Badgering the Local Bobbies

All news starts off local. Without reporters dropping into a court case, pestering the manager of an NHS trust, sitting through an inquest or badgering the local bobbies, democracy and accountability in Britain would not be possible.

Stratford High Street, Stratford, Newham, E15

Local news, effectively local newspapers and their websites, is essential to our society and don’t let anyone tell you that the propaganda rags produced by local councils are a substitute for independent newspapers that can run campaigns, concentrate their fire on a council or simply cover the local sheepdog trials.

From Henry Porter’s I Mourn the Death of Local Newspapers, The Observer (2009)

The Arab Spring

Events in the Arab world are being covered by the Western media more extensively than ever before and are being talked about positively in a fashion that is unprecedented.

FRONTLINE: A Year of Journalism and Conflict, Embankment Galleries, Somerset House, Westminster, WC2R

Before, when anything Muslim or Middle Eastern or Arab was reported on, it was almost always with a heavy negative connotation.

FRONTLINE: A Year of Journalism and Conflict, Embankment Galleries, Somerset House, Westminster, WC2R

Now, during this Arab spring, this has ceased to be the case.

FRONTLINE: A Year of Journalism and Conflict, Embankment Galleries, Somerset House, Westminster, WC2R

An area that was a byword for political stagnation is witnessing a rapid transformation that has caught the attention of the world.

FRONTLINE: A Year of Journalism and Conflict, Embankment Galleries, Somerset House, Westminster, WC2R

Rashid Khalidi’s The Arab Spring, The Nation (2011)

Museum in Docklands (2008)

Abberline: Do you ever think about him Mr Lees?

Lees: About whom?

Jack the Ripper and the East End, Museum in Docklands (2008), No 1 Warehouse, West India Quay, Tower Hamlets, E14

Abberline: him.

Lees: Oh. Yes, yes. Sometimes. I try not to.

From Alan Moore’s script for Eddie Campbell’s From Hell (1991)