Making a list and checking it twice...

IT'S Christmas Eve and I just can't bring myself to write a heavy piece of political analysis.

It would somehow seem out of place. But if my column isn't going to be filled with political polemic, what can take its place? As I spend most of my time picking faults with one of my erstwhile trades perhaps it's time to take a good-natured swipe at the other one.

So here goes with a few things that get my goat with the local media.

I may have mentioned this before, but news programmes really should consist of news. The clue is in the title. Anodyne opinions from members of the public are not news and shouldn't fill the precious minutes of those bulletins which are supposed to tell us what is happening in the islands.

An example. If the States were to announce the introduction of a new Cat Tax at a rate of £50 a year that would definitely be news. It would affect thousands of islanders.

What isn't news is the fact that Mrs Bougaize had tweeted to say, 'I'm disgusted by the proposal which will hit pensioners with several cats very hard indeed. Our deputies should be ashamed of themselves, what is the island coming to?'

No more would be the comment from Mrs Le Sauvage saying, 'More power to their elbow. I need a licence for my dog so why should my neighbour get away with it? Anyway his cats regularly come into our garden and foul our gladioli.'

Of course I am not suggesting their comments don't matter. They do and there are plenty of outlets for them. Telling their deputies directly, social media, letters to the Press, radio phone-ins, vox-pops and so on. But for the broadcast media to fill their precious, short news bulletins with such twaddle is sloppy and lazy journalism. A bit like a BBC economics correspondent telling the Today programme what the folk down at his pub make of the most recent budget proposals.

Other bug bears? Just because some expressions are trotted out on a regular basis by their fellow journalists doesn't make them true. For example, every year I hear the media refer to 'the influential IoD debate'. It isn't influential at all so stop fibbing. I have nothing against the Institute of Directors or their annual chinwag, but I struggle to think of a single political policy that has changed as a result of it. High profile yes, influential definitely not.

While I'm on a 'grumpy old git roll', let's get onto semantics and the proper use of words.

I've lost count of the number of times when the media has reporting on some row and claimed that one party had 'refuted' claims made by the other when they'd done no such thing. Usually all they'd done was reject those claims – a very different kettle of fish.

Rejection is very easy while refutation requires them to show the claims to be false.

Just to prove that I'm not wilfully exempting this organ from my liverish tirade about the media, it's probably time I turned my sights on the Press. Of course I know bad news makes good news. Bad news with a human interest angle makes excellent news. But are we really to believe that all those people being photographed after something bad has happened to them choose of their own volition to grimace at the camera like a pouting toddler in a sulk?

I accept we can hardly expect them to look happy, but I strongly suspect the Press photographer has asked them to 'look a little bit more miserable to reflect the headline'. If so, please stop it.

What else to moan about and get off my chest?

Oh yes, why all these silly references to 'The Mother of the House'? Of course the States has always had a Father/Mother of the House. It simply means the longest continually serving member. But up until the last few years the expression hasn't been trotted out by the media every single time that person has been in the news for any reason. If journalists are struggling for a way to describe Deputy Mary Lowe then why not call her – let's think now – Deputy Mary Lowe.

One more thing. I know Radio Guernsey is a BBC outpost, but I do wish that they wouldn't always try to find a 'local angle' on those issues the Beeb are tackling nationally. With the best will in the world stories on train fares or fracking simply don't have a local dimension.

Perhaps the classic example came when I was the president of the Agriculture and Countryside Board. A reporter (clearly not long off the plane) phoned me up to ask whether I was in favour of a ban on fox hunting. I gently explained that there were no foxes in Guernsey and expected that to be that. But no. After thinking for a moment she asked, 'if there were any foxes in Guernsey would you be in favour of a ban on hunting them?' At that point I politely told her I had much more pressing stuff to do.

OK. This has probably been one of my most negative, moany and whinging columns ever. But at least that seems to be in harmony with the spirit of Guernsey throughout 2015.

Have a cool yule everybody.