I am very happy that both The Guardian and Channel4News/More4News have taken on the Uzbekistan story. They focus more on the web censorship aspect though than onto the underlying mystery if Murray’s accusations towards Ushmanov are really true or not; but then as much of it is based on events happening a long time ago in Uzbekistan it might be difficult to prove. Just good to see that it’s not always good to give up on the mainstream media just yet. Apart from criticising, The Guardian and the Channel4/More4News are still the best. The Independent would be, too, if they would just not exploit poor journalism graduates volunteering there for ages without contract and pay. In fact, I even sometimes prefer the factual, informative style of the Independent, particularily on ethical and foreign news stories. But then their fashion, travel, family and web presence isn’t that great, and their frontpage is usual tremendous, but can’t make up for the rest of the paper. I also like the MediaGuardian a lot.
Channel4 is premiering “It’s a free world” by Ken Loach tomorrow, I am very excited about it. During the Edinburgh Film Festival, I got to sit besinde a film journalist from Portugal during the Paul Laverty talk. Anyways, i asked him what else he is interested in at the Edinburgh Film Festival and he replied: “Nothing else. Just British Realism.” I never thought of that, but it’s true: British Realism is actually internationally valued as the most distinctive and famous film products coming from these islands. Like Ken Loach is definitely more famous and appreciated in the rest of Europe than in Great Britain itself. Not sure about Adam Curtis, but if his documentaries would be broadcasted on ARTE, he’d be much bigger and famous on the continent, too. Even the French would love him, and be very keen to discuss his films, I’d imagine. They would appreciate the philosophical aspects, and the Germans the in-depth background research and theories.
I still feel a bit stuck with the British media in between the entertainment and the theory side of it sometimes. At the moment I am considering doing a year of physical work without much intellectual activity.