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May 09, 2007 at 10:19 AM |
People that actually know me still find it rather strange that I don't posses a TV! It wasn't a conscious decision or some political statement, simply that I moved home five years ago, spent money on new things and decided to save up for a new TV rather than lug the old one sitting in a corner of the front room.
Six months later I realized that I hadn't missed having a TV. Two years later I felt no different and now nearly five years later, nothing has changed!
Thanks to a close friend I get CDs of Top Gear when the BBC series is ever aired, but that's it. One of the things that strike me when I do see programs - especially BBC news programs - is how bad they are!
American news channels, especially Fox, are also awful but for different reasons. The BBC, however, dish out something for the masses that seems to me to be aimed at adults with a reading age of five!
So I was not surprised to read about a legend of BBC broadcasting having a rant about the BBC, though let me be quite clear, I don't in any way agree with the sexist slant taken.
Patrick Moore is no fool, yet a little mad - but then that's what makes him good at what he does!
That reminded me of IBM's press release last week, which demonstrated how far you can go in dumbing-down technology for the masses. What is worrying is that 99 percent of the massive coverage it received (just do a Google news search on it to see) simply copied and pasted the release. Some changed the headline, but many didn't. Even websites that you would have thought would write their own version really didn't and the vast majority of a small number made little edits but followed the theme IBM spewed out without hesitation.
A few months ago an informed PR professional (rare but true) highlighted to me that the power of the web and Google now means that corporations are more and more focused on producing press releases that are self-fulfilling in every way, devoid of facts etc... all because when the press release is issued they know that it will now be pasted on thousands of sites without a hint of editing.
Those sites that bother to be remotely journalistic are now far out-weighed by algorithms.
There was a time when Business Wire and PR Newswire were the home of press releases but now they compete with algorithms at places such as earthtimes et al which have no real reason for existence.
Please let me know whether you would prefer us to just post press releases rather than write a story as I am feeling that I am becoming a rare breed heading for extinction!
One of many references to the Patrick Moore story can be found here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/08/nmoore108.xml
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