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| Anthony Zurcher? |
T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men ends with his most famous lines of poetry: "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper."
The Hollow Men of Lord Hall's mainstream media must have been thinking something similar when the news of the Mueller report's findings came through last night.
The New York Times at least didn't try to sugar the pill for its readers this morning:
So is this going to provoke some urgent soul-searching on the mainstream media's part?
DB provided a very helpful screengrab of some of the Spectator headlines for pieces written by the BBC reporter most intimately associated with the Trump-Russia conspiracy theories:
I'm very intrigued to see what Paul Wood writes about it next. He's invested so much in ever-so-impartially giving the claims credence that his take on what went wrong with much of the mainstream media reporting on the subject - including the BBC's reporting and his own reporting - would be riveting to read.
Will such soul-searching take place?
I turn, as we all surely must do, to the beating heart of the BBC - the BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson. He's surely the weather vane for the BBC here.
And - alas, not unsurprisingly- we see him reaching for straws and rolling on regardless.
And - alas, not unsurprisingly- we see him reaching for straws and rolling on regardless.
- "Being (apparently) cleared of collusion with Russia may help Pres Donald Trump win re-election. But Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal says even if there’s not enough evidence to prosecute him for criminal conspiracy, questions remain over whether Trump has been compromised."
- "Anne Applebaum, Washington Post: Russia made extensive efforts, through hacking emails as well as information warfare, to help Trump win in 2016. Members of the Trump campaign knew this in advance. Trump publicly called on Russia to release information that would hurt Clinton."
I suspect he's going to be highly representative of Lord Hall's mainstream media.
