Andrew Marr and Journalism

I have been reading Andrew Marr's Book entitled "My trade" off and on for the last year. For those of you who are unaware he is a British political journalist.

His book is all about journalism and although I haven't read much of it one of the quotes in his history of journalism resonated through the years with some of the points I have expanded on in the relationship between the press and government.

W. T. Stead was a Victorian editor described by Andrew as a bearded, blazing eyed and riotously sexual editor of among others the Northern Echo and The Pall Mall Gazette. In 1886 he had this to say about what he called government by journalism:

I am but a comparatively young journalist, but I have seen Cabinets upset, ministers driven into retirement, laws repealed, great social reform initiated, Bills transformed, estimates remodelled, programmes modified, Acts passed, general nominated, governors appointed, armies sent hither and thither, ware proclaimed and war averted, by the agency of newspapers.

-W. T. Stead 1886

That was in 1886 when the general populace still respected government and politicians. One can only surmise that since then the press have become more powerful, where today entire elections can be won or lost on the front page of the Sun newspaper(1992 general election - election day headline "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.").

Next year there will be a general election, which way will the press vote?

Which brings me onto Andrew Marr himself and how he asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown whether he used prescription painkillers in a recent interview. I thought I would analyse this question and the journalism behind it.

Before we get to the question itself we have to decide whether it is correct to ask a question about the prime ministers health. In the 'for'corner we should be entitled to ask any question if it impacts on his ability to do the job, as in the extreme he could take this country to war. Although you could argue that he could not take this country to war by himself and therefore his individual health is immaterial.

In the 'against' corner, his personal life is his own business, just because he is prime minister doesn't mean that every single detail of his life should be public knowledge. After all would we want to know that the prime minister is constipated and might not be fully concentrating in a cabinet meeting? There is also the argument that why should we expect our politicians to be supermen without any fault. What do we want a human being or a robot?

There is an implied contract of trust between the electorate and the government that the prime minister is fit to govern at any time. Even if this contract is weakened should the press act as final arbiter?

I think it can be safely assumed that asking the simple question are you fit, well and capable to carry out your role as prime minister is a valid question. However this is not what Andrew Marr asked, he asked:

"something everybody has been talking about in the Westminster village... A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them?"

Some technical points first. The "Westminster village" is what most of us would describe as the rumour mill. The use of the word "use" which is close to drug user which had many socio - negative connotations. You use heroin but you take medication.

"Help them get through" - again suggesting that people aren't coping and giving the question an overall negative tone.

So did Andrew ask about the prime ministers health or did he imply that the prime minister was not competent to do the job?

In my opinion he chose to ask this question on his own authority because he wanted to imply that Gordon Brown was taking pain killers which meant that he was not fully capable of carrying out his duties.

It could also be described as a leading question. In answering "Yes" the prime minister would confirm much more than just that he took prescription drugs. Even if he went on to explain , it would be the initial yes that was shown on the Six O'clock news probably with an image of Gordon looking really tired from 2002 to emphasise how pain killers had effected him. Again the picture would imply a negative view of Gordon Brown. All of the negativity would be implied and may distort the reality of the situation.

After Gordon had politely told Andrew it was none of his business Andrew asked the question again. Perhaps not your finest hour Andrew.

In a guardian article interestingly a BBC spokesman is quoted as saying:

"Andrew was asking a legitimate question about the health of the leader of the country."

Was he? Or was he implying that Gordon Brown was unfit to hold office because he took pain killers? Surely if he was in pain we should be more worried if he didn't take painkillers?

References:

Andrew Marr: I have no intention of apologising over Brown question (guardian)
'I do not roll over,' says Brown(BBC)
1992 General election (wikipedia)

Asteroid attack: How would we cope? (New Scientist)

When an email like that hits your in-box you cant help but race across the desktop with your mouse pointer and click it.

The answer apparently if you want the short answer is "Not very well".

Then the article is full of more questions such as

"Should we panic?"

A. Not really, a killer impact strike would only happen once every 2000 years and the odds of hitting a populated area are even smaller.

"Can we nuke it?"

A. No, not unless we had several years warning. At the moment our early warning systems just aren't good enough. One asteroid last year was only detected 20 hours before impact. 2008 TC3 detonated over Sudan and was too small to do any damage anyway but millions of asteroids that could do some damage are out there and we are not yet tracking all of them.

The exciting questions over with, I can tell you about what the article is actually about. The US Air Force ran an exercise in 2008 where they played out a scenario where a killer asteroid was heading straight for earth. Straight out of Hollywood there were two parts of the asteroid, one heading for a splash down in the Atlantic ocean on the west coast of America and the other heading for Washington DC. Cut to people screaming and running past notable Washington monuments and running past electrical shop windows with President Obama on screen urging people to remain calm all the way via satellite from Air Force One currently flying over New Zealand.

Back to the studio where CNN have bought in whoever answered the phone first, to pretend to be an expert on asteroids / politics. "Its all the governments fault they should have seen it coming years ago. They cut funding into asteroid destruction technologies and invested in free health care for all. What were they thinking?"

Sorry, digressed suddenly there, too much thinking about life according to a Hollywood movie script.

Commenting on the scenario outcome which demonstrated that the US was woefully unprepared for such a disaster Peter Garreston (organiser) had this to say:

"As a taxpayer, I would appreciate my air force taking a look at something that would be certainly as bad as nuclear terrorism in a city, and potentially a civilisation-ending event."

He wasn't just talking about the X-factor rejects from the first round who with their off key singing destroyed several world heritage sites yesterday.

Simon Cowell responded with these comments directly to the planet killer asteroid:

"I am just not convinced by your planet killing performance, I just didn't feel it. Your just too small this year, you need to come back next year... Danni Yes or no?"

Normal service is being resumed ... please hold while we connect you to sanity.

US Air force 0 - Asteroid 1. Final Score.

Anyway, moving on. Having pretty much determined that being able to avert disaster was pretty much impossible the assembled team turned to disaster management. Somebody had forgotten to get coffee from the supermarket and everybody knows you cant deal with a disaster without some serious black coffee.

The primary concern in the disaster management scenario was to stop the public who were in the path of the asteroid from panicking. In my opinion the only way you could stop the public panicking is to shut the media up. You only have to look back to the credit crunch to see how good the media are at proclaiming the end is nigh. Their doom scenarios would cause the public to panic within about three seconds although you might have 30 seconds of grace while they come up with a suitable two word caption for the screen.

Cue movie voice. "It was a time of darkness, the media had the biggest story ever, the story to end all stories, the story to end it all..."

A bland boardroom is shown on screen with a number of men and women in power suits.

Random media type 1: Yes, but what's the caption.
RMT2: How about "earth crunch"
RMT4: Sounds too much like "credit crunch", crunch doesn't spread fear as much as it used to.
RMT3: How about "Armageddon"
RMT2: No, that is only understandable by the AB1 demographic and its only one word.
RMT1: How about "Fatal Friday"
RMT3: No sounds like another stock market crash.
RMT2: How about"End of the World, as we know it"
RMT1: Too long it will appear over the station logo.
RMT4: How about "We're screwed"
RMT1: Well its direct, two words, but it just doesn't have any zing.
RMT3: How about "Rocky: The final return".
RMT2: No, that's already been copyrighted for the movie of the disaster.
RMT1: I know, how about: "Mankind's Annihilation"
RMT2: Works for me.
RMT4: Excellent.
RMT1: OK that's agreed, now lets talk sponsorship, are we thinking Coke or Nike...

Back in the reality created by the US Air Force which one can only assume didn't include a simulation of the media machine.

Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts who has also probably been watching two many Hollywood blockbusters suggested this scenario.

"I'm picturing people panicking and driving the wrong way on the freeway, screaming 'Oh my god, it's going to kill us!'"

We are not just talking republican policies on health care here either (little current affairs reference for my American audience). In true Hollywood fashion he forgot to mention the two teenage virgins by the side of the road getting busy as they certainly don't want to die a virgin. I am thinking American Pie meets Armageddon, now that would be worth going to see.

The outcome of the exercise was a realisation that there is no asteroid emergency plan beta 6 and Bruce Willis is not on 24/7 asteroid destruction call out. However the earlier the warning the better the response would be.

Which brings us nicely on to early warning systems. The good news is that two out of the three early warning systems are in Arizona where during the months of July and September you cant see a thing because of the cloud cover. Excellent, I can see that makes everyone feel better. Lets hope no asteroids turn up at that time of the year, perhaps they will just leave a calling card and come back later.

Even better news, the US Air Force have imagined a scenario where an asteroid could start world war 3: The final showdown. If an asteroid detonated over a politically sensitive area like the middle east then it might be interpreted as a nuclear attack and governments may retaliate.

Of course NASA has put a lot of money into funding projects to track potential planet killers but in a selfish approach they only focus on the Northern Hemisphere which is perhaps a bit short sighted as a planet killer in the Southern Hemisphere could still destroy all life on the planet as we know it.

NASA and the European space agencies are working on it though, so hopefully things will improve in the future.

NASA are also working on an Asteroid ship which will help defend the planet. Exclusively, here now I can reveal the working prototype:

Intertwined colour lines: a fascination part 2

The spiders web that is Oxfords road network.

Intertwined colour lines: a fascination

I find myself strangely fascinated by coloured lines intertwined together, especially if it is a pattern based on something man made or familiar to me.

This is a hand drawn colour line copy of a 1914 clearing house railway junction diagram of the area around clapham junction (the big confusing area over on the left). If you want to you can compare it to the original over here on wikipedia.

Maybe I have discovered a whole new art form with which you can experiment with on any map or satelitte photgraphy, just drawing designs. Today the web tommorrow Tate Britain.