The Red Brick Times

Contrary to the conventional wisdom here that U.S. media are the freest in the world, the United States has suffered "notable setbacks" in press freedom and has slipped among countries tracked by the New York-based rights group Freedom House. The United States was tied with Barbados, Canada, Dominica, Estonia, and Latvia at 24th place out of 194 countries covered in the survey.

From here, Britain certainly looks like a country where real people and real journalists reside. Where hard-nosed questioning is still fashionable and where prime ministers must account for their actions, at least at election time. Tony Blair takes more grilling in a day than American politicians do in a year.

History is tapping us on the shoulder and pointing. The sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz followed so closely by the popification of an ex-member of the Hitler Youth combine to force our attention back to the Nazi catastrophe.

IF A REPORTER who doubled as a gay hooker had visited the Clinton White House nearly 200 times, think it would have made the news?

All this, and more, at The Smirking Chimp
Posted 1:22 PM by Andy (1) comments

       Comments:

The Smirking Chimp's a pretty good example of what a politically oriented (and admittedly left wing) multi-contributor site should be. It reminds me of how over the years I've occasionally thought of including a list of recommended links somewhere on tRBT's main page but never did so, probably because it would have reflected what I liked rather than what the RBT community as a whole liked. If we ever do a link menu here I hope we remember this one.

# posted by  whatley : May 03, 2005 5:43 PM
 
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