Compare and contrast

What do the Harry Hardnoses and Phil Spaces who churn their living writing celebrity drivel for the tabloids feel when they read about the killing of yet another Russian journalist?

Do they consider themselves members of the same profession? Do they feel an ounce of empathy? Do they reflect on how far they have slid from their idealistic beginnings?

As The Independent reported on Saturday, “In a brazen attack that again highlights the danger many Russian journalists face for attempting to report the truth, the founder of an independent newspaper was shot dead in what appears to have been an ordered killing.

An assailant shot Khadzhimurad Kamalov 14 times late on Thursday night as he left the offices of Chernovik, the newspaper he founded and one of the few independent media voices in the troubled southern republic of Dagestan. The killer fled in a Lada, and Mr Kamalov died on the way to hospital.

He is the latest in a long line of journalists to be killed in Russia, in crimes that are rarely solved.“

‘Killed for attempting to report the truth.” Not ‘the truth’ about who is having an affair or going into rehab, but ‘the truth’ about the actions and skullduggery of people in power. 

All the time the tabloids concentrate on celebrity, royalty and sexual shenanigans, they leave the political class free and unmonitored. Free to continue doing harm. Free to continue feathering their nests. Free to take us into illegal wars. Free to collude with torture and rendition.