MARCH AGAINST THE CUTS!

DEMONSTRATE AGAINST CUTS!
Sat.4 December
assemble 12 noon outside Hanley Town Hall, Albion Square, Hanley
Organised by NORTH STAFFS AGAINST CUTS –
supported by North Staffs TUC
No More Job Losses for North Staffs!
No more cuts in our services!
bring your banners & placards

National Union of Journalists Strike.

Okay so last blog I criticised the media in general. However let's not forget the individual struggles within the profession. A BBC Journalist strike is taking place this weekend.

http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=1788

Media Propagated North/South Divide.

I was watching BBC News the other day, when there came a report about the effects of the recession on the usual - small businesses, high street etc, when they showed a report about the effects of the recession in a specific town. I could almost feel the tension as they ran VT. The name of the place is not important, (suffice it to say it was Wolverhampton) but you know that with the BBC they are always going to (unfairly) single out a northern town. Granted, as we all know, or should know, Wolverhampton is in the Midlands and not the north as such, but to people or businesses or corporations based in London, anywhere beyond say, Bristol tends to be viewed as that generic part of the country known simply as 'the north'.

Now yes, large areas of the Midlands and indeed the north are more prone to the effects of the recession, particularly in those areas of former industries. But I would argue that by constantly highlighting these areas means that the Beeb is NOT highlighting areas in the south. And in media land, not showing it is equal to saying it does not happen. Not to sound conspiritorial, but the BBC leaving areas of the home counties alone in terms of negative coverage - those areas traditionally associated with Tory dominance, smacks of complete bias. And Dagenham, Basildon etc, are we to believe these are southern utopias? No. However, another thinly-veiled stereotypical portrayal of the working-class. The media is only to happy to selectively tell us that in times of recession we simply cannot cope, whilst our bourgeois rulers go almost unscathed.