News International: the gift that just keeps on giving

The News International phone hacking scandal has been boiling for three weeks - and I'm still waiting for British journalists to get ahead of the story. All the UK newspapers seem to be chasing their tails on this one. Just as it took the New York Times to put this story back on the media agenda, I believe it will take an American journalist to really get to the bottom of this affair, and when that happens I am positive that more heads will roll - namely David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

The Murdoch affair serves to illustrate the falling standards in British journalism. As more and more local newspapers close, there are fewer places for young people interested in a career in the media to receive proper training. I can't see this improving any time soon.

News of the World Scandal

End of the World?

So, Rupert Murdoch has taken the drastic step of pulling the plug on the News of the World to save face and more importantly to save his BSkyB deal. What I find really interesting about this story is that it took a report by the New York Times to put the NOW phone hacking scandal back on the UK media agenda. I have no doubt that if it had not been for that report, Murdoch would be cracking open a bottle of bubbly and celebrating the signing off of the deal.

Anyone who has worked in journalism knows that all the police had to do to “prove” the case was to follow the money trail. It takes thousands of pounds to conduct phone hacking on the scale carried out by the NOW, and no journalist would have paid for that out of their own pocket. And it’s not as though any reporter could walk into the accounts department and say, “I’d like £1000 for a story, please” and have a wad of cash placed in their hands. In this day of cost-cutting, reporters must verify every penny that their spend – and someone senior has to sign off the request. So for senior executives to claim ignorance of the affair is clearly and demonstrably untrue. That it took the Met nearly ten years to figure this out speaks to the level of collusion that must have gone between the newspaper and the police.

What I find even more interesting is the attention British newspapers will devote to this story in the next few days. Clearly David Cameron is hoping that this will blow over in a matter of days and it will be business as usual – ie he plans to allow the BSkyB deal to go ahead. Given Cameron’s background in PR and that he has met both Murdoch and executive Rebecca Brooks socially, I believe that Cameron has been “feathering his nest” – lining up a position for when he leaves office. 

Ding, dong! The enemy of the West is dead...

So Osama bin Laden now sleeps with the fishes. I wish there was an Obama mini-me working in the White House Press Office. As soon as the news broke about bin Laden’s death, I would have called in all the heads of all the world’s major news outlets. Not that there should have been a news black-out, but if ever there was a story that needed to be correctly and sensitively reported, this was it.

Without a doubt, this is the biggest news story of the year, if not the decade, and watching the wall-to-wall coverage filled me with increasing concern. Bin Laden’s death is the sort of story most journalists would kill to cover, and it was unnerving to watch so many gleefully take hold of the wrong end of the stick and run with it. There was so much misinformation, so much misinterpretation, it was disturbing. You could almost see the journalists planning the relevant chapter in their memoirs, writing the book proposal in their heads as the story spun out of control.

And then there was White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. As soon as he took to the lectern after an admirable briefing by John Brennan, I found myself wondering, “Who is this guy?” Then “How did he get his job?”. It was when Carney used the word “narrative” in a room full of journalists that had me reaching for the remote. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion.

A “narrative”? Is Bin Laden’s death a Grimm Brother’s fairy tale for adults? I hope you are sitting comfortably. Now, listen carefully…

A Picture is Worth 1,000 words...

Call me a cynic, but I greeted the news of Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron moving to London together with a weary shrug.

This looks like yet another Hollywood coupling that was dreamt up in a PR agent’s office. Is it just a coincidence that both stars have movies that are currently in production? Reeves is shooting 47 Ronin and Theron is shooting Prometheus.

One wonders just how long their “relationship” is likely to last. At least until the premiere, perhaps?

Watch this space…

Why are there so few female screenwriters in the UK?

Well, the Bird’s Eye View Film Festival is over for another year. In the seven years it has been running, little has changed in the UK for female filmmakers. In 2006, a survey carried out by the UK Film Council showed that just 12 per cent of British films were written by women.

In response, in 2010 Bird’s Eye View and the Script Factory started She Writes, a year-long programme aimed specifically at women screenwriters. I went along to a showcase at Bafta where the selected writers were presented to an audience.

One project, Saint Joan by Grace Banks and Kate Bingham, was selected for a performed reading. I wish I could say I was impressed. Despite an impressive cast that included Celia Imrie and Paula Dixon and a promising subject matter, the project didn’t work and here’s why: it wasn’t a movie. Saint Joan would make a lovely play for BBC Radio 4, but as a film, it failed. As someone who has lived and studied in America, I see British filmmakers make the same mistakes time and time again. It may seem like a Hollywood cliché but when William Goldman famously said that “screenplay is structure”, he was right on the money.

Too many British filmmakers don’t seem to understand the language of cinema and that a script is actually a blueprint for a movie.

Now the Film Council is no more. If the council was guilty of one thing, it was this: too much attention was given to the writer-director. There didn’t seem to be the understanding that there just isn’t the training or opportunities any more for these hyphenates. Danny Boyle served many years as a jobbing writer on Inspector Morse before even picking up a camera. These days few if any get the kind of opportunities afforded to the likes of Stephen Frears and Anthony Minghella when they were starting out.

In filmmaking, everything begins and ends with the writer. As the old Hollywood adage goes, “if it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the screen”. It’s time to restore the writer to her rightful place.

Do Brit TV commissioners not like women?

I caught an episode of the BBC comedy drama Candy Cabs. It was a curious affair and afterwards I felt oddly offended. The episode felt like the dramatic equivalent of the Fosters advert, the one where two unreconstructed Aussie men load a truck full of beer - and then add two bottles of sherry for the “sheilas”.

It was as though the show’s creator went through a checklist of the things women are supposed to like and be interested in. Lots of pink? Check! Diets? Check! Body issues? Check! Useless men? Check! The episode I saw was a string of clichés strung together with plots recycled from successful “chick flicks”. Made In Dagenham, Calendar Girls, Mamma Mia and Shirley Valentine were all referenced here. And this was supposed to be one of the BBC’s flagship series?

Where are the contemporary female-led shows? For those, we have to look across the Atlantic to shows such as The Big C, Nurse Jackie, and The Good Wife. How is it that there are so many great female characters on American TV, and we can’t even manage one over here? It can’t just be down to the money. Can it?

Why do British columnists suck?

I am a self-confessed media junkie and I have a confession to make: I have stopped buying British newspapers and magazines. And no, I won’t be bothering wit their online versions either. I’m done. I’ve had enough. From now on, I’ll just watch the news on CNN and read the New York Times.

I’ve had enough of the appalling lack of diversity, the lack of originality and innovation in British papers and magazines. After twenty years, Baz Bamigoye is still the most high profile columnist of colour on a paper. And he works for The Daily Mail.

I’m tired of male columnists who continually refer to their partner as “the wife”. Really? Is it 1972? If you can’t come up with a more interesting moniker than that, then you should not be writing a weekly column. And, yes, I know becoming a parent for the first time is very exciting, but unless you have something new and original to say, stow it!

Beauty editors, try featuring women of colour as a matter of course, not just around the time of Black History Month, or whenever Halle Berry appears in a movie. There are any number of marketing studies that show that women of colour buy more make-up more often, and are more likely to buy premium brands (as cheaper lines seldom cater for darker skins). Who knows? You may pick up more advertisers as a result. And a few thousand more readers. Fancy.

Fashion people, there are many, many stylish women in the public eye in Britain than Sienna Miller and Alexa Chung. Why don’t you feature one of them? Please?

Liz Jones, stop writing about your cats already. Take some time off and get professional help. Lucy Mangan? No one cares. Charlie Brooker’s angry, middle-aged, white guy schtick? I’m so over that. And Jeremy Clarkson is an anachronism not worth bothering with.

None of these are a patch on the American writers I’ve discovered, who seem to find something truly interesting to write about week in, week out. Why could that be, I wonder? Could it be because they actually make an effort?