A weekly roundup of talking points, sans effort
Thought for the week
“The idea that you can measure the success of a programme by a series of integers, it feels as if you are being treated like a child.” A BBC spokesperson responding to the suggestion DJs on Radio 2 should be rated with marks out of ten.
Worth the paper it’s printed on?
This week’s light news success stories include…
…Cara Delevingne’s presence at London Fashion Week, as reported in 37 articles, in contrast Britain’s top maths students have now fallen behind their Asian peers and only made it into 11…
….Frank Ocean walking away with a Brit Award for International Male Solo Artist, and appearing in 17 stories, whereas the Syrian opposition boycotted talks as a protest against perceived ‘shameful international silence’ and only 2 headlines ran…
…and, finally, Lincoln’s 12 Oscar nominations, which inspired 6 articles, beating the Scottish Government education agency SQA’s controversial contract with Bahrain despite accusations of the latter country’s human rights abuses, as featured in 2 pieces.
(Source: Journalisted)
Weekly high
We all know the job market is a tough cookie to crack right now. With this in mind, a U.S. marketing type decided to approach applying for positions in a truly unique way, by sending this chocolate bar to would be employers, with the wrapper acting as an alternative resume.
Weekly low
Environmental activists can be a pain for big businesses, particularly firms that pollute. As such it’s no surprise EDF Energy isn’t seeing eye to eye with protestors that scaled a power station chimney and occupied it for three days. However, suing them for £5million isn’t really going to help matters, not least when nearly 50,000 people sign a petition to say ‘don’t do it’- nearly five times more than EDF’s total Twitter follower.
Things that might happen in the next week…
Tensions will mount in Iceland between policy makers and free speech advocates following proposals to ban pornography from the country, Mission Mars will begin scouring the globe for a willing middle-aged couple to travel 500 days in a ‘tin can’ to visit the Red Planet, and half of Britain’s population is expected to stream David Bowie’s 24th album, The Next Day, via i-Tunes ahead of its official released on March 11th.
Just in case you missed it…
Satellite broadcaster BSkyB is now the UK’s second biggest broadband provider after signing a deal to buy the British Internet arm of Telefonica, knocking virgin media off the number two spot by almost 300,000 subscribers.
If there is a success story, blunder, or news event you’d like to see included email helloATsmokinggun.co.uk or tweet using #blaggersblog. Happy Friday!