Read all about it

I'm back, with a new flat, reconnected to the world and settling in very nicely, thanks for your concern. It's been an interesting couple of weeks what with the phone hacking at News International, the tragedy in Norway and most recently the death of Amy Winehouse. A common thread in these events has been the role of the press in modern society: how news is gathered, sold and consumed. What exactly is it that we want from our press? A fair and balanced, to borrow from another of Murdoch's august organisations, reflection of what is unfolding in the world or a corrupt unscrupulous fourth estate with tentacles flexing and intruding in every strata of society. The line where public interest ends and private lives begins has been fudged to the degree that we would require a high powered microscope to locate any particles that remain.

I must admit I did feel a giddy excitement as the phone hacking scandal unfolded, any chance to chip away at the power, control and influence of News Corp should be welcomed by any advocate of plurality in the press. Remember that Murdoch was a matter of weeks away from controlling over 40% of the British press. For this to happen on the Conservatives watch is of course no surprise, Thatcher became so adept at bending rules for the advantage of the Murdoch clan that if the premiership of Britain did not work out, then surely a career at FIFA awaited her. Quiet apart from the worryingly close relationships between the press, senior police and politicians one element of this whole affair that struck me is what it took for the world to sit up and take notice of this story. The Guardian newspaper had broken this story a couple of years ago and since then had continued to write articles about private citizens, guilty of no crime apart from being in the public eye, having their phones hacked. Granted the story had begun to build up a head of steam but it took the hacking of a dead child's voicemail for the moral outrage of the public to unite against the News of the World and for politicians to find their voice. With this revelation the wind had changed and politicians thought "Crikey time to stick the boot in". I am not for one second suggesting that the hacking of Hugh Grant's phone to find out which woman is being subjected to his baffled English toff routine is as objectionable as the hacking of a missing girls phone during an on going investigation . Rather I am bemused by a culture which engenders a press that feels such a sense of entitlement which allows it intrude in to peoples private lives. 24 hour news stations and instantly accessible news online has meant that actual news has been diluted down to such a degree that people are just talking so as to fill the time.
Watch as Sky News jumps into hyper drive with the live unfolding of some new disaster. Helicopter shots of nothing much, with a reporter saying ... well ...  nothing much. Experts are wheeled out to give opinions and frame the events for the viewer at home while yellow banners repeat the half truths, assumptions and guess work that your very hears have just borne witness to. I must get off this train of thought before Charlie Brooker's lawyers crash through my living room window, abseiling from helicopters whilst firing rubber bullets wrapped in writs of plagiarism. The point is that, this 24 hour service means that the news is mostly guess work on these sort of networks, prone to hyperbolic statements and shamelessly misremembering what you had earlier reported. The tragedy as first reported as an Islamic attack, based on nothing other than it was a terrorist attack. When the facts have emerged it still doesn't stop the networks shamelessly pushing their own agenda. This week I witnessed a survivor of the Norwegian massacre being interviewed on SKY by Kay Burley, her of the "chicken licken the sky is falling" school of journalism. During the interview Burley pushed and pushed the man to make sweeping comments on the rise of far right nationalism and the failure of multiculturalism in Europe. To which this reasonable individual responded that, it mattered little what the politics of this madman were, he was a madman who would have felt justified in what he was he doing no matter where on the spectrum of political ideologies he claimed to represent.

With the passing of Amy Winehouse I found myself agreeing with a friend that she was a victim of the time that she had lived. A wonderful talent, today I heard a recording of "Back to Black" she did for the Other Voices show with just a bass and electric guitar that was breath taking, who, if she had been recording in the 1950s all that we would have is the recordings and some classy black and white photos taken in smokey nightclubs. Unfortunately she lived in an era when not only is every mistake under constant scrutiny but is reported in real time. Fall out of a nightclub at 4 in the morning a little worse for wear and the photos will be uploaded in a matter of moments. Think that you are amongst friends taking recreational drugs, think again as grainy photo of you and a crack pipe taken with a mobile phone is front page news. How would other members of the 27 Club have stood up to modern scrutiny. Jim Morrison found dead bloated and fat in bathtub in Paris as tweeted by Perez Hilton, Jimmy Hendix choking of his own vomit on the home page of TMZ. I could go on with other members of this lamentable club, I dare say that the sheen of this cool rock star club would be stripped bare by the modern press and the unfathomable sense of ownership society has for celebrities.