Media

Porn, porn, porn. One way or another, we all like talking about it. But today’s debate about children and ‘sexually explicit material’ on the internet might be more demeaning than the smut itself. For a start, it’s government manufactured: the coalition knows that nobody ever lost votes by saying they cared about kids. The media love tackling porn, too, because the subject enables them to be prurient and morally serious at the same time. Stories about online porn and the young are, inevitably, accompanied by lots of images of naked women in provocative poses. Newsnight last night used this strange blue filter to soften their broadcasting of quite a lot

There is some shock in Fleet Street tonight, following news that Pippa Middleton is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. The magazine was the last of the late Christopher Hitchens’ haunts; that’s a very long way for a bottom to have wiggled in such a short space of time. On hearing the news, a friend of mine put down his glass and remarked, ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, forgive Graydon Carter his foolish ways.’ Then he turned a reddened eye to your humble correspondent and declared, not without a clear note of resentment, ‘You’re responsible for this!’ He was referring, I believe, to Pippa Middleton’s two outings in these pages. You can read Pippa

We’ve had a lot of horrible news this week, and inevitably that means a lot of tragedy tweeting. You know the sort of thing: a terror attack or a natural disaster happens, and everybody hops on the internet to share their reactions and emote ad nauseam. There’s not much point railing against this. Twitter is here to stay. But please — just so we don’t all go mad — can we lay down some basic DO NOT rules for tweeting in the wake of an appalling major news story? Below are the first eight that spring to mind, but please do add more… 1. Do not take to Twitter to

A State of Fear, Joseph Clyde’s new thriller*, stands out for many reasons. Thrillers only work if they are thrilling, and Clyde’s description of the search for the terrorist who planted a dirty bomb in central London keeps the reader fascinated. The best thrillers are more than just page-turners, however, and Clyde presents a convincing picture of what Britain could look like after law and order breaks down and the economy collapses. Like all dystopian novelists, he takes conflicts in the present and imagines how they will play out in his imagined future. Today’s sectarian divisions and the failure of Britain to deal with them, or even admit they exist,

The Duke of Cambridge joined forces with Prince Harry this morning to open Tedworth House Recovery Centre, the military hospital run by Help for Heroes. All power to the duke’s elbow, but one line jarred. William, rather tellingly, told the assembled top brass and troops that ‘even journalists’ had helped to promote the organisation and fund-raise for this vital facility. He went on to crack a joke at the expense of the tabloids. The duke’s disdain for the media is well documented, and justifiable in some cases. But Help for Heroes has had huge assistance from those same tabloids at which William was sneering from the podium. Fundraising, publicity, coverage

Continuing the domestic bliss/ tv theme, one programme I have not watched so far is The Wright Way. This is a situation comedy about somebody called Wright, as you might have imagined. It is written by the 1980s comedian Ben Elton. The show has already received a slagging from a couple of critics, largely for not being funny. I have yet to read a good review. It is on BBC One – and this, I think, is the point. Who else, other than the BBC, would commission a show from Ben Elton? Just as who would put Jeremy Hardy and Sandi Toksvig on air? Nobody, I suspect. I don’t dislike

With plummeting sales and the damage caused by the Johann Hari scandal, Chris Blackhurst had his work cut out when he took over as Editor of the Independent in 2011. Perhaps he saw the Leveson Inquiry as a chance to make a name for himself, because he became a frequent figure on the airwaves and signed his paper up to the government’s Royal Charter on the very day it was announced. But he’s cutting an increasingly isolated figure on Fleet Street these days. As the Times (£) puts it this afternoon when reporting news of a rival Royal Charter agreed by newspaper publishers: ‘The Guardian has not declared support for the new charter