ChristopherWhite.info

A very kind producer at the BBC has alerted me to a programme on Radio 4 tonight, Telling Muslim Stories. The beeb’s website says:
“This year it seemed that every time you switched on a news bulletin, there was story about Muslims.
“Journalists have been covering terrorism in Muslim communities for some time, but in 2006 they […]

No Comments »

“It’s a common misconception, held by all truly stupid people.” - Kryten to the Cat, Red Dwarf series five. (I was, coincidentally, watching this today.)
I imagine many misconceptions are pretty common. Try this one:
Reporting on a case of parthenogenesis (or “self-fertilisation”) in a Komodo dragon, National Geographic have taken the opportunity for a nice, Christmassy […]

No Comments »

The New Statesman’s response to a piece of analysis in the Economist that suggested that Fair Trade foods might actually do more harm than good:
“What rot. When the champions of wealthy corporate concerns express dismay at the way you are spending your money, you can be sure you must be doing something right.”
If that’s what […]

1 Comment »

I hate trains. I especially hate that awful advert with the native Americans: “Man who go on big train have big idea”.
Anyway… I came home for Christmas by train yesterday, and it took an hour longer thanit should have done. I missed my connection at Bristol as my train was late getting in to Cardiff […]

2 Comments »

For the production part of the course, next term we have to make a magazine from scratch and knock out three issues. Real practical stuff. Good.But… The mags have to be targetted at readerships within EU Funding Objective 1 areas of Wales - pretty much anywhere but Cardiff. I’ve nothing against the restriction - on […]

No Comments »

I was going to try and write an incisive commentary on the interview with Girls Aloud in, of all publications, this week’s New Statesman. But I can’t make my mind up about it.
Is it, as it claims, a move away from using the Girls to try to be “trendy” by actually asking about their politics, […]

No Comments »

…those people who hate journalists.Here we are with a high-profile, horrific serial murderer out and about, and what am I thinking?
I’m thinking: I know the girl covering that story for radio. Maybe I should select the assignment on “trauma in journalism” for my ethics (ha bloody ha) course and talk to her.
Terrible, isn’t it?
(And yet […]

No Comments »

Are bloggers geeks talking to themselves, a challenge to newspaper columnists, a democratisation of the media or a valuable research tool? They’re all of these, and more
Columnists were finished. Bloggers were going to kill them off. They admitted it themselves: Michael Bywater wrote on his own blog that, “I fill my Column Stomach (it’s a […]

No Comments »

The BBC are planning on running blogging workshops, “to improve public knowledge about blogging, and creating and publishing content online”.
Blogging’s just about the purest “plug-and-play” you can get. Children can use Blogger. Children do use Blogger. (Naturally the more discerning bloggers use Wordpress.)
We’ve heard all semester about how “user-generated content” is taking off, and now […]

No Comments »

The front page of today’s Metro: Tesco’s shame.
It’s a story about Tesco selling clothes knocked up in dodgy Bangladeshi sweatshops whose workers are paid pennies a day.
Hang on. Bangladesh? We’re used to hearing that sort of thing about China. I wonder why we don’t hear so much about Chinese sweatshops anymore…
Oh, right.
Of course, the story […]

No Comments »