Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Feeding The Ego.

Am I alone in thinking that the press coverage of narcissistic nutjob Raoul Thomas Moat is exactly the sort of coverage an inadequate like that would love with heroic talk of "last stands", "Killer on the loose" etc?

7 comments:

PJH said...

No, but then again it is what's colloquially called 'silly season' and the MSM grab onto anything newsworthy to fill space.

Tyne Tees (local) news last night: lasted ~25 minutes. All but about 7 minutes of it were about Moat. With I forget how many 'on-scene' reporters.

Followed by the national news with their own set of reporters, on-scene, spouting the same day-old speculation, police reports, and interviews with the local populace who knew something.

Tell you one thing - if I had information about Moat, the last thing I'd be doing is showing my face on TV at the moment boasting about how I told the police about it.

JuliaM said...

Nope, you're not alone.

Also, what's with the police statements 'The net is closing in!' every five minutes. Aren't they going to wind up with egg on their faces - even morethan they already have, that is - as each day goes by and they fail to catch him?

Macheath said...

You're not alone - unfortunately it's also the sort of hype and vicarious excitement the tabloids thrive on. After all, the Sun must have expected a huge leap in sales with the publication of his letter.

At least the BBC have removed the nauseating invitation to 'Watch the hunt for Raoul Moat LIVE' that headed their news page yesterday.

Furor Teutonicus said...

Quite. And Ned Kelly was a queer as well.

Mark said...

'with the police statements 'The net is closing in!' every five minutes. Aren't they going to wind up with egg on their faces - even morethan they already have, that is - as each day goes by and they fail to catch him?'

Spot on JuliaM ! The plods discovered his 'camp' several hours ago, but Moat himself remains elusive.

Perhaps they should do a Tyneside remake of Inspector Clouseau, with Rowan Atkinson (originally I believe from those parts) in the Peter Sellers role ?

PJH said...

Mark said: Perhaps they should do a Tyneside remake of Inspector Clouseau...

Watching the news last night put me more in mind of The Keystone Cops

Ross said...

PJH-I expect the local news must be even ott that the national.

Julia- The police PR operations always backfire.

Macheath- I missed that, it's astonishingly tacky.