25 July 2008

Media Diet Week 30

Press: a quiet week for me until Thursday (although I did managed to blitz the 5-issue pile of Press Gazettes at some point). Then, on Thursday morning, Max Mosley won his privacy case against the News of the World and, like every other hack, I was crawling all over the internet reading the interpretations of the court ruling and what it might mean for journalism. Not a lot, really. It's another step towards a privacy law that will, I hope, stop the sleazier red-tops from invading people's private lives. And, fortunately, it won't prevent publication of genuine exposés into wrongdoing by government or corporations. I'm looking forward to the weekend press as I suspect there will be some lengthier reviews of the case.

Blogs: the blogosphere went a tad crazy yesterday after Giles Coren let rip at The Times. Film critic Andrews Collins was just one who commented. Otherwise it's been quiet out there. Must be the summer hols...

TV/radio: I'm still following Missing Top Model. In this week's episode there was a fairly robust argument between Sophie and Jessica about Jess's disability. Benefit Scrounging Scum wrote an interesting post about what happened. I was quite surprised by her take on it as I didn't see Sophie as bullying at all. Jess has ME (and a few other things too) - I can understand her struggle to have it recognised as I had ME for several years too. But Jess does use her ME as an excuse to avoid things and I think Sophie was right to challenge her about that. Yesterday, I watched The Making of Me, in which John Barrowman subjected himself to a battery of scientific tests to learn why he is gay. It was fascinating stuff and I'd have been happy to watch an hour of it. In particular, his interview with the man who cured himself of his homosexuality was way too shortand not detailed enough. I also tuned into episode 1 of Burn Up - finally, an intelligent drama that doesn't patronise or dumb down. And although it was issue-led rather than story-led, the 90 minutes slipped by almost unnoticed. I'll be watching the second half tonight.

Books: still reading Death Message. Top class, as usual!

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