Vice-president JD Vance has been darkly lecturing us on how across Europe “free speech is in retreat”. It is unclear whether this was just Vance showing off to the boss on his field trip, or is part of a concerted “Make Europe great again” campaign to undermine the continent’s liberal leaders, or whether Vance just believes everything he hears on Fox News and enjoys being rude.
Without a doubt, free speech in Europe has come under pressure in recent years, but let’s not take any lessons in freedom of expression from Vance and Trump’s media-manipulation outfit.
On 14 February, the Associated Press agency was banned from attending Oval Office briefings for sticking to using “Gulf of Mexico” rather than “Gulf of America” in its reporting. By refusing access, the administration is punishing outlets for independent reporting. Meanwhile greater access is being given to pro-Trump outlets, with rare opportunities to question the president on camera this week going to such characters as Real America’s Voice’s Brian Glenn (who happens to be dating the hard-right Republican and conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene).
Meanwhile Trump’s string of legal cases against news outlets continues apace. The Federal Communications Commission (whose chair, Brendan Carr, was recently at Mar-a-Lago) has told the media giant Comcast – which owns Sky – that it will begin an investigation into its diversity, equity and inclusion work. The move is being widely interpreted as an attempt to destabilise the company.
In the meantime, Elon Musk responded to a report on CBS’s 60 Minutes about USAid cuts by saying the network were “the biggest liars in the world! They deserve a long prison sentence.”
So it seems beyond extraordinary that Vance can criticise Europe’s record on free speech when free speech is being actively trampled upon in the US. Although perhaps not – as Carl Jung wrote, “The most dangerous psychological mistake is the projection of the shadow on to others; this is the root of almost all conflicts.”
London newspapers, eh? They’re like London buses. You wait 198 years for one to face proper competition, and then four new titles come along at once.
Evgeny Lebedev’s Evening Standard, which was first published in 1827 and became the digital London Standard last September, seems to be struggling for attention in the noisy digital world.
But recently, the new London Daily Digital launched with 18 staff, an office on Fleet Street, a website, a page-turner digital edition and a monthly £4.99 print edition. Best of all, it emerged with confidence.
The launch comes on the heels of the Londoner, started last autumn by the independent publisher Mill Media. There is also now the London Spy newsletter, as well as the London Centric Substack, which has already built a reputation for breaking important stories.
London news outlets have always suffered by being overwhelmed by so much national news at the same time as being underserved with local news – largely because seemingly few Londoners are bothered about what goes on beyond their borough. And yet surely there is still good money to be made in high-quality journalism for the world’s fifth-richest city.
Obviously it was the mainstream media’s fault. Obviously. So when “right-wing influencer” Ashley St Clair revealed on X (obvs) that she gave birth to Elon Musk’s baby five months ago it was only because, apparently, “the tabloid media” had been about to break the story – not that she wanted to attract the father of her child’s attention.
If I was a better tabloid journalist, I could have exposed the relationship right here in the New Statesman last autumn. Back then I wrote about how Musk had been sharing posts on X that said, falsely, that a UK government report had advised that reading George Orwell’s 1984 led to right-wing extremism. And who posted that original message? Well, Ashley St Clair.
Oh, the pillow talk of misinformation merchants…
EastEnders has marked its 40th anniversary on the BBC. Those of us old enough to remember those early episodes will recall what a big deal it seemed for the BBC to be taking on Coronation Street with its own twice-weekly soap opera. Some 13 million people tuned in to the first episode. By Christmas Day 1986, 30 million tuned in to see Den hand divorce papers to Angie.
Following a steady formula of barmaids and battleaxes, love triangles, serial killers and frequent pyrotechnically explosive plotlines, the show continues to pull in between three and four million viewers. It may sound small fry in comparison with the past – but with competition from streaming channels and less than half of 16- to 24-year-olds even turning on a TV, we’re in a different landscape to Arthur’s allotment.
Nevertheless, by being active on TikTok and making episodes available on catch-up from first thing in the morning, the number of hours of EastEnders being watched on iPlayer actually increased last year by almost 20 per cent. There could well be life in the old girl – by which, of course, I mean the Queen Vic – yet.
[See also: The British public was wise to Labour’s deportation videos]
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This article appears in the 19 Feb 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Europe Alone