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Making sense of Davos
When the World Economic Forum publishes a well-researched report on global gender gaps, sustainable consumption, water security or competitiveness, it fuels global debate. When it gathers its Members from the business world with others from a broad swathe of society (academics, artists, politicians, human rights campaigners, trade unionists, environmentalists and more), it becomes either the sinister architect of a global conspiracy…
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Losing control of a TV discussion: a masterclass
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…
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Creative destruction
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…
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Can you trust the author?
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…