Last night at 9pm I broke the story that Sir Alan Walters, one of the most important figures of the Thatcher years, had died. More than sixteen hours later the mainstream media caught up and published their obituaries to the great man. Here are a selection of them and a couple of other newslinks via Newsnow...
14.05 Times obituary
16.12 Guardian obituary
16.25 Telegraph obituary
16.47 BBC - Thatcher tribute
16.52 The Independent obituary
18 comments:
To be honest, Iain, I don't really care who got the "scoop" first. And neither should you on this particular occasion.
Alan, you are right. I suppose I was just outraged by the fact that no mainstream news organisation felt it was an important enough story to either check out or report until so long after it first appeared.
Actually his greatness was that his actions directly led to the fall of Thatcher. he does indeed deserve praise.
Wait, I thought you already WERE the mainstream media??
Wow! You da man Iain. Always good to be first on the case of a death.
Is it just possible Iain that no-one on the newsdesks of the five organisations you mention was old enough to have heard of Sir Alan?
Waugh would have been proud.
"I suppose I was just outraged by the fact that no mainstream news organisation felt it was an important enough story ..."
Which explains why your headline is "First For News" and not "MSM Fail to Mark Passing of Sir Alan Walters in a Timely Manner".
The race to report a death is rather demeaning. Does it really matter when and who reported this first? Still he was an influential figure, I will grant you that.
Conversely it was his behaviour that lead to Lawson's resignation, which was the forerunner for the fall of Thatcher, your great hero. So perhaps he was not so great after all.
"I broke the story..."
Sometimes you become a parody of yourself.
If you want to be a journalist...go on do it.
If you want to be a politician, ditto.
Being a second-rate "wannabe" at both is a bit sad!
Oh, so hurtful. So insightful. But thanks anyway.
It's not often that the comments section of your blog make me feel I am not alone!
Given the incorrect call of a sick Labour MP's death last year, I guess by the law of averages you'll win some and lose some.
'Congratulations'
(To be fair, you showed appropriate contrition in post number 2)
God you're a self important so and so Iain. You "broke the story"? You noted a significant Tory death. Hurrah. Are you really claiming that no other media mentioned this before you or in the first 16 hours after your report?
The others printed/published proper obituaries at a time of their choosing. And this hubris is carrying the Pestonisation of the blogosphere way too far.
Of all the stories that "can wait" an obituary must be near the top of the list.
As an ardent Thatcherite, I am surprised you are so keen on the man who's actions led to Her downfall.
Chris Paul, the day I need advice from you on how to blog ... etc etc
Seem to recall - from my student days - that Alan Walters and Richard Layard [now a Labour Peer] wrote the best ever text book on Microeconomics. Recommended reading for Iain Dale?
It is bloody cold out in the fields today.
Can I be the first to spot that John Peel is also dead?
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