Journamalism

Having sung the praises of the vituperative British press it is worth pointing out that one downside of British media norms is that newspapers deem themselves to have much more leeway than ours do in terms of publishing stuff that's totally made up. Here's for instance, the Sun reports on a totally non-existent EU plot to dismember the UK:

According to the article, "“Secret plans reveal the South of England will be renamed TRANSMANCHE – and governed in part by bureaucrats in France." Apparently the Daily Mail "reported" on a similar plot last summer.

Comments

Do you think this will happen before or after the Amero is issued and the authorities let Mexicans and Canadians take err jeeaahbs?

Posted by Angry Sam | May 3, 2008 5:30 PM

How is this any different from Michelle Malkin and her insane belief that the Mexicans want to take California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas, combine them together and form Azatlan and rule it from Mexico City?

The Master Plan for it was on an ad for Absolute Vodka you know!

Posted by calipygian | May 3, 2008 5:38 PM

It's 1066 all over again!

Posted by RKU | May 3, 2008 5:44 PM

"deem themselves to have much more leeway than ours do in terms of publishing stuff that's totally made up"

I don't think this is the case. For example, the U.S. press seems to make up shit all the time about how republicans are good and democrats are bad, or by putting pentagon propagandists on the air.

The ol' NAFTA superhighway from Mexico to Canada doesn't seem to have died either, as a serious candidate for president this cycle seems to think its true.

I think you are going to get lots of counter examples about the U.S. press on this one.

Posted by mickslam | May 3, 2008 5:55 PM

What does Rupert Murdoch tell himself?

-- If I don't do it, somebody else will?

-- It's just business?

-- The mob wants a demagogue; it's the elite man's burden to protect the mob from itself?

Posted by ferd | May 3, 2008 5:55 PM

Well it's not completely made up...

Overblown perhaps...

The map is accurate , in so far as the regions mentioned are part of the EU INTERREG IV programme.

It's a programme that supposed to encourage and deepen cooperation and exchange between EU regions.

Which some people view as an attempt by the EU to cut the national governments out of the process.....

Posted by Kb | May 3, 2008 6:01 PM

Oh, for a second I thought he was talking about real British newspapers.

Posted by El Cid | May 3, 2008 6:06 PM

British newspapers are more accurate than you'd expect considering the writers are either drunk or hungover as they type.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 3, 2008 6:16 PM

I'm too used to American propaganda... I kept looking for some guy wearing a turban, or a Muslim sounding name, or something about abortions. :)

Posted by LnGrrrR | May 3, 2008 6:16 PM

> "“Secret plans reveal the South of England
> will be renamed TRANSMANCHE – and governed
> in part by bureaucrats in France."

They will then implement Isambard Brassey-Brunel's [1] plan to build a tunnel from England to the Colonies, except that they will continue past New York and connect it directly to the NAFTA Superhighway(tm) at Kansas City.

Cranky

[1] _Tunnel Through the Deeps_, Harry Harrison (a great book; probably responsible more than anything for my wanting to work in industrial engineering)

Posted by Cranky Observer | May 3, 2008 6:18 PM

Hey, Hillary-- the filly finished second. How appropriate.

Posted by Brian | May 3, 2008 6:19 PM

I think Matt is quite right on both counts. The British press are generally more casual about distorting news than their American counterparts, and they are more vituperative. I don't think either is an improvement (though I can perhaps understand why the licence to speak your mind might look attractive).

(And yes, the Sun and the Mail have the worst reputations for bullying and distortion but the street of shame isn't so-called for nothing.)

Posted by Chris Dornan | May 3, 2008 6:20 PM

The filly is down on the track, injured. I feel terrible about the previous post.

Posted by Brian | May 3, 2008 6:21 PM

Oh, God. Just awful. She broke both of her front ankles and was immediately euthanized.

Posted by Brian | May 3, 2008 6:26 PM

Those British journalists-trying to get all Dan Rather on us...

Sk

Posted by Sk | May 3, 2008 6:28 PM

Brian is also the name of the dawg who jumped onto the track to have impromptu sex with the bitch in that Family Guy chapter -- where actually it was the rich guy who impregnated said bitch.
Anyways, the filly lost to Big Brown, who was the favorite all the time.
This is so full of symbolism.
And don't feel sorry, the filly is in a good place now, and her heroism will be forever remembered.

Posted by And the one who won... | May 3, 2008 7:24 PM

Since Skynet is going to kill three billion people in 2011, I wouldn't sweat the dismemberment of the UK.

With a tip of the hat to George Carlin:

"The radar is picking up a line of thundershowers which extends from a point 9 miles NNE of Sicorgus, New Jersey, along a line and 6 miles
either side of the line to a point 5 miles SSW of Fonduloch. However, the radar is also picking up a squadron of Russian ICBMs... so I wouldn't sweat the thundershowers."

(George Carlin - Al Sleet, the Hippy Dippy Weatherman)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 3, 2008 7:46 PM

*Spoiler* Inappropriate comment coming up:

That can't be a good omen for Hillary.

Posted by LnGrrrR | May 3, 2008 7:51 PM

"You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
thank God! The British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
unbribed, there's no occasion to."

Ah, the Currant Bun, simultaneously offering coupons for booze-cruise ferry daytrips to France while treating Foreign like the Hundred Year War never ended.

That map's accurate in terms of regional funding and development, because (duh) of things like the North Sea bits of England and Scotland having shared economic interests with the other orange bits. There are more flights from my family's regional airport to Amsterdam than there are to London, on account of the industrial ties.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 3, 2008 7:57 PM

Where Britain really does better than the United States is in television news. I remember an interview where Tony Blair said that Saddam Hussein had kicked out the weapons inspectors in 1998, and the interviewer reminded him that Saddam didn't kick out the inspectors. Can you imagine that happening on American television?

Posted by Kenneth Almquist | May 3, 2008 8:09 PM

Quotes from last episode of Terminator, for your edification:

Derek: Remind me again, why are the boys out here and the girls in there?
John: Because one of the boys is still wanted for murder and one of the girls is harder than nuclear nails...
Derek: And the other one's a cyborg.

Cameron: You haven't spoken for 28 minutes.
John: Well, it's nothing. All right, my birthday's tomorrow, okay? I know that mom totally forgot.
Cameron: Birthday?
John: Hey, you don't know what a birthday is?
Cameron: It's the day you were born.
John: Pretty memorable for a mother, right?
Cameron: But it was 16 years ago.
John: No, a birthday's like a holiday. Like once a year, every year, people just kind of celebrate you, I guess. And you get presents and you eat cake and it's fun. It's supposed to be. Last year, mom got me a flak jacket.
Cameron: That's a tight present.
John: No, it's not. Whatever, look, I don't know why I care. I've been driving since I was 12, and, technically, this is my 24th birthday. It's just I time traveled over eight of them.
Cameron: Do I have a birthday?
John: I don't know. Were you born?
Cameron: I was built.
John: Well, then, maybe you have like a built day.

Morris: Wow, is this your car?
Cameron: No, it belongs to the guy I killed and stuffed in the trunk.
John: Hey, where were you? Mom says we gotta come home right now. What's up with the car?
Morris: Cameron stuffed a dead guy in the trunk.
(John looks apprehensive).
Cameron: He was following us.
Morris (thinking Cameron is joking): Your sister's really dark, bro! (To Cameron) You're gonna love "The Smiths"!
John (smiling weakly): Yeah, she's really goth.
Cameron: Get in.
Morris: Uh, wait, Cameron. There's something I need to ask you. Um, you think maybe you might wanna go to the prom with me?
(Cameron stares at him)
John: Just say yes!
Cameron: Yes!

[The kid is doomed. He's going to end up stuffed in the trunk of a car.]

John: (about the dead guy) Did he say anything? A name, a location?
Cameron: He said very little, and then he was quiet.

Derek: You can't just give a briefcase full of money to a guy like that and expect he's just gonna hand over the Turk.
Sarah: Actually, I can.
Derek: (About the diamonds) Well, those are from the safe house I set up, so, technically, they're mine.
Sarah: Well, I'm guessing you stole them, so, technically, they're evidence in a felony.

Derek: I love these places.
Sarah: Food courts?
Derek: First day after me and the guys jumped through, we went to the Century City mall and we spent the whole day there. We all puked. You know, the funny thing, in the future, that place is a concentration camp.

Fake Sarkissian: If I was gonna sell you the Turk, you'd have had it by now. So this is my counter offer, the money you was gonna pay me for the Turk, you take that number and you multiply it by four.
Sarah: $2 million?
Fake Sarkissian: You're a fugitive, Ms. Connor. Might make that a small price for freedom.
(Derek grabs him and throws him against the wall)
Derek: Here's my counter offer. You tell us where the Turk is, we keep our money, and I bury you in the back yard.

Sarah: Can you get through the door?
Cameron: Yes. But the wall would be much faster.
(Starts punching holes in the wall.)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 3, 2008 8:35 PM

Oh, for a second I thought he was talking about real British newspapers.

Unfortunately, The Sun and the Daily Mail have more than double the circulation of the five major real newspapers combined.

Posted by novakant | May 3, 2008 8:50 PM

Is that the one that has tits?

Posted by blah | May 3, 2008 9:17 PM

"It's 1066 all over again!"

I was thinking more along the lines of this, with the "North Sea Region" being a modern day version of the Danelaw . . .

Posted by Dan S. | May 3, 2008 9:21 PM

Kb writes: The map is accurate , in so far as the regions mentioned are part of the EU INTERREG IV programme.

So, in other words, MattY is just an childish establishment hack who's doing what he assumes others want him to do and/or tell him to do?

They certainly don't make leftists like they used to.

As for the "non-existent" plans for a NAFTASuperhighway, there was a map of it - marked under that name - on a Canadian government website. And, a provincial government official promoted it in an official speech.

Maybe we could arrange a trade: our leftists for the brighter, less controlled ones in Canada, since a little research will show that they're smart enough to be concerned about these issues: canadians.org

Posted by TLB | May 3, 2008 10:02 PM

Curiously, you can tell the difference between the links that allow Chris 'Whack O'Mole' Kelly to pimp his POS sites beloved of white supremacists, in order to buy more Cheetos: they're the ones he takes care to wrap in anchor tags.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 3, 2008 10:15 PM

"one downside of British media norms is that newspapers deem themselves to have much more leeway than ours do in terms of publishing stuff that's totally made up."

This may be the silliest thing I have ever read on this blog, yet. I don't care to personalize it, but I think it's not surprising MY might say this considering he supported the Iraq War.

Let's see her:

-Iraq al-qaeda connection
-Iraq weaponization programs
-Iranian nuclear weapons
-Israeli outposts as contested territory
-captured Afghanis' are unlawful combatants and subject to new, extralegal procedures

-Bush's tax cuts go largely to middle class
-raising the capital gains tax is a tax on the middle class
-The estate tax would hurt average farming families
-false job growth numbers (predicated on growth of government jobs)
-false unemployment numbers, as Kevin Phillips so dutifully pointed out in this week's Harper's

Seriously, I could go on and on for days.

Again, while I truly like Matt's work (mostly), his magazine harbors a serial liar and truly filthy human being in Jeffrey Goldberg, among other less than savory characters. To the gallows with Goldberg!

Posted by jeff | May 3, 2008 10:52 PM

It's spelled Aztlán, cali. Watch out for the taco trucks.

"The presidential hopeful urged a group of her supporters in Louisville Thursday to put their money on the filly, Eight Belles."

What a terrible curse to put on an innocent horse.

Posted by c | May 3, 2008 11:09 PM

Why would Sweden be in the North Sea region and not the Baltic region?

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | May 3, 2008 11:58 PM

The difference is that in the US, there are two types of newspaper: legitimate (however ideologically skewed or poor quality) and tabloids like the National Inquirer.

Here you have a larger gray area, where papers like the Sun and the Mail have sensational headlines yet also report legitimate news, ranging to The Guardian and The Independent and The Times, which have much higher journalistic standards.

And then there's "local" papers, which mostly exist to sell real estate and report on the latest Tesco opening and library closing.

Posted by KathyF | May 4, 2008 1:59 AM

Her sitede TÜRK Bayrağı kampanyasına destek olmak için TÜRK Bayrağı Bandını sitene ekle. Hem kampanyaya destek ol hemde HİT kazan.

Posted by PiriketSeverler | May 4, 2008 3:02 AM

"Why would Sweden be in the North Sea region and not the Baltic region?"

It's in both...

The region of Sweden whose coast lies on the kattegut rather than the baltic is in the North Sea area.

All of sweden is also part of the Baltic Sea region
whilst northern sweden is also in the northern periphery region.

Posted by kb | May 4, 2008 3:28 AM

The late, great Robert Mitchum once commented on this to an American reporter who'd brought up the point after he'd returned from a UK filmshoot.

"Well, the difference is that the English don't believe the bullshit their papers print. Over here,even though the bullshit stories are less outrageous - the papers and magazines can make up all the lies they want- just pile it on- and the American people believe. They just suck that shit down"

The funny thing about Mitchum's politics is that though later in life he became some kind of Reagan Democrat, had a friendship with Bush 41, he was always kind of an anarchist. In his younger days he was an admirer of the Connie Mack of socialism - Norman Thomas. And, to the day of his death in '96 - he was pro-drug legalization, pro-prison reform, pro-choice, a lot of progressive positions. Had he been alive - it wouldn't have been a big leap to have him condemn the zio-conned War started by the idiot kid Bush 41.

Posted by Trevor | May 4, 2008 4:12 AM

If your paper exists more to pimp topless pics than inform people, you need to make shit up to make it look like you have a scoop the broadsheets don't. The Times of London, which only the Tory elite reads, is much better than any of the explicitly conservative papers we have in the US, especially the Washington Times. However, the papers that the average Brit actually reads make USA Today's pretty charts look like the pages of the old Partisan Review.

Posted by Reality Man | May 4, 2008 4:19 AM

You have to love it when conspiracy theorists attack other people for being misinformed and not having any credibility. Part of me wonders of Kelly walked off the pages of Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Getting three large countries to agree on merging would be worse than herding cats. It would be like trying to herd coked-up retarded four-year olds. It would be such an unbelievably large project that would be met with such fierce resistance if ever put into practice that it would be impossible to carry out (you would probably see much of the militaries of the three countries quit overnight) and the legislatures of our three nations would block it. Believing that plans for a North American Union are real are like believing that Bush is planning on selling the US back to Queen Elizabeth, who is actually a lizard empress from Anne Heche's home planet.

Posted by Reality Man | May 4, 2008 4:39 AM

The thing which kind of gives the game away with this map is that Norway is not in the EU. And I thought US newspaprs had weak fact checkers...

Posted by JohnTh | May 4, 2008 5:41 AM

"The thing which kind of gives the game away with this map is that Norway is not in the EU. And I thought US newspaprs had weak fact checkers..."

Norway does however participate as a member of INTERREG and is a member of the North Sea Region thereof. The difference is that Norway pays its share of any costs rather than receiving money from the EU structural funds.

The map is accurate.

The underlying aims behind the map may differ from the interpretation that the Sun and Mail have put on it....

Posted by kb | May 4, 2008 6:37 AM

Norway is certainly in the plans for the EU, which are about the same as the ones Napoleon and Hitler had for a Continental Superstate.

Spreading panic about the EU is a sure way to sell papers in Britain. These are people who in big majorities see through the scam--it's not necessary for states which want free trade and open borders to acquiesce to a giant and rapidly metastasizing bureaucracy in Brussels.

The Labour Party made a solemn promise that British citizens would get a referendum on the EU Constitution, and are now trying to renege by changing the name from "constitution" to "treaty". It won't work.

Posted by robert powell | May 4, 2008 6:45 AM

Re:
-Iraq al-qaeda connection
-Iraq weaponization programs
-Iranian nuclear weapons
-Israeli outposts as contested territory
-captured Afghanis' are unlawful combatants and subject to new, extralegal procedures

These were not inventions of the media, but of the Bush administration. Is the media supposed to ignore what the president of the US says and does?

Posted by JonF | May 4, 2008 7:22 AM

They can and should report on the truth value of the President's statements. Being objective doesn't mean giving both sides equal time, it means reporting the facts.

Posted by Angry Sam | May 4, 2008 10:04 AM

JonF:

Quite right, my friend. Many of the things I mentioned (not all, mind you) were created by the Bush administration.

And that gets to the core of my argument:

No, they are not supposed to ignore them. They are supposed to examine the veracity of the statements rather than present them as the mere truth because of a presidential stamp of approval.

No, the media's job is to inform the public, not report what someone says, but determine the context and truth of what that someone says.

If you think otherwise, than you would have felt quite at home in Stalin's Soviet Union. I swear, it's a paradise and collectivized crop yields are at an all time high. Or so they tell me

Posted by jeff | May 4, 2008 12:33 PM

Reality Man writes: Believing that plans for a North American Union are real are like believing that Bush is planning on selling the US back to Queen Elizabeth, who is actually a lizard empress from Anne Heche's home planet.

Very powerful people have promoted such a scheme, and there's plenty of evidence that steps are being taken in that direction. And, of course, something like this wouldn't happen overnight. Step after step would be taken until all three countries are linked together through various agreements, and by then it would be too late not to do anything. And, the same hacks who are currently denying the existence of such a plan would switch into sales mode.

Obviously, I can't include all the signs pointing in that direction here, but I'd be willing to bet that anyone who looks into this in an intellectually honest fashion will realize that such plans are favored by very powerful people and that we need to have a national conversation about what they want.

And, after looking into that, I don't think anyone will trust hacks like MattY or "Reality Man". Maybe Reality Man would care to put a website behind its name so we know who it is and know not to trust it.

Posted by TLB | May 4, 2008 3:19 PM

The important thing about things like the "North American Union" is not that it would "work" - none of the crap done by the power elites "works" - for anybody but them - but that they will TRY to make it "work" (for them).

Those are two different issues - whether it makes sense, and whether it makes sense for the people promoting it. Don't conflate the two.

Iraq never made any sense - except to Bush and the neocons. It happened anyway.

Iran makes even LESS sense - and it's being prepared as we speak.

Compared to that, a "North American Union" is almost obviously going to be tried. Whether it "works" or not is almost irrelevant.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 4, 2008 5:38 PM

There is a North American Union - it's called the United States of America. There are some lands not involved, but that's the case in Europe, too. I'm all for Mexican and Canadian inclusion in our Union, though (by willing admittance, of course, not by imperialism which was the preferred method of 19th century Americans).

Canadians, Mexicans, and Americans: all North American Scum.

Posted by Chuck | May 4, 2008 10:31 PM

And how, pray tell, will the powers that be be able to create an NAU without getting the people to consent to some sort of constitutional amendment?

Posted by Quietus | May 5, 2008 3:53 AM

Ever heard of Congress, Quietus?

The same bozos who let the US get into Iraq and now are letting it get into Iran? (BTW, the Bush secret "finding" authorizing a covert war against Iran which was signed six weeks ago required funding - $300 million. That finding had to be communicated to senior Democrats. They rolled over on it.)

What's to stop them from getting into a NAU? Or more precisely, WHO is to stop them?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 5, 2008 6:02 AM