Poněkud nadnesené přirovnání

Miloš Čermák napsal: "Situace v Česku je přitom velmi podobná té v Británii. Na trhu deníků máme srovnatelně konkurenční prostředí, které vede k boji o čtenáře a může někdy negativně ovlivňovat i obsah. Blair si správně povšiml, že noviny nepodléhají žádné vnější regulaci – na rozdíl třeba od televize či rádia, a v budoucnu částečně i internetu, na který se bude vztahovat evropská legislativa." Co na tom, že britští novináři patří k těm nejlepším na světě, zatímco čeští k těm nejhorším? Situace je velmi podobná.

Co řekl Tony Blair? "So - for example - there will often be as much interpretation of what a politician is saying as there is coverage of them actually saying it. In the interpretation, what matters is not what they mean; but what they could be taken to mean.

This leads to the incredibly frustrating pastime of expending a large amount of energy rebutting claims about the significance of things said, that bears little or no relation to what was intended.

. . .

But it was started as an antidote to the idea of journalism as views not news. That was why it was called the Independent. Today it is avowedly a viewspaper not merely a newspaper. The final consequence of all of this is that it is rare today to find balance in the media.

Things, people, issues, stories, are all black and white. Life's usual grey is almost entirely absent.

"Some good, some bad"; "some things going right, some going wrong": these are concepts alien to today's reporting. It's a triumph or a disaster. A problem is "a crisis".

A setback is a policy "in tatters". A criticism, "a savage attack" NGOs and pundits know that unless they are prepared to go over the top, they shouldn't venture out at all."