The campaign to repeal the electoral law passed in 2005 has been hugely successful. But it’s not the only popular initiative aimed at changing the electoral law. Beppe Grillo’s got in on the act.
Grillo is collecting signatures for three related petitions (which have purely moral force): one to bar convicts from standing for parliament, one [...]
John Lloyd has a piece in today’s FT about “Bias and the Beeb”. Part of it involves quotes from BBC types saying – in more or less sophisticated fashion – “Gosh, impartiality is difficult these days”. True, it is. But I disagree with the way the problem is framed.
The Bridcut report is about “examining impartiality [...]
Despite the awful (brutalist) architecture outside, I spent an enjoyable afternoon being shown around Sveriges Television (SVT) today. The building itself – the TV-hus – is large, with six stages and a large props department. The wisdom of having stages, carpentry and costume teams in what is relatively expensive real estate north of Djurgarden and [...]
A BBC complaints panel has upheld a viewer’s complaint about a Newsnight poll which falsely implied business was against Scottish independence. The finding comes after BBC presenters have been curt – to say the least – with the SNP.
This is a very basic error. It will fuel the belief amongst the SNP that the BBC [...]
Politicians get elected through electoral systems. That ought to mean that they know something about the subject, no?
Not according to today’s wonderful Bonsai column in Repubblica:
“Mastella… has announced that the German [electoral] system would be acceptable to him. Just one condition: “as long as we never speak again of single member districts”. Now, in [...]
I wasn’t terribly bothered about the BBC offending the queen.
Faked television phone-ins didn’t bother me.
But misreporting scientific research really gets me…
From Hollywood Reporter:
Lutz Marmor has been voted the new head of German regional public broadcaster NDR. Marmor will take over from current NDR boss Jobst Plog in January 2008.
Paolo Gentiloni today announces that Rai gets €33 million more to aid the switch-over to digital.
The headline figure cited by Gentiloni – “uno stanziamento per il triennio 2007-2009 per complessivi 300 milioni per la promozione digitale” [a subvention of 300 million for digital over the three-year period 2007-2009] – sounds good; although not all of [...]
Washington Post has an article on Fred Thompson’s candidacy for the Republica nomination. Apparently, if Thompson enters the race officially, summer viewers don’t get their repeats of Law & Order (Thompson plays a District Attorney), due to equal time regulations on free television time to candidates.
Today’ s FT has a piece about “Italy, the land that feminism forgot“. It’s deservedly critical of the role of women on Italian television:
If you are home before the 8pm news on Rai Uno, Italy’s main television station, you will discover it is preceded by a quiz show called L’Eredita (“The Inheritance”). In the middle [...]