Partisan Papers

On BBC breakfast news today, two journalists from separate broadsheets were asked to comment on the governments proposals for cleaning up MPs' expenses. It was as if they were signed up members of political parties. Neither appeared to offer much journalistic insight and their comments were light on facts but offered some entertaining banter along the lines of my party versus your party.

It is a concern for any type of democracy that the press can be so biased. However, Interactive Democracy asks for votes on issues, taking a step away from party politics and a step towards rational debate.

It's also interesting to note that, according to this report in The Guardian, newspaper readership fell by 5 million from 1992 to 2006. Is the power of the press on the wane?

Thanks to the ERCS for the above graph. However the y-axis should be in thousands not millions.