Alain De Botton

Why I’ve started my own Mail Online

Media moguls aren’t philosophers. So it’s time for philosophers to become media moguls

[Photo by Dave Hogan/TAS/Getty Images for TAS]

There are good reasons for serious people to despair of the news. A minor country singer dies, and the BBC gives him the front page. An actor dies and every channel mourns him as if a president had expired. There’s one final fact that particularly sticks in the throat of serious news people: the most followed news website in the English language, by an enormous factor, is the Mail Online, purveyor of a stream of appalling ‘human interest’ stories of the lowest kind. The clear temptation is to withdraw into the bunker and lament the decadence of a ruined age.

This would be a big mistake. We can face the facts head on: the most attractive, charming, sexy and compelling news outlets enjoy unparalleled influence over the minds of tens of millions of people. But unfortunately, they rarely put out content that might make the world a better place. At the same time, there are lots of serious, earnest, good people attempting to change things, but they put out publications full of very interesting and dense articles that only reach tiny and already-convinced audiences. So the good ideas go nowhere and the not-so-great ideas mesmerise us from every screen. Therefore, the world doesn’t change.

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Alain de Botton’s Philosopher’s Mail

Take education: western education is in crisis; it simply doesn’t match up with the performance of peers in China and Korea. This is going to have major, lasting implications for middle-class wealth in Europe and the US. A few people care a lot but, strangely and shamefully, Taylor Swift’s legs are far more captivating. They are lovely in ways that seem to defy description: somehow they look ordinary, yet perfect. They are long, yet not freakish. They seem unbowed by their implausible length; both utterly firm and yet yielding and soft.

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