So much for the one fairy tale of Gulf War II… turns out – according to many news sources, but here one from Toronto and one from England – that Private Jessica Lynch was treated very well indeed in hospital, and the doctors actually tried to give her to the Americans and got shot at for their troubles before the Americans came bashing in with their camera crew the next day. But it seems she doesn’t remember any of it. Convenient? Perhaps.

Between the war and the media studies classes, I’ve learned a lot in the past year about how sceptical you really need to be of the news. Partly this is anti-Bush, yes, but regardless of who’s in charge, there’s the news, and then there’s the truth. Americans seem to think this scepticism is liberal idealistic conspiracy-theory nonsense. People everywhere else assume it’s necessary and do it as a matter of course. We’re the only automatons silly enough to believe that we can get the whole story from just one angle.