Clarkson cuts lose on Wimbledon in today's Sunday Times: Hear, hear!



PS: yes, I know...getting the 'real fans' out of a sport is not an idea that would be particularly popular on this or any sports message board... but it would make enjoying sport so much more pleasurable for us elitist, corporate types if the lager louts can be kept out...!

__________________
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

Seamer, apologies for not writing in reply to your post earlier - I saw your reply two days ago but was unable to post at that time, and now, sadly, that reply is no longer here. :-)

Anyway, I think you raised a valid question about the Murdoch press, once that I'd be happy to discuss, if you'd be so kind as to indulge me

You are right that the Sunday Times is part of the Murdoch stable - but as far as propaganda goes, it is actually a lot more than a mere organ for right-wing diatribes. Yes, it provides a weekly platform to Irwin Stelzer (of the right-wing Hudson Institute, and caricatured variously as His Master's Voice and Rupert's representative on Earth, etc). But it also airs dissenting views and is actually Britain's premier Sunday broadsheet. Not one I necessarily agree with, but well-written and comprehensive nonetheless.

In any case, I believe that one has to read all sorts of 'news' sources to get a balanced perspective Its difficult to escape Mr Murdoch in media, but I wouldn't want to either.

As a general comment, in my humble experience and opinion, the UK print media is the most diverse in the English speaking world - all view points get aired somewhere, and there is a place for all voices: from the strident pro-eco doom, anti-US Independent, to the Social Democratic Guardian, the conservative Times and the far-right/pro-Zionist Torygraph... And that is before we get to the mass-circulation tabloids; their approach may be similar, but the politics of the Mirror and the Sun could not be more different, and whilst the Mail and the Express are both too rabid for my taste, they offer a useful counter-point to the state-run left-liberal behemoth that is the BBC.

All of this is quite unlike most other places; for instance, in the US most printed opinion in the newspapers consists of repeating liberal pieties and rehashing social democratic ideals (except the neocon WSJ and the Post, to a limited extent).

This lack of uniformity, and the multitude of voices and opinions in the public sphere, is, in my view, a very good thing.

__________________
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain