February 2012

Back in the summer, as the News International scandal (well, beyond the scandal of its very existence) cranked up, we had a look at how the government buys newspaper display advertising and made an effort to reach out and touch the people in charge of it. I see no reason not to go round the…

Read More contacting the Government’s media-buying function

Tom Watson runs for the gap, specifically yet another ugly little employment law story at the Sun. Readers will know that they’re like that among themselves and there’s something of a press tradition of not mentioning the names. On this occasion it’s Our Boys Go In Editor “Tom” “Newton” “Dunn” vs. their Whitehall editor Clodagh…

Read More A slight return to 2004. Wasn’t that fun.

Ho hum, a spun day at the Guardian with this piece covering a double page spread on 8-9. Amelia Hill interviews a panel of prominent feminists about the Prime Minister’s new “women’s advisor”. You may have already guessed that they aren’t particularly impressed (an accurate headline might have been Thinking Individuals Find Sop Unsatisfying, Faintly…

Read More How to control the newspapers (aka. Explicit is better than implicit)

A while ago I noticed that a detailed story in Le Monde about their telecoms-interception-scandal-of-the-week had bizarrely vanished from their archives. It is baaack and I can share it with you! So if you read French and want to know what happens, in operational detail, when a prosecutor orders an illegal trawl of call-detail records…

Read More we know where your dog goes to school

This Ha’aretz piece is interesting for the insight it gives into Israeli policy and especially into process, but also for a couple of other things. Notably, it’s remarkably frank about the Obama administration deliberately trying to stop Netanyahu going to war, and the role of dodgy casino guy Sheldon Adelson in both US and Israeli…

Read More Churchill was wrong for most of his career, you know…