This is a post about a systemic failure in our media organisations when it comes to reporting, and it has nothing to do with Rupert Murdoch or plagiarism. It starts in Soho and ends in Syria. If you’re a journalist, you’ll probably know it already, so apologies – though a couple of events recently,…
Analysis: Chewbacca, Kurt Cobain & cheap thrills, or life in a post-Soviet West
What if…? is a popular parlour game among historians. How would the world look had World War Two ended differently? What would a Confederate-won Civil War have meant in a parallel 21st-century USA? What if the DDR’s army hadn’t wavered, and the Berlin Wall had never fallen? This week brought a chance to play…
Latest: Outlaws Inc makes front page news for the Huffington Post
The newly launched UK edition of the Huffington Post today picked up on Outlaws Inc., featuring the book’s whistle-blowing on the role of arms-traffickers in the Somali famine as its front-page story. The August 4th edition ran Matt’s exclusive 1,000-word outtake ‘Death dollars and déjà vu in Somalia: how the seamier side of the international airlift…
Analysis: Black PR, white noise: How grey goo is killing the news media (and the news media doesn’t seem to mind).
This is a post about a systemic failure in our media organisations when it comes to reporting, and it has nothing to do with Rupert Murdoch or plagiarism. It starts in Soho and ends in Syria. If you’re a journalist, you’ll probably know it already, so apologies – though a couple of events recently,…
Analysis: Death, dollars and déjà vu in famine-hit Somalia
Update, October 2011: This is the July 2011 post that spawned the recent CNN documentary. It appeared two weeks later in modified form on the Huffington Post. Famine declared by the UN in the Shabelle region of Somalia. Mogadishu in a state of “gun-blasted anarchy”. Aid floods in – but its effects are patchy.…