A Code of Ethics for Actors and Presenters of TV Commercials?

I have previously noted on this Web Log that journalists in the National Union of Journalists have a code of conduct or ethics about truthfulness. Yet it strikes me from the way that the hegemony of televised adverts for what can be euphemistically called 'the Financial Services Industry' by strength of repetition, repetition, and repetition contribute to 'manufacturing consent'(1) for what Mo Stewart refers to as 'the corporate demolition of the welfare state'.(2)

One of the biggest UK-based branches of the 'Financial Services Industry' is Legal & General (aka L&G), that has extremely close links with UK Government L&G's 'For a more colourful retirement' adverts targeted at homeowners aged 55 or over for Equity Release [sic] are repeated ad nausea on daytime TV, alongside adverts for various charities' downsized versions of Lotto.(3)


It is little wonder to me that the paid actors involved in this TV commercial are so jaunty: Think of the millions of pounds they are likely to be making in repeat fees while these commercials are shown again and again.

Likewise there are the presenters of TV commercials for 'funeral protection' schemes. I have already commented via this News Forwards site about Alan Titchmarsh's involvement with 'Sun Life', and of course there are other paid presenters. Do these 'celebrities' give a damn about those of us who cannot afford such payments on our ever diminishing State Pensions after decades of under-supported jobsearch?

And do they really consider properly researching the 'services' or 'products' they are promoting?

I look forward to hearing from others, including members of the acting profession, on this matter, and how the funding of Culture, Media and Sport can be addressed properly so that culture, media and sport are not forced into a kind of 'prostitution' that serves the interests of institutions that make society more unhealthy, such as

• 'Big Soda' that has replaced tobacco advertising and sponsorship, and adopted the strategies and tactics formerly adopted by the tobacco industry, and
• Junk food manufacturers with their industrial impoverishment of workers via zero hours contracts and the like.

I have commented elsewhere about Direct Line Landlord Insurance adverts that promote the practice of landlords evicting tenants who have difficulties keeping up with their rent payments, while more attention should be paid to why tenants increasingly experience difficulties paying rent.

Alan Wheatley

Notes

(1) Manufacturing Consent was the title of a book by American Noam Chomsky, and while our welfare state is being increasingly demolished under successive neoliberal governments, so too does daytime and even evening television advertising financing become more and more dominated by those who stand to gain considerably from ever-increasing privatisation and deepening social inequality.
(2) I highly commend the research by Medically retired RAF medical veteran Mo Stewart into how the American Health Insurance giant Unum Provident/Unum pioneered the 'disability denial factory' regime of UK government disability benefit testing and became principal advisers to successive UK Governments in steering the corporate demolition of our welfare state, even while it was outlawed in several US states and nations.
(3) Lotto has long been 'a tax targeted at poor people', while community centres have become more and more reliant on The Big Lottery Fund, while they have become increasingly involved with 'data mining' on behalf of the Big Lottery Fund.

There is more to being environmentally friendly than Alan Titchmarsh would like people to recognise

The MailOnline -- and BBC Gardeners' World -- report:

Hypocrites! Alan Titchmarsh blasts green campaigners who block pave their gardens or swell their carbon footprint by eating out-of-season fruit and veg

• He said saving planet is not matter solely for land management and industry
• He took aim at those who may criticise the Government for not doing enough 
• Titchmarsh, 70, also attacked those who buy fruit in the winter months 

By Emma Powell For The Daily Mail

Published: 23:09, 29 December 2019 | Updated: 23:20, 29 December 2019

Alan Titchmarsh has criticised green activists who lecture others about the environment but then block-pave their own gardens or buy imported strawberries in January.

The TV gardener said saving the planet is not a matter solely for agricultural land management and industry, but for individuals who can do more to 'make a difference to the health of planet Earth'.

'Those of us who cherish that bit of land that comes with our houses have a duty of care that is every bit as vital as that incumbent on the owners of vast estates,' he told BBC Gardeners' World magazine.

He took aim at those who may criticise the Government for not doing enough to curb global warming and climate change, in particular Extinction Rebellion protesters, yet do not do enough themselves domestically. 

'I hope that none of the Extinction Rebellion protesters has a block-paved front garden,' he said.

Note the difference between the headline's "green campaigners who block their gardens" and Titchmarsh's, "I hope that none of the Extinction Rebellion protesters has a block-paved garden."

Alan Titchmarsh's income is largely built around his persona as gardener and TV broadcaster, and he has gone on from that to fronting advertising for Sun Life Funeral Plans https://www.sunlife.co.uk/funeral-planning/funeral-plans/

Sun Life Guaranteed Funeral Plan is fronted by Alan Titchmarsh who says it's
"One of the most affordable ways to cover a funeral."

We might ask how much he is making from that promotion in addition to his income from BBC broadcasting that notoriously showers high salaries on presenters.

I would add that a great many Extinction Rebellion younger supporters have not been taught gardening as a basic skill but they do realise that government policies have let climate crises fester.

We live in the legacy of how the robber barons and Enclosures Acts that helped carve the way to capitalism in which people lose touch with the land. As people have lost touch with the land, we have become more dependent upon others' produce via an increasingly global market, and that was one of the driving forces of the Industrial Revolution going hand in hand with British colonisation of other lands and import-export arrangements.

If capitalism is the root cause, ecosocialism is the antidote

I believe that the antidote is ecosocialism, and refer readers to the Green Left Blog http://greenleftblog.blogspot.com/ and London Green Left Blog http://londongreenleft.blogspot.com/ on ecosocialism, and Prof. Guy Standing's book Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ACYBGNRFPlaY8m160tA809ez94dd7WZLrA%3A1577787706249&ei=OiELXor2DoSi1fAPxoWOgA0&q=%22guy+standing%22+%22plunder+of+the+commons%22&oq=%22guy+standing%22+%22plunder+of+the+commons%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i30.9113.11069..14984...0.2..0.154.994.0j7......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j0i7i30.zyawUCDTC5Q&ved=0ahUKEwiK-4ue1d_mAhUEURUIHcaCA9AQ4dUDCAo&uact=5

accompanied by the communal wonders of community gardening
https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/search?q=gardening

See also 

https://newsforwardsfromalanwheatley.blogspot.com/2019/11/government-policy-and-global-investment-as-plunder-of-the-Commons.html

Post Script

I especially welcome the comment below from 'Unknown', and point out that comments submitted anonymously are not altogether ruled out for their anonymity:

I remember Alan Titchmarsh writing in the Radio Times about a decade ago questioning the science of climate change, trotting out the tired old cliche that weather has always been variable. He and others in high profile positions (eg David Bellamy) who have questioned climate science over the years have done more to damage our chances of keeping global warming to a safe level than any number of XR activists who might buy fruit out of season or have a paved front garden.

Google search link "alan titchmarsh" "climate change denial" 

The following search link was created by using keywords "alan titchmarsh" "climate change denial"

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=%22alan+titchmarsh%22+%22climate+change+denial%22

NB: Use of all lower case letters as above in a Google search is quite acceptable, even when using 'proper names'; and quotation marks are a handy device for ensuring that the exact phrase or name combination is located.