PS

I just went to change my font because, actually, I hate Times New Roman and I don't know why I've been using it. But then I remembered a Globe and Mail article from a couple of weeks ago explaining why typeface choice is important. Except, actually, it didn't explain at all, so now I'm both slightly paranoid that my choice of Trebuchet says all the wrong things about me and annoyed that that article didn't deliver.

Trawling through the fonts did remind me of a pet peeve though: a certain very large airline keeps sending press releases that are, incomprehensibly, in one of those fonts that is fake cursive writing. And not even a clear one, so I have to copy and paste their PR babble into a more readable format. Why hasn't someone told them how annoying this is, and that surely the goal of all press releases should be to be as quick to the point and legible as possible? Also, who even made the fake cursive choice? I know it's not handwriting. And I also know it's not a fifth grade project where you need a fake letter from the newly-settled prairies at the turn of the century, all covered in tea and burnt around the edges. So what gives?

Election Time!

Quick thing to think about before today's post: tomorrow is the TUC March for the Alternative. By all accounts, it's going to be massive, though the UK papers have already started with stories about how it's going to be hijacked by extremists, violence is expected, etc. Keep an eye on the coverage - watch how different it is from the now-daily coverage of protests in the Middle East, Gulf and North Africa, which I mentioned in an earlier post. I'll try to post on Sunday when I've seen a bit of the coverage and find some examples. Or, who knows, maybe the coverage will be fair to the thousands who are likely to turn out and march peacefully and not focus on a few who might manage some destruction? Nah.

Actually, what are your thoughts on this? Is it irresponsible and/or sensationalist journalism to focus only on the bad bits and not give as much airtime to the grievances of the majority? Or is the destruction/violence legitimately the news, the thing people are going to want to see on TV and read about the next day? Does it give a skewed view of the participants? Is there a bias in coverage that assumes the protesters don't really have a right to be angry? Would love to hear some comments on this, from any country.

****************************************

I meant to post yesterday and link to a BBC story about the impending Canadian election, but I forgot and now it's been corrected. Some of you may have seen it, anyway. The reporter somehow managed to mix up Lawrence Martin, the political analyst he interviewed, with Lawrence Cannon, the Foreign Affairs Minister, resulting in a few choice quotes about how Canadians don't like Stephen Harper's 'autocratic' style...attributed to his Foreign Minister. The article also contained a photo of Jack Layton captioned "NDP leader and acting Deputy Mayor of Toronto". Classic example of super lazy journalism - Layton's (since edited) Wikipedia profile did indeed say he was acting Deputy Mayor of Toronto, which is presumably where that came from.

****************************************

So it's election time! In addition to the Canadian election, which could be as early as May 2, we have the referendum on Alternative Vote in the UK (which I get to vote in), UK local elections, and devolved parliamentary elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all on May 5. Throw in important Portuguese and Nigerian elections and an Icelandic referendum I need to keep an eye on for work, and all in all I'm pretty much going to be saturated with election coverage for the next month or two (when there aren't revolutions, wars and natural disasters to distract me. Oh, wait...).

I think election coverage always makes for interesting reading/viewing/listening. For one thing, politicians are at their very most clichéd - everything is a soundbyte, a campaign promise, a slogan. I find it infuriating, but it makes for some good observations. Election campaigns are one of the times when the various news outlets' editorial biases show most strongly (including, of course, outright endorsing a party or candidate). I'm hoping that watching the Canadian and UK campaigns at the same time will provide for interesting insights. And of course, there's always room for a slip-up here, a scandal there, a "bigoted woman" comment with the mic still on (or Nick Clegg's recent "If we keep agreeing there'll be nothing to debate" aside). One thing we probably can't depend on is proper analysis of policies (or the for/against arguments, in the case of the referendum) - it's always more interesting for people to read politicians making outrageous statements about how their opponent will ruin the country than to actually engage in informing the public. I'll keep an eye out for any coverage that actually does this particularly well, or particularly badly.

Bits and Bobs

It occurred to me to write about a couple of different things today, and, as I am mostly just ranting anyway, I figured a short bit about each would do. To be fair, they're not really media critiques either.

Japan, Idiots and Facebook

This and this have come to my attention in the last few days. It hardly needs stating that the contents are disgusting, ignorant drivel, but that's not my primary concern. My main concern is that the people who posted those remarks actually believe them, and that they live in an environment/social circle where they felt comfortable posting those sort of thoughts knowing that people would agree with them. And the variety of people, by which I mean the ethnicities and age groups represented, is astounding (caveat: most if not all of them are Americans - I mean the variety of Americans represented). We're not talking about a small number of people in some small town here.

This is, to me, a stunning example of the failure of American education and culture to make its younger generations aware of what has happened in their recent and very recent past. That any American would say 'Remember Pearl Harbor?' and not immediately jump to 'Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki?' is appalling. Part of me thinks that the majority of these people must have gotten their history lesson from the film, which conveniently leaves out the atomic bombs - somehow, if that were the case, you could excuse them for not knowing. But I'm sure this isn't true. I'm sure American children learn about WWII in school, and even a quick Google shows teaching resources available for American teachers on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So are these people being purposely ignorant? And as for the 'Where was Japan during Katrina?' and 'Why does the US help everyone when no one would help us?' comments - the US government records millions of dollars in government, corporate and private donations from Japan for Katrina. I know I can't expect people to research their Facebook statuses, but come on. How well is international aid to America publicised during disasters?

Sexy Science

In an article in today's Times (which is behind a paywall, and, because I'm no longer at work to get behind said paywall, I won't be quoting directly), Sarah Vine criticises BBC's Wonders of the Universe because presenter Brian Cox is, essentially, too good looking to present a science programme. Vine says such programmes should be presented by old men who are too busy being scientists to remember to brush their hair or know what's in fashion. This stance might make a little bit of sense if Cox was just the good looking keyboard player in a 90s pop band that the BBC had recruited to front its programme and not, you know, also a doctor in particle physics who works on the hadron collider.

Cox took exception to Vine's article and suggested (via Twitter) that as wife of Education Secretary Michael Gove, she might consider the impact the programme (and similar ones) have on making science accessible to younger generations and encouraging it in schools. He also criticised her idea that only old men should talk about science, saying those kinds of attitudes are what keeps girls from pursuing careers in science. Vine's response? That if someone could find an ugly scientist who took exception as much as Cox did, she might take the argument seriously. Ridiculous.

The Acceptable Face of Dictatorships

Back from the Frontline Club - really, really enjoyed tonight's discussion. The panel was fantastic - LSE Professor David Held, Al Jazeera reporter Marwan Bishara, former UK ambassador to Libya Richard Dalton and former Libyan jihadist/current Quilliam analyst Noman Benotman, chaired by BBC presenter Mishal Husein.

The discussion was focused on Libya but fairly wide-ranging and really fast-paced; a lot of time with Q&A type events, audience members can be a bit...long-winded with their questions, spending a lot of time setting them up by outlining their own opinion/experiences. Tonight, though, the questions were very quick, sharp and interesting - none of the soft touch stuff about the role of Twitter.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter has probably already been subjected to my live-tweeting of the event (sorry, work), so I won't re-cap it. But I was very interested in the stuff that came up about Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al Islam Gaddafi. I think Saif represents everything that is uncomfortable about Libya for western countries. He was a well-educated, charitable and relatively liberal man who seemed genuinely interested in reform in his country. He was, on the surface, a respectable person to do business with, to accept money from, to partner with. Except, then he wasn't.

This has been the narrative of our political class as well. After Libya dismantled its nuclear programme in 2003/2004, it became acceptable to do business with Muammar Gadaffi again, to pointedly ignore the lack of democracy and the human rights abuses in the country. Sure, Gaddafi was seen as a bit of a nut, but he was endured. Libya was even elected to the UN Human Rights Council just last April. Libya was alright, all things considered, until, of course, it wasn't.

The panel tonight had some polarised views on Saif. David Held opened by explaining his relationship with Said; they had worked quite closely together in the partnerships LSE had with Saif's charitable foundation, and Held said he was appalled by Saif's February 20 speech and shocked by how little it turned out he knew of him. But he also said that Saif had been genuine about the reforms he was trying to implement - that, essentially, it had come down to choosing between his father and everyone else, and he had chosen his father. Richard Dalton said much the same thing - from a British foreign policy perspective, Saif was ideal to deal with and used his foundation to support real issues aimed at genuine change.

Benotman took a less kind but still fairly moderate view, which was a bit surprising for someone who was once actively involved in trying to bring down the Gaddafi regime. He, too, felt that the reforms Saif had been interested in were genuine, but pointed out that they were still meant to be implemented in the context of the Gaddafi regime. Improving democracy or human rights would not, in Saif's view, have in any way involved removing his father from power or giving up control. Benotman said Saif had a choice between the new and the old way, and that he had chosen - historically - to side not just with his father but with the entire old power structure and way of viewing the country, something much more significant than simple family loyalty.

Bishara, though, had the most scathing words for Saif Gaddafi and they really made me think about the way the media portrayed him. He said Saif was a playboy - cosmopolitan, well-traveled, well-educated, yes, but all this and 'charitable' with money that was not his. "He charmed the west at the expense of the Libyan people," Bishara said. There is nothing good or moral about a playboy, and Saif proved in the end that he is his father's son - nothing but the son of a dictator and a thug. Telling here is the fact that I've never in mainstream media heard Saif described this way (well, those exact words I wouldn't expect in an objective article anyway); he's always been seen as the acceptable public face of the Gaddafi regime, as a somewhat liberal, reform type - the way Held and Dalton described him. There's always been talk of his foundation, his charity, and never questions about where that money comes from. After all, what has Saif al Islam Gaddafi ever done to earn the millions he uses to fund projects and aid flotillas, to study at top universities? It was maybe always assumed as obvious that the money came from his father, but never pointed out that Muammar Gaddafi was not from a wealthy family, that the only access to wealth came from his access to the wealth of the state. Like the political class, the western media has now turned on Saif, but at some point it should examine why it was so easy to go along with the acceptable face he presented without question.

On a lighter note, Bishara did compare the Gaddafi family to the Kardashians, saying that he had seen their TV show and saw similarities between the sponging, drunken, playboy brother and Saif - meaning for years the Arab world had been "Keeping up with the Gaddafians".

Strangeness of TV news

Off to the Frontline Club again tonight - hoping to hear some fascinating views on Libya from Noman Benotman, former Libyan jihadist leader, and Al Jazeera's Marwan Bishara.

A quick point on a very odd tactic used, badly, by the BBC and Sky News this afternoon. Prime Minister's Questions happened to coincide with Muammar Gaddafi's latest address in Tripoli. Even though Gaddafi's ranting is ridiculous and usually hard to listen to anyway because of the translation, both networks seemed reluctant to leave their live broadcast of it. Solution? Split screen. On the left, silent, was Gaddafi and his crowd. On the right, David Cameron and Ed Miliband battling it out on PMQs.

The effect was strange and generally terrible. Split screens usually imply that one has something to do with the other. We were watching Sky, and the screen didn't even try to explain why both were up there. The result was that it looked as if the crowds listening to Gaddafi were reacting to Dave's jibes - one man looked particularly uncomfortable when Cameron took a shot at Nottingham Council. When Gaddafi was on screen, you couldn't help but somehow look for comparisons with whoever was speaking on the right - not exactly the effect they were hoping for, I'm sure.

What were they thinking? And why did it continue for the duration of PMQs?