The Windmils of Your Mind

[steveL]

I put this link on just as an example of the spin surrounding pretty much every public body these days.

Cleveland police praised for making tough cuts by HMIC

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/crime/cleveland-police-praised-for-making-tough-cuts-by-hmic-1-5869336

It's a 'good news' story pushed by Cleveland Police and released as a press release which papers like The Mail and others dutifully copy and paste into their content. It's an easy way to fill their pages around the advertisements without incurring the extra costs of real journalism.

What's missing in this cosy symbiotic relationship is the necessary coverage when the news isn't quite so positive. So you didn't get to read, for example, any of the three other stories about Cleveland Police which also surfaced this week.

18 Cleveland Police Officers dismissed in 5 years for racism

This story was on solid ground as it followed the response given to a question in the House of Commons. Interestingly, the racism story did appear briefly in the Evening Gazette but it was then suddenly pulled from their website.

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/18-cleveland-police-officers-sack-5135807

Cleveland Police Sue Former Chief Constable

This story is about the realisation that some of the payments made to former Chief Constable Sean Price may well have been illegal. When Mr Price started the job, Cleveland Police Authority – which has since been disbanded – approved a salary of £125,000, making him  one of the country's highest-paid police chiefs. By the time he was suspended,  Mr Price's remuneration had risen  to nearly £200,000, with allowances including a £50,000 'retention package'; his kids private school fees paid, an Executive car and a £24,000 'honorarium' supposedly for cutting crime.

When he was fired, he took a pension pot thought to be worth about £60,000 a year.

I can remember very well when the 'honorarium' payment was debated in Hartlepool Council Chamber with the then Councillor, Steve Wallace, who was on the Police Authority at the time, telling us all that 'we were lucky to have him (Mr Price)


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2334525/Sean-Price-Police-force-sues-chief-constable-500-000-sacked.html#ixzz2ZVM6638C

Report claims public confidence shattered after Cleveland police corruption

A report into policing standards says the alleged corruption and incompetence at Cleveland Police must have shaken the faith of the public in its top officers.

The report, Leadership and standards in the police, was compiled by the Home Affairs Committee.

It says that policing in Cleveland has been tarnished by a series of scandals, most notably the dismissal of its Chief Constable Sean Price and his deputy Derek Bonnard for gross misconduct.

You would have thought that such a report emanating as it did from a Parliamentary Committee, was worthy of coverage in the local newspapers but apparently not and of course, there was no Press Release on the matter from Cleveland Police themselves. Heaven forbid.

http://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2013-07-01/report-claims-public-confidence-shattered-after-cleveland-police-corruption/

Cleveland Police is just the one example that I've picked on to show how the dissemination of news has become seriously distorted in recent years. On the one hand, you have organisations trying to control the flow of information through their expensive PR Departments; on the other hand, you have lazy, cost-cutting newspapers wishing to fill their pages as cheaply as possible and with the minimum of effort. It's a perfect fit with only democracy, realy journalism and true accountability the only losers.

The same symbiotic relationships can be easily be found between other organisations, such as HBC, which has its own PR Department and the Hospital Trust which has proven to be almost paranoid in how it seeks to control the release of information.

The smart people who are lucky enough to have the time will know all of this, of course, and take with a large pinch of salt what they read in the local paper. Most people, however, are either not that interested or simply don't have the time and so luckily, for those who seek to control their image, most will simply assimilate whatever they read as the gospel truth.

I've probably been a bit unfair on singleing out Cleveland Police. As I said, most public organisations seems to run their own PR operation these days with the job of showing their organisation in the best possible light. Occassionally though, that role crosses the line into actually misleading the public and denying them their right to the truth. One example is the soon to appear story on Keith Oxley's departure from the Hospital Trust, the delayed Press Release in this case was so sanitised as to lose contact with the truth almost entirely.

[DRiddle]

Interesting post.

Noam Chomsky probably put it best in his book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, when he wrote

"The mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest."

He said that

"officials have and give the facts" and "reporters merely get them".

I know we're all aware that The Mail is in Labours' pocket on here, but I think Steve's right in that it's now reached farcical proportions.

I found it interesting (without wearing a tinfoil hat) that in the run up to the announcement about the power station there were two stories; One about children from Chernobyl (or near it at least) who "Loved Hartlepool", and another story about the "next generation of power station workers", again featuring children happily learning about nuclear power.

Here's a little challenge for any HTH contributors. Post a comment on a relevant article on The Mail's main page on their website and mention the £31 Million pounds of cash reserves that HBC have at their disposal.

See how long it takes for the comment to be pulled or the whole article to be buried.

I honestly don't think HBC would be in its current state of disarray if Harry Blackwood was still at the helm.

[brassed off monkey]

It has been obvious for a number of years that The Mail has become totally disconnected with the people of Hartlepool, by colluding with "The Mob" & their antics they have devalued good common sense local & factual reporting.

Its difficult to know who the Editor is some days, joy yates or alaister rae..... It is rather sad to think that before too long we won`t have a "Daily Paper" local news, letters, hatch match & dispatch all on a weekly basis.

The number of people i see loooking through the Mail in the different supermarkets before putting it down & walking away is quite striking really, i was in tesco last week & the Mail had a promotion girl there, she could barely give the deals away.

It`s Doomed Captain Mainwaring, Doomed I say

[Private Fraser]

Oi, I've got that line copy righted!