Homophobia? Good! Racism? Bad!

Life on MarsInteresting article from Mark Lawson on the self-censorship that some of the BBC writers went through recently, specifically Ashley Pharoah, co-creator of hit series Life On Mars.

They knew that making Philip Glenister’s character DCI Gene Hunt likeable was the key to a successful show. This meant that racist comments, which let’s face it in 1973 would have been the norm, were removed, but homophobic and sexist comments were kept in.

This is a strange situation. No-one would deny that racist comments on a primetime BBC TV drama series would be seen with a very dim view, but is homophobia any better? Or the blatant sexism aimed at DC Annie Cartwright?

There has been a wave of nostalgia for the 70s recently, fuelled by the likes of Life On Mars, despite the decade being pretty grim for the most part: three-day week; strikes galore; prejudice, so why shouldn’t a series like Life On Mars reflect the true horror of the decade.

The irony is, if they’d had a black character who was equally racist, they’d have probably got away with it. Is that double standards?

Princess Diana tribute single – why, oh why?

Tomorrow is, as the entire UK media and beyond have not been shy at reminding us, the 10th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.

Although I personally can’t see it, I understand why people want to celebrate/mourn/commemorate the passing of her, but it has, to my mind, gone too far.

Yes, she had a profound effect on many people and did a lot of good work to raise the awareness of things like Aids and landmines, but essentially she was just someone from well-born blood who ‘mismarried’ into the Royal family.

That aside, what I can’t understand this year is the need for a tribute single that’s currently available to buy on iTunes. Tribute singles are meant to be recorded in response to a disaster of some sort, such as Band Aid, Ferry Aid, USA for Africa, not because someone died 10 years ago.

What adds to the direness is that the single is pretty shoddy and, while written for laudable reasons, is a pointless and futile exercise.

Hopefully, after this year, the Diana ‘train’ will disappear into the distance for a while and only get brought out on less frequent anniversaries – for all our sakes.

Darts – student newspaper days

Having recently moved, I was looking through cardboard boxes full of “loft stuff” and came across all the old copies of the student newspaper I used to work on.

Long since relegated to the “dead pool”, Darts was the student ‘rag’ for Sheffield University and, in its time, was a hotbed for budding journalists. One year I worked on it, we won a Guardian Student Media award and one of our crew was the Student Journalist of the Year.

I often wonder if there’s a percentage of student journalists who continue their careers in the media – all I can say is that there were a good number of the people I worked with who carried it on.

– David Prosser is now the Independent’s money editor

– Kate Finnigan is a successful journalist, who has written for the likes of Elle and The Guardian over the years and is currently working at The Times

– Rachel Newsome won the Student Newspaper Journalist of the Year award and went on to edit Dazed & Confused magazine

– Lucie Cave is now the Features Editor at heat magazine

– Lech Mintowt-Czyz is now a journalist at The Times, having previously worked for The Daily Mail and Evening Standard.

– Rachael Garnett became News Editor on daily regional newspapers, such as the Bournemouth Daily Echo

– Katharine Hassell entered magazine journalism and currently works on women’s magazines at IPC Media

– I do the odd bit, but then you probably knew that already!

There are probably more, who I have forgotten, but that’s a pretty good hit rate from just a couple of years.