A Higher Account

Something that has long entertained me is how the balance of the media is seen in various countries. In particular, the UK lets its newspaper print pretty much what they want, as is seen in the current witch hunt of MPs by the ever desperate, circulation challenged newspapers. Television, meanwhile, is held to a much higher account, although it fails to resist reporting verbatim on the newspaper reports in a dubious, salacious manner.

Meanwhile, in the US, the kind of reporting seen in the Daily Telegraph would be abhorred in mainstream newspapers,  but on television Fox News is free to make up its versions of events as it sees fit.

Balance is, naturally, always a controversial subject, but the question of balanced reporting in an age of ubiquitous, polemic and saturated coverage is an important one.

The hysteria wreaked upon the UK populace is terrifying to see. Clearly, there are elected cheats in the UK - point me to a country where there are none - but the lengths to which the printed media in the UK has fallen, fanned by the warm winds of the internet chatroom and social network, is a depressing reminder of how idiots like McCarthy were able to gain popular support.

The public gets what the public wants... Maybe there is a deeper malaise to the British condition.


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