Under-reported
December 24, 2017   < 1

UnHerd takes a short Christmas break now but we’ll be back in a few days with a special series that will profile the under-reported stories of 2017.

In each and every year some stories get a lot more coverage than others. Events where TV cameras are present – notably in America – will get more coverage than happenings in parts of the world, especially in the southern hemisphere, where journalists are absent. Stories which fit a political narrative will get hyped while ones that don’t will get ignored. Newsrooms that are short of people with scientific training or religious literacy will ignore issues they find ‘hard-to-understand’.

2017 has been a year in which the problem of the under-reported has probably been greater than in previous years. While Brexit in Britain and Trump (worldwide) have gobbled up newspaper splashes, online inches and broadcast hours, other issues have struggled to get the attention they deserve.

We’ll be doing our small bit to put that right from when we return on 28th December. A host of guest writers will be spotlighting issues that they believe deserve more attention. Emily Thornberry, for example, will be focusing on AI. Lieutenant-General (Retd) Sir John Kiszely on military funding. Nicola Sturgeon on period poverty. Brendan Cox on democratic retreat in eastern Europe. Douglas Murray on turmoil in Pakistan. Nus Ghani on events in Saudi Arabia. Giles Fraser on the growth of the church in China. From across the Atlantic we’re looking forward to contributions from Senators Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton.

In the meantime – a very Happy Christmas to readers all over the world.

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The brilliant illustration above was drawn by the award-winning Ben Jennings.

Tim Montgomerie was most recently a columnist and comment editor for The Times of London. Before that journalistic turn he was steeped in centre right politics, founding the Conservative Christian Fellowship, then the Centre for Social Justice and, just over ten years ago, ConservativeHome.com.

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