Who bans the news that “isn’t fit to print”?
A sentence and an image are haunting me. The sentence, prompted by the righteous outpourings of The Guardian , the BBC, and certain Members of Parliament, is Thomas Babbington Macaulay’s: “We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.” The image, perhaps a bit impious, was occasioned by the fate of The News of the World : a thief being nailed and hoisted on a cross. This is Sir Roger L’Estrange (1616-1704). He lived up to his surname. On the one hand, he was a journalist and the publisher of two papers, The Public Intelligencer (Mondays) and The News (Thursdays). On the other, he was a censor, known as “The Bloodhound of the Press” for the ferocity with which he purged, persecuted and suppressed dissidence and non-conformity in his twin roles as Surveyor of the Imprimery (the printing presses) and Licenser of the Press. Dear old Rog even tried to cut six lines from Paradise Lost because he reckoned that Milton was making some coded...