Critical Analysis of Jeremy Clarkson’s work
The two pieces of journalism chosen for this analysis are Jeremy
Clarkson’s report on a short visit to Iraq 18 months on from the
supposed end of the war there in 2003, and John Pilger’s article
concerning his arrival in, and initial experience of, Saigon during
the Vietnam war in 1966. These two reports, and reporters, make a
handy comparison.
Although Jeremy Clarkson is viewed principally as motoring journalist
he has the ability to adapt his journalistic skills to a range of
subjects, some far removed from cars. For his motoring column in the
Sunday Times Clarkson’s style is humorous bordering on sarcasm, which
works well and this style translates well to the subject of the
controversial war in Iraq. The Sunday Times is a quality broadsheet
newspaper aimed at the upper end of Britain’s readership and is a
market leader with an average Sunday sale of 1,395,046 copies, which
represents a 50.58% share of this area of the market. Clarkson, being
an out and out Conservative, is immediately identifiable with the
readership of the Sunday Times, and his ‘overgrown schoolboy’ approach
presents as a welcome relief amongst the principally serious
editorials of the papers other journalists. In ‘Behind Jeremy Lines’
the situation in Iraq is revealed as totally opposite to what the
politicians would have us believe, this is made apparent in the title
of the article. Behind the lines in a military sense and behind the
lines of what is being reported. Clarkson takes the opportunity here
to ‘bash’ two of his pet hatreds, Blair’s Labour Party and the Bush
administration of the U. S.A. The article is ...
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...bines with deliberate
simplification, such as his description of how the KIA bureau performs
its tasks, to “bring the report home” in the readers mind.
Clarkson’s dynamism and Pilger’s sober approach seem to be absolutely
correct to the relevant situations to which they are related, and in
that sense they have worked well. Clarkson does not make the ideal war
correspondent, but manages to still succeed because he makes his
report interesting to read, which is precisely what needs to be
achieved, Pilger’s report pulls on the mind and promotes deep thought,
therefore what is being reported transfers to the reader. The outcome
is that, although these are two differing styles of journalism, both
styles achieve their aim by making the reports readable and
interesting, the whole point of journalism is in this way achieved.
As the war progresses, Caputo requests to go to a line company in the middle of November. This is a change from the “office” position he currently held where he was largely responsible for counting casualties. At this point, the romanticized visions Caputo had of war have been completely shattered and he goes into this transfer being fully aware of this. This change in viewpoint becomes even more clear when compared to the beginning of the novel where Caputo was intrigued by the romance and action of war. While readers would expect more action and typical war stories in this section of the book, Philip Caputo writes anything but. Caputo writes, “It went like that for the rest of the month. It was a time of little action and endless misery…Almost every hour of every night, the radio operators chanted, ‘All secure. Situation remains the same’ (1996: 240). Caputo repeats the phrase “All secure. Situation remains the same” five times throughout this single paragraph. Because of this, readers see the dull and mundane side of war that is often not talked about. In addition, Caputo continues to comment of the large amounts of waiting throughout the autobiography. When most think of the Vietnam War, they picture the “main events”. Similar to the numerous documentaries we watched in class, some of the main points of the war include: The first Indochina War, The Gulf of Tonkin, and the Tet Offensive. These documentaries all focused on these monumental events and because of this, the public perceives this war as the sum of these events. However, what many fail to consider the large gaps in time between these events. It is in these large gaps that little action occurred and most of the soldier’s time was spent waiting as Caputo depicted in this scene. In connection with
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In the book Drive by Daniel H. Pink his argument is how motivation 3.0 differs from motivation 2.0 and how there is type I behavior as well as type X behavior. Type I behavior was people with intrinsic motivation who did not look for rewards to complete their tasks or assignments. Type X behavior was people with extrinsic motivation who need a reward to complete what they are asked. Motivation 2.0 was an operating system that used the method of “carrots and sticks” to either promote good behavior or greater progress in businesses. Through this method people were offered a reward for completing their task or a punishment if they failed to complete it. At the beginning it worked well, but then our economy started changing
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Janie and Sarah first met Jeremy Finch two months ago at a beginning of school assembly. He was an extremely cute boy playing in the jam band. Janie and Sarah thought they saw him looking at them during the performance. Afterwards the went backstage and introduced themselves. Everyone had invited them to join. Sarah wanted to play bass and Janie was pondering singing. This was the day their Jeremy Finch obsession was born. It turned out that his locker was right next to Great Girls and Women of American History, therefore they would have a daily encounter with their dream boy. They decided to call it Jeremy Finch time.
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