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When the boycott of a boycott becomes news
Even before the “anti-woke” GB News channel began its first broadcast, the campaign group Stop Funding Hate had started a boycott. Then the first shows began to air, the outrage started to grow on Twitter, and the calls for boycotting advertisers increased. Viewers could now identify and contact those corporations who were giving their money…
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The Roles of Journalism
[First published at the following link] In Western traditions of news gathering, journalists are seen as being objective and impartial. Often they are complimented for doing investigative work or castigated for not challenging politicians enough. Ultimately, what comes across is that media consumers have some idea of what they think journalism is. When blogging platforms…
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A Timeline Of The Plague Year
Available in audio at the following link: https://anchor.fm/joanna-booth/episodes/A-Timeline-Of-The-Plague-Year-euuu0r On March 23, 2020, the day that lockdown was announced, I was so nervous paying for my shopping at the supermarket that I forgot my PIN. There was a queue behind me, no masks, no separations from the till, just uncertainty. I had to leave everything at…
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The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
Yoko Ogawa has won every literary award there is in her country. That’s how the novel is introduced before it begins, and it struck me as an odd thing to write. Each story stands alone. Why should my enjoyment of this story be affected by what other people think or how she is judged? But…
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Is the council tax reduction scheme back on the cards?
There has been an increase of 500% in claims of the council tax reduction (CRT) scheme according to Cllr Dudd, speaking at the Cabinet meeting on 28 April 2020. Two weeks previous to that Bristol247 wrote: “Since mid-March, the applications for reduced payments have gone from an average of around 100 a week to 642…
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Review: The Criminology of Boxing, Violence and Desistance by Deborah Jump
Boxing is “the only sport where you have two doctors on hand, a resuscitation team on standby, and an ambulance outside” (Roger, 63, retired boxing coach). It’s also being promoted as the sport that will help young men desist from violent crime. How can this violent sport help in preventing violent crime? I come to…
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How many deaths are acceptable?
The following is my question to Cabinet on 28 April about the Clean Air Zone that the mayor wants to postpone: In January, young Rife journalist, Deqa Hassan wrote about the silent voices in the green movement. She talked about white liberal middle-class people dominating the discourse on the environment, and those who are absent.…
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Has the mayor learnt the wrong lessons from Cambridge Analytica?
On February 19, I revealed that Bristol City Council had contracted for £90,000 with a social media company called Impact Social so they could analyse what was being said about the mayor. There are three issues with this contract: 1) the cost is very high for a time when the budget had just been cut by…
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Ephemeral digest 