The news. Or lack of it.

[iainjclark]

For the last couple of nights BBC News has been covering the new licensing laws, and I'm very conflicted.

I have nothing of great import to say about the laws themselves: 24 hour opening is strange and unnecessary. The far more common 'extra few hours' aren't going to destroy civilisation as we know it. It'll probably mean slightly more of the same: the people whose sole motivation is to drink continuously while screaming the odd monosyllable into their friend's ear will continue to do so, only for longer. They may get more smashed and do more damage to their bodies, which is sad but ultimately their own decision. More importantly there may be a bit more violence, or there may be the same rate of violence going on for longer, or the pressure point of chucking out time may be alleviated, reducing conflict overall. Who knows? Not me. And certainly not the Government or most of the commentators.

However, since Thursday night reporters have been staking out every major drinking spot in the UK, positively desperate for trouble to break out. When trouble didn't break out on Thursday, they blamed the cold weather and turned their attention to the weekend. Their reports are full of images of the police arresting people - perfectly fine in a general article about drinking problems, but all-but-irrelevant in an article about the problems of extended drinking hours, since these arrests were all before the normal chucking-out time. They have no bearing on the story and only serve, vaguely, to reinforce the "sexy" reason for the journalist being there, which is that extended drinking hours are bad. Maybe.

The news commentators also seem fixated on a couple of ideas that baffle me. One is that normal chucking out time is 11 p.m., when in fact many revelers in my experience simply move on to nightclubs which don't spill out onto the streets until 2 a.m. or thereabouts. The other is that underage access to alcohol is somehow the same story as pubs being open at 3 a.m. It's woolly sensationalist reporting, presented without context, and the pesky lack of evidence is just a minor impediment.

This wasn't limited to the drinking story yesterday. The headline "Rape case collapses as woman admits that she can't remember whether she consented to sex" implies that the stupid woman was wasting police time (especially that word "admits", beloved of journalists as a means of introducing drama while appearing to be impartial.) However the actual substance of the story implies that there are deeply ingrained sexist attitudes about rape in the legal system. The context seems a long way from the headline - a security guard is supposed to escort a paralytic woman home, but instead (at the very least) has sex with a semi-conscious woman and leaves her lying in a corridor. It's deeply ironic therefore that the headline trades off the same sexist attitudes that the story seeks to highlight.

Or how about "a million" calls to Jobcentres going unanswered. Sounds terrible, but... over what period? Out of how many calls? How does that compare to other similar call centres? Without context, what does this tell me except that "a million" is a nice round number?

I know it's a tough job to appear impartial while conveying news in an interesting fashion, but if they must look for the most dramatic angle on their story, they need to be very careful that they're not editorialising instead of reporting.

For the purpose of full disclosure it should be noted that your correspondent is on his third bottle of Leffe...

Comments

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Well, not every night! Haven't you ever run out of booze at a party though? It's a bloody nightmare.

The new licensing covers everything: pubs, bars, restaurants, fast food places, offies, supermarkets.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Well then, I look forward to my early morning McBeer with enthusiasm. :-)

[mattia.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

Frankly, I don't get all the fuss. Plenty of countries have booze available in one venue or other 24/7, and they don't have outrageous amounts of problems.

Then again, might be hard for some people to break the habit of getting as smashed up as humanly possible before the pints stop flowing at 23:00. We'll just have to wait and see, I s'pose.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I don't really think we'll see a massive explosion of drunk violence on the streets. I do suspect that the first instance of embarrassing drunkenness and/or violence will be blown out of all proportion by the media (who seem to expect conclusive results on the first night), and it may take a while for the true impact of the new legislation to become clear.

I think that the UK has an odd drinking culture. I personally enjoy beer (and the drinking of it) a great deal, but not just drinking for its own sake. I like to be able to talk to friends while drinking, not stand in a noisy club with an unbridgeable abyss of sound between me and the next person. There seems to be a large portion of the UK whose idea of a good time is to simply "let go", and drink, drink, drink until all their cares and inhibitions are reduced to abstract concepts. I'm not entirely sure that the threat of closing time has anything to do with this state of mind, or that the new laws will effect much change.

[sieuesie.livejournal.com]

Late night food takeaways, who serve hot food after 11pm are being licensed for the first time. This is because the legislation acknowledges that they also have an impact on the late night environment.

As ninebelow says the new laws affect everyone who serves alcohol (on or off), provide regulated entertainment and therefore may cause noise disturbance (village halls etc) and hot food after 11pm.