Particle Accelerator Porn

There I was, planning a post on the awfulness of the British press, as if anyone needed reminding, when the Telegraph came up with this beauty- an article which perfectly encapsulates everything which makes our media in general into objects of contempt. Go and have a read, but it comes down to this: teenage girl in Australia comes up with worst excuse in history after being caught shagging in the toilets.

The thinking goes something like this: It isn't news, but it's got sex in it, so we'll pretend it is. Then we'll take it seriously because we are, like, a 'serious newspaper'. We can't show a picture of the girl, not even a link to the video [you can feel their collective tongue hanging out at this point] so instead we'll show a suggestive picture of the Large Hadron Collider [you really do need to read the article]. Then we'll waffle retrospectively about impending doom, that'll get the punters in.

Because that's the problem with the press. They don't do the job they self-importantly tell us they do. Journalists love to claim that they are brave souls, manning the ramparts of freedom and single-handedly defending the rest of us against tyranny. A few, truly brave souls, around the world, have, on occasion, done that, usually paying with their livelihood, their freedom or their lives. But such people were only incidentally journalists; journalism was a tool by which they tried to do what they felt they should.

Journalists spin yarns for money and a sense of position. They are the working man's court dwarf, hired entertainers, peddling gossip, anecdote and derivative blather. And their own opinions, of course, which are so much better and more important than other people's. Truth, relevance, importance, freedom, knowledge, understanding? No, thanks. Selling newspapers and getting your name known is what matters to the press. It isn't that journalism has been corrupted, it is in its very nature to be like this. It started that way, as trading in tittle-tattle, and it has always been that way.

How to find real news, and who will actually man the barricades should the need arise, are a couple of questions I'm still working on, but the Telegraph is not the answer to either of them. Nor is the BBC.