Archbishop Tut Tut

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Tut Tut, gave a lecture to media professionals this week; in it he "tut tutted" at them, and expressed his worries about the state of journalism and the internet.

To some extent I have a degree of sympathy for some of the views of Archbishop Tut Tut, with regard to the sometimes more hysterical (not funny ha ha) aspects of media coverage.

He made a reasonable comment with regard to the need for people to question precisely what constitutes information, and what is mere intrusive and unpleasant story telling for the sake of selling copy.

Unfortunately, Tut Tut conveniently ignores the fact that there are many stories that the media have up their sleeves about Nanny and her chums; yet do not tell us.

This "self censorship" is practiced for a number of reasons, including:

• The information cannot be proven



• The information will be best presented at a later date



• The information is being used by the media as a bargaining tool



• The information is not in the public interest

Don't believe me?

I know of one big story that the media has deliberately suppressed, that would be front page headlines, but would be regarded as privately intrusive.

No, I am not going to tell you what it is.

However, Archbishop Tut Tut then rather let himself down by exposing his Nannyistic tendencies.

Much like many others in Nanny's coterie, he dislikes the concept of freedom of expression.

He launched an attack on the internet itself, saying that it harbours "paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry".

Which is undoubtedly true, for many of the billions of pages that litter the net. However, it is the fact that anyone can post anything on the net that keeps it in balance.

There may be a billion pages dedicated to the most unpleasant, bigoted garbage you can possibly imagine; yet these will be countered by a billion pages of creative, insightful observations.

Archbishop Tut Tut then displayed his true colours by describing the net as a free-for-all, that was "close to that of unpoliced conversation".

Now read that phrase "unpoliced conversation" again and again; think about what that is really saying about Tut Tut's line of thinking.

What he actually wants, and what Nanny and her coterie would sell their souls for, is for the net to be controlled.

In other words he wants censorship, so that only "respectable" opinions and thoughts can be aired.

Who would decide what is respectable?

Nanny!

Can you imagine what it would be like if Nanny controlled what could be posted on the web?