Mum! When's the shooting bit?

Found amongst the slopbucketloads of the Raoul Moat crim-porn saga:

What future for Raoul Moat? | Rothbury | Raoul_Moat | Life of Crime | Sky News Blogs: "That future is likely to be spent in jail and what kind of future is that for a violent and angry 37-year-old man who is mourning the loss of his family and business?"

Yeah... so, all you people trying to put the Murdochs out of business; take a look at yourselves! Do you really want to be responsible for another tragedy?

Perhaps you shouldn't answer that.

Unedifying though this whole spectacle is, there is nonetheless something refreshing - in a World Cup summer - about watching the English press salivate over the prospect of a shoot-out...

Infernal Contraptions!

No Rock And Roll Fun: Sunday Express makes a Twit of itself

"Unbelievably, it appears to have taken two Sunday Express typists, David Jarvis and David Stephenson, to pull together an inept wannabe-expose into the BBC's use of Twitter..."

I really have nothing to add to this; but I can try to get it three or four more readers.

If only I could somehow get "David & David" a few million less...

Offended By Verbatim Reporting? Go F--- Yourself!

Fox 5 anchor Ernie Anastos stuns viewers with four-letter 'chicken' gaffe - Telegraph

It's not the story, or the reporting of it. They're fine.

It's the"f---ing".

Even at the end, right next to "plucking".

The Telegraph fears - no doubt rightly - that some readers will be offended by the word "fucking", even in a story about a man saying the word "fucking".

It believes - wrongly - that these people should be protected from the profound psychological consequences of choosing to read a story with the phrase "four-letter" in the headline.

So, who's chicken now?

You Couldn't Make Littlejohn Up

It's been covered better elsewhere, but I can't ignore Richard Littlejohn's Mail Online piece that takes a snide pop at a black single mother.

"There’s no mention of a Mr Pong, or any father’s name for that matter. "
- Richard Littlejohn

Note the oh-so-clever plausibly deniable racism.

The punchline? Oh yes. The mother is a labrador!

Yes, the country is being overrun by a tide of workshy immigrant puppies. What? Littlejohn shot first and asked questions later? Surely not?

Well, no - as usual, he just shot. The only development is that he shot this particular load over the wrong species.

All together now; "You Couldn't Make It Up!"

The A Files

UFOs photographed over London - Telegraph ( Sarah Knapton )

Yeah, nice one, Sarah. Real scoop, that. I mean, they don't look anything like reflections of the light fitting behind the photographer, do they?

Oh, and a special mention for the caption, "...shows four UFO's (sic.)" Don't worry about it, guys; it's only the Daily Bloody Telegraph, right?

The "Get Paula Murray Fired" Campaign

Can't really cover this one any better... so I won't bother.

Bloggerheads (UK) - Paula Murray, drunken hack, mocks dead and makes light of underage drinking

Glinner - Express wins race to the bottom

Strictly this isn't a net story, but the reaction to it certainly is. As a clued-up 2.0 citizen, you've no doubt read loads about it all by now, so all I'll add is; please just pop along and sign the online petition, blog or tweet the stories, and do anything else you can think of to help get this odious bitch fired.

You Know it, You Know... Makes Sense.

BBC SPORT | Rugby Union | Welsh | Wales confident of Jones fitness

Hmm... This post could have gone onto any of the three 'blogs I currently write! But it's best here, I think.

It highlights recent problem with journalism, not exclusive to the BBC. What is happening is that certain sources get quoted without the most basic editing - to, you know, remove hesitation and, like, repetition and 'verbal punctuation' and, you know, stuff.

Wales rugby team manager Alan Phillips is quoted thus:

"Niggles you know, nothing that worries us you know because we've got the two-week window now before the first game," Phillips added.

"So we've got plenty of time to rest one or two of them, to you know repair them."

I'm worried because it appears, to this reader, as if journos can and do deploy this tactic selectively, where an agenda exists to portray the subject poorly. I specifically remember Glenn Hoddle - then the under-pressure coach of the England soccer team - being quoted "At the end of the day, I never said them things..."

Of course, hacks can always fall back on the defence of verbatim - it's the whole truth, so what's the problem? Well that's fine, so long as they be shown to treat authority, royalty, and current or potential patrons with the same candour...