Weblog on the Internet and public policy, journalism, virtual community, and more from David Brake, a Canadian academic, consultant and journalist
20 July 2003
Filed under:Current Affairs (UK),Old media at7:00 pm

Sorry I’m a bit late with this – it’s from last week’s Sunday Times which I picked up in a train. The Sunday Times used to be known for its investigative journalism. This article Fancy a Rubbish Job? on the front page of the News Review section, which I took at first to be a serious investigation into “ridiculous public sector jobs” turns out to be nothing but a politically motivated hatchet job.

From the start it is full of cheap shots at the “monumental effort to waste the billions of pounds that taxpayers are being forced to pour into Gordon Brown’s grand design to revive the nanny state.” Or as I like to think of it the slow and long-delayed process of restoring the welfare state after years of neglect under the Tories.

The writer puts the boot into, “Mr Rights the anti-racism co-ordinator, Mrs Strict of the council’s smoking cessation unit and Miss Celery the healthy eating officer from the digestion support team. Look, there’s Mr Lengthy-Forms the targets monitor, to make sure they all measure up to government standards”. Hmm… Should councils not be working to improve public health then? A little prevention effort now could save billions in bills for health services needed down the road. And if the government didn’t set targets the same writer would doubtless lambaste them for throwing its money away without even trying to find out its work was effective.

In the end this so-called investigation amounted to little more than the writer having a flick through the Guardian’s jobs pages, ringing up his pals at the Adam Smith Institute and attending a few interviews. He didn’t spend a day actually doing any of the jobs he criticised or talking to anyone who did.

I suppose it’s my own fault for taking the paper seriously. It’s clear that it has been thoroughly tabloidised since the last time I looked at it and that the “News Review” should be wrapped up alongside the ST’s Comment section. Then binned.jeans tight pics ass inlawrence porn interracial eveatk brunette hairyhighschool sex amateurmature sleazy interracial sex galleriestgp young non-nude modelspics granny fat oldanal teen insertioncum whores xxxfat grannies fuck

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment