Thanks to Mr Eugenides for bringing this to my attention - this post is shameless regurgitation but it's undoubtedly for the greater good.
He highlights Fraser Nelson's account of what happened when he put up a post at the Spectator,
"[correctly] accusing the increasingly disgraceful Ed Balls of lying
about debt and public spending on this morning's Today programme."
(The interview is also discussed here). As Mr Eugenides goes on to say,
"Would that more journalists were willing to go on record with tales of bullying phone calls from shouting ministers.
"Fraser's dogged pursuit of Brown's [and Balls'] Big Lie on the public finances over the past couple of months has at times verged on the heroic. As he notes in his post (once Balls has slammed the phone down)" -
'If you're reading this, Ed (and I suspect you will be) then we have a serious point to make. Five years ago, you could lie like this on the radio and get away with it. Space is tight in newspapers, no one would devote hundreds of words and graphs - as we did - to expose a lie for what is. But the world has changed now. Blogging has brought new, hyper scrutiny. Blogs have infinite space, and people with endless energy, to expose political lying - no matter how small. Your claims can be instantly counter-checked, by anyone. If you stretch the truth, you can be exposed - by anyone. And if you plan to base a whole election campaign on a lie, as you apparently intend to do, then you're in for a rude awakening.'
Yep - infinite space, people with endless energy - I can see it everywhere around me as a vast community of disparate people (which is growing by the day) continues to challenge and discredit the contradictory, offensive nonsense that spews forth from Balls, Badman, Brown et al. They aren't going to win.
(Let us not, however, take our eyes off this kind of questionable activity in the meantime: what's described above is the real reason the government is so keen to regulate the internet).
