From the Leveson inquiry this week: (Tony) Blair complains about the crossover of comment and news in newspapers. He says that this “stops being journalism. It’s then an instrument of propaganda or political power” What exemptions should there be for propaganda?

When Jeremy Paxman engages, he is an excellent presenter. When he is bored…not so much. The clip below shows what happens when Newsnight attempts to recreate the kind of boorish conversation that would not have passed for debate in ye olde English pub of thirty years ago. By using controversialists like Oborne, and an ex-journalist…

When we follow through the history of particular industries and see new skills arise as old ones decline, it is possible to forget that the old skill and the new almost always were the perquisite of different people… Even where an old skill was replaced by a new process requiring equal or greater skill, we…

Apparently not. And I owe Stephen Bates an apology. Mr. Monck, I just purchased a copy of your book Can You Trust the Media? I found your discussion of the 1940s Hutchins Commission on Freedom of the Press on p. 165 particularly interesting. You write: “The report, A Free and Responsible Press, was published in…