Journalists that aren't dicks or c*nts

[two sheds]

Monbiot can fuck off.

Streets of shame

Well I'd say there's the valid point in there that violence is used by the government of whatever hue to clamp down on people's activities but ...

... yes one to you he can fuck off with all of that.

 

[two sheds]

So he didn't actually say this bit:

"I want to explain that, far from being a favour, a lift is the least that drivers owe to non-drivers. It’s everyone’s planet, and they are freeloading on my decision not to mess it up. But I am never quite brave enough to do so."

It's not a view I'd share but it's a sort of extremist environmental view of our individual responsibilities for fucking up the world. People need cars to get to work and many times to ferry kids around but when you use them to get to leisure activities instead of public transport from just laziness then I'd say it's a reasonable view that there's a measure of responsibility there.

Of course the major responsibility lies with government (and I'd say Monbiot would strongly agree with that) for not providing a useful public transport system (I live in the middle of nowhere in Cornwall so anywhere I want to go outside the main towns here means I just don't go because by the time I get there the last bus back leaves in 10 minutes. But that's my personal choice and I'm no suggesting anyone else do that).

I feel that's the equivalent of the Marxist idea of employers 'exploiting' their workforce. It's an extreme view - yes it's true (depending on how you're defining the word 'exploit') in a fundamentalist sense. The question is whether the aim is to make the car driver (employer) feel guilty and the person believing it feel somewhat smug.

I also wonder whether the hatred of environmentalists by some on the left is down to the being made to feel guilty for their actions when the left is more comfortable with making employers feel guilty about *their* actions.

I think both viewpoints (Marxist and fundamentalist environmental) are true or neither are true, but you can't say one is and the other isn't.

 

[crossthebreeze]

Monbiot is a dick (for the ott environmental lifestyle bollox) and a cunt (for his work in the guardian in 2001 as shown above etc - its clear that he's not a comrade). But he's still has his uses - basically if you ignore anything that has the word I or my in the description, and anything that analyses left or environmental politics, he's always been good at researching the relationships between wealth and power and land - so his stuff on shooting, hunting and farming, or on flooding, or on landrights and planning, is well worth a read.

 

[two sheds]

Yes, can't argue with that.

But add privatization and PFI/NHS and TTIP and probably several others to that list.

 

[two sheds]

Monbiot is a dick (for the ott environmental lifestyle bollox)

What responsibility do you feel individuals have for the environmental effects of our actions?

 

[crossthebreeze]

I think that many of our individual choices are actually decided by structural forces - for example government policy encourages car use and makes public transport expensive , economic forces makes meat relatively cheaper than in the past so people eat more of it, recycling rates might depend on how easy people find the systems to use. And the greatest wastage of resources is in the control of industry rather than individuals. And that capitalism is an inherently wasteful system that needs to be got rid of asap. I'm a non driving, organic gardening, recycling obsessed, vegetarian who's trying to cut down on dairy, so i'm not immune to feeling virtuous or guilty for my choices but most of them are greatly influenced by factors beyond my control, and in the end you can't boycott capitalism or change structural or policy factors by changing your lifestyle (but in some cases you can make a small difference to your local environment, so making things better for your neighbours).

 

[DotCommunist]

monbiotic yoghurt can fuck off. Proper guardian

 

[two sheds]

but what about your friendly intestinal flora?

Don't you care about your friendly intestinal flora?

 

[smokedout]

Let's not forget his fake stolen coat story: The day my inner anarchist lost out to the bourgeois me | George Monbiot

 

[smokedout]

This is fun, like most journalists he is registered as self-employed with The Guardian for tax reasons. This means he can offset the cost of his 'assistant' and his 'office' against tax. To be tune of approaching 30 grand some years.

 

[DotCommunist]

Let's not forget his fake stolen coat story: The day my inner anarchist lost out to the bourgeois me | George Monbiot

I was trying to remember that or if I'd imagined it. By all means tell a nice christmassy story but don't try to pass it off as real. Have some dignity.

 

[krtek a houby]

I can't name any of their contributors but New Internationalist does a cracking job reporting on the exploitation by big business of the developing world.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Let's not forget his fake stolen coat story: The day my inner anarchist lost out to the bourgeois me | George Monbiot

This bit has me intrigued:

A group of us had occupied a piece of land on St George's Hill in Surrey, 70 miles from where we now sat...A radio journalist left his equipment in his hire car. They smashed the side window. Someone saw them bundling the kit, wrapped in a stolen sleeping bag, into their lorry...

One (then) radio journalist I can think of who was at the TLIO thing at St. George's Hill was Tony Gosling

 

[Dr. Furface]

David Conn, works hard showing the dirty side of football.

Also from the world of sport...

David Walsh of the Sunday Times, most notable for exposing (with colleague Paul Kimmage) Lance Armstrong as sport's biggest ever dope cheat. He suspected Armstrong was a fraud from his very first Tour de France victory in 1999 and he never let up in his pursuit of him, in spite of the cyclist's ever increasing popularity during his 7 Tour 'wins'. Armstrong was the great hero of world sport, practically bullet-proof for most this time until he was finally nailed for doping by the USADA, and even won £300k damages for libel off Walsh and the Sunday Times in 2004 - which they duly recovered with interest after he was disgraced. In sport, Walsh's campaign against Armstrong is the equivalent of the Washington Post's journos work in exposing Nixon over Watergate.

The Guardian's Richard Williams is a brilliant writer who can seemingly write about any sport like he's an authority on it. Yesterday for example he wrote a great piece about MotoGP and Cal Crutchlow's victory at Brno last week (the first for a Brit there since Barry Sheene 35 years ago) comparing the pathetic lack of coverage this feat received compared to TeamGB's Olympians. His all-round sports knowledge and versatility are remarkable, especially considering he started of as a music journo - although somehow he also still finds time to frequently write about jazz on his personal blog.

Similarly, Hugh McIlvanney was another great sport polymath, who wrote with authority and humour for the Observer and Sunday Times for 60 years until he retired earlier this year at 82.

 

[coley]

Right I've been at the rum and vodka and I don't care. Fuck you all, I'm going to say it: George Monbiot.

Yes I'm sure he's middle class, yes I'm sure he's part of the establishment and has been to oxford or wherever but ... the he chooses proper topics that need to be discussed and gets a point across to a wider audience in the guardian (fingers in the sign of a cross).

He's an environmentalist which is clearly one strike against him, and I've seen urbanites say they can't read his articles without being ill, so give me a specific example.

I'm willing to discuss this and be shown wrong, so: George Monbiot

For example, I was looking at PFI in the NHS and the first real article I've come across that says what is actually happening is from him in "Private Affluence, Public Rip-Off". Private Affluence, Public Rip-Off | George Monbiot

So tell me what you were saying about this in 2002 and so why I'm a cunt again .

Fuck me sideways I thought mixing white wine with a touch of whisky was the 'hard stuff' but rum and vodka? hats off two sheds
I always liked Monbiot but his volte face regarding nuclear power when faced with having his view spoilt by wind turbines ( or to be really accurate the power lines carrying said power) really undermined my belief in his credibility.
Bit like Christopher Booker in the ST, spot on when reporting on the abuses of social services and the more alarming activities of the EU, then totally undermining his credibility by foaming at the mouth against all forms of RE energy.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Next up - Oceans that aren't wet.

 

[Idris2002]

Next up - Oceans that aren't wet.

Popular Lunar destination The Sea of Tranquility.

Does anyone remember Neal Ascherson? I always used to look forward to his column in the Observer. This is back before the Observer turned into a comic, of course.

As for Monbiot, I heard him speak in Belfast years ago, and afterwards I asked him a question. I cannot now remember what my question or his answer were, but I do remember thinking that his answer sounded like an all-purpose stock answer he brought with him to all his speaking engagements.

 

[isvicthere?]

It's true that if you look at a paper like the Guardian, the norm for writers is a private school background. That, for them, is normality. This doesn't necessarily make them bad people, it's just that they start from a position that only 7% of the UK is in. What is interesting to them is not necessarily the life experience of the rest of us.

But there's a wider point than that. I've had stuff published, but usually by the more alternative end of the spectrum. I've learned not to bother punting stuff to the mainstream because I generally get a reply along the lines of "it's well written, but we can't really use this". Sometimes they'll add "have you got anything on this angle?". If they even reply. So anyone relying on this as their income will pretty quickly learn what can be used and what angle to start with. "Newsworthy" is just a code for self censorship. Of course people won't see it that way: they can't if they want to maintain self respect.

Hence, when Theresa May's 'fluffy' new tory government abolishes the Human Rights Act, the papers are full of tosh about the seating arrangements on a Virgin train.

 

[ska invita]

Anyway, some blogs I have in my feedly that aren't the usual options. (Not that they're all "news", mainly comment):



http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/feed/

http://cominsitu.wordpress.com/feed/

http://www.revoltagainstplenty.com/index.php/recent.feed?type=rss

http://recomposition.info/?feed=rss2

http://www.freecommunism.org/feed/

http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/feed/

https://www.commonspace.scot/taxonomy/term/1/feed

https://www.commonspace.scot/taxonomy/term/3/feed

I added this lot and now my RSS feed is full of scottish news
(its those commonspace ones i reckon)