What’s Wrong With Channel 4 News? Part Three

Why Doesn’t Alex Thomson Have the Guts to Resign? The Plight of the Captive Corporate Journalist by Alison Banville

“A Tour de Force!”

“I sincerely hope Alex Thomson gets to read this, and reflect on its constructive dissection of the corporate-liberal media, the sham radicalism of Ch 4 News and Thomson’s own admirable, yet still constrained, journalism.”

“bsnews.info on really good form. Congrats.”

“That’s a really excellent bit of writing Alison. Thanks for sharing.”

“A fine critique, Alison – also commended at thread, below. Hope your very constructive engagement gets a response from Alex Thomson.”

“Bravo”

“Feckin’ fantastic stuff in all 3 parts Ali! Bravo!! Glad you liked the ‘blancmange’ gibe at Point Nought Six Pilgers, btw. Just picking myself up from the ROFLMAO at seeing it quoted back to me in your wonderful fighting journalism. And there were at least two other LOLs as well. (I notice you didn’t first ask my permission to use the quote, though; we shall have to see what the lawyers think about that…)

Seriously: these three parts are simply splendid independent, self-respecting, honourable journalism, of a calibre high enough to leave all the corpohack ‘stars’ – without a single exception whom I can call to mind – in the dust.

For god’s sake never be tempted to become anyone’s house token radical, no matter what the emoluments offered, and all the specious promises of total journalistic freedom. That would cut your girl’s equivalent of balls off in an instant, as has happened to – for example – George Monbiot (utterly excellent though he can still be within the invisible, unspoken, but universally-understood steely limits of corpohackery); and seemed for a while to be threatening to happen to Glenn Greenwald too; may still, if his new venture turns out to be the hyperrich-git’s plaything ball-crusher that I fear it will.

Oh and Alison, may I make an old fart’s plea to you, on a small matter: to turn ‘wreak’ into one of its past tenses, try the ancient, traditional, Beowulfy ‘wrought’, rather than the modern Illiterate-American-English neologism ‘wreaked’. Aaaaaargh! Think: would the wonderful, austere, beethovenian Chris Hedges have used such a word?

But still, this three-parter of yours is just bloody wonderful stuff. Never stop! Keep sluggin’! Power to your arm, kiddo! I luuuuuuurved it! (though if I’d been subbing it, I’d have insisted on you cutting it by about 30%…)”