I'm fairly often disheartened (but no longer surprised) by the general laziness of journalists reporting the news. Their lack of curiosity and intellectual rigour seems to be more or less endemic.
What prompted this particular post was a conjunction of two items on the BBC TV news at lunchtime.
First was a piece on violent street crime, with some government stuffed shirt failing to acknowledge that the new licensing laws might just possibly have something to do with it, and then saying that society and parents needed to take more responsibility. The interviewer forgot (or hadn't the nous) to point out that the law stopping Joe Public having a go at thugs and vandals has hardly assisted in this process.
The next item but one reported the news that Learco Chindamo, the man who murdered head teacher Philip Lawrence with a knife 12 years ago, has been allowed to stay in the UK after winning an appeal against deportation.
I cannot help thinking that there is an obvious story to be drawn out here: knife crime is a real problem in the UK, and unspeakable people who commit it are not deported because of their human rights. And we wonder why society is in such dire straits?
20/08/07 @ 14:35