Blogoir

Over at Business and Politics I peer at the BBC through a powerful microscope.

Droll opening paragraph, or at least I thought so.

Tim Worstall takes a typical piece of headline-grabbing journalistic fluff ...

Within 10 years, the Gates Foundation is projected to have a GDP bigger than 70 per cent of the world’s nations.

... and proceeds to work out what if anything it might mean.

Not much, it turns out.

The BBC lovingly analyses Fidel Castro's speech to the 'National Assembly' in Havana:

... a hush descended ... He smiled and waved to the crowd as he lapped up the warmth of their applause ... a short but polished performance from the lively and healthy-looking Fidel Castro, his voice stronger and more assured ... Now it seems he may have found a new mission in later life - to save the world from nuclear destruction.

Thank goodness for that. I was getting worried there.

The whole speech lasted just over 10 minutes and then, seated, he fielded questions for another hour.

Er ... and what did he say then?

For that we turn to the Miami Herald.

Castro made a couple of blunders, referring to the Russians/Russia as 'the USSR' and 'the Soviets'. Plus he claimed that the Big Bang which formed the universe happened 18,000 years ago.

Really?

With all this fretting about nuclear war and now this, maybe he's getting all his Big Bangs muddled up?

What a farce.

My piece analysing David Cameron's high-profile speeches in Turkey and India has attracted some attention, and various well-taken comments.

Part of the problem for a speechwriter for a top politician is to work out who the audience is, and craft the words accordingly.

Most speeches of any consequence by (say) a British Prime Minister overseas have several different audiences. They include:

• the people sitting there on the day, among whom may well be some local VIPs whose ears will be closely tuned to note certain policy nuances and inclusions/omissions of familiar diplomatic code-words
• the local media outlets (electronic and newspapers) for the in-country foreign audience
• the UK media - what is the headline you want them to carry?
• the international media: what headlines do you want to see in other countries who maybe follow closely UK policy and the policies of the country you're visiting?
• academics, think-tanks, chattering analytic classes - they'll pore over the text in slower time to see what if anything looks to be new/different and what may lie 'behind' any changes
• the PM's own political allies in his own party and its coalition partner - do some different policy emphases there need acknowledging/fudging?
• the PM's domestic opponents - what will the Opposition look to attack

In other words, it's all very well talking blithely about a speech needing 'key messages'. But getting exactly right different key messages to these different audiences is no easy job.

And let's not forget one other audience: history. How will this speech read in ten or fifty or one hundred years' time?

One other point about Key Messages. In the immortal words of Frank Luntz, It's not what you say - it's what they hear.

The speaker may think that the key messages in the speech are neatly turned for style and significant in policy terms. 

And they may well be. My point in that earlier piece was to suggest that they also might come across - be 'heard' by one or other of the various local audiences - as patronising or trite.

Getting that right is not about being good with words. It's about having a subtle, experienced understanding of what works and does not work for Indians, for Serbs, for Brazilians, for Malaysians and so on. Each community has (for better or worse) its own sense of what British Prime Ministers represent and how they should behave.

Hence the fact that many Bosnians felt insulted when PM John Major appeared in war-torn Sarajevo in a military jumper. That mode of dress may or may not have won some brownie points with TV viewers back in the UK. But it blew the whole visit presentationally in Bosnia. 

He was saying: I have come here to help.

They were 'hearing': This person is treating us disrespectfully - if our leaders can manage to look smart in this ghastly war-zone, so should a British PM! 

See also the bizarre visit of PM Tony Blair to Sarajevo in late 1997, when his spin-doctors refused to let him say a single word to Bosnian media people. The Bosnians 'heard' from this visit: rude, too grand to talk to us, flying in and out in a couple of hours - he doesn't care.

All of which brings us to David Cameron's unwise remarks about Pakistan and terrorism during his India trip. As Andrew Rawnsley describes it:

That remark was not planned. It came in an answer to a businessman at the very end of a Q&A in Bangalore.

It was a gaffe. I am using here the classic definition of a gaffe: it is to say something which is true, but liable to cause controversy, embarrassment or harm if spelled out in public. Scoring him on presentation, he stands tall at home, but is still finding his feet away...

Here is the view of John Elliott who is based in New Delhi:

Cameron was of course on target with his criticism of Pakistan, but India was not the place to say it because it diverted attention from his investment-oriented visit – unless you take the Machiavellian approach that it increased media coverage of a trip that might have otherwise made few headlines.  

It was also unwise to make such a snap remark without planning for the downside – in this case endangering Britain’s links with Pakistan’s intelligence services.

That's mainly right. Pakistan opinion will be all the more likely to be really annoyed by senior British remarks such as this when they are made in India. All sorts of subliminal and other thoughts surge to the fore in Islamabad:

• is he taking India's side in the Kashmir problem?
• why is he saying such things before he's even talked to us, and on the eve of the President's visit to London? Deliberate provocation?
• why is he undermining the people in Pakistan who want to modernise the country? This sort of thing simply allows the extremists to play populist cards against the West and makes a hard job even worse...

Key message for senior speechwriters and speakers?

Remember that there are many audiences listening to or reading your every word.

And that what you are saying and what they are hearing may be quite different.

Update: a very clever piece by Hugo Rifkind over at WSJ muses on what if anything in David Cameron's recent so-called public speaking gaffes was in fact wrong or unwise or ineffective. See eg this:

The spin, from Britain's Conservative Party, is that Prime Minister David Cameron did not commit "gaffes" on his recent, whirlwind world tour, but was in fact just "speaking his mind."

I am always wary of people who say "I speak my mind," as though that was a good thing to begin with. It's a better strategy, surely, to think your mind, pick out some edited highlights, and speak those. Otherwise, what's the point of having a mind at all? You might as well just have your mouth wired up directly to somewhere else entirely...

Yet, which of these messages was really a gaffe? It's a decent rule of thumb in politics that you can always afford to annoy the people who need you the most.

British Conservatives need David Cameron, so he annoyed them to agree with America. Israel needs British support, so he annoyed them to agree with Turkey. Pakistan needs Britain in Afghanistan, so he annoyed them to agree with India.

True "plain speaking" could never manage so many twists and turns. This was David Cameron speaking his mind by speaking the minds of other people. Gaffes aside, to my mind, this was a pretty impressive performance.

Not that I'm speaking my mind, of course. No. This is just the edited highlights.

Or if the BBC website front page as of 0947 this morning is anything to go by, is he bowing to us?

Plus how many other bowlers have managed to take 800 wickets on any given day in their fine Test careers, let alone their final day?

Sigh:

Here is my long interview (in English) with George Matlock over at Radio Orla, a successful London-based radio station with a strong Polish angle.

I normally can't bear to watch or listen to myself after doing such media slots. But I started to listen to this one - I found it quite interesting, not least because I can't remember a word I said. It includes a long account of my famous email leak, and all sorts of other things.

Set aside a good hour, curl up on the sofa with a drink. And relax to my droll but dulcet tones.

With Nick Drew and others, I'll be joining Iain Dale on LBC tomorrow night from midnight through to 0600 on Friday to offer thoughts on the UK elections. My niche will be foreign thoughts/angles.

If any readers out there - especially people overseas - want to send in any observations and esp news angles upon which I might draw during the programme, please do so via mail@charlescrawford.biz or by posting a comment on this posting or another on the site.

The timezones mean that for most of the night we can get live views/comment from the USA and Far East with comments from the Middle East and Europe also appearing as the night wears on.

Random thoughts:

• Russia probably will be pleased if Labour are replaced by Conservatives. They'll hope for a more serious, 'realistic' relationship (and maybe a new way to finesse the Litvinenko business)
• South Africa and other African capitals will be sorry to see Labour go, but also maybe not - all that self-congratulatory adoration of the anti-apartheid movement and ANC had started to become a tad ... patronising?
• India will be glad to see Labour go. No manners, condescending.
• China may hope that a Conservative government will bang on rather less stridently about Climate Change
• Argentina will fear that a Conservative leader like David Cameron who emerged from the Conservative Research Department under Mrs Thatcher is unlikely to give them much joy on the Falklands
• The USA under Obama will not care much - Democrats find the British busybody role in international affairs annoying and vainglorious
• Ukraine and Turkey will hope that the Conservatives stick to the traditional UK view on EU enlargement, ie for it
• Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians and Croats will all suspect that the Conservatives plan to dust off the dark British plans cooked up at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 - which are of course still active
• Middle East capitals will expect little change, apart perhaps from a return to a more respectable diplomatic style
• and so on

Views in EU capitals will be mixed.

Paris and Berlin will claim to suspect that the Conservatives are unhelpful and out of touch, although if the Eurozone keeps wobbling they'll be pressing for UK expertise (and money). Plus the next EU Budget row is looming - the small group of Givers will need to form a solid front against the large group of Getters.

Warsaw on the whole will be sorry to see Labour go (opening the UK's labour market to Poles went a small way towards wiping the Yalta slate clean, plus Labour at least pretended to like 'solidarity'). If Citizens Platform win the forthcoming Polish Presidential elections and run the country, the Conservative's alliance in the EP with the Kaczynski party PiS will be rather awkward

Spain in its Leftist economic agony will fear a hawkish UK position on Gibraltar.

Brussels qua EU HQ will be nervous about a Conservative win - things are difficult enough for the Commission without a Big member state openly insisting on more power to EU capitals. But maybe that is the smart way to bet?

Here's how to find us:

I have just spotted this tragic story from 2005, describing how my own leaked email about the EU Budget Negotiations led to someone resigning from his media job in London!

With Polish emotion rather than western diplomacy, Kris wanted to recall Crawford to Britain “a country he does not know” and lecture him about what Poles are doing. Kris also commented in a very blatantly nationalistic way that Polish workers were now carrying on in Britain work once done by Polish pilots (a reference to the Battle of Britain of 1940).

The comments from Kris were not helpful in my editorial view. And instead of signing them in his personal capacity, he signed “redakcja (Editor’s Office) Radio HeyNow”.

That was the trigger for me to resign...

Cause and Effect.

George. If you are out there, get in touch. I owe you a drink.

The FCO has been quick off the mark to get on its website a piece about the 'small explosion' near the car of HM Ambassador in Yemen this morning.

And, stop the presses, there is to be a new UK Ambassador in Macedonia.

Yet nothing appears there under News on the FCO's response and statements concerning a story of global prominence over the weekend, namely the leaked email of disobliging suggestions for the Pope's State Visit to the UK.

Why's that?

My name sporadically pops up on a trashy Maltese site Taste Your Own Medicine set up specifically to lambast Daphne Caruana Galizia.

My attempt to post a comment of clarification on this site has (as far as I can tell) failed:

Dear TYOM,

          I see that I am mentioned here.

I have commented at Daphne Galizia's site only because my name was mentioned there. I have written to two Malta newspapers. Neither (I think) have published my corrections about their inaccurate words.

 

As alas I don't read Maltese, I do not follow what your site is saying about me. Excuse my doubts about its accuracy. If you want to ask questions about my Training work for Maltese officials, please do. I will welcome confirmation that my answers  will be published fully and accurately.

 

Regards,

 

Charles Crawford

England

I also have sent comments to the Maltastar and the Malta Independent websites, none of which (I think) have appeared.

Plus Daphne herself on several occasions has quoted great chunks from my blog but without the usual blogging courtesy of giving her readers the link to my original work. See eg here. 

What's going on? Is this normal Maltese media behaviour?

Maybe I should sue Malta under the European Convention of Human Rights to stop local media outlets traducing me but giving me no respectable right of reply?

Views?

Rummaging around the Bosnian parts of the Internet reveals that there is a deliberate campaign going on to pump out the forged John Major letter.

Postings carrying the text of the article - now removed by the Dnevni Avaz website - The searched-for article does not exist! - are appearing in identical terms all over the place on Islamic and Bosniac websites.

See eg here, here, here and here.

And the odious Avaz itself presses on spewing out lies and propaganda.

It quotes the aged former Bosnian Ambassador to London Muhamed Filipovic as 'believing in the authenticity of the letter'.

However, the same article also quotes former BH Ambassador to the UN Mo Sacirbegovic, who will have been told clearly back in 1993 that the letter was a fake and so summons a shred of self-respect. He does not exactly endorse the text:

"The letter sounds so sharp that I can scarcely believe it is real".

But Sacirbegovic then duly intones various bizarre allegations:

"I've never seen John Major as a racist, but it would not surprise me if his government behaved that way as they had close cooperation with French President Francois Mitterrand..."

Crikey.

Is this what the Bosniac elite are reduced to now?

Why is no-one such as Silajdzic or Tihic or Lagumdzija saying on the record that this is deceitful trash?

Meanwhile, up in Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik has had a couple of good ideas.

Namely to ask the BH Assembly to follow the lead of some distinguished European countries and pass two laws:

• one condemning the Turkish holocaust of Armenians
• the other banning the covering of faces by burkas

These sly proposals put the Bosniacs squarely on the spot.

First, Dodik is demonstrating (not) his loyal Daytonesque support for BH-level legislation, at least on certain matters of high symbolism.

Second, if the Bosniacs deny the Turkish genocide they will somehow undemine their arguments against Serb acts of genocide in Bosnia. But they dare not accept the motion - Turkey for obvious historical reasons is a huge Bosniac/Bosnia supporter.

Third, if the Bosniacs vote against banning burkas (something quite a few Bosniacs may actually like) they look like extremists.

Welcome to the Balkans.

For no obvious reason the BBC website uses inverted commas here and there to give a hint of 'qualifying' or subjectifying or something words or phrases.

Look at this latest example:

Eugene Terreblanche 'killers' in South Africa court

I suppose there might be a case for putting the word killers in inverted commas if the idea is to suggest that it remains only an allegation that they were in fact killers.

But no:

The two farm workers, aged 28 and 15, have admitted beating him to death in a dispute over unpaid wages, police say.

So is there a sly implication that the police are lying?

Oddly enough, here the BBC uses the M-word:

The murder of white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche has reopened many old wounds in South Africa.

It's all so ... confusing.

Update: the BBC story has changed in the past couple of hours so that the 'killers' have disappeared from the title. But they have left their traces elsewhere.

Now the story has this (emphasis added):

The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Ventersdorp says about 500 people gathered outside court - divided equally between white supremacists, local black residents and the police.

How on earth do they know that every 'white' person there is a 'white supremacist' or indeed that every 'black' person is a 'resident'?

Propaganda masquerading as 'reporting'.

Over at Spiegel Online is an energetic and extended article knocking hard at some key arguments proposed by those who insist that human activity is causing grave long-term damage to the Earth's climate.

Here is the essence of what I think about this policy area.

Over at Watt's Up With That? Willis Eschenbach likewise explains in simple expert terms what he thinks, breaking down the many issues (and slogans) into manageable propositions.

Extracts:

Despite millennia-long volcanic eruptions, despite being struck by monstrous asteroids, despite changes in the position of the continents, as near as we can tell the average temperature of the earth has only varied by about plus or minus three percent in the last half-billion years. Over the last ten thousand years, the temperature has only varied by plus or minus one percent.

Over the last 150 years, the average temperature has only varied by plus or minus 0.3%.  For a system as complex and ever-changing as the climate, this is nothing short of astounding.

Before asking any other questions about the climate, we must ask why the climate has been so stable...

More:

Since 1980, there has been a huge increase in computing power. Since 1980, there has also been a huge increase in the size and complexity of computer models. Since 1980, thousands of man hours and billions of dollars have been thrown at this question. Despite these advances, the modern estimate of the climate sensitivity is almost unchanged from its 1980 value.

To me, this lack of any advance in accuracy indicates that we have an incorrect understanding of the forces governing the climate.

And this (emphasis added):

Is climate science a physical science?

Well, sort of. It is a very strange science, in that to my knowledge it is the only physical science whose object of study is not a thing, not a physical object or phenomenon, but an average. This is because climate is defined as the average of weather over a suitably long period of time (usually taken to be 30 years.) The implications of this are not widely appreciated. Inter alia, it means that statistics is one of the most important parts of climate science.

Unfortunately, a number of what I might call the “leading blights” of climate science, like Michael Mann with his HockeySchtick, have only the most rudimentary understanding of statistics. This initially got him into trouble in his foray into the area of paleoclimate statistics, trouble which he has only compounded by his later statistical errors...

Finally:

Regarding climate, what action (if any) should we take at this point?

... I think that the earth actively maintains a preferred temperature. I think that man is having an effect on local climate in various places, but that globally man’s effect is swamped by the regulating action of clouds and thunderstorms. I think that the local effect is mainly through LU/LC changes and soot. I think that the climate regulating mechanism is much stronger than either of these forcings and is stronger than CO2 forcing. I think that at this point the actions we should take are “no regrets” actions.

Elegantly and convincingly done. Read the whole thing and the Spiegel piece, to see how the debate has shifted sharply since the Copenhagen debacle.

Here is the strange piece by an austere-looking Marie Benoit mentioning me in Malta Independent Online.

And here is the message I sent yesterday to Ms Benoit and others at MIO, plus to the website of Daphne Caruana Galizia who also writes for the Malta Independent media family.

As far as I can see, my clarification has not appeared anywhere online (yet).

Thus:

Remember the world scoop/poop of Sarajevo newspaper Dnevi Avaz, featuring what was said to be fascimile copy of a letter from Prime Minister John Major to FCO Minister of State Douglas Hogg, back in May 1993?

In the so-called letter Prime Minister Major says a number of nasty things about the Bosnian Muslims.

A tireless reader has posted a comment on the original posting, citing one source for the letter as “The MUSLIMS and the New World Order” (“Les Musulmans et le Nouvel Ordre Mondial”), p.181, MUSA SALEEM, ISD BOOKS, 1993.

Note: Reader Basheer now posted a further comment and apologised graciously

I also have been sent an email with a scanned copy of the supposed letter in English, as presented in the said book.

Alas, on Amazon this mighty tome is out of stock. But a copy seems to be available here.

The book unambiguously presents the Major letter as an original, and draws all sorts of disobliging conclusions therefrom:

"This letter sums up the thinking, the strategy and the policy of his government."

The technology of reproducing this letter here for you to see its gob-smacking ineptitude currently defeats me. But I'll work on it.

Just for tasters as examples of its manifest rubbishness, even as a fake:

• the font is wrong
• the layout is wrong
• the form of address is wrong
• Slovenia is spelled Slovinia
• the punctuation is all over the place
• it ends Yours sincerely (sic - no comma) - not the in-house British government style
• it's signed John M. (sic - stupid full-stop)

I suppose that the technology for scanning, cutting and pasting back in 1993 was not as nifty as it is now. But it says a lot for the fantasy world of Islamist extremism that they did not even try to do a decent technical job, knowing that all sorts of crazy people would believe it anyway!

It has been a long-running hit. Others too somehow have been taken in by it.

Aaargh. It is a popular read among Muslim Swahilis in Kenya.

Lordy! Here is a transcript of evidence from the trial at ICTY of Jadranko Prlic, where (scroll down to Page 4407) a witness testifies that former Croatia President Tudjman read out a version of this letter in Croatian to senior advisers - note the bizarre exchanges over whether it is or is not a real letter!

And the letter as now rehashed yet again by Dnevni Avaz is still going strong in a Comment on the Economist website.

Sigh.

I recall having a fatuous row in 1997 or so with the egregious Fahrudin Radoncic, the 'magnate' behind Dnevni Avaz, after I visited Bihac.

The local Bihac edition of Dnevni Avaz simply made up and published a stupid quotation and ascribed it to me, no doubt assuming that we would read only the Sarajevo edition which left it out. Of course our eagle eyes were everywhere, and we spotted this crudely trivial pro-Bosniac propaganda trick.

Radoncic flatly refused to apologise.

So the question now is, how enormous and imposing can Stupid Balkan Lies and Stupid Balkan Newspapers be?

As tall and naff - and twisted - as this?

The energetic campaign to reform the British libel laws is making progress.

Yesterday the three largest UK political parties all indicated wilingness to make significant changes. And see Jack Straw in the Guardian:

... perhaps most importantly for the media – we'll be looking at whether to introduce a statutory defence to protect publications that are in the public interest. A statutory public interest test which is clearly and simply expressed could help ensure that the work done by journalists, scientists and NGOs to investigate and inform the public can continue – while also preserving the right we all have to protect our reputations.

The Libel Reform Campaign wants More, in the form of:

a commitment from the Government to reform:

• a clearer defence of “fair comment” in law;
• removal of internet chat and interactive online services like blogs from liability,
• exempting corporations from libel law unless they can prove malicious falsehood.

And that the ‘consideration’ to be given to a statutory public interest defence becomes a concrete commitment to a public interest defence. Campaigners have made it clear that this is an “essential requirement for reform that will protect scientists, NGOs and academics.”

Which is where I firmly disagree.

I am not interested in 'protecting' scientists, NGOs and academics. I am interested in a free speech for everyone, and not merely those in cutesy favoured categories.

As Climategate shows, many 'NGOs', 'academics' and 'scientists' need a lot more searching scrutiny from the public, not some sort of special protection.

And why should bloggers be exempt from liability? A popular blogger who libels someone (or who allows a commenter to do so) and whose odious words 'go viral' can do significant damage to someone's reputation very fast.

There is an argument that in today's Tower of Babble world such things just have to be accepted as the way it all works. Fine by me. But then that should apply to everyone equally.

At most we need some sort of reasonableness let-out to deal with commenters. If someone writes something defamatory on my garden wall, I reasonably can be expected to remove it promptly as soon as the fact that it is there is brought to my attention.

Likewise if a commenter on my website arguably libels someone and that is pointed out to me as the website host, I can either remove the offending text or choose to leave it up and face a possible lawsuit. What's wrong with that?

Note! That is a separate point from what is or is not deemed by the law to be the sort of expression which is (a) untrue and (b) does someone reputational damage deserving compensation. 

Which in turn is a separate point from how far if at all any such alleged damage has to be proved in court, and where the burden and onus of proof lie as the action proceeds, and what level of compensation for any proven damage is appropriate.

All of which is a separate point from whether the courts' costs regime encourages 'libel tourism', and whether there should be some way of seeing off obnoxious libel suits being brought in the UK just because something written about a foreigner on a foreign website has been read here and therefore 'published' here.

Some of this is complicated!

The core point is that we need to get away from the idea that there are those in 'the media' and everyone else, with those in the media needing and deserving some sort of special status and/or 'protection'.

The media in their classic form (newspapers and YV) are declining fast. in reach and credibility. New forms of publication are sprouting everywhere.

For libel, one size fits all.

On BBC Radio Five Live yesterday there was a significant piece about Labour lobbying revelations.

It dwelled at some length on the general problems of principle arising from what Stephen Byers and other senior Labour politicians have been offering, but without placing the blame firmly on Labour in general or on Labour politiocians in particular!

Nothing about the way in which specific Labour politicians in office might have been open to these blandishments from their former colleagues.

Just waffle.

How do voters get to shift this catastrophic government when the country's largest broadcasting network - paid for by poll tax levied on anyone who watches TV - is deflecting any serious focus on its contemptible behaviour?

Oh dear.

I have achieved media prominence of a sort in Malta today, becoming a leading story in the Malta Star.

This publication does not like the current Malta government.

Its article boldly asserts that I am the Maltese Prime Minister's new 'Spin Doctor', brought in to help the PM 'deal with the problems within the nationalist party parliamentary group'.

More: Crawford was the person who recommended to Dr Gonzi to give his disgruntled backbenchers an apprenticeship with various Government Ministries, and pay them from public funds...

He also states repeatedly on his blog http://www.charlescrawford.biz that he is a euro-sceptic. This means that the Leader of the Nationalist Party is now taking advice from a prominent euro-sceptic after years leading his party’s electoral campaigns with a stance of of anti-euro-scepticism...

Charles Crawford has in fact become so involved in the Nationalist Party’s internal organisation that he has, on various occasions, quoted blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia in his own blog.

Another article (seemingly referring to this first one) says that some officials within the Nationalist Party are shocked that an external spin doctor has been brought in to help the Prime Minister.

Malta! Here are the facts. NB No-one in Malta including the Malta Star has been in touch with me to ask about them.

• I left the FCO in late 2007 to start a new career, part of which has turned out to be senior training of different sorts
• Last year I was asked by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official in Malta to give some officials diplomatic communications training
• Which I duly did, drawing on training work I have previously done for the FCO in London as well as for one other EU member state and for the European Commission in Brussels
• The training in Malta as elsewhere focused on writing and presenting good English for different official purposes
• My visit had nothing whatsoever to do with the Nationalist Party's internal affairs
• I will be pleased to come back to Malta to advise any party or organisation who wishes to pay for this training, including the Malta Star. Book early to avoid disappointment
• The article in the Malta Star seems to insinuate that I have been drawing on my mediation skills during the recent training in Valletta, to help one particular political party. Alas not - that is a separate course, which so far I have given only to EU officials in Brussels
• In short, I have made no recommendations to anyone in Malta other than to show some officials how to write and present brisk official English
• In particular I of course have NOT said or recommended anything to anyone about giving Parliamentarians paid roles in Government Ministries
• I am not a Spin Doctor. But if someone in Malta or anywhere else wants to pay me generously to be one, I'll be happy to have a go.

Finally, I have linked to the site of Daphne Caruana Galizia for my small but select readership, as its popularity in Malta seems to be a striking example of the impact blogging can have in smaller countries.

Maybe I'm wrong on that. Likewise if other Malta bloggers with different views are having a similar impact, I'll be delighted to link to them too. But I do not plan to let this blog be overwhelmed with things Maltese, gripping as they are.

Just to add that my first visit to beautiful Malta prompted me to write some general thoughts about democracy and participation for my own readers, who are unlikely to be familiar with the subject as it applies in Malta: here.

All clear now?

Sure?

Good. Thank you.

A reader argues that I am underestimating the impact of Fox News in the USA:

Thus the numbers of people 'reached' in America are not the paltry 2.8 million you purport, but rather 80% of the total viewership for the day, 18,166,000, (again ridiculous, 20% of 18 million people did not tune into FOX news yesterday and spend the entire day watching it)...

So obviously many more people were one time show watchers tuning into an original program they wished to view, rather than spending their entire day watching a news channel on a non-news day.

I did not 'purport' anything. The figures I quoted were clearly describing 'prime time' viewership alone. That said, the ratings over a longer period of course stack up for Fox as for everyone else.

The media term for this is the cume. See how Arbitron defines it:

Major ratings products include cume (the cumulative number of unique listeners over a period), average quarter hour (AQH - the average number of people listening every 15 minutes), time spent listening, (TSL), and market breakdowns by demographic.

It is important to understand that the CUME only counts a listener once, whereas the AQH can count the same person multiple times, this is how to determine the TSL. For example, if you looked into a room and saw Fred and Jane, then 15 minutes later saw Fred with Sara. The Cume would be 3 (Fred, Jane, Sara) and the AQH would be 2. (an average of two people in the room in a given 15 minute period)

Which is why in fact CNN claim that their cume is greater than Fox's.

The point of my posting was to look at the sense behind the claim of a senior Democrat that four times as many viewers watch Fox as watch CNN. If the total numbers for both are relatively small, why if at all does that matter?

This piece supports my position, noting that back in 1969 the main evening US news channels would reach 40 million people (at a time when the US population was a lot smaller):

There's a growing perception that opinion news outlets like Fox and MSNBC drive the news agenda. Do they?

No. The state of the economy, the war in Afghanistan, whether swine flu is going to turn more deadly--these things drive the news. That perception may be there, but cable news is still a niche medium.

Fox's Bill O'Reilly has around 3.5 million people watching each night, or about 1% of American adults. That would get you canceled on broadcast television. The three nightly newscasts have about 20 million viewers, not 3.5 million.

What Fox clearly does is reinforce the sympathies and energies of a smallish number of conservative Americans. So what? It's a free country! Most other cable and network channels push in a more 'liberal' direction, far outnumbering Fox.

Where US conservatives do have an edge is with Talk Radio, with Rush Limbaugh reaching some 13.5 million listeners a week. But again, that is only two million per day on average.

The basic fact is that with the huge expansion of TV channels and Internet-based entertainment and information of the past couple of decades, fairly few Americans now watch TV for news and current affairs. Newspaper circulations are falling too.

Hence the vicious circle of those programmes (and newspapers) cutting reporters and so getting more and more shallow or even solely 'opinion-based' (ie making a loud and often silly noise) to try to keep up their ratings.

That trend is evident here in the UK too. See for example how the BBC lost my vote back in 1993 with its scandalously poor assessment of the attempted coup against President Yeltsin, which I watched at the Embassy in Moscow with gunfire echoing round the city in the background:

When I subsequently took up with a senior BBC personality the BBC's dismal, dishonest reporting at the height of the crisis he just shrugged, saying that that sort of dramatic reporting boosted ratings and was what people wanted to hear these days.

In short, if the Democrats want to blame something for their woes, maybe the right target is not Fox News but rather their own policies?