Private Manning Is The World's Pre-eminent Prisoner

Many Journalists Now Are No More Than Channelers And Echoers Of What Orwell Called The Official Truth. They Simply Cipher And Transmit Lies. It Really Grieves Me That So Many Of My Fellow Journalists Can Be So Manipulated That They Become Really What The French Describe As Functionaires, Functionaries, Not Journalists.

Al Journalism Should Be Investigative, From Football To Cookery

When Governments And Other Vested Interests Attack Me Personally I Usually Regard It As A Vindication, Otherwise They Would Use Facts. That's Why I Believe In The Wonderful Claud Cockburn Dictum, 'never Believe Anything Until It Is Officially Denied.' It Has Certainly Been My Experience.

The People Who Died In The Twin Towers In That Terrible Crime Mattered. The People Who Were Bombed To Death In Dusty Villages In Afghanistan Didn't Matter, Even Though It Now Seems That Their Numbers Were Greater. The People Who Will Die In Iraq Don't Matter.

If I Were A Teacher, I Would Recommend That All My Students Very Hurriedly Read Most Of Orwell's Books, Especially 1984 And Animal Farm, Because Then They'd Begin To Understand The World We Live In.