This Just In: Rolling UK News Thread

my objection is that rolling-news-level, context-free, "hey look at these assholes" coverage generates no light and lots of heat that poisons the debate that follows and impairs our ability as a society to respond well.

"terrorists win" means something else to me than "putting soldiers in harm's way".

a) sounds like nonsense. b) i agree with. it's the megaphone we glady usher them towards that's the problem though. c) i hold the guardian in almost total contempt.

Simon Jenkins' schtick is calling everything from flu jabs to wind farms symptomatic of mass hysteria. I guess the point about it being "mundane" isn't that it's media oxygen making it political, it's media oxygen investing it with a political significance it doesn't necessarily deserve.

the problem i am talking about here, i mean. i'm not saying we're the guilty ones here. xp to self

If two edl members had butchered a muslim in a similar manner in order to make a political point, how different would guardian/ilx sentiment be?

― my name is louis and i'm an acoleuthic (darraghmac), Thursday, May 23, 2013 11:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you think anyone on ilx is anything other than disgusted by the act of violence itself then maybe you should enroll in some remedial courses because you have a reading age of <5 years old, yeah?

and same for guardian readers etc?

Perfectly happy with my level of reading comprehension ta.

I'll scan thread later and see all those posts i must have missed first time round, my (no doubt flawed, as you say) recollection is 'how disgusting they're focusing on the aspects of this that don't suit my entrenched political views')

But that wasnt the question

I for one object to being compared to a Guardian reader

TBF that was clumsy and i'm sorry

regardless, again, if you think anyone on this thread feels anything other than repulsion regarding the action on wednesday then you're every bit the reactionary chode you get so upset about being compared after being a reactionary chode. or should we not be offended that you think we think this vile action is defensible because we're not frothing with "string the buggers up" righteousness?

ie, If two edl members had butchered a muslim in a similar manner in order to make a political point, how different would guardian/ilx sentiment be?

why don't you tell us o positor of ever so intriguing moral questions?

P sure it's choad?

Quiet news day? :P

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stevie, come on. darragh isn't even a good troll.

Eh i might be were i to try tbh

Ilxing on a phone doesnt fuckin help any in eitheor case

If two edl members had butchered a muslim in a similar manner in order to make a political point, how different would guardian/ilx sentiment be?
― my name is louis and i'm an acoleuthic (darraghmac), Thursday, May 23, 2013 10:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's been a lot of reasonably-facile argument that an attack like this one - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10033881/Racist-fear-in-Birmingham-murder-of-Muslim-grandfather.html - was essentially the same, but has been by and large ignored by even the left/liberal sphere. Though of course it is missing that crucial element of public statement-making.

As a Graun reading ILXor, I give darragh's trolling 6.5/10 and Simon Jenkins' trolling 3/10, darragh for Graun columnist; fun ^

regardless, again, if you think anyone on this thread feels anything other than repulsion regarding the action on wednesday then you're every bit the reactionary chode you get so upset about being compared after being a reactionary chode. or should we not be offended that you think we think this vile action is defensible because we're not frothing with "string the buggers up" righteousness?

^ srsly, this is a nightmare to do on this device, i doubt it'll even be appreciated.

everyone is appropriately horrified and shocked, i'm sure. (no sarcasm)

secondary reaction has been "of course, the media are totally irresponsible in showing this, you know very well what that public, that public who weren't as clever as me at school or give apples to teacher like i did, you know, you have them too, you know very well they shouldn't be seeing things like this and thinking about it, because they might disagree with me then about some things which may or may not be broadly related to this incident" (ftr i don't believe that one-off nutters are to be used as indicative of anything, pre-empting yr next ad-hom)

secondary response has also had an element of 'something something tories' and jumping at rolling news using terms like 'muslim terror attack' for what could probably now (and probably pretty much straight away using the information) be fairly enough described as a terrorist (still discussing this term itt tbf) attack as a result of the assailants extremist muslim beliefs (which, again, pre-emptively, i agreearen't in any way fairly representative of broader islam any more than IRA attacks were representative of irishness)

btw i know that reactionary is yr standard term, but if i have to justify every quirk of language to avoid you jumping on it with the least favourable interpretation, couldya try to justify that one at least once? 'disagrees with me' doesn't appear to be any definition that i could find.

'chode/ad' i'm p much clear on. teacher wouldn't approve.

xp awww tks :D

xp to C#m- i think the publicity aspect of this is -important, interesting, new- i dont know if any of those things are exactly right, but it is a very bizarre and unique element to this one- has there been anything quite like it in the uk recently? i get that some itt are arguing that giving them what they want is not A Good Thing precisely based on this, but i don't think general maxims like 'just do the opposite' are going to serve any great wider purpose either

like, this wasn't actually yknow serious but fair lols at me if you repost it as evidence.

Maybe...

The world is just getting worse

― my name is louis and i'm an acoleuthic (darraghmac), 22 May 2013 23:08 (2 days ago)

I've got a different reason for not publicising this, and I think you're getting there anyway, but it's because of this:

Most people arrested for terrorist offenses actually are idiots, misfits, fantasists or people suffering from severe mental health issues. They aren’t globally-networked criminal masterminds.

― хуто-хуторянка (ShariVari), Thursday, May 23, 2013 1:35 PM (Yesterday)

So don't give them aspirational images, basically. If you're that way inclined, having been isolated and indoctrinated, then a blood-handed guy taking on the world, while apparently being articulate and courteous to women and children, is potentially a very heroic thing. As are the Tsarnaevs shutting down an entire city. You can imagine frustrated young men fantasising about being that guy.

The public face of terrorism (why are you even arguing the semantics? like anyone decides whether it's terrorism before deciding whether it's a bad thing) should be the guy who set himself on fire in the Giraffe toilets in Exeter, or the Glasgow Airport guys getting their heads stuck in railings or whatever. Not Butch Cassidy.

propaganda purposes?

i'm not sure that- start again

i take the point, yes let's try not to have shitcool terrorists, because the kind of kid who gets sucked into it does seem to be the suggestible loser

but i'm not sure that his becoming the mystery man at the centre of a whispered legend doesn't get you there in just another way?

not a fully developed response or anything

i take the point, yes let's try not to have shitcool terrorists, because the kind of kid who gets sucked into it does seem to be the suggestible loser

Kind of object to the rest of us having to be mollycoddled on account of a few suggestible losers.

good post ismael klata

But in every drama, we get spoonfed the idea that everyone involved in terrorism is either an idiot or a drooling maniac of mad genius proportions.

The idea that someone can be media savvy enough to come over like a TV chef doing a piece to camera before "ok, have to continue chopping up this soldier" or whatever...

... is too scary: You cannot tell the mad axeman purely by looking at him.

And when it comes to trolling you guys are amateurs compared to Anjem Choudhary, dude's a pro

ah so it was spelt "choud"

ha

The idea that someone can be media savvy enough to come over like a TV chef doing a piece to camera before "ok, have to continue chopping up this soldier" or whatever...

... is too scary: You cannot tell the mad axeman purely by looking at him.

I agree with the last part, but how is that any scarier than Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? Remember how shocked his friends were? He was normal, outgoing, and yet he must have had a deep detachment from his normal life to do the things he did. I have less difficulty believing someone could do something horrific without immediately reacting, but to plan it and conceal it from people you saw on a daily basis? Much scarier to me.

It Isn't.

Sorry, context:

how is that any scarier than Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

It Isn't.

i don't think it's possible or desirable to censor the availability of information to the general public - obviously governments and other organizations try to do this and sometimes they succeed, to some extent. maybe they succeed more than we realise - we wouldn't know, by definition. so, censorship is probably as close to a Kantian no-no as i'd be willing to go.

Folk Devils and Moral Panics is a really good book iirc and i should probably read it again because it definitely seems v. relevant to the age of everybody's-a-journalist.

The awful horror film (there might be more than one) about the serial killer who kills his victims per hit count on the website showing the killings is awful iirc but might have some relevant points at its heart re: public attention encouraging actions intended to gain public attention. in my opinion, because of the "censoring is bad, mmmmkay?" line i've adopted, this makes our individual degree of attention an act of personal moral responsibility, to some extent at least.

Cap'n State-the-Obvious: the "news agenda" is so far from being an objective reflection of what is happening on a moment-by-moment basis in the world of the mundane (kind of tautological but i know why i want to say it like that, can develop later) that to treat "what's on the news" as being serious business is to be unswervingly credulous or to subscribe to what can only be fairly described as propaganda imo

I think the "we can't let them think that what they're doing is as important as they want us to think it is" approach is potentially just as problematic as overexposure.

As has been said it's 2013 things are going to be visible and often in a way that's unfiltered and raw. A national media response that attempts moderation will reek of infantilisation at best (people lose trust and defer to more extreme/less ethically conscious outlets) and at worst conspiracy (lending the killers an aura of mystique that breeds even more uncertainty and fear).

I don't think withholding media and curtailing the use of imagery is as straightforward, ethical and beneficial as some of you want it to be.

if anything the hypertrophy of media shd allow you to create a more personal mediascape that reflects your own concerns and values i think

I don't think the majority of (generally older) people are savvy enough to do that to any meaningful degree.

i'm not saying everybody can do it, i'm saying that if you're interested in not passively accepting the standard newsfeed it's more of a possibility than in the past.

also some people of all ages look for comforting confirmation of their world view in media above all else

"Experts" often claim that presenting sensational events, like spree killings, dispassionately and factually would lead to fewer copycat crimes. I wonder whether that is actually tried anywhere.

it's done with suicides

unless you edit the Daily Mail iirc

secondary reaction has been "of course, the media are totally irresponsible in showing this, you know very well what that public, that public who weren't as clever as me at school or give apples to teacher like i did, you know, you have them too

ah, you were projecting wildly, based upon your prejudices, i get you now. i'll just move along, there's clearly nothing to see here.

I was hardly the first to start projecting, either itt or btwn just the two of us

I believe i did you the courtesy of replying at least in part to the substance of your posts as opposed to smug dismissal once you started your projection, but look i have no prob with my ukilx ppl go in peace you know you're right and shouldnt let the likes of me bother you xxx

Let my UKILX people go

let us remain ships that pass in the night on such matters then dmac, i shall continue to enjoy yr contributions to other threads and yr wit and try not to trouble you with the apples i gave teacher and other such unforgivable cliches crimes

It is fair to say that i dont overtrouble uk politics threads with glorious content ;_; but it's where all the posters i like do be on quiet days

UKILXP's Nigel FAPage

Just wanted to say that

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/24/us-britain-pakistan-jet-idUSBRE94N0HI20130524