I tend not to bother with visits to Medialens anymore but now and then it is amusing to pop in and see how they are coping.
Sunday’s vote seems to have sent them into total orbit and while they are circulating saturn one of them managed to produce my favourite ever opening line to an ML post:
The latest edition of the New Statesman (an “Iraq special”) is full of the type of establishment propaganda often seen in Guardian leaders.
Of course as well as such fantasy what MLers really enjoy is whining to editors and journalists who don’t toe the anti-war line. They remind me of the school snitches who told teacher that you were reading the Beano instead of doing your French homework. I bet Noam Chomsky is offered loads of apples when he comes on his speaking tours.
They particularly enjoy sending out emails to media people and then publishing the replies on the forum (almost never with the courtesy of asking for permission). Then the chorus of cheerleaders there will all declare that what is usually a five line email rattled off in a brew break has failed to offer a complete and serious analysis of the manufacturing of consent or whatever.
What truly amazes me about most responses to ML emails is how restrained the journalists and editors are. So it was a refreshing change to read the opening to this response from Observer editor Roger Alton who was being berated for daring to talk of “democratic elections” in Iraqi.
Dear Mr Gibbons
Thank you for your letter. It is one of many I and colleagues receive on this issue, presumably courtesy of Medialens, so I will send you this brief reply and assume you will let all your other Medialens chums see it, and then hopefully bugger off.