Friday, October 05, 2007

nice helmet - shame about the . . .

ITN in Afghanistan and even the seasoned journalists can't resist a bit of raising the anti. .

"people are now returning to. . .

" people now feel safe. . ."

Now unless ITN's correspondents have been stationed in the region and become empirically well versed with its politics, then they'll be relying on their information from the armed forces, so they should still attribute.

As a previous editor-on-the-field in Nato's War Programme, I have made this point to senior military officials. We won't deny -unless extenuating reasons - what you're saying, but we'll have to attribute this to you.

The army says people are now safe . . .

More ho humming this morning, hearing BBC Radio News report Bill Clinton wants a role in Hillary's ( his wife) cabinet trying to restore the US's image abroad.

On hearing the interview with John Humphries on the Today programme, unless I'm dense, a different picture emerges.

Humpries asks Clinton about a job, he declines to answer saying his wife will decide.

Humphries presses. But what would you want?

Clinton measuredly talks about the need to improve US image abroad and he'd like to do that.

The context is important. You may draw the conclusion that his plum job is image ambassador, but he's been pressed. This information absent from the news casts a different tone on the nature of the report.

Interestingly enough Humphries later asks about Iran.

Clinton doesn't take the bait.

He asks again what Hilary would do.

Ask Hillary is more or less his reply

Before he proffers, prodded for an answer that Hillary says . . . leave nothing off the table.

Humphries presses: so without putting words in your mouth.. bombing iran is an option.

By this time I'm waiting to hear te 9 oclock news to know whether a NIB ( News in Brief ) item has made it.

Bill Clinton has asked that Iran. . . .

No such thing. Phew.

Now I'm just Mr Simpleton, with no reach to an award winning prog like Today or ITN but this sits a little skewed for me.

So if you're new to the game, press, be forensic, but don't trend extrapolate to the point where deductions may need more qualified explanations - and you leave them out.

No comments: