1. Was making a QAnon reading list for a journalist friend of mine, and thought the rest of you might find it useful as well – especially this week. Enjoy.

AUGUST WILL ALWAYS COME BEFORE DECEMBER

Journalism, for all its bells and whistles, shiny business models, is fundamentally built on honour. 
None of the big offices, fancy equipment will matter, if the humans are not humane.

That it was only in December you saw a call made since August, only because I amplified its contents, shows you exactly the problem, that a call has to exist, since August.

No one has to have to leave the system, and unwittingly seek a voice online, if the humans within the system had honour. 
 
Humans make the system. 
Where a system somehow leaves a person with no choice but to cry out online, only the humans indicted can make it right.

If humans who profess to be humane did just that, and insisted for more choices for each other, then there would have been no August. 
That I chose to point this out how and when I did, after several private efforts, is my prerogative, as Bobby Brown sang it.

That you choose to interpret it however assuages your bias and demigods, is your prerogative. What can never change, is that August came before December, and August brought December.

Here it is, my UK journalism lowlights of the year:

1. Laura Kuennsberg jumping into Pippa Crears' mentions to defend Dominic Cummings after getting a text from.... Dominic Cummings

2. The BBC portraying Rishi Sunak as Superman

3. This piece of Boris Johnson on holiday in The Sun

4. Chris Mason going "OOOF!" to a response to an ice cream company

5. The Twentyman saga

@TheCanaryUK, journalism and free speech:

Like all news outlets, The Canary produces good and bad journalism. The same can be said of the Guardian, BBC and even the Daily Mail...

I don't agree with some of its editorial positions and at times I find some of the reporting over simplistic. But it also does extremely rigorous, well-sourced and informative analysis that addresses issues often overlooked by mainstream press (cf its reporting on Venezuela)...

What is relatively unique is the degree to which The Canary has been attacked by the left, centre and right. This is partly because of a perception that it has challenged the reach of mainstream media, especially on social media...

Though it's short history is a relative success story among news start ups, the notion that it competes on any level with either the audience reach or agenda influence of mainstream media is a constructed myth...

a myth that serves to obscure the enduring grip of national press and broadcasters over the public consciousness, and absolve policymakers of the need to address this...

A PLEA TO U.K. JOURNALISTS

You clearly signed up to the #dontmentiontheschools omertà from August to December.

No questions regarding why @educationgovuk allowed bubbles of 300, no SD, no masks, interchanging classes of 30 and poor ventilation

You refused to ask the questions

Parents watched our children and teachers get unnecessarily infected.

Yes, not all of them died, yes not all of them were hospitalised but THEY WERE unnecessarily exposed in school settings and you sat by and did nothing for FOUR MONTHS

We begged for your help...

We provided the UNSCIENTIFIC guidance to schools issued by @educationgovuk

We showed you how completely against ALL OF THE BASIC SAFETY MEASURES required in all other indoor settings where households mix it is.

We asked you to ask why it was this way...

Until the moves to close one or two days early by schools prior to Christmas were rejected, until the Unions began to take steps to protect their members, YOU showed no interest.

You were complicit in continuing to polarise the schools debate into OPEN vs CLOSED

...when the accurate discussion needed to be;

1. OPEN SAFELY for in-person education provision
or
2. Temporarily provide remote education until number 1 can be done

Why is this? Who gained from this polarisation?