Independent Thinking

The Independent continues to delight me most days. Flipping through the pages covering the hunting debate, I was impressed by the paper’s decision to give directly competeing views equal space, often opposite each other. A page showing how ordinary many of the protestors are was followed by one by Johann Hari, suggesting that the rural folk should all tug their forelocks and say “Yes, masser” to their urban benefectors, on the basis of the subsidies some rural area recieve. (Hari is so obviously writing as an agent provocateur these days, that it’s almost impossible to take him seriously). A leader which condemned the protestors that broke into Parliament was follwed by an opinion piece from Robin Cook, celebrating the fact that at least some young people think that parliment is serious. The paper manages to infuriate me, delight me and then make me think all in the space of a few pages. Genuine debate in a national newspaper? Who’d have thought it?

I don’t read it every day, to be fair. The Guardian gets my pennies on Mondays and Thursdays (Media jobs and the Online section, respectively). I occasionally pick up The Telegraph when The Guardian has made me so sick of the left wing that I need to be made sick of the right wing, too. But I do love reading different opinions in one paper. It’s the one thing that separates our media from the Americans, and it’s a damn shame that so many outlets are drifting away from it.