I started working on the Morning Telegraph in 1984 and John was very friendly and encouraging to me. I went out on a story about glue-sniffers with him and he persuaded me to pose as one for the pictures. Luckily you couldn't see my face, although my huge mullet was all-too visible.
I am very very old Dan. I'd just left school when I started on the Morning Telegraph though. And a year and a half later it shut down. I was probably the final straw.
My cuttings book has long since vanished so I haven't seen that photo for many a year.
There’s nothing particularly objectionable about a piece bigging up a prominent journalist with an illustrious 40-year career which began locally. Sweeney’s strong identification with the Ukrainians in his current piece shows that he is doing what he has always done, which is crusading journalism rather than objective journalism. In Ukraine Sweeney is operating as a freelance, but the wider problem is that, post-Covid, national and global media have a major credibility problem with a significant strand of those who have been consuming, somewhat sceptically, what they have been producing. The solution to this, if the media were interested in doing anything about it, would be more objective journalism and less crusading journalism.
Objective journalism simply tells us what a journalist is seeing and hearing. Above all else, it avoids being seen to be identified with one or other of the participants in a conflict, which is fatal to a journalist's integrity and objectivity.
Ah I politely disagree Clive, at least in part. Objective journalism as you describe it would in this instance be a statement of facts. ‘Russian forces killed X many civilians and did XYZ… that would be objective, yet also somehow de personalised, de humanised even. And it would not be honest , or objective , to pretend there are not clear sides in this war. Russia is the invader, and the destroyer of towns and lives. That’s an objective fact. Russia is committing war crimes. That’s an objective fact. Being identified as being anti Russian isn’t bias, it’s essential humanity in this instance. Wouldn’t you say?
I started working on the Morning Telegraph in 1984 and John was very friendly and encouraging to me. I went out on a story about glue-sniffers with him and he persuaded me to pose as one for the pictures. Luckily you couldn't see my face, although my huge mullet was all-too visible.
I had no idea you went back that far John. That photo will probably be in the archive somewhere!
I am very very old Dan. I'd just left school when I started on the Morning Telegraph though. And a year and a half later it shut down. I was probably the final straw.
My cuttings book has long since vanished so I haven't seen that photo for many a year.
There’s nothing particularly objectionable about a piece bigging up a prominent journalist with an illustrious 40-year career which began locally. Sweeney’s strong identification with the Ukrainians in his current piece shows that he is doing what he has always done, which is crusading journalism rather than objective journalism. In Ukraine Sweeney is operating as a freelance, but the wider problem is that, post-Covid, national and global media have a major credibility problem with a significant strand of those who have been consuming, somewhat sceptically, what they have been producing. The solution to this, if the media were interested in doing anything about it, would be more objective journalism and less crusading journalism.
And what would that look like ? In Ukraine right now? Objectively …?
Objective journalism simply tells us what a journalist is seeing and hearing. Above all else, it avoids being seen to be identified with one or other of the participants in a conflict, which is fatal to a journalist's integrity and objectivity.
Ah I politely disagree Clive, at least in part. Objective journalism as you describe it would in this instance be a statement of facts. ‘Russian forces killed X many civilians and did XYZ… that would be objective, yet also somehow de personalised, de humanised even. And it would not be honest , or objective , to pretend there are not clear sides in this war. Russia is the invader, and the destroyer of towns and lives. That’s an objective fact. Russia is committing war crimes. That’s an objective fact. Being identified as being anti Russian isn’t bias, it’s essential humanity in this instance. Wouldn’t you say?