Category: Media

  • Books’n’telly’n’tunes

    More odds and sods: Charlie Brooker has a new book out, called Dawn of the Dumb. It includes the column Face at the Window, which may be the funniest thing I’ve ever read. I’m not exaggerating. The BBC4 documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives is a little gem. It follows E from Eels as he tries…

  • Quick book review: It’s not news, it’s Fark.com

    Drew Curtis, overlord of Fark.com – probably my favourite site on the entire internet – has written a book about “how the mass media tries to pass off crap as news”. He’s right, it does, and the book does a superb (and superbly funny) job of identifying and skewering the various ways in which they…

  • Tech title needs an online editor

    Official Windows Vista Magazine is looking for an online editor to do groovy things on t’internet. Details on Journalism.co.uk…

  • It’s not news, it’s FARK: the book

    Just a quick book recommendation: It’s Not News, It’s FARK: How the mass media tries to pass off crap as news, by Drew Curtis of Fark.com fame. It’s very good and very, very funny. I’ll scribble a quick review when I finish it; if you’re interested, you can read chapter 1 online.

  • The US writers’ strike: good point, well made

    Michael Colton, writing in The Boston Globe: The way that the big media companies treat writers would be hilarious if it weren’t so frightening. For instance, NBC streams full episodes of shows like “The Office” online – with ads – and avoids paying the writers by calling it a promotion. Yet when a 15-year-old posts…

  • Writers blocked

    A while back I mentioned the “So You Want To Be a Writer?” ads, whose claims were a tad misleading. Rob Spence took ’em to the Advertising Standards Authority and won.

  • The Onion: even better than the real thing?

    While other newspapers desperately add gardening sections, ask readers to share their favorite bratwurst recipes, or throw their staffers to ravenous packs of bloggers for online question-and-answer sessions, The Onion has focused on reporting the news. The fake news, sure, but still the news. It doesn’t ask readers to post their comments at the end…

  • Superb headline

    From the Daily Mail: Lesbian foot specialist struck off after posing in bondage gear, and saying ‘f*** Easter’ in front of nun

  • Now: is it the reflector or the director?

    Terrifying figures on the front cover of supermarket trash-mag Now. Its reader survey has discovered that: * 25% of readers go two or more days without food; * 98% are unhappy with their bodies; * 30% make themselves sick after eating; * and 52% want cosmetic surgery. In a boxout, Now says: “Here’s a thought.…

  • Brooker gives both barrels

    It doesn’t appear to be on Youtube yet, but last night’s episode of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe was superb: Brooker gave TV news both barrels over the McCann case, and Power of Nightmares director Adam Curtis nailed news programmes’ fascination with user-generated content.