Is England not corrupt enough to survive? Straight dealing in almost any international forum these days is utterly non-existant, says Simon Heffer Simon Heffer regularly gets furious with his sub-editors’ illiteracy* at the Telegraph. He can have another whack at them now. Thank goodness that Crawf Minor is battling on […]
Here’s a depressing piece at Open Democracy by Turi Munthe, who summarises for us an analysis by Dr Martin Moore and the Media Standards Trust of the steep relative and absolute decline in foreign news coverage in the British newspapers: The statistics make frightening reading. They compared foreign news coverage […]
It’s not easy to get the BBC to apologise for making a major blunder, but it happens. For example today: The BBC has apologised over reports claiming millions of pounds raised by Band Aid was used to buy arms. In March, World Service’s Assignment said cash raised by charities to […]
Just read this from the BBC about Iran’s dilemma over whether to stone women to death, or not: The Iranian authorities like to portray an image of a country and a system misperceived and misrepresented in the West. It is an image that plays well with some western liberals, who […]
One of the key rules followed as closely as possible by the British Royal family is to be photographed as rarely as possible eating or drinking (especially eating). Why? Because it’s next to impossible to look dignified when eating. The more so when knives and forks are unavailable – or […]
Jonathan Freedland keeps popping up in the Guardian on the subject of the dishonesty and falsehood of equating Soviet and Nazi crimes. Here he was in October last year. And now again today: For one thing, the equation of Nazi and communist crimes rarely entails an honest account of the former. […]
Over at Business and Politics I peer at the BBC through a powerful microscope. Droll opening paragraph, or at least I thought so.
The BBC lovingly analyses Fidel Castro’s speech to the ‘National Assembly’ in Havana: … a hush descended … He smiled and waved to the crowd as he lapped up the warmth of their applause … a short but polished performance from the lively and healthy-looking Fidel Castro, his voice stronger […]
Tim Worstall takes a typical piece of headline-grabbing journalistic fluff … Within 10 years, the Gates Foundation is projected to have a GDP bigger than 70 per cent of the world’s nations. … and proceeds to work out what if anything it might mean. Not much, it turns out.
My piece analysing David Cameron’s high-profile speeches in Turkey and India has attracted some attention, and various well-taken comments. Part of the problem for a speechwriter for a top politician is to work out who the audience is, and craft the words accordingly. Most speeches of any consequence by (say) […]
