The Doodles of Natural Leaders

[Thomas Paul]

I'm just wondering if the experts want to change their minds...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=6&u=/nm/20050131/od_nm/britain_doodle_dc

LONDON (Reuters) - When a sheet of paper covered in doodles was found on Tony Blair's desk at the Davos World Economic Forum, handwriting experts delighted in analyzing it, concluding the prime minister was stressed and under pressure. Experts who examined the tangle of boxes, circles, loops and notes on debt and trade variously described Blair as "struggling to concentrate" or "not a natural leader" and "stressed and tense." But there was a problem. The doodles, it later transpired, were nothing to do with Blair but were the work of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who shared a table with Blair at the summit.

[Marco Davids II]

just read the story
i thought it was hilarious

what do they say about assumptions ....
so much for experts ....

[ January 31, 2005: Message edited by: Marco Davids II ]

[Ashok Mash]

Apparently, that was Bill Gate's first draft for new improved Windows security!

[Bacon]

Assumptions or... any oportunity to smear someone you don't like.

Looks like British journalism has the same issues as American journalism.

[Dave Lenton]

Originally posted by Ray Marsh:
Assumptions or... any oportunity to smear someone you don't like.

Looks like British journalism has the same issues as American journalism.

Journalism world wide probably has the same problems. Journalists are paid to write stories that people will buy. A media outlet telling boring truthful stories will be less successful then a paper selling interesting rumours. Unfortunately a lot of people don't realise that the media are giving them what they want to hear/read/see, not necessarily the un-biased truth.

Journalists also have tremendous pressure to be the first with a story, leading to the kind of situation above where by a media outlet releases a story before checking its validity.

[Thomas Paul]

It turns out that it was probably the doodles of Bono of U2 who was also sitting at the same table.

[Helen Thomas]

There's a BBC weatherman who looks remarkably like Tony Blair.

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And by the law of demeter ,somewhere there's a golf caddy who looks like this :-

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Bonnie Prince Charlie

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[ February 01, 2005: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Bacon]

Originally posted by Dave Lenton:
Journalism world wide probably has the same problems. Journalists are paid to write stories that people will buy. A media outlet telling boring truthful stories will be less successful then a paper selling interesting rumours. Unfortunately a lot of people don't realise that the media are giving them what they want to hear/read/see, not necessarily the un-biased truth.

Journalists also have tremendous pressure to be the first with a story, leading to the kind of situation above where by a media outlet releases a story before checking its validity.

Yes, I understand the economics of journalism and patently reject it as a excuse. Primarily due to the manipulation of public opinion that is on the dark-side of this issue, not just the drive to make money. Like most media, there used to be standards and pride in good journalism. Now money talks and bs walks. The ironic thing is bs in journalism keeps the money walking, uh... in. er... well that's why I'm not a journalist.

Many years ago there was a commonly used colloquialism "yellow journalism". That has all buy faded from use, due to the low standards employed by nearly all journalism today.

[Thomas Paul]

Years ago, TV news departments used to lose money but no one cared because it was seen that the news department had the responsibility of informing the public and it was the price you paid for getting use of the public airwaves. At some point, someone realized that news could make big money and that no one in the government was going to care that TV news was no longer in existence to inform. Now TV news is the business of selling and now "what you need to know" is replaced with "what you will watch".

[Bert Bates]

What Ray said

In Jon Stewart's book "America", he talks about the beginnings of "yellow journalism". He describes how, about 100 years ago, Hearst and Pulitzer were engaged in a huge turf war over newspaper distribution, and basically "cooked up" stories that, in part, led to the spanish American war.

He ends this discussion as follows:

"The resulting war rasied circulation for both men, and the pair's blend of fiction, bigotry and jingoism became known as *yellow journalism".

Later, the phrase was shortened to *journalism*."

[Dave Lenton]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
Years ago, TV news departments used to lose money but no one cared because it was seen that the news department had the responsibility of informing the public and it was the price you paid for getting use of the public airwaves. At some point, someone realized that news could make big money and that no one in the government was going to care that TV news was no longer in existence to inform. Now TV news is the business of selling and now "what you need to know" is replaced with "what you will watch".

It seems a clear sign of this is not just the change in content of the news programmes, but how the content is presented. Not that long ago the news would be presented in a fairly simple manor, but now it seems most headlines are accompanied by flashy graphics, explosions, loud music, waving flags and bright colours. Its almost as if Hollywood is now directing the news. A comparison between a 1950's BBC news broadcast and a 2004 Fox News broadcast is particularly stark in its differences.

The news companies have realised the real reason why people watch their telly - its not to be informed, its to be entertained. Viewers don't want in-depth, neutral and above all boring news, they want quick and snappy sound bites, catchy tunes, easy to remember images, patriotic music and simple issues.

Its enough to make you worry about the future really..... we could end up with a generation of people who have almost no real idea of what is going on in the world, who believe that all problems are simple and easy to understand, who know more about who wore what at the Oscars then who is President of France.

[Donald R. Cossitt]

Or as P.T. Barnum put it: "You can't fool all the people all the time; but you can fool some of the people some of the time and that is enough." Trouble is fools beget fools and the inverse is now, apparently, true...