Messages

As well as reporting the start of the failed Turkish coup attempt, last night's The World Tonight on Radio 4 included more coverage of the atrocity in Nice. 

It exemplifies the BBC's familiar, 'liberal' way of covering such stories.

First came a report from Manveen Rana. She talked to a member of a local mosque and to the Guardian's John Bryant. The mosque member expressed his concerns about the "right-wing" (Nice's authorities) and the "extreme-right" in the light of the killings. Mr Bryant talked of "undercurrent of racism" ,"troubled communities" and how Muslims there feel that they are treated like "second-class citizens". Manveen Rana's question to him included the following:

• We heard there, there are concerns, particularly from the local Muslim community here, that this is an area where Marine le Pen has done very well in the past. What effect do you think this attack will have?
• Is racism a serious concern here?

It's the same old song

Not Tom Watson

By Thursday night's Newsnight  we were getting the following from Evan Davis:

For our European colleagues the British situation raises all sorts of questions - not always very welcome ones. And now they find themselves working with a foreign secretary who has, over the years, treated the EU with derision. 

A little earlier I spoke to the Lithuanian foreign secretary, Linas Linkevicius. What does he think of Boris Johnson's past indiscretions? And will they make it difficult to take him or British foreign policy seriously? 

It's the same question - and tone - as Gavin Esler and Chris Mason this morning.

More 'Newsnight'

That same (Wednesday) edition of Newsnight also had several discussions with non-BBC guests on Brexit-related matters. 

The first discussion was balanced 1:1 between a Leave supporter (Peter Lilley) and a Remain supporter (Heidi Allen).

The second discussion had a 2:1 imbalance in favour of Remain (with Rupert Harrison and  Mariana Mazzucato on the Remain side and Gerard Lyons on the Leave side).

The final discussion has a 3:1 imbalance in favour of Remain (with Polly Toynbee, Matthew Parris and Anne McElvoy on the Remain side and Charles Moore on the Leave side).

What happened when four 'Newsnight' editors gathered around Evan's cauldron...

Beginning to catch up with Wednesday's and Thursday's editions of Newsnight, I'd just say that if you want to sample BBC bias over Brexit in full flow you only need to watch the opening discussion between Evan Davis and the four Newsnight 'editors' on Wednesday night's programme...

This, of course, came on the day that Mrs May became PM, and it began with Evan Davis talking of the "disconcertingly turbulent" last three weeks and how the ritual of the handover of power might have proved "reassuring" and provided "some calm at last".

On Geoffrey Hill

Rutland Water

One of this week's passings - as marked by Radio 4's Last Word - was the famously-difficult-to-understand poet Sir Geoffrey Hill - long known, with good reason, as Britain's "most difficult poet". 

Last Word noted that GH was proud to call himself "English working class", and featured his widow Alice Goodman  - the librettist for John Adams's notoriously controversial, antisemitism-accused opera The Death of Klinghoffer. 

Sunday Morning Live

This morning's Sunday Morning Live was quite engaging and featured admirably well-balanced panels for its three main discussions. 

Its 'big questions' were typical ones for the BBC on a Sunday morning - 'Is America failing its black community?', 'Is Islamic extremism caused by religion of politics?' and 'Are transgender athletes playing fair?' - but, thankfully, there was none of the 'bear pit' atmosphere you usually find on The Big Questions. 

The central discussion - the one on Islamic extremism and the Iraq War - featured Douglas Murray, Lola Adesioye, Charlie Wolf and Remona Aly and there was more agreement between them than might have been expected, despite two being for the Iraq War and two being against it. Quality guests, quality discussion. (Take note, Nicky Campbell!)

Thought for the day

Don’t you just hate it when otherwise respectable people punctuate their conversation with “D’you know what?” I realise they do this for dramatic effect, but in my opinion it just makes them look a bit of a prat. 

But it’s a contagion so no doubt I’ll do it myself sometime. Whatever. 

The News is like news-on-steroids at the minute. I’ve been binge-watching politics all morning, and d’you know what?  I can’t think of anything interesting to say about it. It’s so mad that even the normal norms are abnormal, if that’s not too Rumsfieldian for a Sunday lunchtime.

Oh yes, and by the way, I’ve been thinking about Andrea Leadsom and motherhood and apple pie, and although I’ve been thinking about it - as a mother myself - I haven’t come down on one side or another in that binary way we often talk about. 

Bingeing

Like Sue, I binged on politics this morning. It matters, it's fascinating, and it was still raining.

My ears, as ever, were listening out for bias and Paddy O'Connell's Broadcasting House decided to mock Andrea Leadsom for overusing the word 'clear'.

They had a dizzying montage of her saying 'clear' in their introduction and the 'feature proper' mocked her repeated use of 'clear' to the accompaniment of the kind of music I associate with late '50s/early '60s adverts showing women trying out soap powders.

Does she use 'clear' more than other politicians? I'm not at all clear about that. After all, the famous Jeremy Corbyn said 'clear' twice in his Marr interview today and the sainted Theresa May used the dread word three times in her last Marr interview.

Was this an example of some clever biased BBC type (who doesn't like her) spotting her using a word on a few occasions, finding it funny and then wangling it onto a receptive BH?

James O'Brien pursues a line...

If there's one thing I picked up on earlier (from commenters on Twitter and at Biased BBC, Guido Fawkes, The Spectator, etc) is just how strongly James O'Brien stood out today for pushing a particularly aggressive line on the Nice atrocity on his LBC programme.

He provoked considerable ire for so doing (as befits a shock jock). 

Cutting off at least one caller (apparently), he ranted for ages (apparently) on the subject of why it's wrong to blame Muslims for such things as the Nice massacre (a matter that - apparently - mattered to him above all else).

Boris-baiting

This was part of BBC political correspondent Chris Mason's introduction to a short interview with Boris on the BBC News Channel at 10:10 this morning:

Mr Johnson has a curious relationship with Turkey. His great-grandfather was a controversial journalist and politician killed in Turkey, and a figure sufficiently controversial that his name, if you like, is still mentioned in conversation in Turkey now. And just a couple of weeks ago, before Mr Johnson took up his post here at the Foreign Office, he won an 'offensive poetry' competition run by the Spectator magazine in which he penned a verse about the current president which, to put it mildly, was less than complimentary. Anyway, within the last half an hour of so Mr Johnson has made a statement. We'll play it to you now.

Gavin Esler on Boris's "silly" and "juvenile" poem

More Boris, and more Gavin Esler...

Here's a question Gavin put to Turkish journalist Guney Yildez on today's Dateline London:

Guney, I just wondered how...He wrote a pretty juvenile poem which won a prize which said things about President Erdogan which, I think, on reflection he might think are rather silly. I mean, does that matter to people in Turkey?

Let's just recall that Boris's winning poem was meant to be juvenile. That's what Douglas Murray of the Spectator specifically asked for - and he didn't ask for it for childish reasons. He was being deadly serious.

Format For Writing a Newspaper Article - How to Easily Write aCompelling News Copy

Unlike in online article writing, there is a certain format that you need to follow when writing articles for newspapers. This specific format offers so many benefits for both editors and readers. For one, this promotes further reading and this helps editors in easily cutting down an article should they need to save some space.

Here's the format that you need to follow:
1. Headlines. Every news article must start with a snappy, compelling, and eye-catching headline. As you're trying to save some space, ensure that you use as few powerful words as possible. Your headline should summarize your content; it should tell your readers right away what your story is all about.

2. Inverted pyramid technique. This is a writing technique designed for news writing. This simply means putting the most important information in the beginning or the lead paragraph. Your readers must get a clear picture of your story by reading this part.

Writing a News Feature Story

When writing a feature story, one of the first things you must consider is the target audience. Is it for the general public or is it for a specific group of readers? If you are writing for the readers of a lifestyle magazine or for the lifestyle section in the newspaper, for example, you would need to consider whether you should write from the view of a third person or second?
Most feature stories are written from the third person. Exceptions where the second person is used instead is when the story is about 'what you should get', say, for an occasion or a festive season. Seldom is the first person used for feature writing except when the author is the narrating his or her own experience.
Take for example the first paragraph of a feature story on entrepreneurship written in the third person:

• John lost his job two years ago due to the economy downturn. Believing it to be only temporary, he actively seeks employment while upgrading his skills through short-term courses. Today, he is still unemployed. Now at the age of 41, he is forced to consider self-employment and entrepreneurship but is hesitant because he has been an employee his entire working life.

Letter Writing Techniques - Good News Vs Bad News Letters

There are different strategies and techniques to be discussed when writing good-news and bad-news letters. In good-news letters a writer is conveying good news to the receiver. The first paragraph (introduction) provides the good-news topic (reason for the letter). The second paragraph (discussion) provides the details of the good-news and the third paragraph (conclusion) calls for action.

Bad-news letters use the indirect approach and opens with a neutral idea while providing facts and supporting evidence. The second paragraph presents the reason for the bad news letter. The third paragraph ends with a neutral close. Tact and politeness is required when writing a letter of bad news. A writer of a letter of bad news must pay attention to tone and structure throughout the letter to avoid future problems. Writers must prevent themselves from offending the reader.

Personality Types

The following is an excerpt from my new book, "MORPHING INTO THE REAL WORLD - A Handbook for Entering the Work Force" which is a survival guide for young people as they transition into adult life. The book offers considerable advice regarding how to manage our personal and professional lives. As a part of this, I found it necessary to describe the four types of personalities commonly found in the work place.

Personality Types

You will undoubtedly encounter many different types of personalities in the work place, each with their own unique blend of nuances. But there are four basic types of personalities from which they are based, which is commonly referred to as A, B, C, and D. Although volumes have been written on such personality traits, here is a synopsis:

Type "A" Personality - Is a highly independent and driven personality, typically representing the leaders in business. They are blunt, competitive, no-nonsense types who like to get to the point. They are also strong entrepreneurial spirits (risk takers). As such, they embrace change and are always looking for practical solutions for solving problems.

Type "B" Personality - Represents highly extroverted people who love the spotlight. Because of this, they are very entertaining and possess strong charisma (everyone likes to be around them). Small wonder these people are sales and marketing types. They thrive on entertaining people and are easily hurt if they cannot sway someone (such as "bombing" on stage).

Type "C" Personality - The antithesis of Type "B"; they are introverted detailists as represented by such people as accountants, programmers, and engineers. They may have trouble communicating to other people, but are a whirlwind when it comes to crunching numbers or writing program code. They tend to be very cautious and reserved, and will not venture into something until after all the facts have been checked out.

Format For Writing a Newspaper Article - The Most Important Elements inNews Writing

1. Effective, eye-catching headlines. You should always kick-start your articles with captivating headlines. Make them easy to understand, powerful, and enticing. Your readers must get a clear picture of your story by just reading your headlines. To save some space, ensure that you make each word count. It's better if you use 6 words or less.

2. Inverted pyramid technique. It's crucial that you write your articles using this technique. You see, saving the most essential information for last will not help you get your articles read. Remember, your audience has very short attention span and they usually don't read news articles in their entirety. So, give them all the most important details on your first or lead paragraph. Strive to answer all the questions that they might have.

Writing a Newspaper Article - Discover 4 Important Elements of NewsWriting

1. Fairness. As a journalist, it's very important that you're not biased when writing your articles. You should not take any side of the story. Remember, your goal here is to serve the people. You ought to give them balanced news each time you tap on your keyboard. There shouldn't be any point where you'll resort to blatant lie or when you'll over stretch the truth. Believe me, this will ruin your credibility in no time.

2. Clarity. Unless you're writing your news articles to win literary awards, you should make clarity your number one priority. Instead of using high fallutin words that will leave your readers guessing as to what you're trying to get across, use simple terms as much as possible. Your audience must be able to understand your stories the first time that they read your articles.

Newsflash - You Can Write Your Own News Release

Submitting a news release is one of the more effective methods of grabbing the attention of your target market and the search engines. Anyone can write a news release but not all news releases are effective. When you write a news release your aim is to get noticed by the people searching for your business, services and/or products and to ensure that the search engines list your release on the search results for people to find.

It is possible to write a great news release that generates qualified traffic and strengthens the reputation of your business if you follow some time proven guidelines. We will be taking a closer look at the guidelines to follow and the structure of a news release.

Guidelines:

• Grab the Attention of Readers - The headline and summary of a news release should provide a clear picture of what the release is about. 

• Tell People Who You Are - Your business, product or brand name should feature prominently within the first few paragraphs of the release. 

E-Newspapers and E-Magazines: Latest News at Your Fingertips

E-newspapers and E-magazines or otherwise known as Online Newspapers and Magazines are the finest examples of The Digital Revolution. The Digital Revolution or also known as The Third Industrial Revolution is the advancement of technology from analog electronic and mechanical devices to the digital technology which is made readily available today. The era started during the 1980s and is ongoing until present. The combined revolution of electronic devices and the internet has made it possible for people to accomplish tasks faster and easier in accordance to their availability.

The change, which paved the way to the Information Era, allowed any news article or magazine clipping accessible to everyone. Together with enhanced animation and graphic design, E-newspapers and E-magazines offer both appeal and convenience.

Newspaper and magazine digitization provides various advantages, such as: Faster searching of news article or magazine clipping with the use of keywords. A single digitized article can be accessed by multiple readers at the same time. It can also be easily shared by sending it as a file via email; the file can also be saved on a hard drive or on an online data storage, hence no need to keep a hard copy which will eventually fade in time and may possibly be bulky e.g. stacks of magazines or newspapers, files of contracts or statement of accounts. Digitization also saves resources because presentations are no longer needed to be printed out as it can be presented on a projector through a laptop and viewed on a tablet computer. Kids in school no longer need to bring many heavy books as they are starting to be trained on how to use e-books and kindle... all these and much more.

Challenges faced by Human Resource Managers in the Era of Gloablization

"The real wealth of a nation is its people. And the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives. This simple but powerful truth is too often forgotten in the pursuit of material and financial wealth."

INTRODUCTION

Globalization of Indian economy is compelling organization to rethink their future strategies. It is now widely recognized that transformation is a pre-requisite to their survival and growth. Business organization in India especially public enterprises are experiencing winds of change. For the HR function, there would not be a more existing and challenging opportunity than managing the complexities of change and transformation. HR today is playing a lead role along with business functions in creating the necessary momentum and internal capabilities.

Now first let us understand what we mean by globalization.

WHAT IS GLOBALIZATION?

Every day we hear it on news, we read it in the newspapers, we overhear people talking about it… and in every single moment the word ‘globalization' seems to have a different meaning. So what is globalization?

"…integration of business activities across geographical and organizational boundaries."

"The capacity to treat the world as one market while…dealing with many culturally diverse merchants."

"…the process by which markets expands to include competitors for customers and productive inputs without regard to national boundaries".

"…doing business with a world wide focus… rather than doing business in an international market with the focus from a home-country viewpoint."