Me-me-medialens

Over at Medialens, the site's managers are upset that no broadsheet newspaper is reviewing their book, Guardians of Power: the Myth of the Liberal Media (buy it here). It turns out two emails were sent to prospective reviewers by Boyd Tonkin, the Independent's literary editor. The first said "Not this time, thanks" (Forwarded to Media Lens, February 24, 2006). Another offer of a review was sent to the Independent by Paul Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Communications Theory at theUniversity of Leeds. Taylor received the same message from Tonkin: "Not this time, thanks." That phrase warrants a front page complaint from Medialens, and the usual call for a campaign of emails by site users against the offending newspapers. Generally the site gets animated by its political disagreements with media coverage, which it treats as the 'distorting lens' of the mainstream media (see Brendan O'Neill's review of Guardians of Power here - log-in required; the link on Medialens takes readers to a different article altogether). This latest campaign seems remarkably thin-skinned even in comparison.