The Boiling Frog: The Telegraph's Race To The Bottom

Saturday, 7 March 2015

The Telegraph's Race To The Bottom

For those unversed in motorsport, or more specifically Formula One, Spanish driver Alonso - one of its best drivers of the current generation - is at the centre of speculation concerning a head injury as a result of a high speed crash.

The Spaniard crashed his McLaren into the wall during pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya on 22 February and reportedly was concussed. As a result he was airlifted to hospital where he spent three nights and has now been advised not to start the season opening in Melbourne. Clearly and rightly it is being treated seriously and McLaren's lack of openness regarding the situation suggests there maybe more to it than is being made public.

Certainly as any F1 fan acutely appreciates in recent years head injuries are not to be treated lightly; as evident on recent occasions with Michael Schumacher and Jules Bianchi last season. Such details are not for the Telegraph who via Judith Wood, under the section of F1 News informs us that Alonso is a lucky man because:,

...the Spaniard was so badly concussed he initially lost his memory and believed he was a boy again. Most striking was that his 13-year-old-self told doctors that his ambition was to be a Formula 1 driver. Twenty years on, he is living his (admittedly dangerous) dream. How many of us can say that?

I dimly recall that at 13 I wanted to be a nun. Weirdly, my husband entertained the idea of becoming a pillar hermit, à la Simeon Stylites – before and not after he married me, since you ask. We both drifted into journalism, about which I’m very pleased in particular, because it has meant I have been able to meet Donny Osmond.

There is much to be said for following your heart. But if you are happiest sailing or cooking or raising children, realising those ambitions might not be how you earn a living. What all 13-year-olds have in common is a sense of passion and endless possibility – and it’s holding on tight to those that counts, whether you drive a McLaren-Honda or take Holy Orders.

And there we have it, a head injury reduced down to the level of tittle tattle. We shouldn't be surprised, this is from the same journalist (I use the term loosely) who has a recent article about what happens to dogs when a couple breaks up.

No wonder that increasingly if we want proper news, and not just with sport, we have to go elsewhere.

6 comments:

Anonymous8 March 2015 at 07:34
When Peter Oborne resigned initially quietly a few weeks ago, and then penned his article with regard to their deteriorating Editorial integrity, the Telegraph issued a pious, defiant retort. The early online thread to it topped a central column asserting their 'journalistic excellence'.

I took a screenshot of the upper part of that column that night, with date and time inserted below.

Here's 'Journalistic Excellence' for you:-

http://s1380.photobucket.com/user/wilbeck55/media/Telegraph_zpsb9pcrlaq.jpg.html
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Julia Gasper9 March 2015 at 09:35
Yes the resignation of Peter Oborne was the last dismal episode in what appears to be the terminal decline of the Telegraph. According to Private Eye its staff have been resigning in droves for the last year. The readership has plummeted. And no wonder, It seems to have an editorial policy of floating to the centre politically (which corresponds to the Left of a generation ago, but now EUrophile) and keeping the tone lightweight. Nobody needs that.
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John M9 March 2015 at 18:46
I agree. I read that article and thought the same thing. It's not asking much for a broadsheet newspaper to use a motorsport journalist with half a clue to write material.

This hack read as though she'd studied literature at Hello! magazine.
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EU quotes

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"Let's imagine Europe is a football club and you join, but once you're in it you can't say let's play rugby". (French foreign minister Laurent Fabius)

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(Chartists 1836)

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(Lord Pearson)

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(Wikipedia)

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(Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner 2014)

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(Jean Monnet, 'Father of Europe')

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Euro quotes

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(Tony Blair 1998)

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(Adam Boulton Sunday Times, 2001)

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The single currency is the greatest abandonment of sovereignty since the foundation of the European Community: the decision is of an essentially political nature".
(Felipe Gonzalez, a Spanish former PM, 1998)

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(European Council conclusions, 2001)

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(Then Greek Finance Minister, Yannis Papantoniou, 1999)

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(Virgin Group Chairman, Richard Branson, 2000)

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(WPP Group CEO, Sir Martin Sorrell, et al., 2003)

"A single currency, introduced at the appropriate time, will reduce costs for businesses that trade or invest across Europe...More investment in growing
businesses means more employment".
(Then BP Chairman, Lord David Simon, 1997)

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(Former Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock, 2002)

"The euro may well come to be regarded in the coming years as part of the answer to saving the City from permanent decline. It was easy to dismiss the fledgling euro as a ‘toilet currency’ before we realised our own economic growth was built on sand".
(Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, 2009)

"Obviously joining a currency that everybody in Europe - including soon all the new European Union members - are using, a currency that American and Japanese and overseas businesses understand, has to make sense".
(Then UK Europe Minister, Denis MacShane, 2003)

"The euro, despite gloomy predictions from anti-Europeans, has proved to be a success".
(Former Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy, 2002)

"In reality the economic integration between Britain and the Continent is so close, and we have confirmed this because we all belong to the common market, that it can't be good in the long run to stay out of such a cardinal element as the currency union".
(Then German Finance Minister, Hans Eichel, 2002)

"There are no real benefits and some real costs to the UK of monetary independence... it makes sense from a financial stability perspective for the UK to contract out monetary policy to the ECB".
(Citigroup Chief Economist, Willem Buiter, 2007)

"Taking part in EMU would improve policy and performance enough to eliminate many of the strains that sceptics predict would emerge without the safety valve of devaluation".
(BBC Trust Vice Chairman, Diane Coyle OBE, 1997)

"The euro is like a breastplate that will become more and more resistant. The stability of the currencies within its area is without question".
(Then EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner, Yves Thibault de Silguy, 1998)

"The strict rules attached to the euro could emerge as one of the best ways to persuade the markets that we will put Humpty Dumpty back together again, put the public finances in order".
(Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, 2009)

"The question of entering the euro is worth a lot more to Britain than the wild anti-federalist fantasies peddled by those who think Britain should have nothing to do with Europe. Nobody of any consequence in Europe wants to create a federal super-state".
(Former Business Secretary, Lord Peter Mandelson, 2003)

The British Government Knew The Consequences In 1971

Foreign and Commonwealth Office 30/1048 - 1971

...the transfer of major executive responsibilities to the bureaucratic Commission in Brussels will exacerbate popular feeling of alienation from government. To counter this feeling, strengthened local and regional democratic processes within the member states and effective Community regional economic and social policies will be essential.

Parliamentary sovereignty will be affected as we have seen. But the need for Parliament to play an increasing (if perhaps more specialised) role may develop. Firstly, although a European Parliament might in the longest term become an effective, directly elected democratic check upon the bureaucracy, this will not be for a long time, and certainly not in the decade to come. In the interval, to minimise the loss of democratic control it will be important that the British Parliamentarians should play an effective role both through the British membership in the European Parliament and through the processes of the British Parliament itself.

Test

Saturday, 7 March 2015

The Telegraph's Race To The Bottom

6 comments:

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