Viewing Perspectives: UK

Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts

Sunday, 16 November 2014

Sunday, 7 September 2014

The Ice Bucket Challenge - Has it lost its purpose?

Posted on 19:56 by Simon

By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

It has become the latest internet craze and it is raising money for causes that deserve it. However, the Ice Bucket Challenge, which has seen actors & actresses, musicians, TV personalities and sports stars raise awareness for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), is threatening to get out of control.

Questions are starting to be raised about the point of the challenge and has it lost its edge/purpose? I promote more background on the Ice Bucket craze and give my view on the summer sensation online.

The idea

So, the Ice Bucket Challenge does exactly what it says on the tin (excuse the pun). It involves people dumping a bucket of ice over themselves, or being assisted in this way by another member of a team, whether that is a family member, relationship partner or work colleague (group pictured conducting the challenge below).

A group of people in Sunderland undertake the Ice Bucket Challenge

The act has to be filmed and the video is then posted online, usually onto social media channels like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The person doing the challenge then usually nominates 3-5 people to do the same and give them a timeframe to do the challenge, often between 24-48 hours.

Of course, this isn’t something that should be done for fun or a pointless laugh. A charitable donation has to be made to complete the challenge. In America, which is where the craze got underway, it is often towards the ALS association, whilst over here in the UK, the regular charity benefiting from this is the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

It all sounds simple, or does it?

Celebrity impact

The challenge starting receiving impact in June this year, when personalities from a breakfast programme in the US did the challenge live on-air.

The craze then started to spread with donations being made and more celebrities being nominated. Even Barack Obama and David Cameron were nominated to do the challenge. Wisely, both declined and made just a donation instead. Whilst it could be seen as a bit of good-humoured fun, could you imagine the amount of flak that Cameron would get if he did this? Ed Miliband would have a field day at PMQ’s!

Many other famous faces or familiar names have done their bit though. They include the likes of Susan Boyle, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Lewis Hamilton, Lady Gaga and George W. Bush.

Even TV characters have done it, including Kermit the Frog from the Muppets and Homer Simpson from the Simpsons (video below of Homer’s challenge)

More recently, I’ve seen my News Feed, especially on Facebook plastered with my friends and colleagues doing the challenge and being nominated. The spread of this ‘bug’ has been massive.

Happy and sad endings

The main charity cause IBC has helped on these shores is the Motor Neurone Disease Association. In my case, I do charity donations anyway, and however small this can be, it makes me feel pleased to be giving something back. Recently, the British Heart Foundation sent me a letter to celebrate the first year anniversary of giving money to their fight against heart disease on a monthly basis.

My donations are helping the British Heart Foundation fund groundbreaking heart medicine to save people lives. A case study of this was received as part of the letter I received last month. 18 months into her life, Lauren Burns was diagnosed with a hole in her heart. She underwent major surgery and when complications occurred from this, Lauren spent three months hooked up to a life support machine, fighting for her life. Doctors gave her little hope of survival, but nine years on, Lauren is walking, talking and behaving like many girls of her age band. My donation is helping the BHF and allows more people like Lauren in the UK to come back from the brink and live the quality of life they are today. It is these stories that can have a happy ending.

More notably, Sky Sports F1 presenter Natalie Pinkham has been on a remarkable journey in the last three years with a cause close to her heart. In 1999, Natalie worked in an orphanage in Romania and developed a close bond with a young child, called Mirela. After a moving visit to find Mirela 12 years later, Natalie, with the help of her Grand Prix connections and the charity Hope & Homes for Children, set out to raise £200,000 to build a home for Mirela and her siblings. The story was followed in two moving documentaries for Channel 5. With Natalie’s determination and the help of others, the target was achieved and Mirela and other children were able to move into their new home at the start of 2014. As the home can provide a decent quality of life, it gave Mirela a proper home she could grow up in.

Sadly in early March, Mirela passed away from acute cardio-respiratory failure, just four days after A Home for Mirela was screened on Channel 5. It was a sad ending to an emotional and very moving journey.

Has IBC lost its edge?

The more videos of the Ice Bucket Challenge go online, the more the craze continues but it begs the question though, that despite the money being raised – has it lost its edge?

There could be a concern that some are doing the challenge and then not following up with a promised donation. I hope that is not the case. There are no accusations being made, but I’m sure there is the odd person who hasn’t thought too much about why they are doing the IBC.

If you have been nominated, I’d do it and make the donation. There are special cases and like I mentioned earlier, the media would have a field day if the President of the United States or our own PM did it when the world we live in is experiencing plenty of worldwide conflict. There isn’t a law for not doing the challenge, but at least make a donation if nominated.

There are critics out there in regards to the Ice Bucket Challenge. The waste of water has been mentioned. This is a very valid point, but if donations are being made to various charities, not just the ones first benefiting, then I think it cancels out this argument.

Also, some have taken it too far, with reports of a bullying case in the United States recently on a child who suffers from autism. The important thing about IBC is not to take it seriously. It is a bit of light-hearted fun. At the end of the day though, make sure to remember why you are doing it. You are doing it to help other causes, not to make yourself look like a fool on YouTube and bask in the limelight for it.

Like the no make-up selfie in March, the Ice Bucket Challenge has raised awareness and that is a good thing. I’m sure there will be something else of a groundbreaking context that will sweep social media channels next year. It might be the way to go in the future when it comes to regular donations.

However, the power of the internet can also carry a poisonous edge to it. IBC is the internet craze of the summer but it is starting to lose the ‘cool’ effect. Maybe it is time to put this onto the scrapheap and think of something else. As long as various charities are benefiting from these campaigns, it is good, but it does need to remain fresh in the minds and not become a repetitive stunt.

Categories: America, Charity, Ice, Ice Bucket Challenge, Internet, Money, Social Media, TV, UK, Water

Monday, 25 August 2014

What happened to the Today newspaper?

Posted on 15:17 by Simon

By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

The newspaper industry has been through a rough time in the past three years and most of it is down to failures of simple practices. Struggles to match the demand for online content, combined with the phone-hacking scandal of 2011 has seen sales drop and the appeal to win people’s attention decrease. Indeed, in my case now, I am only likely to buy a newspaper when I’m on holiday out of the UK. The market just doesn’t seem to be there anymore, which is perhaps a good thing, considering the behaviour of some journalists and newspaper editors in recent times.

Phone-hacking came back into the public sphere in the summer when former news editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson was jailed for his role in hacking the phones of celebrities. Another chief news editor of the defunct newspaper, Rebekah Brooks, was cleared on all charges. The News of the World isn’t the only paper though that has ceased to exist.

In fact, British newspapers do come and go. Whilst the red-top tabloids still dominate circulation figures, broadsheets are still around and provide a more accurate approach in comparison to some of the sensationalized reporting you’d often find in the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star. One paper that did revolutionise the British newspaper industry was Today.

It didn’t last a decade, but made its mark. So, whatever happened to the Today newspaper (logo pictured below)?

The Today newspaper made a short impact on journalism in the 1980s

Early struggles

Launching on 4^th March 1986, Today was seen as the honest tabloid, a newspaper that was a balance in the middle between left-wing and right-wing competitors. Seen as competing in the same market as the Daily Express and the Daily Mail, Today pioneered newspaper technology in the mid-1980s, by becoming the UK’s first complete colour newspaper. It was a time where computer photo-typesetting was still a new technology and many other papers stuck to the tried and trusted Linotype machines.

Eddy Shah was the original owner of the paper. A Manchester-based businessman, Shah believed he could take on the might of Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell, the two most dominating media moguls of the 1980s. It wasn’t long though before Today ran into financial difficulties.

Shah, who also owned six local newspapers, took on the trade unions well before the launch of Today. He was the first person to take on Margaret Thatcher’s anti-union laws and anyone who did that to the prime minister would often lose in those days. Within two years of setting up Today, he was gone, selling his empire and moving off into television production instead.

The paper changed ownership twice in its early inception. Tiny Rowland’s Lonrho bought the paper in the summer of 1986 and in 1987; it was eventually sold to Murdoch’s powerful News International brand. Once in Murdoch’s hands, he could control it and despite Today’s change in the way newspapers were printed, there were already signs that it was the beginning of the end.

Cancellations

Alongside the weekday version, a Sunday Today edition was launched but didn’t last long. It was closed early in 1987 as a cost-saving measure. At the same time, Today began an unsuccessful sponsorship of the English Football League. A three-year deal signed at the start of the 1986/87 season lasted just one campaign. For the record, Everton were the only winners of Today Football League Division One!

Murdoch kept Today going, but channelled most of his efforts into his other newspapers, including The Times and the new BSkyB venture, as he tried to turn Sky News into a creditable source of television news journalism. Despite years of decline, the paper survived until 1995 when it ceased publication. Murdoch was concerned that more intelligent people were still interested in the reporting in Today than in the other newspapers he owned.

A sour ending

Today’s most embarrassing story came in its final year. On 19^th April 1995, 168 people were killed in a domestic terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In the aftermath, Today made a huge blunder.

The front page of the paper the next day showed a picture of a fireman carrying the body of a young girl with the headline printed “IN THE NAME OF ALLAH”. The editor, Richard Stott and his team believed Muslim terrorists were behind this atrocity. It later turned out that the perpetrators were American survivalists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. It left the senior executives quite red-faced.

Today became the first long-running daily newspaper in the UK to close down since the Daily Sketch fell in 1971. The final headline on Friday, 17 November 1995 was “GOODBYE, IT’S BEEN GREAT TO KNOW YOU.”

Today made a short impact and changed the way newspapers were printed in the 1980s. It had its audience, but too many changes in editors and owners meant it wasn’t to become a sustainable threat.

Categories: 1986, 1995, Colour, Eddy Shah, Newspapers, Online, Ownership, Rupert Murdoch, Today, UK

Sunday, 23 March 2014

Gambling - Knowing when to quit

Posted on 20:18 by Simon

By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

The power of advertising can encourage us to buy a brand new product like a tablet or 3D TV; push us to a tempting Big Mac or desire the consumer to place a bet and aim for victory when those hopes can lead us into trouble.

The world of gambling has always been out there for the human being and there seems to be more temptations than ever before, thanks to the new technological advances of apps on phones and devices that drive towards free bets. And once this happens, an addiction can begin – just as bad as alcohol or smoking can to your lungs.

So, here is my view on gambling and knowing when to quit.

Blanket bans

When we say the word gamble, it can mean a whole lot of things. To the naked eye, it could mean taking a chance on confessing your feelings for someone, or risking it all for a silly little fling when it can be fun at the time but the ultimate consequences make it feel all wrong. It could also mean sacrificing a friendship by saying what you think and risking hurting the other person’s feelings. Or to the majority, it involves money by spending it, betting on it and winning or losing on it.

All the bookmakers of today’s world like Coral, Ladbrokes, William Hill and bet365.com to name a few will do what they can to get new and returning customers to their online accounts and betting shops across the UK. The same goes for companies who operate bingo plays or a costly trip to the casino where living the high life can lead to massive falls from grace. It all might seem intriguing but it is far too easy to be fooled.

This raises the question whether tougher regulations should be placed on betting or entering casinos. Currently the age limit is 18 for these things, although it is 16 to play the National Lottery. Perhaps raising the age consent to 21 would be wise? I certainly feel a blanket ban on advertising for gambling websites and betting shops before the 9pm watershed should be considered.

It isn’t illegal but it can encourage the wrong crowd. With calls from campaigners just last week for a ban on advertising for junk food to the same time to eliminate the bigger risks of young kids eating unhealthy snacks and treats, the betting laws should be looked at. I believe the temptations in today’s world are too free and too relaxed.

My experiences

I’m not much of a gambler. Never been a huge risk-taker to the world of gambling/betting so it poses no threats to myself whatsoever. I do have the occasional flutter on events like the Grand National (slip pictured below) and put the odd £5 wager on a football outcome with colleagues at work but these are rare examples.

The Grand National is one event where I will always have a flutter on the big race

There is a thrill of winning if it comes off and I do get pleasure if I do win in these outcomes. When Cardiff City beat Manchester City in a shock Premier League result in the early weeks of the 2013/14 season, I was delighted. I had a feeling Cardiff would win – risked a £5 on it with a work colleague who believed I was talking rubbish and came away with the victory.

It was the same in January when I decided to play the National Lottery on the night of a quadruple rollover. I’ve been legal to play the Lottery for almost a decade and you know the saying from the early adverts when it was launched in 1994 – ‘It Could Be You.’

It can be if you play but I’ve never embraced the concept, sticking to playing once a year at most. In January, I put £6 on three Lotto lines and another £4 on Thunderball and won back £28. Not bad for a rookie with limited experience. In fact in the Lottery that night, the line I won my money on had three numbers and they were the first three balls to come out of the draw machine that night! You can imagine how excited I was that I could be a millionaire – even if it was for just a millisecond!

Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Last week, I went down to Ladbrokes and placed £10 on a horse to come in the first three of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Coming into the final fence, the horse I backed was winning but faded badly in the final straight to wind up fourth. In these situations, you are disappointed but brush it off and move on.

The problems begin if you continue to bet.

When it goes wrong

What is the harm of an occasional flutter here and there I say? If you don’t try, you don’t win. It is fine being the extremely cautious type and I normally fit into that category but it would offer no thrill whatsoever to life. So there is slight excitement when you decide to throw a £10 on the 3.40 at Newmarket or place your chips on red 28 at the casino as an example.

When it goes wrong is when you don’t know when to quit. Once you get into a losing streak, I can only imagine that it gets very difficult to have an exit strategy. Then the spiral will increase to putting even more risky gambles together and losing more money. Before you’ve started, thousands of pounds have been lost and not only does it cause disapproval, it can cause heartache.

People have been known to gamble everything they love for a ridiculous afternoon down at the racecourse and for those who do so, I have no symphony. It becomes an appalling addiction which can cause issues for loved ones and yourself.

Before it gets too much, make sure to seek help at meetings involving groups or individual counsellors and with some help, you can make a wrong into a right. Bad experiences do happen in life and it is part of the learning process but it is not learning from these errors that lead to bigger holes, both in money owned and gaps in relationships between friends, family and couples.

Over Christmas, I purchased a book called ‘How Not To Become A Football Millionaire?’ The former Newcastle United and Leicester City winger Keith Gillespie opened up about his massive gambling addiction that cost him millions of pounds in his autobiography. I haven’t got around to starting the book yet but it should be an intriguing read. For those in doubt when gambling about the consequences, I’d recommend reading this, even if it is a small segment. The risks are massive and mainly unnecessary.

Casino crunch

Of course it isn’t just betting shops and keen bookmakers who want your money. Casinos can be incredibly rewarding too but also very damaging when it comes to gambling habits. Last October, my hometown Milton Keynes had a casino takeover the City Limits complex in Xscape. Aspers Casino – which also has casinos in Newcastle and Northampton has promised to help troubled gamblers who don’t know when to quit and provide a new experience to the MK nightlife.

I’m really uncertain about them moving in. I felt it would bring more trouble in terms of incidents outside such a busy area, attract the wrong crowd into these addicting roulette tables and slot machines and felt it wouldn’t do our large town any good.

Six months on and my view hasn’t massively changed. I lived in Northampton for three years during my University degree and never ever got tempted to visit their casino and it is the same in MK nowadays. If I want a night out, I’d rather go for a few drinks in a pub with mates from the sixth form days, not throw my cash away I earn from my full-time job. If I want to place £10 a month of my wage packet, I’ll chance it on the Lottery once a month rather than go to a casino. I guess there is a thrill there, especially if you spend £100 and leave with £5,000 as an example but when the crunch occurs, will that be a one-off or a regular visit? That’s where the problems can easily start. Just ask Marge Simpson in the episode “$pringfield (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)" from The Simpsons.

The world of gambling and betting is a tempting planet and when you win, it is a nice feeling but when you lose, it can be disappointing in my instance or in some, the desperation to win your money back leads to a whole catalogue of problems. Knowing when to quit is important when it comes to this field in our society.

Categories: Adverts, Aspers Casino, Coral, Gambling, Horse Racing, Ladbrokes, Marge Simpson, National Lottery, Thunderball, UK

Sunday, 9 February 2014

24 hour news channels - Celebrating 25 years of Sky News

Posted on 15:00 by Simon

By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

The start of February saw 25 years since this was launched:

Sky News has come so far in the quarter of a century it has been on our TV screens. Not always easily accessible in its early inception, Sky News is now widely available on a number of different devices, from freeview platforms and computer-generated apps to the stunning iPad app which is among one of the best in the business.

Sky has always been the first place for breaking news with its dedicated team of journalists and reporters ready to bring the story to you first, the viewer. I know that it is the channel I watch if I’m after a big story. Sky News were the first to cover the stories that mattered. From the celebration of Tony Blair’s landslide election victory in 1997 and the birth of the Royal Baby last year to the horrifying scenes of international terrorism in New York, Bali, Madrid and London over the past 13 years – as well as groundbreaking coverage of the UK riots in August 2011.

However, Sky and its main competitors are now facing new competition in the evolving world of digital journalism. So, can it be successful and still remain at the forefront of our news for the next quarter of a century.

Slow start

The first bulletin was broadcast at 6pm on Sunday, 5 February 1989. Today, three senior figures in presenter Kay Burley, controversial political editor Adam Boulton and crime correspondent Martin Brunt are still with Sky, just like they were on launch night.

It was a slow start at a time where news was still not hugely accessible. Sky was launched at a time where only CNN was a 24-hour news network in America. The traditional ‘Newsflash’ from terrestrial platforms was the way we got the main news coverage in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There was no internet, social media was a dream away and tablets were just know as a cleaning aid and nothing more.

Rupert Murdoch, for whatever criticism he might deserve in regards to the News International phone hacking scandal two years ago does have to take the credit for keeping Sky News on the air in its early days. Operating on a £40m budget and with a lack of subscribers, Sam Chisholm proposed to Murdoch that Britain’s first 24 hour news channel was to be closed down to save money. The tycoon stuck to his guns though and gradually, Sky started to make its impact further for it. It was quickly respected in the House of Commons and throughout the political circle and started winning awards for its coverage – starting with the Bishopgate IRA bombing in 1993.

Its wall-to-wall coverage of the OJ Simpson trial throughout the pursuit of Simpson through America to the trial in 1995 was groundbreaking. It won Sky a lot of praise and I personally saw it as their big breakthrough onto the news spectrum in this country.

Breaking news

All of this came as BSkyB went under numerous launches on a yearly basis. Sky News underwent new looks (images below) in 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2000. With flashy graphics, colourful ways to promote the news through rapid technological advances and the development of Sky News Active in the year 2000, they continued to evolve and respond to changes in the way we consumed news.

Various Sky News idents from 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1998

The Simpson trial of the mid-90s was big for Sky News but they had shown what they were capable of before that. They covered the late Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 with great authority and the same occured with a tearful Margaret Thatcher’s departure from Downing Street after resigning as Prime Minister in the same year. They had provided in-depth coverage of the tight 1992 General Election and have made their election coverage even better through a variety of new aspects such as interactive voting and 3D visuals – not just for the UK but also for election night in the United States.

In 1997, it was Martin Stanford who had the difficulty of breaking the news to the nation of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in a car crash in Paris. While the BBC won plenty of acclaim for the way they handled such a sad and emotional story, Sky weren’t far behind. Their finest moment came four years later when the world was experiencing a horrifying day.

It was approaching 1.50pm on a normal day. The date was Tuesday, 11 September 2001 and nothing remarkable was happening, both in our normal lives and at Sky studios. That was about to change though as Kay Burley was given the news that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York. What followed was some of the most horrific and vivid moments of the 21^st century. That day, our lives changes forever. In a book, ’20 Years of Breaking News’ Burley revealed: “Not long afterwards the South Tower collapsed. It took less than fifteen seconds to implode. Neither Jeremy (Thompson), nor I said anything. Nothing needed to be said. More than a hundred storeys and thousands of lives lost in as long as it took you to read this paragraph.”

Sky won a BAFTA award for their coverage of 9/11, a feat repeated with the Soham murders in 2003. Many other awards have followed since alongside widespread praise and of course, some criticism along the way.

However, our news would be in a poorer place without Sky News.

It doesn’t always work and the future

24 hour news channels haven’t always had success. ITN tried it with the disastrous ITV News Channel at the start of the millennium. With ratings more accustomed to an episode of Eldorado, the plug was pulled on ITN’s 24 hour failure in December 2005. It hadn’t been helped by the collapse of the ITV Digital platform three years earlier.

The BBC entered the market eight years after Sky and BBC News 24 has been a stable challenger to Sky News since launching on Sunday, 9 November 1997. Despite the occasional blunder, such as Simon McCoy (a former Sky anchor) holding a pad of paper rather than a tablet last year, they have managed to survive in such stiff competition.

However, the way we get news continues to change. The advancement in social media means Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have become very popular tools for a journalist or even for an amateur filmmaker. Sky used some of this during the UK riots in 2011 – journalist Mark Stone filming on his mobile phone some of the unbelievable scenes in his hometown of Clapham. Stone would later be interviewed for our radio programme ‘The Current Affairs Show’ in 2012 about that night. In an interview for our journalism show with one of my fellow University of Northampton colleagues, he said: “Some of them were almost feral; the image that strikes me is the kids pulling the TV’s off the wall at Ladbrokes. It was the most extraordinary image.”

Rather than compete against them at their own game, 24 hour news channels such as Sky News and BBC News 24 have decided to integrate them rather than beat them. It is a clever strategy and I think it means their future is guaranteed, even if they might not quite have the impact they have had over the past decade or two.

I believe 24 hour news channels have a bright future. They have and continue to adapt well to changes, both in technological advancements and the way news can be broadcasted. I congratulate Sky News and Sky Television as a whole on reaching 25 years and I’m confident that with the tremendous team of reporters, presenters, journalists and people who work behind the scenes at Sky studios, they will achieve another 25 years continuing to break the news first.

Categories: 1989, 9/11, London, New York, Royal Family, Sky News, Tony Blair, TV, UK

Sexism in Football - Should Andy Gray make a permanent return?

Posted on 13:21 by Simon

By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

There was a familiar voice back on UK football commentary a fortnight ago but a dark past still remains. With a new video recently published of more sexist behaviour, should BT Sport make the bold move in signing up the ex-Wolves, Aston Villa and Everton striker Andy Gray?

The channel has made a strong start to its broadcasting life. It has already snared some top Premier League matches from rivals BSkyB and secured the coveted rights to live and exclusive UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League football from the start of the 2015-16 campaign. To get an experienced voice into the team alongside Darren Fletcher and Ian Darke would seem like a logical move.

Andy Gray made a strong return two weeks ago but should he be forgiven?

In that way, Gray (pictured above) fits the bill. Should he be forgiven for the viral videos three years ago that destroyed his reputation as the leading sports commentator in this country?

Three years on

It has now been three years since the sexism in football scandal that left Sky Sports with bad publicity. Long-time presenter Richard Keys and commentator Andy Gray were caught making insulting comments about females in football in an off-air conversation that was taped on a mobile phone.

The comments were made about female line assistant Sian Massey, who was about to take the line for a Barclays Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Liverpool, indicating that women know nothing about the offside rule. The West Ham United chief executive Karen Brady was also criticised by the pair for her comments to a newspaper about females in the game.

It was Massey who would have the last laugh and made Keys & Gray look like idiots. She got a potential game-changing decision spot on by judging Raul Meireles to be in an onside position when he squared the ball for Fernando Torres to score the first of his two goals in a 3-0 Liverpool win; Torres’ last two as a Reds player before his £50m move to Chelsea nine days later.

It is fair to say that the reaction to the comments made by the Sky duo was a real talking point. This writer on his previous site did several pieces on the scandal at the time and it was difficult to find any defence for them.

As more videos leaked onto YouTube in the days afterwards, Sky sacked Gray and Keys ultimately resigned, feeling he couldn’t go on without his long-term colleague.

As for Sian Massey, she has not let the incident deter her at all. This afternoon, she was one of the line officials at the Premier League game between Chelsea and Newcastle United and has since become one of the best at her job. Being a line official is not easy and they get criticised quite often by fans – sometimes it is deserved if an offside call is blatantly wrong but no-one deserves the abuse or derogatory comments that Massey got from two supposedly knowledgeable and respectable broadcasters in football.

Redemption and remorse

Within three weeks of their acrimonious departures from Sky, Keys & Gray turned up on talkSPORT, presenting a regular morning sports show for the next two years. In the summer, the pair moved to Doha to present live Premier League matches again for the Al-Jazeera network in the Middle East.

It has given them the chance to redeem themselves. Two weeks ago, commitments abroad meant Michael Owen missed BT’s coverage of FA Cup fourth round weekend. Andy Gray was called in to co-commentate on Everton’s impressive 4-0 away win at League One side Stevenage.

Watching the highlights that night, I’ll admit it was nice to hear such a familiar voice back. Gray put his usual thoughtful and precise analysis into his job and it seemed like the general public were impressed too. There has been talk that his role could become a more frequent position in the future.

Keys has also appeared on the station as a guest on Des Kelly’s show Life’s A Pitch and went into slightly further detail about what happened. As the video below shows, he talks about dark forces which suggest there was more towards the pair’s departures from a channel that they had represented so well since the birth of the Premier League.

However a week ago, another video emerged which might have finished them for good on UK screens. The video involves the pair making inappropriate comments to Claire Tomlinson – a female Sky reporter before a match at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

This latest video must have taken place at least seven years ago, so you wonder why this came out. Was it a tactic by Sky to hurt the competition? Was it worth revisiting such an old issue?

Unprofessional

I would say that even though the video looks quite old and slightly unnecessary to make public given the timing, there was always going to be a reaction once the new content was leaked to the media.

No-one and I mean no-one should have to put up with that. In a job, if you’ve done something wrong in your profession, then you should be criticised constructively. This has happened to me both in my current full-time position and when I was on my University degree from 2009 to 2012. If you can’t take criticism, it doesn’t make you a strong enough person to succeed, especially in the profession I’m in (media and publishing).

However, anyone who suggests you can’t do their job with derogatory comments that are racist, homophobic or sexist is just not on – no matter how old it might be. You would be hurt if that was the case and feel like you’d want to speak out against such gross behaviour.

For me, if I was BT or any other employer, I would therefore be thinking twice before you employ Andy Gray. Make this judgement on this old Sky video from 1998;

He is still one of the best at football analysis but with a history of videos that show an opinion of preferring the game to be totally male dominated, I think it puts Andy Gray in an uncomfortable and untenable position when it comes to being employed by a UK sports broadcaster.

Categories: Andy Gray, BT Sport, Commentary, Football, Offside, Richard Keys, Sexism, Sian Massey, Sky Sports, UK

Sunday, 19 January 2014

Horsemeat scandal - What lessons have been learned one year on?

Posted on 17:18 by Simon

By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

Earlier this week was the first anniversary since one of the biggest crises developed in the history of the food industry. It is fair to say that the horsemeat scandal across the United Kingdom and Europe was bad news for many senior figures in the food process – from those working on the production line to the senior heads of supermarkets and food chains.

However as it is now a year on, what lessons have been learnt? Do you care about what is contained in your meal? Were supermarkets right to be blamed?

The short background

News of horsemeat started to emerge on the 16 January 2013 and it was an issue first highlighted in Ireland. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland said beefburgers with traces of equine DNA, including one product classed as an astonishing 29 per cent horse were being supplied to subsidiaries of the ABP Food Group. This included a food production line in Yorkshire. Whilst this was a concern, few could have predicted the revelations that emerged in the days and weeks ahead.

A day later, the ABP Food Group decided to investigate things further and closed their plant in Ireland while the matter was looked into. Not taking chances, 10 million burgers were pulled off the shelves by retailers including Iceland, Aldi, ASDA and Tesco, whilst fast food chain Burger King switched suppliers to ensure they weren’t dragged into the emerging mess.

Worse came in early February when tests showed traces of horsemeat were now being found in frozen lasagne and spaghetti meals. The Findus food group was now coming under scrutiny with their beef lasagne product believed to be one of the meals that had these disturbing traces. Again, the supermarkets reacted quickly and took away these products from our shelves. A day later, the FSA revealed a second case of “gross contamination” after some Findus UK beef lasagnes (pictured below), made by Comigel, a French food supplier contained upto 100 per cent horsemeat. Allegations of ‘criminal activity’ were made and more products from Comigel were being removed across the UK. The likes of Aldi and Tesco moved quicker than their counterparts, reacting almost as soon as they heard of possible trouble.

Turns out there wasn't much beef in Findus' Lasagne range

While David Cameron labelled the scandal as “completely unacceptable,” there was little he could do. After vigorous DNA testing, most cases had horsemeat down as just a filler ingredient but when some products were mismanaged and called ‘beef’ when they didn’t have any ‘beef’ in them, it damaged the creditability of many leading companies in the food sector. Nearly every meat seller in Europe has been affected, although it didn’t spread to a worldwide issue.

In May last year, Willy Selten, a Dutch meat wholesaler was arrested after it was reported he was selling 300 tonnes of horsemeat as beef. However only he and the interim director of his company Willy Selten BV were arrested and prosecuted. 21 further people were arrested in the south of France as recently as last month after consignments of horsemeat were seized but at the time of writing, no prosecutions have been publicly made.

Should you care?

First and foremost, it has been highlighted by several senior supermarket managers that the ingredient of horsemeat is not harmful to health and many countries across the globe actually eat it. However it is considered as a ‘taboo food’ in both Ireland and the UK.

In the aftermath of the scandal developing, some people were interviewed and were panicking that they were going to be seriously ill. To date, there has been no proven case of anyone dying after eating traces of horsemeat and as a consequence, the whole story was blown totally out of proportion.

One thing that the British public seems to do a lot is panic. It happens all the time if there is a strike looming such as the petrol strike of 2000 or the devastating foot and mouth crisis a year later which almost brought the farming and agricultural sectors to its knees. A small amount of snow also leaves a high proportion in a tailspin. There was a huge influence of media consumed news and too many inaccurate opinions given in the days afterwards.

The horsemeat scandal was not good for us to hear about and it was frankly appalling but it wasn’t going to turn everyday lives upside down. All it meant was perhaps taking more caution in what we digest as human beings. I know for a fact that I don’t normally check ingredients contained in meals and that hasn’t changed (although I have very limited cooking skills). Those who of course have supplements to stick to or are perhaps restricted to what they eat due to gluten-free diets or lactose-free diets should have been more concerned. It was this kind of thing that might mean you don’t totally trust a packet that says ‘this has no traces of wheat’ but it might actually have ‘wheat powder’ contained. This could make an individual very ill and that is gross misconduct, no matter what way you look at it.

What it did show was the levels in trust between consumer and supermarket and consumer to food chain were severely hit and possibly beyond repair. It was okay if you weren’t directly affected like me but what if your favourite meal was Findus Beef Lasagne when actually you were eating Findus Horse Lasagne. Poor packaging, a lack of truth and appalling misinformation turned what could have been something relatively minor into the biggest crisis in this country’s food production since British beef exports were banned by many EU partners in 1996.

I think you should care about what happened because it was quite disturbing, whether affected or not. Even if you don’t want the full details, the majority of people should have the basic ingredients knowledge of what they are eating on a regular basis. Put it this way, you’d be extremely unhappy if the chicken burger or spaghetti ready meal you were eating was actually a horse burger or a Cow Bolognese!

Did supermarkets react quickly enough?

Supermarkets were caught right in the middle by what was happening. In some cases, they were being directly blamed but unless the product was actually from their own various ranges, it is difficult to accuse them of causing the horsemeat scandal. The food is processed in the various food plants across Europe and is probably packaged too before it arrives in the supermarkets up and down the British Isles. The only thing you could blame them for is whether they reacted quickly enough to the horsemeat scandal.

As soon as food, especially the beef products mentioned was being tested and there was confirmation of traces of DNA of horsemeat, the likes of Aldi and Tesco were extremely quick in pulling the affected meals out of supermarkets. It could be seen as a precautionary measure but then again, it won’t have been good if they didn’t do anything. Other supermarkets and I won’t mention any names here were much slower in reacting and by the time they had, it was too late in comparison to their rivals.

The majority of our big supermarket chains were affected in some form as products disappeared. What it did suggest was that the lack of trust and knowledge should be aimed more in an argument between food production versus consumer rather than food seller versus consumer.

The top hierarchy at these stores should have had better knowledge but it isn’t their fault. Some areas of the media went for these guys and that was slightly unfair. The supermarkets did what they could in a very tricky and difficult situation for everyone.

Still in these particular crisis stories, this is when social media can be at its best or even its worse and Twitter was the best place to find out what people were thinking. Below are three examples. Take your pick to decide what you thought was humorous or below the belt;

Its_Death Steve Death

Findus lasagne contains horse meat. I'd check the spaghetti bologneighs as well.

StephenMorley Stephen Morley

Food scandal for vegetarians: radish found to be up to 100% horseradish

GraemeGarden1 Graeme Garden

What's the fuss? For years we've been told that Ready Meals contain too much Salt and Shergar. #findus

What lessons have been learned?

A year on, have lessons been learned from the fallout? That is open to debate. I feel that the supermarkets have moved on and it sounds like their Christmas sales showed marked improvements apart from Morrisons. The food production chains at those affected such as Findus might not ever recover from these setbacks. It will be a scar that will be with them at least in psychological form for a very long time.

For the consumer, it probably means we take a bit more time in supermarkets buying our products in the weekly shop or via online if the hustle bustle of the crowds is too much. Trust was broken, damage done but not something that can’t ever been fixed.

The horsemeat scandal of 2013 was a horrible story to hear about and a distasteful episode for the food industry. With the lack of prosecutions and the way the story disappeared from the newspapers, websites and bulletins after the end of February last year, it is difficult to say much if lessons have been learned. Hopefully, it will lead to more care and dedication taken to ensure that things like this do not and will not happen again. The people accused of the ‘criminal activity’ have to take the responsibility for their actions. It was bad but thankfully, didn't cause any deaths.

Categories: Aldi, ASDA, David Cameron, DNA, Dutch, Europe, Findus, Horsemeat, Lasagne, Tesco, UK

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