There is a crying need for a fortnightly supplement distributed with one of the Saturday or Sunday papers and featuring columnists from local and regional papers in as many different corners of the country as possible; I mean County Durham as well as Newcastle, the Marches as well Birmingham, Dorset as well as Bristol, and so on. Including, of course, the less fashionable parts of London.
Harder to do would be the same format at the weekends in between, featuring that many columnists from as many different countries as possible, not including America, not out of anti-Americanism, but only for the sake of a more balanced view. That, too, though, urgently needs to be done.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
More regional variety is needed in the UK media but I especially agree with the point about publishing opinions from different countries in the national press.
ReplyDeleteIn other countries, such as Spain or Poland, it is quite normal to find translations of British and/or American commentators alongside the offerings of local journalists.
The Anglophone media would do well to follow suit-- it might mean that in the future people regarded as well-educated or even intellectual will avoid making themselves look like idiots when talking about the rest of the world.