"What the hell, it's only Chomsky"

The Guardian's readers' editor issued an answer to the several hundred emails that had been sent in complaining about the website, you can still read it on the above blog site by Zmag writer David Peterson.

The whole affair smacks of a "what the hell, its only Chomsky" attitude.

Can you imagine the same pathetic response of a few paras in the corrections & clarifications if Brockes had interviewed Gordon Brown or Tony Blair, for example, and caused the same uproar?

...Oh hang on she did interview Blair, and was very careful to avoid anything too controversial, or anything of real originality or actual political interest whatsoever.

It is very weak that Emma Brockes has remained silent on the matter, not issuing a personal apology, and that the paper has retracted her interview from their website, therefore not "standing by their story" to use the phrase that comes to mind.

In this context the readers' editor, far from being responsible for correcting all mistakes, errors and omissions and following up all complaints, looks like a figure who merely serves to justify them and their occurrence, with explanatory platitudes such as "journalistic pressures".

A new low for The Grauniad - the old image of which, incidentally, it seems a little too determined to shake off.

'It's all about bucks kid, and the rest is just conversation.' - Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's film, Wall Street.