Dr Birgit den Outer

Org Studies researcher of private security and identity, Oxford Brookes Senior Lecturer, Denglish

[Will Hutton @williamnhutton]

An alternative view on Keir Starmer - different from the daily torrent of bile poured over his head. Worth 2 minutes of your time.

[Mariana Mazzucato @MazzucatoM]

All those critiquing @elonmusk (rightly so) should begin by questioning those calling him a “genius” or even a “tech
bro”. He invented NONE of the TECH. Just bought stuff at the right time. More marketing than science. He’s benefitted by billions of government dollars that he questions when given to others. Clear regressive political agenda: underfund government (even more) hoping that deregulation and a weak state can make outer space his playground & sling mud like a child at all progressive politicians like @Keir_Starmer. I wrote about this more than a decade ago in my book The Entrepreneurial State.

[Dr Birgit den Outer @BirgitdO]

@pcs_union All good wishes to this gentleman

[Richard McNeil-Willson @mcneilwillson]

'The Protect Duty represents the most extensive change to UK counterterrorism in post-9/11, inviting all members of the public to become counter-terrorism specialists.'

The Protect Duty - @LeeJarvisPols, M Lister, @BirgitdO, D Stevens, N Vaughan-Williams

https://t.co/FGeu7D4NWB

[𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @grescoe]

I lived in #Paris in the 90s. A city totally dominated by cars.

Hard to walk in, a nightmare to ride a bike in.

Look at it now: a city where cars, rather than people, have trouble moving.

Which, in the overheated, hurricane-plagued 2020s, is how a city *should* look.

[Joe Lycett @joelycett]

I hear the press have got hold of some pictures and so I have been forced to make this statement. Needless to say, I apologise. https://t.co/mNRsQ57iTF

[Larry & Paul @larryandpaul]

🇬🇧 After 14 years of rule, we have a message to the @Conservatives on behalf of the British people.

#ThankYouTories 🙏🏻

[Dr Birgit den Outer @BirgitdO]

@RussInCheshire PLEASE!

[Dr Birgit den Outer @BirgitdO]

@atyadoaa Donated, good luck with the campaign.

[NRC @nrc]

Dat ‘het volk’ slachtoffer zou zijn van (linkse) ‘elites’, zoals de laatste tijd in menig column wordt beweerd, is een groot misverstand, meent docent Anita Brus. Juist ‘de elite’ wordt niet gehoord.
https://t.co/P5DCuFDTbn

[Dr Birgit den Outer @BirgitdO]

@CraigRichard100 Wow, go Sam! Since stupid X takeover, I never see the tweets of my friends anymore and only found this one as I went looking to see what you had been up to!

[Paul Mason @paulmasonnews]

When I started at Newsnight, the interview was like a PhD viva, if your PhD was about every random aspect of business and economics. They asked me to bring 10x original story ideas and ruthlessly ripped every one of them to shreds - and then said: give us another one. I had a permanent job as an editorial manager at Reed Elsevier and they offered me a 3 month contract on less money. I took it because I knew I was joining the most accomplished team of broadcast journalists in Britain, and possibly the world. I am talking levels of excellence associated with the Berlin Phil in music, or certain Oxbridge/Imperial teams in science.

But the war on Newsnight's kind of journalism was already under way. And so was the technological change that ultimately allowed the disaggregation of what we were geared up to do.

The big divide at the BBC was between "programmes" tailored to a specific audience, making their own editorial calls and competing on stories, versus "newsgathering", which had been designed as a sausage machine of information into the programmes. Once they decided to empower Newsgathering and disempower Programmes, which was logical in a resource strained environment, the happy upside for the top management was that they could control the news agenda, and there were fewer alternative power centres to push back. This was never a left/right split: it was a "rocking the boat versus not rocking it" split.

It wasn't just NN that suffered - so did Today, so did the Ten. But NN survived because we had strong editors - and then came the Savile fiasco... there was a time, after the subsequent McAlpine disaster, when the bosses wanted to get rid of Newsnight - it survived, but only at the cost of further erosion of its autonomy and money.

I left because I could feel the management tentacles gripping tighter, whatever the team did to go on knocking it out of the park. Only when I joined C4 did I finally get to see what an adequately resourced news operation should look like, and what happens when there is no invisible presence above the editor trying to shape the output, and where they don't complain about having too many reporters.

But NN's demise is partly also to do with audience and technology. Once you don't have an appointment to view, there's no call for the 10-15minute reportage film; and as the rest of broadcasting has become a screaming match between extreme views, actual reason- and fact-based discussions look tame, and it suits politicians to avoid them - see their effective boycott of C4N.

Also, people in the AB social bracket kept telling us: it's on too late. Professionals go to bed earlier, and the news cycle wraps earlier, so the value of a 22:30 programme diminished. Ditto because Gen Z are simply not interested in TV News.

Apart from the demise of a single still excellent but struggling programme, the BBC is basically getting out of long form daily current affairs. There will be no market equivalent of NN because the market won't produce a programme like this - which was copied and emulated by every other major broadcaster.

I suppose the challenge now for BBC/ITN/Sky is to resist the final erosion of OFCOM standards to the point where broadcast news becomes a far right dominated blood sport. I cannot see how moving to a late night discussion programme is going to help, especially as the open secret about far right TV is that they are paying people to turn up and be performatively outraged.

At the very least they should institute a "no grifters" rule.

[Save Our Lecturers @saverlecturers]

Our lecturers are more than teachers. They inspire us, support us, build relationships and so much more. Don't let the university take that away. Join the movement to stop staff cuts.
#saveourlecturers #oxfordbrookes #oxfordbrookesuniversity

[Oxford Brookes UCU (@brookesucu.bsky.social) @BrookesUCU]

Thanks to everyone for your support up to now, but the fight is only beginning! Here is the link to our petition and open letter explaining the situation at Brookes up to today. Please sign and share very widely! @ucu @DrJoGrady @The_TUC @musicatbrookes https://t.co/Fpb5y0rVOa

[Dr Birgit den Outer @BirgitdO]

@maia_pal Devastating news.

[Dr Birgit den Outer @BirgitdO]

@CraigRichard100 Love it

[Dr Birgit den Outer @BirgitdO]

This

[Times Higher Education @timeshighered]

Opinion: The curricula of the most advanced science and technology subjects contain little space for moral and social insight, says @andymiah
https://t.co/Hg3LEG8KaE

[Danny Baker @prodnose]

I genuinely don't know how Norwich and Millwall can kick off tomorrow knowing the Women's World Cup Final is already underway.
A greater disrespect to the women's game is hard to imagine.
A World Cup Final.
Verses some game Sky have decreed.

[Dr Rachel Clarke @doctor_oxford]

Please take two mins to watch this video from the TUC depicting how political decisions since 2010 have all but destroyed our once-great NHS, as waiting lists have soared from 4 to 7.5 million. It’s heartbreaking 😔

[Ian Wright @IanWright0]

Joined the @_CounterPressed team @FloydTweet @jessyjph this morning after #ENG #COL

Significant goal for Russo last night. I'd like to see us get her the ball in more of those positions. Lovely finish and great for her confidence ahead of Aus.

https://t.co/Htv9P7wyPI