Viewing Thread:
"Just a simple question"

With no sarcasm or attempts at satire.

Does anyone else wonder why the lead news story now is the University Top-Up fees, the day after Tony Blair admitted that Iraq has no links with Al Queda "as far as I'm aware".
Instead of the war-rhetoric of the past week or so, it drops off the radar to be replaced with student loans and mounting debt.

Is it just me? And once again, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or facetious, I'm honestly wondering about it.

Unbeliever wrote:
> Another attempt by the Government to deflect our attention from the
> imminent and inevitable war that the majority of the world don't agree
> on.

Actually, seeing as the government does not for the most part control what the media decides to cover, unlike in Iraq...., it is the media who are using this story in a certain way, in fact it could be argued this is part of further attempts to prevent a conflict....

Whatever you think, it only deflects attention if people let it.

~~Belldandy~~

have they found the weapons hid under saddams pillow yet

Lot's of students become dissidents (at least 1 in 1000000), thus it is reassuring that only ther richest, well educated ones will cause politicial upheaval and terrorise us in future campaigns.

Another attempt by the Government to deflect our attention from the imminent and inevitable war that the majority of the world don't agree on.

That's pretty much where my head was/is at.
Instead of thinking "That's terrible for the students" - and I'm sure it is - I was thinking "Ok, so what is the purpose of running this story as headline?"

I think I think too much

Either,

The government is hoping to sneak this one past the majority of people whilst the public's attention is on the 'possible' conflict with Iraq, so possible that it requires 1/4 of the army....so change that to defenite. The media is trying to bring attention to it.

Or,

By giving news coverage and media attention to this proposed change in university fees sections of the media hope to further degrade the governments popularity amongst potential voters, and those who could support a conflict in Iraq.

Whichever way you look at it the media is not particularly bothered about the proposed changes to fees, it's really about how the story itself can be used.

This is my cynical view anyway....

~~Belldandy~~

That makes more sense than me getting paranoid and suspicious I guess.

Ta

The riddles of the media are solved by coining a simple phrase:

"The only good news is bad news"

Hence, Iraq having no Al Quaeda links is good news for all.
Student debts are bad.

Media logic has no choice but to choose the latter as a subject for headline material.

It's difficult to find an answer that does include any kind of sarcasm or cynicism but really the news headlines are about sensationalism and what's sensational about :

" Saddamm Hussein is found to be a Good boy really "

as a headline ?

I mean - who cares that hundreds of Mexicans have died in an earthquake this morning, or that the firefighters left the stations totally unmanned despite Gilchrists protestations that there would always be cover in case of a major emergency during the strikes, or that the US have added another 37,000 troops to their middle east deployment. It's all rather insignificant really.

I must admit it did suprise me.

I'm trying not to hear any news about Iraq or terrorism at the moment, because I was addicted to the news and ended up having bad nightmares everynight. But this morning I went on the BBC new site looking for the dates of the next proposed firefighter strikes, and saw the university story headlineing, despite the news that Tony Blair has said there are terrorist networks throught England and Europe, and despite the news that the UN don't back our actions in sending our army to Iraq.