Suggest a story idea
Your ideas from last week.
Pick up on one of those you find interesting, leave us a comment or drop us an email if you there's something you'd like to hear iPM cover. All thoughts and ideas very welcome, even if just a seemingly small, simple idea.
Email us
Our Twitter
Join our Facebook group
Listen to iPM
Technorati
Google
Ice Rocket
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~22~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
It would be interesting to note the effect of the credit crunch on share registration firms.
For example, HBOS being acquired by LLoyds TSB could mean several hundred jobs being lost in Bristol and created in Wothing or Birmingham as a result in the change in Registrar involved.
Complain about this comment
As the Founder of the Don't Walk Away and Leave a Friend to DIE campaign, I have decided that Alcohol, Gun and Knife Crime as so linked that I have set up a new initative called "Street Survival Skills" Urban First Aid for Kids, I have joined up with Redeemer Aid UK which is a Charity of African NHS Workers, who wish to engage with the Young People within their own and the wider community, we hope to pilot the initative before Christmas within the Kensington Area of Liverpool. Paramedic Steve
Complain about this comment
I was in the US during the opening of the Olympics and was not surprised that the US news coverage about the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia was 'spun' (the propaganda word for propaganda) or bleached of facts to such an extent that it not only became impossible to know what was really taking place, but, predictably Russia was cast as the villain in the story.
It did not take long on the internet reading reliable main stream sources outside the US to find that the US media line of "Russia invading Ossetia" was the reverse of what happened. Georgia had invaded Ossetia and it was about twenty four hours before Russia sent it's troops in.
It also does not take long to find out that 70% of South Ossetians have Russian passports and that a large majority had voted previously for independence from Georgia and thus alignment with Russia.
Add to this the geo-strategic struggle between the US and Russia for the oil pipeline that runs through Georgia. Also take into account Georgia edging closer to joining NATO and the instillation on Georgian soil of a US missile system which would render Russia's nuclear missiles useless as a deterrent. With South Ossetians being killed in their hundreds by Georgian bombing and shelling it's easy to see why Russia entered Ossetia and invaded Georgia AFTER Georgia invaded South Ossetia.
Imagine how the US would react if Russia was building a similar missile system in Mexico or Cuba or New Mexico (after it's inhabitants had voted to rejoin Old Mexico)
When I got back from the US on the 18th of August I was looking forward to hearing how this was reported on BBC Radio 4 news programs. A month has gone by since, a month when most days I have Radio 4 on for about half the day. So I have probably listened to 150-200 news reports during that time. Whenever anything about the Georgian/Russian conflict was broadcast I listened very carefully to what I heard. I was very surprised.
In no report did I hear (other than occasionally from the lips of Russian spokesmen) that it was Georgia that had invaded south Ossetia first.
And I did not hear that this attack was started around the same time as the world was watching the opening of the Olympics. Nor did I hear that Georgian forces (equipped with many millions of US dollars worth of US military hardware) had bombed with warplanes and shelled with heavy artillery the city of Tskhinvali, "Many of people who stayed behind were simply too old or infirm to leave. Instead, they huddled in their basements waiting for the shelling to stop. It was a bloodbath. The city's only hospital was deliberately targeted and destroyed. By day's end, over 2,000 people were killed in an operation that was clearly engineered with the assistance of the Bush White House." Were it not for the fact that I had spent some time looking into what had happened in Ossetia I would have had no way of understanding the framing factors of the conflict by listening to BBC 4 news reports.
I heard the Editor of Radio 4's The World Tonight speaking on Feedback earlier today (19th August). Part of his defence -against the criticisms of coverage of the Russia/Georgia conflict- was that his programme had made it clear what had happened because they had often played Russian spokesmen saying that they had only responded to Georgian aggression. But as a listener, hearing one government say one thing and another government saying another thing, how am I or anyone else supposed to understand which government is telling the truth if there is just a bewildering ping pong game of claim and counter claim? It wasn't difficult to report that Georgia rolled into Ossetia well before any provocation by Russia. The editor also said that who did what first was a contentious matter, that Georgia had talked of text messages they had intercepted that proved Russia was about to invade. Does that mean that any country can now invade anyone else by simply saying they have some intercepted text messages? Is that all any country has to say to stop a BBC editor or journalist from finding out what really happened? For all I know all of the facts about the Russian/Georgia conflict have been reported somewhere on Radio 4 during a news programme I missed. But if it was why was it not reported in any of the 150-200 news programmes I have listened to? If important truths that frame issues are good enough for one programme are they not good enough for 200 others?
I listen to the news so that I can understand what is happening in the world. If my government and it's allies are lying about something, and in lying hiding their own negligence, incompetence or possible criminality and therefore risking (*see below) the lives of not only people I know and love but billions of others, I want the BBC to tell me, whatever the professional risks.
So my idea for a story is; how could the reporting of the beginnings of the Georgia/Russian conflict be so difficult to understand and report intelligibly?
Thanks for reading, John in Anglesey
* "AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about significance of this, in terms of nuclear warfare in Russia? Do we have anything to fear along those lines?
COL. SAM GARDINER [US Army] : Absolutely. Let me just say that if you were to rate how serious the strategic situations have been in the past few years, this would be above Iraq, this would be above Afghanistan, and this would be above Iran." http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/11/up_to_2_000_killed_as
Complain about this comment
The vast amount of media time that is devoted to reporting, discussing and speculating on the world financial crisis is in great danger of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would be the last person to suggest that there is not a problem but how far should reporting be allowed go before it starts a landslide of panic?
Complain about this comment
There will be huge job losses with the Halifax/ Lloyds merger. The company has stated they will try and save jobs in Scotland but thousands will be loss in England. In Halifax and Leeds 14,000 people work for HBOS with a large number in group functions; there has been no commitment to keep these jobs in the North, and if these jobs do go there is little to replace them. These jobs sustain businesses in the towns and the knock on effect will be enormous. Ken Clark said on radio 4 this am that our next big worry will be inflation - I fear our next BIG worry will be unemployment.
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS