McCain, McCann, Clarke
Updated on 19 March 2008
Inside the morning meeting.
The Channel 4 News Iraq season continues tonight with a piece by Nick Paton Walsh on the "awakening councils" - Sunni groups founded to counter the insurgency in the country. They're one of the central planks of the United States' counter-insurgency policy.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential contender John McCain passes through the UK today on his way back from the Middle East, on the same day that his foreign policy adviser is due to deliver a speech. Since McCain, a veteran of a previous US war, is arguably at his most interesting when discussing the Iraq conflict, we should have more to say about him on the evening programme.
'The Express will do stories like the McCanns on the front page, week after week, to prompt a spike in their circulation.'
The government's national security strategy is published today. The prospect is that it will advocate the establishment of a national security council comprising ministers and military advisers. Significantly, it should draw attention to the security threat from climate change and bird flu. Expect a piece on the subject tonight.
The public apology to the McCann family delivered on the front pages of today's Express and Daily Star is an obvious talking point. Someone at the meeting notes that it's "a perfect result for the McCanns and the rest of the press". Another journalist asserts that "The Express will do stories like the McCanns and Princess Diana on the front page, week after week, to prompt a spike in their circulation".
But as we all know at Channel 4 News online, the Express and the Star are merely the thin end of a rather voyeuristic wedge. Along with most other media outlets, we noticed a surge in site visits last year when Kate and Gerry McCann were declared suspects by the Portuguese authorities. Why are Express Newspapers "a breed apart", as someone at the meeting claims? Watch the seven o'clock show for further enlightenment.
Tibet is "very strong" today. A Canadian TV crew has footage of a band of Tibetan freedom fighters descending on a town in Chinese territory (in "Greater Tibet"), trashing the town, raising the flag and then disappearing over the hill. In the wake of yesterday's claims by China that the violence was being provoked by the Dalai Lama, the incident raises questions about the Tibetan spiritual leader's control of the situation, We'll have more this evening - including, hopefully, the Canadian footage.
Finally, science fiction's Arthur C Clarke has moved on to the space station beyond time. Our science correspondents have had to wrestle naked in the atrium of the ITN building to win the privilege of presenting his obituary tonight. Expect an inventory listing which of Clarke's predictions have actually come true. Presumably that won't include his assertion that, by the 1960s, humans would have civilised apes to perform menial domestic tasks...
