I’m so annoyed by Breakfast Time’s coverage of the protests that I’m tempted to cancel the direct debit on my license fee and I might even abandon the ‘is sociology a science lesson’ today and just focus on this.
Bill Turnball to student – ‘Don’t you think the violence detracts from the message you’re trying to get across’?
(What the student should say is ‘yes – but only because the BBC spends three quarters of its air time focussing on the violence rather than the actual debate’)
What the student actually said was some point about the rich in the government hurting the poor (this is a FACT – 18/23 Tory cabinet members are millionnaires! and obviusly integral to the issue of the raising of tuition fees given that the wider context of this policy is essentially class war – the Torys and the city bankers vs the rest of us) – she was then quickly cut off and the camera switched to the Tory University Minister who of course was given three times as long as the student to criticise the violence and voice his support for the poor police.
Total lack of credibility. Below are just some of the questions a credible news programme or newspaper would seek to address about the protests…. (hint – you won’t hear Many of these questions coming from the interviewers in the mainstream news media!)
1.Is it right for protesters to use violence to get their point across?
2. Historically, has violence played a role in politics more generally, if so, how bad is the student violence compared to state violence? (Obviously I’m thinking Iraq, Oil and the Shock Doctrine here)
3. How many of the protestors were actually ‘violent’ and how bad was the ‘violence’?
4. Realistically are the students likely to get the tuition fee decision reversed/ watered down without civil disobedience/ violence?
5. What is the range of opinions amongst the student protesters and the wider public – about the raising of tuition fees?
6. What is the role of the police in relation to the state, power and control?
7. OK so a couple welfare scroungers (Charles and Camilla’s) car was attacked – what have they actually done to earn their wealth and privelage in our ‘meritocratic society’.
8. Is it necessary to raise tuition fees?
9. What are the actual details of the legislation that’s just been passed again?
10. What are the characteristics of the government that pushed these cuts through the commons – what is their class background, how many of them are privately educated, how many of them are millionnaires, are they really in touch with the people?
11. What does sociological research to date suggest about how raising tuition fees affects social mobility?
But of course you don’t get that on Breakfast Time – you get shoddy coverage of important political issues – then cut to item about Christmas Trees
