Friday, February 02, 2007

It is all spinning needlessly out of control!

Channel 4 news blog today is looking for a strong interviewee to comment on all the hiatus surrounding the Cash for Honors scandal (or not) and Blairs imminent future (or not). The story needs to be "knocked on" they quote the editor as saying. I assume by that the editor would like to see the story pushed up to the next level of media hysteria.

But should this be happening like this again? If the media were to shut up about the whole affair until the CPS reported, and instead reported on meaningless little stories like global warming, Iraq, Afghanistan, the state of my socks, would they be doign the public a disservice? Yes, the public might have a right to know what is going on, but does that mean we need to be force fed speculation, leaks, complete guess work, misleading headlines, etc? What service is this actually doing the country?

If we are getting bogged down in this affair it is not the affair that is doing it. I don't see the police running round telling the whole of government to down pencils and sit on their hands. Despite the protestations of David "throw his rattle out of the cot" Cameron, government is not, and in fact cannot be paralyzed. I would imagine that Cameron's own MPs are busy sitting on committees and conducting debates and doing constituency work.

The problem here is in the hands of the Media and the Pundits - and I include many politicians in that grouping. They have got their leads out of their masters hands and are running a muck in the park. Like dogs with irresponsible noses, they cannot see the woods for the trees, and the trees smell of sensation. Trouble is, the rest of us stopped living in trees a hundred thousand years ago or so - about time the media evolved to catch up!