Again Mr Fish - once again - shows his total inability to read and comprehend.

Look numb-nuts, have you any contribution to make to this discussion, or are you simply on yet another flaming exercise?

Cameron is a politician - he is agenda-driven - that is his job. The problem is us we don't want our government to be honest if we did we would demand a higher level of debate. Cameron is a complete empty jacket, so was Blair, so is Milliband - style over substance, don't blame them blame the electorate.

JRF is one of the very best charitable trusts around who do lots of good work - but suggest they don't an agenda to push is niave. It is like the views on the Guardian on here - to some everything they say is gospel, we all know they have every much of an agenda as the DM.

Grow up - you silly little man

Some of us would dearly love that. Unfortunately, obsession with the market and chasing ratings etc are two factors in the ongoing dumbing-down of the media in the UK, and the subsequent dumbing down of the public discourse.



At least the [iGuardian[/i doesn't profit from the sexualisation of underage girls.

Agreed.
But the Rowntree have at least put the effort in to finding out.


Again, at least they have done the research.

p.s.
Please don't include me in the all-approving Guardian readership.
I do read it but there's plenty in there that's ephemeral and woolly.
I also regularly read the Telegraph, the New Statesman, the New Yorker, Private Eye, Land Rover Owner and the Nauticalia catalogue.

The problem is Clinton - a truly incredible individual, his presentational skills are second to none, all the rest are very pale imitations of the master. He showed the way - sadly.

On the Guardian - not disputing your point - but the fact still remains it has every much an agenda as every other daily paper. Much of their stuff is very agends-driven, poorly researched and poorly written allbeit in words beyond one syllabul.

The government's Work Programme managed to get 3.6% of the people on the scheme off benefits and into secure employment in its first 14 months.

An unqualified success, shurely.

Well, until you measure it against their own declared target of 5%, which wasn't the most over-optomistic of targets to start with

JFR - not disputing they have done the research but doesn't mean a slant isn't put on their findings, let's face it their's is not the only solution to the issues they raise.

On the Guardian - not suggesting for one minute you are a devotee just the higher esteem it is held on here than any other daily.

One could suggest that that went back to JFK. Which to some extent may mean that what we're actually talking about is politicians in a TV age – and particularly those who have grown up in that TV age.



I'm far from the biggest fan of the [iGuardian[/i, and think some of their stuff very sloppy, together with also intensely disliking their (or at least Rusbridger's) obsession with giving so-called 'rad fem' bigots a platform. But you can have an agenda – or at least a philosophy – and still produce much better journalism than is being seen widely these days. As the late Robin Day once said: "There are only two newspapers that tell the truth: the [iFinancial Times[/i, which has to tell the truth for the business community, and the [iMorning Star[/i, which has to tell the truth for the workers."

One of the problems has been the blurring between report and editorialisation. Should be a no no. But it affects almost all papers. I remember being introduced to the [iTelegraph[/i in the late 1980s – a really good paper. You didn't have to agree with all it's op-eds – which were clearly defined – to appreciate its breadth of reporting, for instance. But there's a reason that even regular [iTelegraph[/i readers are now calling it the [iMaily Telegraph[/i.

The obsession with celebrity is another problem that crosses boundaries and has now infected the broadsheets. And the petty crassness of some articles. In the [iGuardian[/i a week or so ago, because restaurant critic Jay Rayner had tweeted something about never having had a dishwasher, he was asked to pen a whole piece on that vital matter. FFS.

Although I will say, in the [iGuardian[/i's favour, this week it at least it managed to be the only one of the papers I caught up with that had not (deliberately or otherwise) misunderstood Hilary Mantel's [iLRB[/i lecture and then tried to whip readers into a storm over it. The [iMail[/i and the [iSun[/i were the worst for that, but the [iTelegraph[/i and [iIndependent[/i were not far behind.

And that – to me at any rate – also illustrates the dumbing down, where so many people read what the papers had said and assumed that that was correct, and then went and used the internet to blast Mantel, sometimes in downright abusive terms. It didn't occur to their dim little minds to actually find and read the original; their knees were a-jerking too much by that stage. And then, of course, you get both Cameron and Miliband feeling the need to add their fourpenneth. Now either neither of them had read the original and simply took the tabloid version at face value – or they had read it and didn't understand it; or they simply went with the populist approach. None of those options is remotely good.

And this is without considering the non-print news media.

And you base this notion on what exactly? As Minty pointed out the evidence points to the opposite. The more developed the society the lower the birth rate.

Dismissing the Guardian because the editorial has an agenda, as all papers do, is lazy.

Papers like the Guardian tend to separate news i.e. fact based reporting from editorial opinion far better than tabloids (including the Mail).

I can't remember what thread it was on but I quoted some facts from the Guardian to which Robinson made his stock reply of "It's in the Guardian so there is no point following the link". I then found the exact same set of facts written in the Telegraph.

The "It's the Guardian so its no use" line is pretty pathetic really. It just shows the people who trot that line out can't dispute what is actually written in the paper.

The real illustration of its failure is not that it missed the 5% target but that job seekers got more success at finding jobs by themselves. That is a higher percentage of those [inot[/i subject to the program found employment then those on it!

I remember seeing, some years ago, a documentary about women in (IIRC) Calcutta, which is one of the poorest areas of India. But the regional government had worked particularly hard to increase education and job opportunities for women – and as those took effect, the number of births decreased.

The Guardian is like all other papers it will lead with whatever it thinks will help sell most papers. It's take on all issues will be tainted by the agenda its editor/owner is trying to push. The articles it commissions and the writers it uses will have careful vetted to ensure they do not go off message. In that respect the Guardian is no different from any other daily.

That's called the editing process.



Although I would say, having worked for the online version of the [iGuardian[/i, it really wasn't as rigid as you suggest.

Once you get compliant writers you don't need to be so rigid - would be interesting to see what would happen if they commissioned Richard Littlejohn

Y'see, I think that the likes of Littlejohn are part of the problem, in that they don't promote reasoned discussion but a ranting, knee-jerking approach that is simply designed to whip people into an unthinking frenzy.

I've used this example before, but when the French were debating the burqa ban, their media had the likes of philosophers discussing it in the pages of papers. We'd get Littlejohn or Burchill or assorted other idiots.

the problem is there are narrow minded gob5hites on both sides of any argument, once someone adopts an extreme position someone adopts the opposite (but equally extreme) position, and the majority are left floundering in the midst.

Totally agree. But that's why we need a responsible media more than ever. That doesn't mean a media where every publication/channel has the same political ethos, but one where they actually look at questions properly. Another French example: if there's industrial action in France, the French right-of-centre press won't simply scream 'Bad!' but will look at what has caused the industrial action. It may not agree, but it may even sympathise – you get my drift.

If you're not currently watching C4 Dispatches, make sure you watch tonight's episode on [url=http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od4oD[/url

Test.

Absolutely brilliant! Well done to Dispatches for showing the whole of Britain what is going to happen to us when this governemnt replaces DLA with PIP and how strict the critera is. I was actually wondering if the usual Tory supporters on here were watching and would like to comment, especially as it mentioned everything that I have over the last few months on Sin Bin. It put todays propaganda DLA claimants articles in The Sun and The Mail to shame.

When (and I'm saying when, not if) my car is taken off me I will be virtually housebound as I can't use public transport nor will I be able to afford taxis without my DLA. In the last few weeks I've had to be at my GPs every other day, had to pick up presctiptions and had hospital appointments, all using my car. Take that away and I will not only lose my independance, but sanity too.

I haven't seen the dispatches but I am dead against the cuts that will affect the more vulnerable in our society but a brand new car every three years seems a touch extravagant. They should definitely continue with the motability but on a slightly more realistic basis IMO.