Climate Change  Blog Archive   Google Hit Counter  The debate in
the media  Posted by Richard Thursday, February 10, 2005  With
the European Union Bill second reading debate transcript running
to over a hundred pages of A4 and more than 47,000 words - the
length of a short novel - the problem of delivering a coherent
report of the proceedings is self-evident, especially in the
frenetic time-scale to which the media have to work.  Not that
The Times even bothered. Once known as the "paper of record",
the print copy did not even refer to the debate. Future
historians will have to look elsewhere for their information.
Inevitably – how could it be otherwise? – of the newspapers
which did bother to report the event, albeit overshadowed by
other events of more immediate journalistic interest, the
different sympathies and political slants were very much to the
fore.  The Guardian for instance, chooses: "Assurance by Straw
on EU constitution", its strap reading: "Treaty will mean no
further integration for decades,