Ed Miliband accuses the Tories of playing politics with the tanker drivers’ strike. The Mail accuses Miliband of playing politics with the Olympics, because of the party’s funding by the unions (IIIE has already covered the ham-fisted idiocy that is the Tories’ attempts to paint the unions as undemocratic). Guardian commenters (again, let’s not go [...]
OK, I’ll admit it. It was pretty damn funny, and it’s hard to deny that Rupert Murdoch should be somewhere near the top of anyone’s list of ‘people who richly deserve a righteous plate of shaving foam in the face’. Equally, though, it has to be said there’s something which grates about the long-awaited calling [...]
Yes, I know – George who? I hadn’t heard his name either until today, but until very recently he was a spin doctor for the Archbishop of Canterbury (who says the C of E doesn’t move with the times?). The Guardian suggests his departure may have something to do with Rowan Williams’ searingly anti-government New [...]
Aid staff and famine-stricken Somalian refugees expressed their shock today at the News of the World phone-hacking revelations. Françoise Chevalier, 35, a nurse with Médecins Sans Frontières, whose clinics and feeding centres in Kenya and Somalia have been completely overwhelmed by the effects of the devastating drought told our correspondent she was appalled. “Steve Coogan, [...]
In the middle of any media broo-haha there is the possibility that new unanticipated stars can be born. This time we have been blessed with an especially fabulous new z list celeb in the form of hack’s hack, hapless Paul McMullan, who – with his wonky tie, unbuttoned shirt, and impossibly crumpled, maybe slept in, [...]
Hari has now told us that people can sometimes express themselves unclearly in interview – hence the apparently rather frequent need to bend the truth about what was said. One would think, however, that such considerations would be irrelevant to the task of writing a political biography of Che Guevara – after all Johann clearly [...]
So, superinjunctions. Everyone’s talking about them, right? Well, they were on Monday. Not so much now admittedly, our collective attention span being as hummingbird-like as it is. The papers are still full of them, of course, but they’re acting more out of sheer bloody-minded determination to finally publish what they’ve been blocked from printing for [...]
Some experienced activist-media folks have put together this excellent guide on putting together a media team. It’s intended to give a quick guide of how to coordinate media work for community/student/activist groups taking political action, particularly direct action and civil disobedience. The information is broadly applicable to any number of campaigns, but it was written [...]
Anybody interested in the revolution in Egypt should take the time to read this interview by Parvez Sharma with an Egyptian protester: http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2011/blog1102c.htm. Being interviewed is the man previously referred to as ‘Yousry’ to protect his identity, but who now insists on having his real name – Omar – published openly (demonstrating the new sense of confidence among the [...]
This might sound a bit strange, but I’m prepared to bet that Jeremy Hunt really wishes Vince Cable had kept his mouth shut when he met those undercover Telegraph reporters. It’s because of that little indiscretion, of course, that Hunt has the responsibility for deciding whether Murdoch can acquire a controlling stake in BSkyB, and [...]