Behind the Headlines

Well, that was a pretty depressing weekend, wasn't it? I'd no sooner knocked off work on Friday and put my feet up in front of the telly when the news of the Oslo bombing broke, followed up by the shootings at the youth camp. Grim viewing. Made grimmer by the non-stop speculation indulged in by the TV news channels. Whilst I understand that this kind of story is exactly the sort of thing that twenty-four hour news channels were set up to cover, but I find myself increasingly uneasy over the way in which they simply go into overdrive, clearing their schedules and focusing entirely on the one story, regardless of whether they actually have any new developments to report on. Consequently, we end up being subjected to the same few pieces of footage repeated over and over, and an endless stream of supposed experts spouting utter bollocks. None of which enlightens the viewer. Just when it looked like they were exhausting their reserves of wild speculation, they were saved by the announcement of Amy Winehouse's demise early on Saturday evening. Cue yet more looped footage and alleged experts...

Frankly, the only people likely to have benefited from the blanket coverage of these stories over the weekend will have been New International - it may have been tragic and appalling, but at least it kept the phone hacking scandal out of the headlines. Indeed, there's a part of me that suspects that maybe they've got all these brainwashed people out there, just waiting to be activated. Like in that old Charles Bronson film Telefon. Except that instead of being Soviet sleeper agents, programmed to sabotage the US's infrastructure, they're programmed to create mayhem to boost tabloid circulation. Except that now it isn't flagging sales worrying their masters, it's the very survival of their media empire. So maybe that's what happened - a phone call to Oslo, the right codeword given and a right wing loony goes on a murderous rampage. Twenty four hours later and another phone call, and a well known singer takes an overdose. Crazy? Perhaps not - this conspiracy runs deeper than any of us suspected. The very fabric of our society could be at risk. Jesus, I'm beginning to sound like a Dan Brown novel. But maybe that's all part of the conspiracy too - all those books and movies about bizarre fictional conspiracies are designed to make us less likely to suspect that there's a real conspiracy going on out there. Where will it all end?