Social media claims of an arson epidemic and obstructive environmentalists have infected mainstream reporting of the bushfire crisis
Lies have spread faster than grassfire during Australia’s unprecedented national emergency.
They’ve ranged from the exaggerated to the outrageous.
Continue reading...Andrew Shaw, 63, on how he switched to a new career and life in another continent
Name: Andrew Shaw
Age: 63
Occupation: Jade carver and author, China
Income: £48,000
I took early retirement from my job as a BBC reporter 13 years ago to travel to China to pursue my dream to learn to carve jade. At one time I loved reporting live from major events such as 9/11. It was as if I was witnessing history rather than covering the news. But the death of my mother made me rethink my life.
Continue reading...Announcement by pair that they are stepping back from public life brings hysterical response
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step back from public life has provoked vitriolic attacks on the couple and hyperbolic predictions on what it could mean for the monarchy.
The announcement came after Prince Harry and Meghan criticised media intrusion and launched legal action against the Mail on Sunday. This, along with reports that the couple’s decision has upset the Queen, appears to have fuelled the ferocity of the reaction.
Continue reading...Rio judge’s ruling follows complaint that the ‘honour of millions of Catholics’ was hurt by The First Temptation of Christ
A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered Netflix to stop showing a Christmas special that some called blasphemous for depicting Jesus as a gay man and which prompted a bomb attack on the satirists behind the programme.
The ruling by a Rio de Janeiro judge, Benedicto Abicair, responded to a petition by a Brazilian Catholic organisation that argued the “honour of millions of Catholics” was hurt by the airing of The First Temptation of Christ. The special was produced by the Rio-based film company Porta dos Fundos, whose headquarters was targeted in the Christmas Eve attack.
Continue reading...As a new Republican president seeks re-election, senior figures in Washington warn history may be repeating itself
A Republican president facing a tough re-election campaign and widely viewed as hopelessly out of his depth. Bureaucrats itching to turn US military firepower on a Middle Eastern regime they claim without evidence is plotting an imminent attack. Compliant sections of the media that put flag-waving jingoism ahead of skeptical scrutiny.
So it was in late 2002, when President George W Bush’s administration built unstoppable momentum towards invading Iraq, promising to destroy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that never existed. Nearly two decades later the potential target is not Iraq but Iran, with many of the same concerns over false pretexts and official lies.
Continue reading...Writer of bestselling memoir about clinical depression died from metastatic breast cancer on Tuesday
Elizabeth Wurtzel, journalist and author of bestselling memoir Prozac Nation, has died at the age of 52.
Writer David Samuels, Wurtzel’s friend since childhood, told the New York Times that Wurtzel had died from metastatic breast cancer in Manhattan on Tuesday. Wurtzel, who tested positively for the BRCA genetic mutation, was an vocal advocate for BRCA testing in her journalism, all the while maintaining a defiant attitude in the face of pity. Writing in the Guardian in 2018, she noted: “I hate it when people say that they are sorry about my cancer. Really? Have they met me? I am not someone that you feel sorry for. I am the original mean girl. I now have stage-four upgrade privileges. I can go right to the front. But it’s always been like this. I am a line-cutter. Which is to say, I was precocious. I was early for history.”
Continue reading...Ed Pilkington hears from some of the most influential journalists in the US on how hard lessons were learned after their coverage of the 2016 election. But will 2020 really be any different? Plus: Carol Anderson on voter suppression and the US election
Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 came as a major shock to most news organisations in the US, which had all but anointed Hillary Clinton as the next president. But Trump’s ability to garner attention and break rules and norms had resulted in billions of dollars’ worth of free coverage, which he combined with an ability to wriggle out of serious scrutiny.
All this left a major challenge for how newsrooms across the US should cover his presidency, and how they should now cover his attempt to be re-elected. The Guardian US chief reporter, Ed Pilkington, has been working in partnership with the Columbia Journalism Review and spoken to 30 leading editors, reporters, TV executives and media commentators, asking for their reflections at the start of a year of election coverage. In this podcast, we hear from the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan, Univision’s Jorge Ramos, Teen Vogue’s Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Frank Bruni of the New York Times.
Continue reading...Actor Amanda Henderson answered ‘Sharon’ to Thunberg-related question on Celebrity Mastermind – and the teen activist loved it
Greta Thunberg has been mocked and called many names since becoming the world’s most famous climate activist.
Related: Greta Thunberg: 'I wouldn't have wasted my time' speaking to Trump
Continue reading...Ex-Army intelligence analyst jailed over refusal to testify against WikiLeaks reportedly subjected to ‘severe measures of coercion’
A top United Nations official has accused the US government of using torture against Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst currently jailed in the US over her refusal to testify against WikiLeaks.
Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture, made the charge in a letter sent in November but only released on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Armando Iannucci is not someone you’d describe as having a commanding presence. He doesn’t want to consume all the oxygen in the room or, with a show of bored impatience, imply that it’s your good fortune to share his company. He may be well known, but there’s nothing of the celebrity about him. Short, balding and understated in manner, he could pass for a provincial loss adjuster come to assess your insurance claim. But he is arguably the most influential figure in British comedy of the past three decades, not to mention an accomplished film director.
When I meet him at a London hotel, he is busy promoting his third feature film, The Personal History of David Copperfield, an adaptation of Charles Dickens’s eighth and most autobiographical novel. His first film, In the Loop, grew out of his seminal satirical TV comedy The Thick of It. The second, the highly acclaimed The Death of Stalin, was a darkly comic but historically accurate account of the Soviet dictator’s end and its farcical aftermath.
Continue reading...Sarah Sands, editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, admits it ‘felt awkward’
Putting a presenter on a flight to Sweden to meet climate activist Greta Thunberg “felt awkward”, the editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme has admitted.
The 16-year-old campaigner, who was a guest editor on a special edition of the show, avoids air travel because of its environmental impact.
Continue reading...Agnès Callamard, a UN special rapporteur who led an inquiry into Saudi reporter’s killing but was barred from secretive trial, says ruling that crime was spontaneous rather than premeditated means system that allowed murder to happen remains untouched.
A court exonerated Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s inner circle of involvement in the murder at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in October 2018 which plunged the kingdom into a diplomatic crisis
Continue reading...Foreign correspondent with a knowledge and love of Africa who worked for the Guardian, the Independent and the BBC
The journalist Alex Duval Smith, who has died of cancer aged 55, was a free spirit with a remarkable gift for connecting with others across social, language or cultural barriers.
For more than two decades she worked as a reporter and correspondent in European and African countries, for the Guardian, the Independent, the Observer, the BBC, Radio France International and France 24. She had a deep knowledge of and love for Africa and was a citizen of the world – with two nationalities and three languages; she had lived in almost a dozen countries.
Continue reading...2010 to 2020 was a contradictory decade that will confound future historians with a simple question: how did America go from Obama to Trump?
Lin-Manuel Miranda was touring his award-winning musical, In the Heights, to his parents’ homeland of Puerto Rico. Donald Trump was awarding first prize on his reality TV show, The Apprentice, to a corporate lawyer turned mobile cupcake entrepreneur.
The year was 2010 and, in the decade that followed, these two hustlers from New York with fiercely devoted followings would come to represent the two faces of America.
Continue reading...Newsnight was granted a rare audience with the royal ... and after a decade of silence, he was unstoppable. Its presenter shares the secrets of the interview of the century
Series 3, episode 4: The Crown. A BBC van pulls up at Buckingham Palace to record a royal documentary.
As in life, so with television: timing is everything. Had The Crown aired its new series one week earlier … Had the fictional Queen been spotted squirming at the TV crews in her midst … Had the distant memories of a now-banned palace interview been fresher in our minds … It is entirely possible, and more than probable, that the Prince Andrew interview would never have happened.
Continue reading...Rapper defends remarks about Boris Johnson at his old primary school as ‘the truth’
Stormzy has defended himself after Piers Morgan took issue with him criticising Boris Johnson to a group of children.
The UK grime star was talking to young pupils at his old primary school in Thornton Heath, south London, when he was asked why he was not a fan of the prime minister. He replied that Johnson was “a very, very bad man”.
Continue reading...Defence team say he is unaware of some evidence in his case because of blockage in visits
Julian Assange has been blocked from seeing evidence in his extradition case because his lawyers cannot get sufficient access to him, a court has heard.
The WikiLeaks founder, 48, appeared at Westminster magistrates court by video link on Friday for a hearing to extend his detention in Belmarsh prison, in south-east London.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy sitcom lasted just one night after alluding to Putin in crude sub-language
A Russian television channel has abruptly cancelled a sitcom starring Ukraine’s president after an allusion to a crude joke about Vladimir Putin was aired in Russia’s far east.
The political satire Servant of the People served as a platform for the former comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy to gain popularity and eventually win the Ukrainian presidency, in a vote largely driven by anger at the country’s previous leaders.
Continue reading...Marina Hyde, Rob Davies, Simon Hattenstone and Daniel Lavelle were all honoured
Four Guardian journalists have been honoured at this year’s British Journalism Awards for their work for the title, which was itself highly commended in the news provider of the year category.
At the ceremony at the Hilton Bankside hotel in central London on Tuesday night, Marina Hyde was described as “clever, innovative and consistently on the ball” as she was handed the prize for Comment Journalism. She was recognised for her writing on subjects including Theresa May’s historic Brexit deal defeat, Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein and Boris Johnson.
Continue reading...Woman denies posting false information that photo of four-year-old was political stunt
A medical secretary has claimed her Facebook account was hacked after it was used to post false information claiming that a photograph of an ill boy on the floor at Leeds General Infirmary was staged for political purposes.
The woman denied posting the allegation that four-year-old Jack Willment-Barr’s mother placed him on the floor specifically to take the picture which became symbolic of the NHS’s troubles after it appeared on the front page of Monday’s Daily Mirror.
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