Newspaper Watch

Thursday’s arrests of Lemon and Georgia Fort, an independent journalist – like the recent raid on Hannah Natanson, the Washington Post reporter – demonstrate the administration’s lawless crusade against routine journalism. In normal times the expectation is that even when a journalist’s conduct might technically fit the legal elements of a crime – jaywalking to get footage of a protest, for example – prosecutors will exercise their discretion and judgment to not apply the law in a manner that chills the free press.

That is, journalists are above the law. But it’s above some laws, not all of them. And it’s a privilege, not a right, to be above those they are.

I’ve not bothered to find out what Lemon’s alleged to have done nor why that’s different or not different. Why would I bother? For my working assumption is that as his reputation deflates to it’s proper position there’s been a specific attempt to gain a new one. After all, the NGO network of speeches on how I were oppressed is a perfectly profitable one even if not quite as fun as being a lauded reporter.

….all over, innit?

Here’s the lesson of the Andy Burnham saga: Labour needs a new leader – fast
Polly Toynbee

Cometh the assassins in the midnight hour at command of the Lady. Obvs.

The second was more abstract, the norms that those countries adhered to in action and rhetoric. They would not launch aggressive protectionist economic policies against each other, definitely not have designs on each other’s territory and not pass opinion on each other’s domestic affairs.

The third was the ideological glue that held it all together, one that advanced the impression that these were not simply transactional arrangements in everyone’s interest, but something rooted in liberal ideals: the promotion of universal human rights, rights to self-determination and the sanctity of individual freedoms.

OK. Not saying I agree, but arguendo:

That consolation became near impossible in Gaza, where another part of the order died and the necrosis spread. Every feature of the genocide throttled the pretence that the order was rooted in any ideals – or rather that those ideals applied to anyone but those at the top of the hierarchy. The scale of killing, the violation of every rule in the book, from the wholesale murder of non-combatants to depriving them of food and medicine, obliterated the fiction.

There was no genocide in Gaza. Why? Why didn’t the Israelis get all Ashkelon on the Canaanites? Well, could be – could be – because of these international liberal ideas that we don’t go out and slaughter an entire population.

But that wouldn’t suit the argument, would it?

People were afraid to come to the hospital. They knew what happens afterwards. From experience, once the situation is considered “under control”, hospitals receive official letters from security institutions demanding patient information – names, details, injuries. If administrators refuse, they face serious consequences. This system existed long before these protests.

I was told, directly, of someone injured and treated on the couch at home. It took me a bit of time to realise what was meant – injuries would be used to track demonstrators down.

Worth reading that piece.

Of course, Owen Jones has already explained it all to us. It’s the CIA’s fault for overthrowing Mossadegh 70 years ago. Gotta be, right?

Which way, western man?

That was the title of a racist tract published in 1978 by William Gayley Simpson, a former leftist Christian pastor turned one of the most influential neo-Nazi ideologues in American history. The book helped radicalize an entire generation of white supremacists in the US, with its vicious antisemitism, opposition to all forms of immigration and open praise for Hitler. The purpose of the book, wrote Simpson, was “to reveal organized Jewry as a world power entrenched in every country of the white man’s world, operating freely across every nation’s frontiers, and engaged in a ruthless war for the destruction of them all”.

In recent decades, Which way, western man? has become a popular meme – but only on the far-right fringes of the internet.

OK, so a phrase becomes a reference in the language. Even, embedded in it. That doesn;t mean that everyone who uses the phrase is even aware of, let alone agrees with, the origin or even original framing of the phrase.

Shocking? Yes. Coincidence? Nope. Earlier this month, the official White House Twitter account posted a cartoon of Greenlandic huskies with Danish flags on their sleds facing a choice between the White House on one side and China’s Great Wall and Russia’s Red Square on the other. The White House’s caption? “Which way, Greenland man?”

It should be one of the biggest stories in the United States, if not the world. Eighty years after the death of Hitler and the defeat of Nazi Germany, the US government, in the form of the Trump administration, has a Nazi problem.

Which is Medi’s conspirazoid of the week. That use of the phrase means you do think Jews are taking over the world.

Sigh.

It would also be a lot more convincing if Mehdi wasn’t on record as calling non-muslims kuffar and all that nor his views on Israel and Gaza. But, you know, consistency across columns is not a lefty influencer requirement these days now, is it?

Whichever way you cut it, there is no reasonable excuse for handing a Chinese steelmaker a multimillion-pound order when British Steel has said it is capable of providing the materials.

Business editor of Torygraph fails to ask “What’s the price?”

Ho Hum.

It’s a forever political mystery that low-paid/working-class voters will opt for the very wealthy with contrary financial interests.

Like, you know, Toynbees?

The latest sorry saga featuring a multimillionaire celebrity and a hapless nepo baby centres on Rolling Stones guitarist, Ronnie Wood, and his son, Jesse. It was revealed this week, as Jesse appeared in court on speeding charges, that he is unemployed and living off savings of barely £1,000 a month.

Savings of £1k a month, eh?

Income from savings of £1k a month, OK, maybe. So, what, £120k to £240k in assets? About?

But savings of £1k a month – is there some reason the paper refuses to commission me any more?

Billionaire and career Bond-villain cosplayer Elon Musk has been forced by public backlash into a humiliating backdown over use of his AI chatbot, Grok. Watching the world’s richest man eat a shit sandwich on a global stage represents a rare win for sovereign democracy.

Yes, it goes on like that for paragrpah after paragraph.

Over Grok’s piccies.

Still, if the mad in Oz (this is van Badham) think this is a grand victory then let ’em. Leaves the rest of us to get on with life as normal, right?

A great deal of the mainstream media seems reluctant to question Donald Trump’s stunning move. CBS News, under new editorial leadership, is leading that pack. Its Tuesday-night broadcast was practically Fox Lite, including a too-cute montage of AI-created images of the US secretary of state and former Florida senator, Marco Rubio, and these words from anchor Tony Dokoupil: “It is a sign of how Florida, once an American punchline, has become a leader on the world stage … Marco Rubio, we salute you.” The segment was meant to be lighthearted, but it struck many as tone-deaf, or just plain irresponsible, under the circumstances.

To their credit, influential global outlets like the Associated Press, Reuters, the Guardian, the Washington Post and the New York Times are providing serious news coverage. I was impressed, for example, by a Post piece that explored the growing despair on the streets, headlined “Fear grips Caracas as a new wave of repression is unleashed in Venezuela”. Detailing the crackdown that included the detention of journalists, the arrests of civilians and the spread of armed gangs, it stood in sharp contrast with a Post editorial that immediately cheered “one of the boldest moves a president has made in years” under the glowing headline: “Justice in Venezuela.”

Margaret Sullivan, one of thoe very definitely part of the American journalistic establishment.

Serious news coverage is defined as that ctritical of Trump. Obviously.

Seen this way, Trump’s indulgence of Russian ambitions in Ukraine is hardly mysterious. Back in 2019, Russia reportedly proposed offering increased US influence in Venezuela in exchange for the US retreating from Ukraine. Who knows if such a deal has been made. What is certainly true is that a new world order is being born. It is one where increasingly authoritarian powers use brute force to subjugate their neighbours and steal their resources. What once might have sounded like dystopian fantasy is being assembled in plain sight. The question is whether we have the means, willingness and ability to fight back.

Pity. Owen Jones is often amusing in his hysteria but this is just standard regurgitation of the usual talking points from the nuttersd.

At Zohran Mamdani’s block party, I observed a simple truth: people want more politics, not less
Samuel Earle

The sort of people who go to a Mayoral block party want more politics. But this is hardly a surprise.

As he was sworn in outside city hall in front of a crowd of a few thousand of us, a nearby street in Manhattan was closed to traffic so that tens of thousands more could gather to watch the historic moment live on enormous screens.

Tens of thousands, eh? In a population of 8.5 million?

Anyone else heard of selection bias?

Private markets, very bad, really, terrible. All Yankee, see.

Private markets very good, see. Add work “tech” and ……

That actually from the same Willy Hutton article. He can’t even keep the story straight for a whole 1,200 words.

There’s a piece out there, usng Kant’s philosophy of the Enlightenment to discuss how we’re all about to be turned into feudal serfs by AI. Got that far into it, the exposition of the article’s main idea, and realised that life’s too short to read that sort of intellectual wank.

Ho Hum.

Bari Weiss yanking a 60 Minutes story is censorship by oligarchy
Margaret Sullivan
Weiss ought to cut her losses, green-light the piece, and try to start acting like an editor – not like a cog in the machine of authoritarian politics and oligarchy

Editor edits – decides upon running a story or not – and this is bad and she should stop and start acting like an editor?

As editor in chief, of course, Weiss has the power to make the decision she did. That comes with the job.

But it doesn’t make her decision right. It wasn’t.

Oooooh. So you mean you disagree with her decision? Upon political grounds?

Oh, well then…..sod off.

One of the great joys of Christmas for me has been being able to share my love of The Nutcracker with my son. Last year, I took him to see a child-friendly version by the Let’s All Dance ballet company. The look of wonderment and recognition on his face when the music started up is a memory that I’ll treasure for ever.

I’ll confess that the idea of taking a then two-year-old to a ballet had struck me as faintly ridiculous, one of those painfully middle-class-coded things I find myself doing as a parent (see also Mini Mozart). That kind of thinking, though, is in itself elitist, because who says ballet, or classical music, should be only for rarefied audiences?

Still, at least Rhiannon knows her audience. Wholly, entirely, haute bourgeois who have to be assured that they’re not – you know, Guardian readers.

The Duchess of Sussex has accused the Daily Mail of breaching “clear ethical boundaries” by reporting from the bedside of her estranged father, following his claims he had not received his daughter’s messages.

Thomas Markle appealed to Meghan to see him in a Mail on Sunday interview at the weekend, after he underwent serious surgery in the Philippines.

However, a spokesperson for Meghan said she had been attempting to reach her father, and criticised the paper’s behaviour.

“Given that a Daily Mail reporter has remained at her father’s bedside throughout, broadcasting each interaction and breaching clear ethical boundaries, it has been exceedingly difficult for the duchess to contact her father privately, despite her efforts over the past several days,” the spokesperson said.

We know the Amerians get all uptight about journalistic ethics – when they’re not shagging interviewees – but it’s not really ever been a thing in this country….

In 1936, John Scott, son of the late Guardian owner and legendary editor CP Scott, did something unheard of for a media heir: he gave up his stake for the greater good.

After inheriting the newspaper, Scott renounced all financial benefit – bar his salary – in the Guardian (worth £1m at the time and around £62m today) and passed ownership over to the newly formed Scott Trust. The Trust would evolve to have one key mission: to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity.

That means the Guardian can’t be bought.

They’ve been dodging inheritance tax for 89 years now.

A new media landscape has hoved into view. Most of the debacle has been litigated on Substacks, independent podcasts and personal websites. Lizza claimed his belated revelations on his own newsletter about Nuzzi’s infractions, which, he said, included her helping RFK Jr in his run for president by sharing intel from sources, were in the public interest – the public in this instance being those signed up to Lizza’s Substack, who first gained free tidbits before being ushered to a paywall. Nuzzi herself, barring one glossy profile in the New York Times, has given her exclusive updates to other newsletter writers and podcasters. The froth of it all swirled on social media. Step back, and ask: “But is it journalism?” The answer is: definitely not. But I’m still not sure what it is.

But journalism is important! shrieks the Guardian columnist. Journalists are important! Who sucks who in journalism is important!

Because if that’s true then the passing synapse-fries of a Guardian columnist are important, see?

If, on the other hand, we were to take a rational view. Journalism is that effort to fill in the white gaps between the advertisements. And journalists have always been regarded as the scum they are – a journo shagging someone? Blimey, eh?

But, you know, whatever comforting lies help youi do your job, Honey.

Traditional wives have husbands. Worthy use of newsprint…..