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Prince Harry made history this week when he became the first senior royal in 130 years to give evidence to a civil court in his action against Mirror Group Newspapers for alleged unlawful information gathering.
Funded by our readers, Byline Times is independent. But its founding mission has always been to bring you ‘what the papers don’t say’ and to hold the established press in Britain to account on a regular basis: a task no other media outlet dares – or is able – to do. So when it comes to reforming our media, this is one issue on which this newspaper takes a firm stance.
And we tip our hat to Prince Harry. Because, as I wrote in my editorial this week, “too much of established British journalism remains an elite, closed club. Close to power and influencing it; while claiming to have none but playing victim when it is scrutinised in the slightest. That it continues to get away with its ability to distort our politics and society is one of the biggest stories, and scandals, of our time”.
We applaud his quest to raise public awareness of the dangers of an unaccountable press for Britain. There’s a reason why very few others in the media will.
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Former phone-hacker Dan Evans, the Founding Editor of our sister organisation Byline Investigates, details Harry’s extraordinary statement to the court – in which he accused former Mirror Editor Piers Morgan of conspiring to hack Princess Diana, and shared his fears that the newspaper’s stories would lead to someone stabbing him.
The other big media news this week has been the Telegraph newspaper being put up for sale due to debts owed by its parent group, the Barclays. It comes just days after the right-wing outlet launched an online calculator to allow readers to work out how much of their taxed salary goes on “bankrolling the welfare state”.
For Stephen Unwin, the calculator points to something altogether dark as “attacks on disabled people have all too often dressed themselves in the clothes of good housekeeping”. While Penny Pepper observes that “all human beings within the human family cannot be reduced to such packets of worth; of a capitalist uselessness” and calls the Telegraph’s calculator “vile hate”.
That’s not all. Mic Wright unpicks why the Telegraph also decided to showcase a now widely-publicised report, by a hard-right think tank, claiming that ‘only’ 1,700 lives were saved by lockdown – which is not all that it seems.
More from Byline Times this week:
- David Hencke reveals how government fraud has quadrupled on Rishi Sunak’s watch – particularly because of the tens of billions he spent on pandemic support schemes like ‘Eat Out to Help Out’.
- Stephen Delahunty reports on how the company associated with Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone appears to have few assets left – not great news for the Government, which is now subjecting it to a £122 million recovery action over its PPE contrac
- Matt Gallagher explores the hard hand dealt to today’s younger generations. “As someone born on the borderline between Millennial and Gen-Z, many of my peers are stressed, depressed, indebted and alienated,” he writes. “Instead of an age of abundance, we live in an age of insecurity.”
- Josiah Mortimer reports on plans for a mass tactical voting campaign to defeat the Conservatives and Reform UK at the next election. Glyndwr Cennydd Jones applauds the recent launch of another campaign looking to shift the status quo – the Alliance for Radical Democratic Change.
- Adam Bienkov reveals why Boris Johnson’s career as Uxbridge’s ‘absentee’ MP could soon be over – as the Privileges Committee decides whether he was in contempt of Parliament over ‘Partygate’, the former PM’s opponents are preparing to oust him.
- Dan Kaszeta, a renowned weapons expert uninvited from a government conference, sets out his concerns around the policy that has now appeared to justify experts being ‘cancelled’ in Whitehall.
- Kate Devlin, who was also ‘cancelled’ by the Government for retweeting a Liz Truss parody account, dispels the panic around superintelligence and considers the real threats to employment and the environment from AI.
- Mark Temnycky explores the consequences on global food supplies of what appears to be yet another example of the Kremlin’s ecological terrorism – the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka Dam.
Byline Times doesn’t have any oligarchs, government bungs or adverts. Just journalism. Funded by our readers. Outside of the system. So if you like what we do and aren’t already a subscriber, find out how you can support our work and help us build the better media Britain deserves.
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Wishing you a good weekend!
Hardeep
Hardeep Matharu is the Editor of Byline Times
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