Dave Kellaway reports from Italy, and reflects on the media coverage of the sinking of the luxury yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily compared to the way the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean are usually reported. The recent tragic sinking of tech magnate Mike Lynch’s yacht has been front page news in the Continue reading »
Media
Our censors, as the record shows again and again, have no special concern about acting in a serious manner. Power has no such obligation. Is there some connection — not quite official but it may as well be — between censorship and presidential politics? I pose the question as a survivor of the Russiagate years, Continue reading »
The Pearls and Irritations platform, with its commitment to fact-driven critique, exemplifies dissent as a profound act of civic engagement. Immanuel Kant, the renowned Enlightenment philosopher, offered a powerful defence of this kind of loyal, evidence-based dissent. Kant argued that the free public use of reason is essential for societal progress. The mission of Pearls Continue reading »
One of the content creators was allegedly paid $400,000 a month for four weekly video productions
A recent, comprehensive social-media interview has provided an acute reminder of how hard it now is to imagine certain flagship, Western current affairs programs drowning their cherished war-drums in a lead weighted bag and applying themselves to investigating pivotal geopolitical challenges with intelligent thoroughness (as Four Corners can still manage (see:Inside Iran: The proxy war Continue reading »
Israeli citizens’ demand to bring home an estimated 100 Israeli hostages still held captive by Hamas is assumed to depend on a Gaza ceasefire which would include a Palestinian prisoner release. By contrast, Palestinian citizens’ “bring them home!” cry concerns the estimated 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, who are also hostages in Israeli jails, including as many Continue reading »
'Tory bible' set to fall into hands of tycoon who liked tweets about 'civil war' and 'mass expulsions' of migrants
Will Glasgow’s report from Beijing in the Weekend Australian of 24/25 August is cause for celebration. Since the last Australian journalist left China four years ago, reports on this most important neighbour and on matters of concern to both countries have been either second-hand or coming from non-Australian sources. Although it is ironic that the Continue reading »
Carol Vorderman's Alternative Mactaggart lecture on how snobbery turned people off TV
I read the daily Pearls and Irritations email without fail. I read the daily Pearls and Irritations email without fail and usually find various pieces I want to read. Its speciality is comments on current policy debates from former senior public servants, who write with insight and much more candour than they did in former Continue reading »