Imagine if during WWII we’d had blogs and podcasts, satellite TV with 24-hour news channels and mobile phone txt polls, and all the apparatus of modern civilian communication.
Should we have had full disclosure about where to place radar installations, public consultation about the specifications and placement of air raid shelters, while the details and good sense of the D-Day landings could have been debated on Comment Is Free for weeks. ‘Activists’ could have complained about the expensive upgrades to Spitfires and Churchill’s travel plans scrutinised in the press, because, you know, a free press means we have a right to know.
Clearly this is idiocy, and throwing the ‘fascist’ epithet at controls on the media would have had the ironic result of ensuring the victory of real Fascism, with a capital ‘F’.
Given that, I am therefore not surprised that George Galloway, cheerleader of the idiot-Left, decried the lack of “press freedom” that prevented the UK media from reporting the movement and identity of troops in Afghanistan, specifically of one Harry Windsor of London SW1.
This information is no more useful to us than what Madonna’s favourite shoes are.
Why is it that – dog in a manger-like – we, the public, feel we need to know every titbit of information as “a right”, regardless of whether it is in our interests to know it. The Media is called “The Media” because it mediates the message. An unmoderated media would be about as useful and destructive as a bathroom tap you couldn’t turn off. The defence of a free media has always relied on the “public interest” test.
No “public interest” was served by revealing that Harry was fighting in Afghanistan. We are not somehow more “democratic” than yesterday. In fact, if we stupidly continue down this path, we will endanger our democracy.
We don’t need to know everything.
Gordon Adds: We should not forget Jon Snow last night on Channel 4 News. He gave himself a starring role in all of this. He was quite unbelievable as he ranted on in full disgusted of Hampstead mode.
“I never thought I’d find myself saying thank God for Drudge. The infamous US blogger has broken the best kept editorial secret of recent times. Editors have been sworn to secrecy over Prince Harry being sent to fight in Afghanistan three months ago.
“Drudge has blown their cover. One wonders whether viewers, readers and listeners will ever want to trust media bosses again. Or perhaps this was a courageous editorial decision to protect this fine young man?”
Snow and Channel 4 seem to have been on the receiving end of a viewer backlash and so it appears the question isn’t whether viewers will trust media again it is whether they can bring themselves to watch him.
