of two distinct dimensions. i) frequently the appeal to serious is made  to conjure away the slightest suspicion that a story is becoming itself ludicorus. Actions which one could become in another context be really rather understandable (and possibly universal), are by the magic of the 'serious' transformed into being suspicious. ii) 'Serious' questions (or problems) also involve a clear rebuke. The individual facing such questions, stands of also being accused of somehow not taking the story seriously enough before, by either not telling the full story, or not reacting quite in time. The appeal to seriousness in this case, makes it appear that the  politician (or some other official) is somehow to blame for the fact that the story is still running. The Journalist thereby manages imply that the very fact a story continues implies a degree of guilt (and not merely the fact that the questions themselves have changed). Moreover the eventual boredom which consumes first the public and then the journalist when faced with a story is also thereby blamed on the politician, who just will not 'tell the truth', and so let the story dissappear...

" simply do not get it"

as in those who labour under the prejudice that the world is as it seems simply do not get it.

def: Getting it or not is one of the real sublties of media usage. The 'it' to be gotten is a fault line in between  what,given the evidence one might rationally expect, and the reality as the journalist understands it. As such the phrase firmly occupies a fictive domain that can just as easily encompass reality as error. It is clearly very useful to define not getting it in an active and passive sense . In the passive sense a politician or a newspaper or a company clearly does not get it, when it remains wedded to a previous model.In the active sense however, (and this is usually internal to the media) pundits are said not to get it when they fail to allow for the fact that the media and political classes more or less deliberately cocoon themselves of in their own little society, which one can only join if one 'does get it'. Getting it is thereby transformed into a set of 'house rules', or codes which one must follow, and everyone who does not get these rules, is dismissed as somehow a fool.

"Something happened"

 as in but something happened in the last 24 hours

def: The science of something is akin to the myth of divine intervention. Opinion polls, and the prejudices (or mere lazy hopes) of the media are never allowed to be simply wrong, nor are things simply allowed to turn out other than they predicted. On the contrary a degree a certainty must invariably be recovered from an apparent mistake. One can therefore infer from a failure to predict something that 'something' (who can know what) must have happened to explain that failure. The blind and hidden hand of God its thereby invoked, and error and laziness transformed into divine intervention.

"Sorry tale"

as in it is a sorry tale of political intrigue and wrong doing.

def: Sorry tales are the product of hindsight and triviality. A Whole series of local (and usually unconnected) decisions are bound up into a single narrative, in which they are taken to be all part of the same story of minor wrong doing(and contempt for due process). The Tale itself is necessary as each one of these separate acts is minor in itself. They only become a 'sorry tale' en masse (rather than each individually being  major political scandal in its own right). 

Note: One of the paradoxes of sorry tales is that they are frequently the product of a misplaced honesty at the heart of government. The Government confess to a minor misdemeanor in the hope of killing a story (and possibly gaining some kudos from the confession). Unfortunately the subsequent investigation produces a raft of similar problems, all of which require anew confession. The entire thereby becomes a sorry tale.

"Rally"

 as in the stock market rallied today.

def; The Concept of ralying creates an accord but also a feedback between two very distinct worlds. a) The world internal to the stock market. the market clearly understands itself in terms of a motile battle ground. Rallying is here critical. the call to rally, or the belief one is rallying, is the call of hope that resounds across this battle ground. One rallies to the colours, n the hope of getting together, and acting will change everything. And yet there is this clear difference with the battle filed. their the enemy is still arranged against one . Ones rally might then easily turn into folorn hope or a managed rout . In the case of stock markets the 'enemy; - that is those who could rout the rally, are other stock markets (which do not hear the call), and beyond these others, doubt itself. Rallying is caught up in an elaborate fiction. One rallies, and then one waits and sees what others will do - will they rally or not. Will they need other doubts. Will the enemies of doubt brake through (or not). In this the very martial overtones of the word rally are no doubt critical. As Rallying could or cold not lead to victory, so everyone knows a rally might or might to be short term. The question is then always exactly what story the stock market collectively writes.  b) the second dimension that the jumps into this first is the soap opera cum participation sport  that the stock market is to everyone else not directly involved within it (or only involved through risking their goods in its chanceries). To these people, the news of rallies, is a godsend, and yet a doubt. They thus are court up in a story of their own, and yet one not related to the abstract enjoyment of battle that motivates the stock market themsevles, but rather the every day issue of whether or not they have money.

 Rallies thereby have both local and global interest. the two then feed into each other, and he stock market confirms to itself its own importance (everyone watches it, an importance that then effects how 'it' s a collective whole manages what it does, and why.

"Real"

as in the real world, beyond this story...

def: An appeal to reality is used in two distinct context.

a) there is of course an on-running battle about the nature of reality. Both Media and Politicians constantly attempt to out flank each other by their appeals a 'reality'. By reality in this context what they clearly mean is the future - or to be more exact the next general election campaign. Each in part  wish to 'conjure up', but also to 'summon up'  the 'reality' of the campaign  in advance, and thereby make it more real. That is they aim to make it more likely (or at least not less likely) that the reality of that future campaign is fought according to the axes that are being referred to as 'reality' in this context.

b) There is a second somewhat more reflective nuance here. Politicians, and their journalists are very aware they are caught up in each others 'reality'. Each needs and feeds of the other. One gives stories, the other audience. Reality stalks the neat little 'Westminster Village' however, as if a Demon., which always threatens to force it to open to quite a different world.

 Note  There is a real tension in these usages. Both politicians and their Journalist  would like to pretend the second element in reality was encompassed in the first. Everything is thereby absorbed within the comforting reality of being  a future election issue. The Idea that there might be a Demon, which eludes this net is quite frankly terrifying...

"Reassuring the Public"

as in  'can you reassure the public that...

def: Usually the introduction to an either impossible or merely highly undesirable request, made in the name of public fear. The public are therefore envisage to be stroppy two year old in need of some crumb of not necessarily rational or sensible comfort. The implication also being that the official or politician is not even capable of this simple act of parenting...

"Recent Events"

 

as in, due to recent events that might not be the case any more

def: The point a story becomes not only open ending but all encompassing. That is, it is the point at which everyone knows themselves to be caught up in the story, and its effects; effects who implication are still being felt (and will no doubt be felt for many years to come). Recent Events are therefore elements not to be forgotten or forgiven quickly, and mark the point at which journalist believe the world has changed for good ( and  if it is not so changed, it will not be  for their want of those journalists trying).

" Reminiscent of"

In acts reminiscent of previous crisis...

def:  Reminiscence in the hands of a journalist, is akin to review. If events appear superficially linked (by geography, or culture or even even more vapid associations) a past is conjured up and the present is made to resonate within it, and do so in in spite of the protestations of all parties that the comparison is quite inappropriate. A story, albeit one that everyone involves concedes is in fact wrong, thereby appears to right itself, and do so with a momentum that appears quite irreversible. The issue is complicated because the action of the parties involved, while they might in fact  be distinct from the past to which they are compared are not necessarily wholly so. That past might well itself also be haunting the actors involved in a various ways. The crude reporting of the past as if it were reporting, might be (to a degree) virtually 'true' , even if it were actually false. Moreover the mere act of reporting the present as if it were an adjunct of the past will itself (if it becomes widely known), certainly effect the incredible fragile structure of that present, and thereby create new ways in which the past could be thought to haunt the present.

"Responsiblity"

as if this appears to have been the responsibility of junior doctors

def: An appeal to responsibility (of someone) is clearly an ruse whose main goal lies in driving a some story or other forward. In this end its usage is complex .

i) Responsibility is habitually used once some problem has come to light. A complex system, with all its intricacies and complexities, is then reduced to the errors it produces. The entire system is resolved around these errors, as if their production was the only element that mattered (as indeed in the context of the story it no doubt is). A myth of culpability is thereby produced.

ii)Responsibility is also used to negelate the  human factor. Doctors are not allowed to be tired (or simply wrong), as if they are responsible, they must also be right! The entire history of humanity, which is full of people who are not so wonderful at their jobs,, and the special position of science, which has the unique twin priveleges of screening out the least appropriate, while being able to mitigate and minimise the natural errors of even the most appropriate, is negated under a welter of perfectionism. Here the notion of personal identity is critical (see you and your's entry ), in making a slightly unreasoning coward of us all.

 Underpinning both of these usuages is the contention that one can understand a complex system in terms of a specific failure it at one time produces  (a chain is strong as its weakest link). Responsibility has however a far greater application, in setting up a myth of (self) justification for the complexities and inadequacies readily apparent in the relations between different interest groups in society.

Once again certain distinct heads can be separately considered.

iii) Responsibility is also used in the sense of partiality. A Company is said to have a responsibility to its shareholders, or a government to its tax payers. The Self interest of a group of people are thereby singled out as somehow special. And as a result, the continuing manufacture of some unfairness or other, is merely seen as an expression of some other 'responsibility'. Thence morality becomes the justification for immorality.

iv)Grand Delinquent term attempting to shrilly re-codify and thereby articulate a complex history, which nonetheless eludes the term. Hence over the last fourty years or so, the exact dimensions by which a family operates (and the way individuals have been perceived to be a part of them) has greatly complexified (with more types of families, and more types of individuals being allowed to qualify as formal family members). This increasing complexity has been associated with an increase in the level of anxiety about traditional family issues (such as the raising of children, or voilence to children). Some of this anxiety is no doubt real enough, while some was always there, and some misplaced. Responsibility is however used indiscriminately to attempt to build back into the complexities of the modern image of the family something of the perceived certainty of the old order. The shrill refrain is if only adults or children behaved responsibly everything would be alright. One thereby buries a very complex and intricate problem of what it means to live in a complex and evolving social situation within a comforting terms rooted in a possibly mythical past.

v) Used as a catch all excuse. Society might connive with one to drink, eat too much or watch porn films, and yet one is meant to resist. To be 'responsible' is therefore to fly in the face of ones apparent social conditioning. Or better to understand that one is actually meant to resist that which tempt us all. Perhaps the secret here lies in the fact that behaving responsibly  is itself a full time job; and sothat responsible adults will spend so much time working out what it means to be responsible, that they will not have any time free for any more seditous activities!

"Review"

as in and now the review of the....

def: Writing reviews of news and news stories is a vital ingredients in the project to transform news into entertainment. Such reviews have two distinct aspects .

 i) A review must either be  very schematic or light hearted and odd ball. That is, if one is recounting a serious story, then one must ensure that the editorial choices which inform the story are least as important as the story itself. Newspapers are said to have 'chosen' to lead on such and such a story. To review is therefore to make the decisions of editors as much the story as anything anything in the news itself. If stories are covered in more detail in such reviews the emphasis must always be on the more quirky aspect of the news. 'Human interest' stories therefore abound, and are given very considerable air time. 

 To review from such an angle is therefore to on the one hand to convert  the news itself into a story about who wrote that news, but also, at the same time, to fictionalize the news, or at least to pick out those 'human interest stories', which are closest to fiction, to dwell upon.

ii) Reviews can be more complex concerns blending history with current political reality. The 'thirty year rue' is a godsend in this respect. Old stories can be dug up, and blended with current issues. A cheap story that appears to be all the more profound as it inspires us to 'LEARN' from the past is thereby cooked up. Moreover the lesson one learns, almost invariably from this past, is not the science of what to or not do, so much as the inevitability of certain events occurring (and repeating). The message here includes more over a snide connivance. Politicians are 'revealed' to be too pompous to understand this repetition: They think the story is all about them, when, the audience is told it is merely a case of history repeating itself. To review, to see history repeating is therefore to dismiss the pride of politicians. In doing so, of course one confirms that far more insidious pride the news editor. the stories that are 'revealed' to repeat in the review, are 'strangely' enough the very ones the media have (with one eye on history repeating itself) been developing anyway. For journalist to declare that history is repeating itself,is also for them to declare their laziness (they could not be bothered to develop other news stories); but also , and far more worrying their power, for many histories would not repeat if not driven to it by the logic of editorial choice. 

"Rights"

as in the worthless criminal/ immigrant/deserving cause will have a case under the human rights act.

def: Statement of profound unease about the perceived complexity of constantly shifting society. Under the phraze 'rights' a single axis is created on which can be located not only causes which the journalist (and their intended public) accept, but also that they wish to lampoon. Even more critically it allows for a subtle mixture of fact and fiction, as cases can just as easily be imagined, as they can be actually reported. Hence stories, that are actually registering a guilty disquiet about the inclusion of all kinds and sorts of people within society, can be treated as if they were true.

"Right to Go"

as in Hain was right to go.

def: the rights and wrongs of resigning are of course utterly complex in the media world where the truth of what is being reported is forever up for grabs. Their is then always a tendency to attempt to stay put until the media have become bored with creating this truth and gone on in question/construction of some other. What defines the timing is therefore more a question of have the 'scandal' effect other minister careers rather than how it relates to the minster who actually resigns. When they are all caught up in it, when it threatens to spread as the media find spin off stories  and when government has become impossible it is clearly the right moment to go. Once this moment has been decided the rules of course change. Gone are the rules of witch hunt and fear, and in the place in the politics of shallow pity. this pity matter to both journalists and other politicians. For the former it makes such  good copy that this all

one removes the blood guilt, of ruining a politicians career (usually  on a rumour). Other politicians gain from such pity, as in asserting that there could indeed be a right moment to go, they are also asserting  that their is  merit (and rightness) is a system, which would otherwise lack all such value.

" Sentiment"

 as in the markets are moved by sentiments on this one.

def: It is of course the oddest and yet most tangible of truths that humans behave in groups very differently than they behave in real life (they are like paranas or gulls in that way). Sentiment, that is that strange irrationality that grips the market is the latest word for this fact. The word itself reveals the deep discomfort with the very collectivity of the stock market. The market was after all supposed to be a rational means to raise money and decide how much a company is worth . Sentiment clearly is at odds with this. In giving this name the market thereby hopes to stigmatise its own collective nature - or somehow make it appear external or different or the exception to the market norm : Rallies and collapses are therefore said to be sentiment driven; and all cock ups can be put down the the mystical force 'sentiment'. The attempt is thereby made to marginalize, in language at least, what is of course the norm of any collective organization. The market thereby keeps up its pretense of rationality, even as it concedes occasion doubts of insanity  (rather than simply accepting that it is never rational anyway...)

"Structural"

as in there are real structural problems here.

def: A structural problem is a second order problem, occurring when a routine cock-up has occurred in some large organization, which is only rather loosely attached the the government. The Government will then claim that, while it was not really responsible for the mistake, will be responsible for the solution through 'structural' means. Likewise the opposition will claim that, in spite of appearance the original cock up can be traced back to the government, and its failure to address the deep 'structural' problems. it goes without saying that what exactly these problems are, and how one might use 'structure' to solve them, are left quite undefined, and that the mere appeal to the structural is thought to be enough.

"Technical Term”

as in “Recession is a technical term that means two consecutive quarters of negative growth. I think the economy will slow severely this year and things will be very rough, but we shouldn’t worry about a recession.”

def: Here, the journalist/analyst seeks to deflect growing awareness of some catastrophe by suggesting a play on words can save us. Strictly speaking, slowing growth (say, in the housing market) is not a recession, so we can go about our business. Of course, if, say, Kensington and Chelsea property goes from having five years of 33% year on year growth to hovering around 2% growth this year, it might cause some financial distress, especially since it probably differs by negative 31% from the expectations that some people had when they leveraged their futures on some financial master plan. But there you go. It’s not a catastrophe, just a slowdown.

Similarly, as was said last night (on “Black Monday) regarding the stock markets: “The media is blowing this all out of proportion. Technically, a crash is a 10% drop in the market. Today, there was only a 5.5% drop.” This means there is no need to panic until the close of business on Tuesday and another drop of at least 4.5%. Any panic in the intervening 24 hours is just “irrational” (see technical definition of this term) and will make the problem (which, technically speaking, isn’t a problem) much worse.(1) “Technical Term”

As in: “Recession is a technical term that means two consecutive quarters of negative growth. I think the economy will slow severely this year and things will be very rough, but we shouldn’t worry about a recession.”

Here, the journalist/analyst seeks to deflect growing awareness of some catastrophe by suggesting a play on words can save us. Strictly speaking, slowing growth (say, in the housing market) is not a recession, so we can go about our business. Of course, if, say, Kensington and Chelsea property goes from having five years of 33% year on year growth to hovering around 2% growth this year, it might cause some financial distress, especially since it probably differs by negative 31% from the expectations that some people had when they leveraged their futures on some financial master plan. But there you go. It’s not a catastrophe, just a slowdown.

Similarly, as was said last night (on “Black Monday) regarding the stock markets: “The media is blowing this all out of proportion. Technically, a crash is a 10% drop in the market. Today, there was only a 5.5% drop.” This means there is no need to panic until the close of business on Tuesday and another drop of at least 4.5%. Any panic in the intervening 24 hours is just “irrational” (see technical definition of this term) and will make the problem (which, technically speaking, isn’t a problem) much worse.

"Terror"

as in new terror police are promised.

def: the politics of terror are a complex modern contrivance. Under the general name terror a government clams to be able to enact the most draconian of legislation, in the name of protecting everyone. a myth is thereby bred that is only we were cruel enough then we would have the reality (as well as the right to security).It is at this point the real politics of terror cut in. political parties and journalists  come caught up in a posturing where horrific legislation and liberal values become mere political bargaining chips. In this game or poker or perhaps chicken, the rules by which the media and the politician pay are distinctly different. Politicians will play a series of serial hands (this much oppression that much liberalism). Journalists in the interests of a rating war with one another, are free to pay many hand simultaneously, and switch side with gay abandon. Hence the ambiguity of the word terror. A politics of terror is a word in two registers, a word that allows journalist to move between two registers. it is at once both about terrorism but also about the effect of overtly oppressive legislation.

Terror becomes them merely a name a thing to be political with. And yet, as the very word suggests there is another level which cuts through this play. Terror is not merely a game of politics, not merely because lived may be at sake (and the genuinely may be so  after all) , but also because the chips used in the game are rules by which we live together. The blend of oppression, regulation and freedom are thereby allowed to be broken up and formed into a series of chips to play games of swappes with. Legislation that was designed with terror in mind, becomes genuinely terrorifying as it is 'usefully' applied in other contexts. What is so scary here is that the politics of terror allows one to use the argument of us to justify this process. That is,  if the legislation is seen to work, if oppression has immediate value, then the argument goes it is justified (and only the guilty would protest). A truly terrifying argument indeed.

"there has been a distinct...flavour to the news this week"

as in there has been a distinctly Ursine flavour to the news this week.

def: One of of the long terms trends of modern news coverage, is the increasing attempt to develop within the serious 'plot lines' other really rather  trivial or contrived ones. Perhaps in the implicit hope that the 'actual stories' (which looked from the cold light of reason have very little 'truth in them') will seem all the more significant as a result. One of the standard strategies is to invent some metaphor, in which number of utterly different stories might be bound together. The result is usually labored and contrived (rather than as is clearly fondly imagined hilarious). The effect of such metaphors is to occlude further questions. The metaphor is the point all 'reason' breaks down. The point when fact and fiction merge, and there can be nothing else, no other  'round up of events' one other patterning than this triviality. News becomes somewhat daft fiction (or the blandest of entertainments) just at the moment it might have had something more useful to say.

"Trust"

as the government has clearly lost the trust of the people.

def; Trust in a sense refers to a certain amnesia on the part of a population. A trusted politician is one everyone choses to forget the scandals about. Or to put it another way, a trusted politician is one a journalist knows that it is impossible to produce a witch hunt about, and moreover one, who any attack upon might rebound upon the journalist themselves. There is a real growl in the voice of the media when they talk of trust, and a real whoop of glee, when they feel that trust has been broken.

"Twists and turns"

as in, we will be catching up on all the latest twists and turns of the story.

def: Twists and and turns are one of  the most vital tools of modern journalism. Twists and turns take a story which is undoubtedly highly complex, and unstable ( a story really might go in many directions), and twist up these conflicting elements into a single thread (or noose). A What was multitudinous voices becomes mere narrative thread, and what was the product of happenstance becomes given as it it were the work of a single author. who plotted the many 'twists and turns' of the story. The media's role is creating stories is thereby quietly eclipsed, as they so modest insinuate that politicians are the authors of their own misery.

 

" We will be given the full picture latter on"

as in the chancellor will give us the full picture of the problem latter on.

def:  Used on a day where there is likely to be only one news story, which has 'unfortunately' not broken at the time of the broadcast. Instead of using the news slot to catch up on other, perhaps more important and under reported stories  this gap is used to run a welter of 'possible' versions of the story to come. The journalist no doubt here hopes to 'get lucky'. If the report they run  can be shown to actually link into the eventual story (although note this can only be shown by said journalists themselves), they will not only claim the credit for pre-empting the story (as if prediction, and not new reporting was their job);  but also will also claim to have already 'ceased' control of the story itself (and therefore feel to develop it as they wish). 

Note there is of course a natural biased in these reports. As politician who will 'break the story' is almost always absence (and their representative cautious not to themselves pre-empt their political boss), the journalist and the opposition (who have no such scruples)will have in this prequel to the story itself, a peculiar space, where they can develop their own arguments free from the usual political debate.

"what Our Viewers/Listener's Tell us'

As in that is just not what our listeners and viewers tell us.

Def: Semi-mystical formula, that turns the journalist from mere humble reporter, and into the lord of the Pack (be it rats or Wolves). Communication itself, becomes the vital force this pack-lord wields. To do this communication becomes less about actually communicating what the general public (or even the wider listeners or viewers of a program think), and becomes rather by its extremes of reaction (only those who feel strongly communicate) and extremes of quantity (the more communicants the more power), a force for forcing others to be called to account. Moreover this accounting will  perforce be aggressive in its nature. The pack lord wields the power of the pack, to rend a policy (which might be cogent in itself), apart. 

Note : the Corollary of this point is that the politician is faced with the agonizing dilemma of either rustling up a Rat-Pack of their own (with all the instabilities that involves for the non-journalist);or else having to take protective measures to ensure the rat-pack cannot bite. Protective measures that make bad government,but good armer (see performance figures).

" Where does all this leave..."

 as in where does this leave relation between the Uk and Sudan

def: the leave taking of a story is a delicate manner, as one needs care in defining the manner an essentially highly artificial story might resonate after the hullabalboo (that supports/creates it), has died down. Leave taking is pitched in between two quite different strategies. i) The story will  become a vignette, or even better an allegory of something 'much bigger'.  A move than by itself might appear justified. And yet this allegory is not quite what it seems, as the elements which are meant to be being clarified,by the story were in fact frequently elements which were constituent in making the story run in the first place. Tt is somewhat tautologous the expect it to then clarify the nature of these elements . Moreover, given the story ran by creating a somewhat partial and highly distorting series of conjunctions between these elements. To use the story to somehow elucidate the said elements, is thereby to naturalize this very set of distortions. An endeavour that is never accurate, and rarely desirable. ii) The story will be very causally pitched into a far wider, story irrespective of whether the two are comensurate or not. Essentially trivial stories are thereby made to transcend their triviality, they become the affairs of states. In 'taking leave' neither of these strategies need to be preferred. On the contrary a really effective leave taking, blends goth accounts of the big picture into a single usually obnoxious brew.

" Your and your's"

as is what if that was your child, or your operation.

Def: Ruse by which the most problematic story can be mitigated by being placed within some reassuring story. The methodology here is clear. A traumatic tale of derth and woe is meeted out, arising the natural sympathy in the public. A solution is then presented, which appears to provide an immediate and very practical resolution to  the minor trauma  produced in the general public by the initial story . An expert or 'person responsible' (in some way) is then wheeled in. And they are offered the very simple choice of either being the hero of the piece, and by acting mitigate everyone's trauma; or else becoming the villian, whose failure to act means that they are, if not implicated in the creation of the initial public trauma, are certainly caught up in its lack of resolution.

 The media thereby gain by being able to stage endless 'participatory' stories, some of which they end up the 'hero's' of. The public get 'marvellous' and apparently world transforming entertainment. And it is only the politician who is cast in the role or villian or hero-rabble rises who are apparently the looses. However it is of course the case that stories based on something other than nice little narratives of struggle and redemption, can become problematic. It is also unclear whether the entire media paraphernalia does any good or not to those original participants in the real trauma (who often end up being shown to be 'naive' or 'clever').

Note It follows that complex stories which might defy the motif of suffering and redemption or ones where either the suffering is too great or the resolution too complex or the people too far way , are clearly not appropriate for the full Your and Your's treatment. The story of people drowning in Bangladesh or starving in Dafur are not really appropriate fodder for such nice simple narratives.

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