Media madness

Last evening I caught some of Sky News's coverage of the tsunami watch in Hawaii -- lots of shots of people in shorts, sitting on a cliff with a brew or two, watching the very ordinary surf rolling in. Suddenly they cut away to a "Fox News affiliate in Long Beach, California". Over a shot of a muddy little harbour no bigger than my back garden, the reporter breathlessly announced that the approaching tsunami had caused the water level to sink so far that the small boat in the harbour was no longer floating. He handed off to a local meteorologist, who promptly pointed out that the reason for the absence of water was that it was low tide at Long Beach!

Then today I came across this masterpiece in an opinion piece about the railways by the new business editor of the Sunday Times, Dominic O'Connell:

The Department for Transport’s role was to co-ordinate the big picture, so we weren’t left with orphan fleets that weren’t wanted.

That wasn’t enough for the department, however. It wanted to get involved in the nitty-gritty, and instituted a grand plan to replace the trains used on the West Coast and East Coast main lines. There were schemes for hybrid trains (ones with diesel and electric motors working in concert).

In the meantime, the policy goalposts have shifted, and the government is likely to spend money electrifying one or more of the routes.

There can only be a few sentient people in the UK who are unaware that both the East Coast and West Coast main lines are already electrified. It's amazing that one of those few has wound up as business editor of the Sunday Times.

Fox, Sky and the Sunday Times are all owned by News Corporation. Imagine the quality of reportage we can look forward to if Rupert Murdoch succeeds in his plan to eviscerate the BBC.