Category Archives: Uncategorized

Prof Brian Winston comments on the Leveson Enquiry.

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It is somewhat spurious to suggest that statutory regulation would not hobble the press’s investigative power on the basis that content-regulated ITV mounted (for example) the Jimmy Savile expose and therefore there can be no objections on this basis to extending such a regime to print (Editors jostle for position ahead of battle, 27 November).

A far better indication of the consequential dangers of content regulation by the state is the Hutton inquiry. The content-regulated BBC was called to account for its actions in reporting on David Kelly while Paul Dacre and Lord Rothermere (who ran the same story) were not. The question of independence needs to be tested against broadcasting’s record of investigations of UK political power, and history suggests that this has been less than stellar. Over time, it has certainly been consistently more constrained than parallel probes by the printed press: witness, for example, Hackgate itself, and the Guardian’s crucial role in that.

To argue against statutory control, however, is in no way to endorse misfeasance or worse in the name of supposed “public interest”. There the full weight of the law should indeed be felt – but we got rid of the last statutory regulator of the press in 1695 for good reasons. These are still in play.
Professor Brian Winston
University of Lincoln

Source: the Guardian.

Tabarrock on why online teaching works.

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Oxford University was founded in 1096, Cambridge in 1209. Harvard, a relative newcomer, was founded in 1636. Other than religions, few institutions appear to have maintained their existence or their relative status for as long as major universities. And few institutions, notably again other than religions, have seen so little change. Oxford in 2012 teaches students in ways remarkably similar to Oxford in 1096, seated students listening to professors in a classroom.

I suspect that these two facts are related; stasis in methods has led to stasis in status. And I suspect that both of these facts are about to change. Online education will change how universities teach; as a result, online education will change which universities teach.

Source: Cato Unbound.

“A skilled craftsman, as well as a scribe of the quotidian…” so I am.

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From a review of my latest poetry collection, Spyglass Over The Lagoon:

“the element of song, a kind of verbal vibrancy, runs like a glittering thread throughout…Often enigmatic and richly suggestive…these short poems are cantles, slivers of a whole day, luminous, intrigants. They are also highly controlled and worked liminae, about as contingent and aleatory as Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”…they sing as well as record…and the language vibrates with its possibilities. Blackburn is a skilled craftsman, as well as a scribe of the quotidian. These poems, intensely personal, often funny, and some not without a political reference or two from time to time, fascinate, ask questions, strike resonances in your head.”

Review by David Malcolm in Poetry Salzburg Review 22.

Thinking of going into advertising? Read this first.

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The creative industry operates largely by holding ‘creative’ people ransom to their own self-image, precarious sense of self-worth, and fragile – if occasionally out of control ego. We tend to set ourselves impossibly high standards, and are invariably our own toughest critics. Satisfying our own lofty demands is usually a lot harder than appeasing any client, who in my experience tend to have disappointingly low expectations. Most artists and designers I know would rather work all night than turn in a sub-standard job. It is a universal truth that all artists think they a frauds and charlatans, and live in constant fear of being exposed. We believe by working harder than anyone else we can evaded detection. The bean-counters rumbled this centuries ago and have been profitably exploiting this weakness ever since. You don’t have to drive creative folk like most workers. They drive themselves. Just wind ‘em up and let ‘em go…

Source: “A Short Less on in Perspective” by Linds Redding

London Met hit with huge admissions fall.

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London Metropolitan University has seen a large drop in numbers after losing its licence to sponsor overseas students.

Figures seen by the BBC show as well as a fall in numbers of students from outside the UK, there has also been a decline in the number of domestic students.

So far in the current academic year the university has less than half the number of students it had the previous year.

Source: London Evening Standard.