Mark Pack

This is a highly readable and entertaining look at the practices of the journalism industry, by a psephologist and podcaster who is also currently interim co-leader of the Liberal Democrats in the absence of a Parliamentary leader of the party. He looks at the all the media (print, TV and online), including at their characteristic usage of language and set phrases, (mis)use of statistics, confusion between causation and correlation, reliance on too few or too unreliable sources and/or not show more questioning those sources, coverage of only one side of an argument, and many others. His central thesis is that these phenomena are not, for the most part, motivated by political hostility per se, but rather by the tendency of all media, whether high or low profile, left wing, right wing or centrist, to privilege the exciting and dramatic over the mundane, with the level of reliability or truth usually second place, buried under the drama. This may all sound like rather a truism, but he explains how the phenomenon works at different levels of media from local to national, and in different countries, and over time (this is not any means a recent phenomenon). For the British reader, perhaps the most memorable recommendation is to read Daily Mail articles from the end, as the truth behind the overblown drama often lies in the last paragraph. An entertaining and thought provoking read. show less

It's a trope that the journalistic profession has been in crisis for a while and that, as a result, our mass medias have become, far more often than not, a hotbed for churned bullshit and flouting away of social responsibilities. The British press especially, whose malpractices, carelessness towards basic ethics, and, more importantly, complete lack of accountability when things go wrong (but oh boy! What self-righteousness!) has been exposed already, including through official inquiries show more (with not much change implemented -if at all!- ever since...) still has a lot to answer for when it comes from the peddling of pseudo-scientific idiocies to the entertaining of moral panic of all kind. How did we get there?

I had read 'Flat Earth News' by Nick Davies; 'No Time To Think' by Howard Rosenberg and Charles S. Feldman; and (when it comes to scientific ignorance peppering our editorials) 'Beyond the Hype' by Fiona Fox. So what could Mark Pack bring to the table?

As it is, not much. From the selecting of stories in the first place to the plethora of issues brought about by journalese and churnalism (let alone lack of accountability when things go wrong...), he too denounces the usual suspects having rendered even our most powerful outlets easy prey to misinformation and dubious agendas, with the general public paying the price. Does it mean that it is an unnecessary read?

The bottom line is that, if you are ever concerned about how information is being packaged and sold, then you cannot afford to be ignorant of the issues exposed here. Sure, others have done so and done so more in depth (again: I highly recommend 'Flat Earth News' by Nick Davies). Mark Pack, thought, does so with a sense of humour that makes him, perhaps, more accessible. show less

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2403243.html

I have no immediate plans to return to electoral politics (full disclosure: Cambridge City Council, 1990; North Belfast, 1996). However, I deal on a daily basis with people who are personally very much involved with elections, and occasionally they even ask my advice, so it was useful to return to basics with this handbook - not so much 101 different ways to win, as 101 steps that must be taken by a decently run election campaign, skewed very much to show more a particular part of the British environment (no massive campaign spending as in the USA, no compulsory voting as there is here; I also miss anything substantial on engaging with minority communities).

But a lot of it is of universal value, not just for election campaigns but for any public policy campaign, and I think the division into five main themes is sound: 1) getting a good message; 2) building a good team; 3) managing resources (money, time, and especially voter data); 4) communicating (leaflets, media, internet); 5) leadership. Some of the points transfer well beyond public affairs to any position of responsibility.

I think what struck me most was the early emphasis on message development. Back when I was a political neophyte in the early 1990s, this wasn't something we were told to worry about very much - the emphasis was on the mechanics of communicating with voters and hoping to get votes as the person best at doing that, and developing a local message beyond fixing the pot-holes looked a wee bit dodgy. But when I got involved with international democracy development in the mid-1990s, it became clear to me just how important message development is. This was (and is) a serious lacuna for all Northern Irish political parties: most of them are unable to give an elevator pitch statement as to why anyone should vote for them (see one recent example).

I commended this book to some Northern Irish activists the other day, and I commend it also not just to people who are themselves campaigning or thinking of campaigning, but anyone who is interested in how politics actually works in real life, as opposed to in the newspapers. show less