As part of a university assignment, I've been buying The Times every morning for the past week or so, and today I got a welcome surprise on the front page.
Dominic Kennedy, Investigations Editor for The Times was violently ejected from a BNP meeting, left bloodied, bruised and assaulted.
This is no conjecture or libel on my part, as not only have The Times already published these details but the mass media was on hand at the time to take plenty of photos of this taking place.
Obviously, what I'm pleased about isn't the fact that a journalist was unnecessarily roughed up by a group that's too right wing for me to even make jokes about without being personally disgusted.
What I'm pleased about is journalism finally taking a stand for something, and what's more, meaning something for once.
Obviously there will be plenty of examples people will be able to give me of journalism being meaningful and relevant in the last few years.
But all we've been told since hitting university to start a journalism degree is how the industry is going down the toilet and newspapers don't mean anything any more when the internet is so instantaneous.
But here, not only have The Times reported on something brilliantly, they themselves have BECOME the story.
It's a thrilling example of what Hunter S. Thompson called gonzo journalism - the journalist truly becoming the story.
What's more, it's great to see journalists representing enough of a threat to a political party that they saw fit to one out of their meeting with violent force.
The BNP have been gaining momentum recently and hopefully this story will expose them for what they truly are.
Watch this space.
Showing posts with label BNP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BNP. Show all posts
15 February 2010
24 October 2009
Question Time? Target practice.
I'm sure that anyone who reads this blog will have seen Question Time, starring none other than our very own Nick Griffin.
Nick Griffin, that is, the leader of the BNP.
What an utterly pointless exercise this was.
This programme was a farce, an utter farce.
I am no fan of the British National Party. My fiancée is Asian, and I used to be so far left that I nearly voted for the Socialists.
But putting Nick Griffin in the figurative stocks and pounding him with sponges (well, questions) is going to achieve absolutely nothing. In fact, it's counter-productive.
Nick Griffin is a politician, and like any politician he will bend the truth and he will answer questions indirectly. These are two things it would appear that he did frequently on Question Time, but they're also things that other people on the same programme seem to have been doing, for as long as it has existed.
Making Griffin a target for a crowd of people is not only exactly what he wants, seeing as you attract attention to him, but it makes him sympathetic. This is the last thing we want to do if we want to stop him from gaining even more power by the next general election.
There have been discussions on the uni campus before about how if there's an association of BNP supporting students, they shouldn't be allowed to meet together in a uni building.
Of course they should be allowed, they have the right to have those viewpoints, as reprehensible as so many of us find it.
But the stupidest thing is, putting him on the programme with such a wide audience gives Griffin the opportunity to actually make some decent points.
The Qu'ran really does say some of that awful stuff in it. The Bible says some equally ridiculous stuff in it too, such as that when a woman is on her period she should stay indoors and sit on a silk pillow, not allowed to touch anyone or anything.
The BNP shouldn't be given this kind of platform. But they have the right to it. And if they didn't have that right, we'd live in far worse a country than we do right now.
A member of the Welsh Parliament (or a Welsh member of Parliament, I forget which) described this programme as an early Christmas present for the BNP, and that's just what it is.
Nick Griffin, that is, the leader of the BNP.
What an utterly pointless exercise this was.
This programme was a farce, an utter farce.
I am no fan of the British National Party. My fiancée is Asian, and I used to be so far left that I nearly voted for the Socialists.
But putting Nick Griffin in the figurative stocks and pounding him with sponges (well, questions) is going to achieve absolutely nothing. In fact, it's counter-productive.
Nick Griffin is a politician, and like any politician he will bend the truth and he will answer questions indirectly. These are two things it would appear that he did frequently on Question Time, but they're also things that other people on the same programme seem to have been doing, for as long as it has existed.
Making Griffin a target for a crowd of people is not only exactly what he wants, seeing as you attract attention to him, but it makes him sympathetic. This is the last thing we want to do if we want to stop him from gaining even more power by the next general election.
There have been discussions on the uni campus before about how if there's an association of BNP supporting students, they shouldn't be allowed to meet together in a uni building.
Of course they should be allowed, they have the right to have those viewpoints, as reprehensible as so many of us find it.
But the stupidest thing is, putting him on the programme with such a wide audience gives Griffin the opportunity to actually make some decent points.
The Qu'ran really does say some of that awful stuff in it. The Bible says some equally ridiculous stuff in it too, such as that when a woman is on her period she should stay indoors and sit on a silk pillow, not allowed to touch anyone or anything.
The BNP shouldn't be given this kind of platform. But they have the right to it. And if they didn't have that right, we'd live in far worse a country than we do right now.
A member of the Welsh Parliament (or a Welsh member of Parliament, I forget which) described this programme as an early Christmas present for the BNP, and that's just what it is.
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