QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Salon: Again, speaking of news and experience, your portrayal of the press is pretty unflattering.
(British author and ex-British government official John Le Carré): "In the last 15 or 20 years, I've watched the British press simply go to hell. There seems to be no limit, no depths to which the tabloids won't sink. I don't know who these people are but they're little pigs. Even with the "quality" papers, the standard of literacy is pathetic. Journalists pipe their stories right into the paper, and nobody really has time even to correct the spelling.

When Rupert Murdoch took over a great chunk of the British press, the remaining newspapers had a choice whether to go up-market or down-market. Because it is the custom of people in the entertainment and information business to underrate the public, they selected, almost to a man, the downward route. Fabrication by a journalist - the story too good to check out - is almost par for the course. I've ceased to give interviews in Britain, having read that I was in the habit of frequenting a guru in India. In my entire life I've spent but three days in India. Never in my life have I spoken to any guru."