Now We Are Six

Can it really be six years ago that the first Zelo Street blogpost saw the light of day? Yes it could, and what was begun as an occasional bit of writing has now become something followed by rather more people that I could have imagined back then.

That this blog is performing a useful service can be seen by the reactions of two groups of people - those who appreciate it, and those who would rather it shut up and went away. Well, Orwell did say that “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Anything else is public relations”.

Yet, as I said to Frances Perraudin of the Guardian recently, I do not regard myself as a journalist, and do not intend to do so in the future. That would be disrespectful to real journalists.

And that is where all too many people misunderstand Zelo Street: this blog is not anti-press, and certainly not anti-journalist. What it does stand against is the misuse and abuse of journalism by billionaire media proprietors, the substitution of PR for genuine investigative journalism, the perversion of news by those with an agenda to pursue, and the traducing of ordinary people on the altar of profit.

That last is why this blog is an unswerving supporter of the Hacked Off campaign. That so many in the press establishment portray their efforts as “anti-press”, when all that they seek is for press self-regulation to be made genuinely independent of proprietors, politicians and other interest groups, and for victims of press misbehaviour to be allowed the means to seek redress, tells you all you need to know about this particular game.

I think it was Richard Ingrams, in his days as editor of Private Eye, who said, more or less, that the ridiculous is there to be ridiculed. Those who this blog calls out usually fall into that category. That they often cannot see this is their problem, not mine.

Put simply, Zelo Street will carry on calling out the ridiculous, as well as attempting to shine some light upon places where others would rather it were not shone. It is another of those contradictions of modern life that many of those who do not want that light shining upon them are more than happy to back to the hilt the security service overreach that has been so successfully unearthed recently.

My sincere thanks go to all those who read this blog regularly; friends, contacts, campaigners, fellow bloggers, all the media professionals who have propelled Zelo Street into the public conscience, and especially my legal team. After all, when you become worth reading, you become worth threatening.

And so, without further ado, on with the blogging - and here’s to the next six years.