Sunday, April 25, 2010

A Kind of Press Freedom

I quite liked this story about a UK foreign office official paper which made a mockery of the Pope's forthcoming visit to the country, not because of the sentiment, which is offensive even to a non-catholic, catechumenate orthodox like myself (at least if you're gonna have a religious dig, make it witty, this was pathetic stuff).
No, what encourages me is the sheer and utter (is that an acceptable combination of adjectives?) ineptitude and incomptence of the department; makes me feel much better about the odd email that slips out pre-spell checker or without capitals in the right places.
 But this wasn't just an email, or someone filmed on a mobile down the pub, this was an OFFICIAL foreign office document. How the hell (pun not really intentional) did that happen, the document must have been printed, proofread by somebody, and put out there, wherever there is (actually looks like it was leaked to a broadsheet) before anyone twigged. Questions have to be asked - I guess it shows that the F.O. publications rival the PMC in terms of readership numbers.
Apparently the person responsible has been 'assigned to other duties'; I hope these are duties befitting the audacious success of what they did, maybe editor of the Catholic Herald would be a good start.

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