The Blue Pill.

[BIAD]

...When it come to "opinion" facts dont matter, perception and feelings do, which is even worse.
I don't want my news based on the perception and feelings of strangers, I want fact and only facts.
I can develop my own perception and feelings based on those facts without anyone's help.

I'm with you on that, Grace. If it's accepted that information is important to make a better all-around society in regards
of safety, improvement and even Government accountability, it should be precise and untainted by those who are paid
to deliver it.

But of course by doing that, it takes mainstream Journalism back down to being just a job, a set of tasks that when
measured against other types of employment, could be seen as not so vital and could lead to a general perception
that effects ego-driven celebritism and pay agendas.
.............................

In Britain during 'the Thatcher years', there was a shake-up in the media business with Rupert Murdoch, Robert Maxwell
and Eddie Shah assisting the Prime Minister to strip-down the powerful newspaper unions of that time.
Newspapers were practically ran by the unions and Fleet Street in London and were renown for having people in the
manual areas of the companies holding down other entirely-different jobs or businesses.

Journalists enjoyed a time of limited information-gathering and instead, wrote banal politically-favoured pieces and
rehashed material sent in from diverse businesses and other news outlets. Their powerful union was called the National
Union of Journalists (NUJ).

With the incoming computer systems purchased by Murdoch and others, the traditional hot-metal Linotype jobs would
be no more and the trade union (National Graphical Association) realised that this would require retraining, which
would also involve negotiating wage structures.

For the Journalists, it seemed that the impact would be less, with the computer merely taking the place of the typewriter.
But still, salaries could be effected due to the idea that Murdoch - a business man and an 'outsider' may view the skill of
writing being lessened by the technology.

The coal mining unions had already been beaten down by Margaret Thatcher and after Murdoch decided to move
his newspapers out of Fleet Street into a secretly-built new facility in the London docklands area (Wapping), the NGA
union knew that the only way was to strike and hopefully bring the media-magnate to the negotiation table.

But with Thatcher's new union policies, the police were directed to defend the new plants and the power of the printing
unions was broken. Murdoch was now in control of his business.

With the Wapping plant fully equipped and ready to go, Murdoch's News International came up with a novel idea of how
to get around the unwanted skills of the printers and compositing staff, he simply asked the Electricians, the Plumbers and
Telecomunications people to take on the roles of those they had installed the equipment for.

This set union against union and was a master-stroke. It degraded what power was left after the move and not long after,
Fleet Street -the place for printing known around the world, was barren with other computerised plants opening up in other
areas of Britain.

The picketing and arguements went on for a long time and even though I've found little evidence of it, I strongly believe the
amount of money Murdoch spent on protecting his new staff, transportation, restructuring of organisations to deliver materials,
salaries to deflate problems within the unions of the new employees and actual physical restriction of residents living around the
Wapping plant... there must have been some financial assistance from the the British Government at that time.
Yet, not a word written to suggest that!

Some Journalists refrained from working at Wapping at the request of the NUJ, but some were enticed by the security.
The country settled into begrudgingly accepting that the power dynamic had swung back in favour of the employer and
life went on. The glowing screens and clunky-keyboards became common in newsrooms and if any influence still existed
in the workplace, it was the I.T guys and their skill of re-boot!

However, this -I believe, is where today's poor quality of journalism came from.
In the past, there was always a subtle lofty class-perception of what the reader wanted.
A tone of fustian confidence, but with the nobility that to serve is the reward. (Forgive my pompousness!)

Personally, I see the current media business as a beer crate, with a spoilt child screaming to the world that it doesn't
appreciate the hardships of eating cake. The profession smacks of opulence that isn't enough, of mocking sentiment
barbed with guilt-tripping supposition for the reader/viewer.

The disciplines and ethics of reporting were and are, still being given in training within the education system. But where in
the past, the establishment's desires were offered to the public -via reporting, in a subtle, slightly hesitantly-penned manner,
the current crop of Journalists seem to gouge the paper with their own views on political requirements.

Computer-skills, the art of tapping on a keyboard, is the mainstay of Journalism today. I know anyone in that trade today
will argue that point, but I'd wager that same person will not appreciate the expression 'Fighting The Devil' also.

Points of view and opinions take centre-stage now and factual information gleaned from a certain subject is butter-patted,
moulded and repackaged into a 'click-bait' -type shape where the topic becomes merely a vehicle for whatever narrative
is currently favorable.

Ironically, it's this stratagem that is causing the breakdown of the traditional media business. With the old-style diciplines
and vigilance being dropped in favour of furthering agendas of triggered-feelings, emotive partisan issues of little substance
and middle-class social justice, many of the young are turning to the internet and becoming... the next generation of biased
'Journalists'!

Whether Murdoch and Thatcher knew it or not, they got to screw all the media unions the day an Australian came to Fleet Street.