Two entries on recurring themes -- part one.

1. Channel 4 again...

Right after my last post, they did another piece with the godawful John Mercure. This was an expose on a single businesswoman with a spotty record with the Better Business Bureau. It would have been nice to get the BBB's website or some excerpts of actual reports, but no. The report had the following elements: (1) the guy from the BBB gave his overall assessment that he would not use this service; (2) a disgruntled client was interviewed, said how upset she was, and claimed that she had waited months and gotten none of the product she was promised; (3) an undercover hidden camera visit to the businesswoman posing as a client caught her on film suggesting that she had lots of business, and it was opined, how can she take new business on when she hasn't finished the old business, and (4) a confrontation was arranged straight out of Jerry Springer or Cheaters where the dissatisfied client took over the usual John Mercure role of screaming at the subject of the expose. There was an apparent disagreement over whether the client had put in a specific order for what she said she had waited for, but the report did not include a look at the e-mail they were arguing over, so we could not see who was right. Now again, as usual, it may well be that the businesswoman was crummy, and deserved to be exposed. But that isn't the point. This dreadful report went to a lot of effort but did not convince me of its conclusions. I'm a lawyer. I see where the indictment had holes in it. I'm also a journalist and don't like the conclusion-driven reporting here. Instead of "We report, you decide" as Fox News promises but does not deliver, there is no pretense here of reporting. They have a conclusion which they present, and support with shaky, emotive, prejudicial evidence, and deny us the basic facts we would need to make a competent decision. This has led me to a lot more thought about the relationship between the news media and the legal system as alternative discursive fora where the truth is argued and opinions reached. The MSM, at its best, typically follows some of the guidelines of the legal system and disregards others, which results in systematic flaws, but the system is at least earnest. This Channel 4 crap follows an entirely different schematic. More later.