>>you wouldn't know much about it two streets away.<<

Today I discovered from the (weekly) local paper that there has been the odd incident within a mile of where I live. A small supermarket has a broken window, and the paper also quoted a Twitter post reporting a fire on a road I walk on most days - though all I can see is that some gorse buses on a bit of waste land look a bit scorched. More seriously, it seems that inter-estate "post code" battles led to a nasty attack on one particular house. Over my side of the Island, no sign at all.

"Course it is."

No it isn't - not since 1973. There may not be a council for T&W but the county stills exists. I should know having lived in the area for a few decades.

And some yobs setting fire to a police car & throwing a brick through a window isn't a riot.

Fear-mongering is not an exaggeration when used to describe the behavior of the news media.

The media thrive on fear, for a simple reason: People who are afraid look for reassurance, and when people are frightened by something they see on the news, they will continue to watch the news in search of reassurance until they receive it, or until the stress produced by the fear wears off (it's impossible to remain fearful about something for eternity). Thus, the media try to scare viewers as much as possible, so that they will continue to watch the news (and the advertisements that go with it).

It's a basic principle of journalism for profit (and to a lesser extent for non-profit).

I've had many occasions to compare media coverage of an event with the actual event itself, and the gulf between the two is often just short of criminal. It's amazing how much you can distort something with clever editing and camera angles.

For this reason, when I see some sensational media report, I divide it by about 1000 to estimate the real significance of the event, and I take care to pay attention only to verifiable facts, not opinions or bias reflected in choice of words.

C-Span2 broadcast the special Parliament proceedings this morning. The Conservative PM and the opposition Labour leader had their say on the riots and members put out questions. Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his opposite number talked about the economy. That was all very interesting. We should have that process in the US Congress.

If there is a Brit reading this I would like to know why many members stood up after a question was asked. It was up and down and up and down.

>>I would like to know why many members stood up after a question was asked<<

To "catch the Speaker's eye" - to show they had something to say, and wanted him to choose them to speak next. I have no idea by what protocol he chooses, other than alternation between the parties.

http://www.parliament.uk/site-inform...-speakers-eye/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/...1000/81937.stm

PatrickLondon,
Thank you. Those members get a lot of exercise. The crowd thinned out after a couple of hours. I guess it was Miller time.

Trouble in Edinburgh, by the way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW035...eature=related

Don't know about the troubles in the U.K., but here in safe old America, in the "family friendly city of Orlando", during last night's 6pm news, the first 9 minutes were devoted exclusively to the days various street shootings and murders, armed robbery/shootings, party shootings and the mom with her two babies shooting/murder.

I had to turn it off and watch a Hannibal Lecter movie to calm down.

(this is all actually true)

dave