Peter Oborne, a deconstruction

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Peter Oborne, a deconstruction

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This is the tenth in a series of documents that analyse manipulative writing techniques used by reporters, and others, in order to promote their own political agendas.

islamic authoritarianism

statistics

First the context:

Charles Moore’s view of the master - worth a scan.

“Rupert Murdoch has genuine political beliefs – probably best described as radical, subversive conservatism”

From a correspondent: “Sounds pretty oxymoronic.
“Here's a very informative article from the same edition.

Let’s deconstruct!

Like several other ‘reporters’, Peter Oborne, “Chief Political Commentator”, has been sniping at Cameron for ever.

Further, the article is naive.

It’s the same sort of ‘reporting’ that is a specialty of the fossil media.
Hint hint, but ultimately contentless.

“...Burning questions also concern the conduct of Murdoch’s son, James, who signed off what looked very much like hush-money payments to prevent embarrassing material entering the public domain.”

“Burning question”;
“looks very much like”;
“embarrassing”.

All wiggle room.

David Cameron gives every impression of being an honest man.

Andy Coulson has not yet been found guilt of anything.

I have friends of dubious ethics.That doesn’t stop me being their friends, and it certainly does not incline me to pronounce them guilty in advance It does make me cautious of what they tell me.

It doesn’t stop me listening to their, often intelligent, comments. (I don’t tend to make close friendships with people who are not bright, they bore me too much.)

Intelligence does not guarantee high standards of behaviour.

David Cameron looks both intelligent and ethical to me. That is too rare a combination. If you enter the kitchen, you have to deal with the heat, including the spiteful back-biting and jealousies.

“Fundamentally there are two factions inside his government.”

No, there are not. There are many able people with differing views and objectives.

“...Fundamentally there are two factions inside his government..”

No , there aren’t.

As so often, the real subject of the article is the writer. You should be asking what is his agenda.

Having set you up, then we have:

“It is important to bear in mind that when Osborne threw his 40th birthday party at Dorneywood several weeks ago, the place was apparently knee deep in News International figures. Another example is even more recent. Only last weekend Matthew Freud, the PR tycoon who is married to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, threw a party in his Cotswold home. Michael Gove and Ed Vaizey – both semi-detached members of the Chipping Norton set – were both in attendance. Showing characteristic lack of judgment, Vaizey was reportedly seen at this party deep in conversation with James Murdoch.”

Absolute fluff posing as ‘analysis’ - guilt by association.

Meeting such people is at the heart of politics. It makes you no more peers of the various people than meeting staff at an office party, or at a sales conference.

And then we have more drivel:

“There are members of the Cameron circle who have always warned against the consequences of the Murdoch alliance...”

“the Cameron circle”;
“the Murdoch alliance”.

These are just fevered categories existing primarily in Oborne’s fevered imagination, or creativity. The typical groupism that brought the Tory Party so low under the left wing coup.

These ‘articles’ have a pattern:
first, a load of semi-rational supposedly ‘interesting’ tattle, then the knife goes in.

“Chief among them is Steve Hilton, who, according to friends, has been driven to despair.”

“According to friends” - nice and deniable, of course I won’t tell you my sources!!
“Has been driven to despair” - more meaningless nonsense.

“David Cameron, like many of us perhaps, has something of a split personality.”

Now he’s a psychiatrist already. But I’m really a nice person, I did say “like many of us perhaps”.

“I have known the Prime Minister for 20 years ” - I see him at news briefings and he’s even said hello.

“...[I] feel certain that he is genuinely filled with sound and decent values imbued in him by his parents...”

“It isn't his own doing of course”, “I’m a good judge of “sound and decent values” - hint hint.”

“But there is also another side to the Prime Minister: a sharp-suited media operator who will do what it takes to get to the top. Sadly, as last year’s election loomed, it was the ambitious and amoral side of David Cameron that took command. He is now living with the consequences.”

The item is the usual predictable bluffing nonsense that comes out of so many mediocre hacks.

“Look at me, I’m better informed and more talented that the PM.
“Trust in me.
“I don’'t want Cameron. I can’t influence him.
“It was different in the olden days, perhaps?”

You’re being taken in.
The article is ‘informative’ of nothing, other than of Oborne.

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the address for this document is https://www.abelard.org/news/deconstruction10_newspaper_hacks2011.php

760 words (including quoted text)
prints as 3 A4 pages (on my printer and set-up)

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