Lifted from the comments, a reminder, were one needed, that you don’t despise the media anywhere near enough.
In this case, it’s Flemish public television – not unlike our own BBC – and one guest’s realisation that any discussion of rising intolerance and a growing enthusiasm for violence against women must arrive at certain predetermined conclusions, regardless of the facts:
Eventually, a young editor sent me a brief PowerPoint presentation that had been circulating internally. To my surprise, every chart contained a bar for respondents of “foreign origin,” alongside the categories for age and education. Less surprisingly, that bar was often the highest of all. The internal presentation even drew attention to the elevated levels of intolerance among respondents of foreign origin—several times.
Then I noticed a marginal comment from a VRT editor that was clearly not intended for outside eyes.
It instructed the news desk not to report the breakdown by foreign origin, even though the data had been collected.
The seemingly routine attempt to deceive does rather invalidate the ostensible core function of this publicly funded organisation. It throws everything they do into question. How could one possibly trust them? It quite literally wipes out their credibility as a broadcaster. And by extension, any claim to public funding or favoured status.
In a saner world, it would be the end of them.
I say ostensible function because it’s not altogether obvious – to say the least – how one could reconcile some supposed broadcaster’s mission to convey the facts, and to bring into being an informed citizenry, with doing everything possible to prevent precisely that.
And doing so in a manner one might regard as practised.
So progressive!
‘Trust us’ they say . . . while showing themselves untrustworthy.
FAILURE TO PRETEND DETECTED!
FAILURE TO PRETEND DETECTED!
FAILURE TO PRETEND DETECTED!
See, you’ve set off the bloody alarm.
[ Fetches damp tea towel. ]
From a recent thread:
Not entirely unrelated, I’d say.
Can’t believe I’m here, toiling at the weekend.
I should be out playing golf or something.
.
The notion of you swanning about in plus-fours simply isn’t bearable on a Saturday.
And in other seamless integration news.
Following circulation of the video, the Muhammadan gentlemen are no longer employed by Harrow council.
I did once play golf, as a sweaty teen. If memory serves, it did not go well.
This New Republican thing could get interesting. No way to tell how serious it is but it does seem like an opportunity for the Irish Republicans to seize power. They are not as averse to terrorism as the Unionists/Orange/Protestants/whatevers, and likely still hold significant animosity towards those on either side who brought/bought some relative peace to that shithole area. The opportunity is there to gain considerable popular support, especially from the younger people in the middle who have no living memory of The Troubles, as they were called.
Said to the Other Half, just now, following some particularly brutal (but not entirely unfunny) mockery on his part: “I can get this shabby treatment on the blog, you know.”
Democrats, and the left in general but..just Democrats for now:
Trust us to manage everything! We’re the smaaart ones! We know how to deal with everything in dynamic, infinite variable environments! Also Democrats:
OK, admittedly huge ignorance on my part but even knowing nothIng* about what the plan, nor the plan for the plan is, there is no f’n way these people should be trusted. Amazed that this appears to be a BBC person asking the question. If she’s not careful someone could mistake her for someone who is not a journalist. Not a journalist in the modern sense anyway.
*If I did know any of this however, I would pull my hypothetical monkey out of that hypothetical circus ASAP. Apparently some people even in y’alls government have.