The newspapers versus the viewspaper

What a marvellous juxtaposition there is between the reporting of the BAA protest decision yesterday. On the one hand you have the Guardian and Telegraph playing it straight down the line explaining that the judgement was to members of the RSPB, Greenpeace and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England to protest, but also, crucially uphold an injunction against three activists from PLane Stupid, Joss Garman, John Stewart and Leo Murray.

On the other hand we have the Independent which hailed the ruling as a victory for all the protesters and barely mentioning the injunction against the three men whilst carrying a massive picture of them in the paper version. A reader of the Indy would, because of the editorial angle and photo conclude that the three men were part of the victory, they were not.

Blair did a lot of things wrong in his time, he said a lot of stupid things too. But when he said the Indy was a viewspaper not a newspaper he was absolutely right.