Pixillating the facts
Lenin's Tomb and The Sharp Side provide the background to the asymmetry between the astonishing facts behind the arrest of two SAS soldiers in Basra yesterday and how it is reported by the free press. The main news on the BBC mentioned only that an investigation was underway into the arrests, concentrating instead on the pixellated images of our boys in prison and on the spectacular pictures of a tank crew escaping an enraged crowd. It didn't even make the top story. It was overshadowed by convenient - yet non-urgent - developments in the July Bombings inquiry.
In totalitarian societies, so said Yevgeney Yevtushenko, "The truth is replaced by silence, and the silence is a lie." In liberal democracies, the truth is replaced by news.
