…the traditional media (outside of the UK anyway) was making hay while the sun shone. This provokes an even bigger facepalm as most of the UK blogosphere is obsessed with “OMFG William Hague is GAY?!” right now. And I’m sorry Guido but if you’ve got enough time to make 4Chan-esque jokes about William Hague’s sexuality and go on holiday then you’ve got enough time to cover the following. Read on if you’d like to see what SHOULD be the big story today.
There is a rather interesting chap known as Andy Coulson who used to be the editor of British tabloid newspaper the News of the World which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International. According to the New York Times (and explained in better detail by WiRED’s Threat Level blog) Coulson encouraged the systematic hacking of mobile phones of celebrities, politicians and even members of the Royal Family.
Only now after four or five years are the hundreds of people hacked or on lists of people who could be hacked are being notified which in theory breaches their rights.
Furthermore the Metropolitan Police is accused of deliberately limiting the scope of the investigation in order to preserve the relationship it had with the tabloid at the time.
Among the people who had been known to have been hacked were Princes William and Harry who found parts of voicemail messages appearing in the next day’s edition of the News of the World. Other targets included George Galloway; Respect MP, Simon Hughes; senior Liberal Democrat MP, Elle MacPherson; supermodel.
Five years after Coulson resigned from his job at the News of the World he is now Media Advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron. Now the NYT has done the right thing and published these allegations surely now the time has come for Coulson to resign?
This illustrates just how crap the UK blogosphere is. When I want to read about military or current events journalism, I don’t read any British blog short of the absolutely superb Bob Shepherd blog. In the end I actually turn to American blogs such as Michael Yon, Free Range International or War is Boring.
When I want to know about news around the world or even in my own bloody county I’m finding more and more to rely on blogs provided by established media sources such as the NYT’s Lede blog, WiRED’s Threat Level and Danger Room blogs and Foreign Policy blog.
If there is any decent blogging journalism out there in the UK I have yet to see it rear its head. The more I read Guido Fawkes the more I see him as a modern day British Matt Drudge who basically made a career out of breaking the Monica Lewinsky story in 1998 after it was more or less spoon fed too him. Fawkes broke the Parliamentary expenses scandal story and as a result was set for life.
I’m bored of reading about how awful the British media and its so called blogger upstarts are and I’m embarrased that myself and many other Brits have to go abroad for their news. I’m even more embarrased that possibly the only decent politics blog in the UK is BBC News Scotland’s Blether with Brian. Someone please make Brian Taylor king of the British media universe before we all kill ourselves.
