Continuing the Harry the Nazi, Adolf the Royal theme, Private Eye’s regular Street of Shame feature makes the excellent point that UK newspapers like the Daily Mail (I’m not even going to waste time linking to it) which vociferously attacked Harry over the fancy dress incident have far more to be sorry about than the thick-headed prince.
I already knew that Lord Rothermere had a soft spot for Hitler and the British Fascists and ran the infamous headline Hurrah for the Blackshirts in 1934. But I did not know that in 1992, following the Mail’s publication of Goebbel’s diaries, they threw a fancy dress party at which
Dozens of Mail executives and hacks duly turned up in Wehrmacht uniforms.
This is all of little significance really. Everyone knows that newspapers like the Mail and the Sun, although excellently written, are the most hate-filled, hypocritical, thuggish rags. But it did start me thinking about the column inches wasted on stories like this by most UK newspapers, where the pack seizes on one story and locks its collective jaw until it has squeezed every last drop out of its prey (see Blunkett).
In America, the media enjoys wasting its time too. But rather than chasing after stories en masse, it turns in on itself, wasting inch after inch on “Fox said this” and “CBS said that”, “this one lied”, “that one was bribed”, and the others are “all biased anyway”. Perhaps the US media should give up its pretensions to “fair and balanced” reporting, admit it has an opinion, and then concentrate on telling the story.
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