The current spate of knife related violent killings around the
country (and in particular in London) has given the tabloid press the
perfect chance to whip up a panic of knife wielding youngsters going
around stabbing people to death.
This has in turn given John Beyer and Mediawatch UK the perfect
bandwagon with which to jump on to boost their own agenda and push
their campaign to garner more support.
From Mediawatch UK:
BROWN TARGETS ‘PROBLEM FAMILIES’
More than 110,000 “problem families” with disruptive youngsters will
be targeted as part of a crackdown on knife crime, Gordon Brown has
said. They will get parenting supervision, with the worst 20,000
families facing eviction if they do not respond. He aimed to make
it “unacceptable” to carry a knife, with “prevention, enforcement and
punishment” the focus. The prime minister also urged more councils
to impose 90-day teenage curfews “where there is a problem”.
The comments came as he used his monthly news conference to defend
the government’s plans for tackling knife crime, which have been
derided as “half-baked” by the Liberal Democrats.
BBC News online 14/7/2008
Read more… Prime Minister’s comments
Speaking today, John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk, said that the
Prime Minister’s wide ranging solution to the current knife crime
crisis lacked one essential component: the media. “In his briefing
today there was no mention of the harmful influence of violence in
entertainment which, over the years, has done a great deal to
glamorise and normalise gun and knife use. We believe that the
problem of knife crime will never be solved until the culture of
violence and killing, aggressive and anti-social behaviour portrayed
in entertainment is stopped”, he said.
“We believe the Prime Minister should initiate urgent talks with the
top executives of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BSKYB, Virgin Media,
the British Board of Film Classification and the Computer Games
Industry to discover exactly what they intend to do to stop
portraying violent gun and knife use in the entertainment that they
think is acceptable. It is in the public interest for them to
declare what part they intend to play in the overall effort, that
must involve everyone, to reverse the culture of violence they have
created. It is no longer credible for the Government, despite its
long-standing principle of non-interference, to exclude the influence
of the media from the “root causes” of this most serious and urgent
problem.”
“We believe that the problem of knife crime will never be solved
until the culture of violence and killing, aggressive and anti-social
behaviour portrayed in entertainment is stopped.”
Yes because we all know the problem of knife crime will never be
solved until media show life through rose tinted glasses and fluffy
bunnyrabbits dance around in every film, TV programme and computer
game made.
“In his briefing today there was no mention of the harmful influence
of violence in entertainment which, over the years, has done a great
deal to glamorise and normalise gun and knife use.”
Maybe that’s because Gordon Brown believes that violence in
entertainment is not the cause of gun and knife violence and that
there are other more important and complex causes to consider.
“We believe the Prime Minister should initiate urgent talks with the
top executives of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BSKYB, Virgin Media,
the British Board of Film Classification and the Computer Games
Industry to discover exactly what they intend to do to stop
portraying violent gun and knife use in the entertainment that they
think is acceptable.”
Yes because all these companies can be blamed for the knife crime on
our streets. What could these companies do that would possibly please
Mediawatch UK? Hold their hands up, admit they are to blame and
promise never to show any kind of violence ever again and only show
life as sweet, nice and fluffy!
“It is no longer credible for the Government, despite its long-
standing principle of non-interference, to exclude the influence of
the media from the “root causes” of this most serious and urgent
problem.”
But the media is not one of the “root causes” of the problem. Bored
kids hanging around with fuck all to do, parents who show little or
no interest in their kids, lack of teaching of right from wrong,
young people having no direction in life and a society that views
young people as the scum of the earth are the root causes of the
problem.
To suggest it’s because the media show violence is way way to
simplistic. But then again such a simplistic argument sits well with
Mediawatch UK because it helps them push their campaign and get more
paying supporters doesn’t it!
