Edward Snowden copied and leaked information from inside the world's most protected spy agency, and then fled to Russia, but yet, because a small part of the data he expropriated was provided to a news organisation, journalism conventions readily accord him lone whistleblower status.

Rusbridger had risen at the Guardian through the years when it not only had the support and fail-safe mechanism of the Scott Trust, but guaranteed operating income from public-service advertising. Nobody had to sell anything.

In America, the new post-postmodern politician is all about authenticity: the daffier you are, the 'realer' you must be. The more you have committed yourself to a ridiculous idea and fevered view, the more worthy you are of attention.

Trump's election was dispiriting and confounding to most traditional political players - perhaps nobody more so than Murdoch. Still, Murdoch did what he has always done: made sure he had maximum influence with the new president.

Journalism has become a form of idealism. It is no longer, first and foremost, function, craft, service - it is mission.

Cable television is basically now the business of former political professionals. Joe Scarborough, a former Florida Congressman, is a far more successful cable host than he ever was a politician.

Possibly the defining development of postmodern politics - naturally, an American one - is the separation of personality from ideology. If you are likeable, or at least not disagreeable, if you can strike a personal bond with the electorate, if you reassure rather than disrupt, it doesn't really matter what you stand for.

I can hardly tell you how boring it is to interview almost every politician among the multitudes I have ever interviewed (journalists can't say this, because if people knew how boring politicians were they wouldn't read what we write), how dead the conversation feels, how bald, flat, uninteresting the message is.

Reality television is to television what marble and gold are to real estate. The point is to dispense with the idea of taste. It's all id. The more unrestrained the better. We all know that 'reality' in reality television is not real. That anybody who would participate in reality television is a fake. But pretending otherwise makes them real.