Partial presenters
Sir: The best television news is on Channel 4 at seven o'clock: each item followed by comment and discussion. It was therefore fascinating, in the week following the Princess's death, to watch the contortions of its presenter, Jon Snow. He is, one had to infer, a republican and a supporter of Tony Blair. Nothing wrong with being either, but he is a presenter, not a commen- tator.
The next week he began in fine fashion: `blinding rows at the Palace, dissension between the families, Prince Charles utter- ing furious obscenities' etc., all from an unattributed source. This unhelpful vulgari- ty on the very day when the press was mak- ing firm purposes of amendment. Which goes to show what we already knew, that journalists are journalists and would sell their own grandmothers for a headline. Proof of this, coming from our best news programme, shows there is no hope of improvement and that there is nothing we can do (short of framing an enforceable privacy law) except despairingly laugh.
P.J. Kavanagh
Sparrowthorn, Elkstone, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
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