Blonde Meats Burger

If you're wondering about the title, I'll get to that in a minute.

But first, the important and professional portion of my day. Tonight City hosted another of those amazing forums, this one on the ongoing phone-hacking debate in the British press. For the past few years, several stories have been reported by journalists who obtained their information by hacking into prominent citizens' voicemails. So the debate tonight was "How far should a reporter go? The lessons of the News of the World." For the back story, check out this post by Roy Greenslade, top media blogger for The Guardian who also happens to be one of my professors.

The panel included the former head of Formula One racing (who was implicated through phone hacking in a "saddo-masochistic sex orgy" and consequently won a privacy action against the News of the World.), two of Britain's top libel lawyers, and a former reporter for the News of the World who admitted he's hacked phones as part of his reporting process.



This was the most heated debate I've witnessed here at City, even compared to the Julian Assange face-off last week. And it's no wonder, since the debate over privacy has been at the forefront of journalism since its inception, but has only been exacerbated by technology (like phone hacking) that allows even novice journos-turned-hacks to obtain information.

The questions are simple on the surface. How far should a journalist go? Who deserves privacy? What level of privacy do they deserve? And when is it in the public's best interest to ignore the means to an end?

Watergate was brought up repeatedly throughout the debate. For example, if Woodward and Bernstein had used phone hacking to break the story on the Nixon administration, would we have cared how they got their information?

In the case of the former head of Formula One, the debate centered around whether the public needs to know about his private life. Is he (or footballers or celebrities) a role model? And in that case, isn't it a free press's job to expose what the public might perceive as moral corruption? Further, is the journalist even in a position to present a person's private actions as morally questionable?

If your head is spinning right now, not to worry, so was mine. The members of the panel acknowledged that this is a set of issues which isn't likely to be solved anytime soon. But it's definitely useful for us, as budding reporters, to think about these questions.

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Okay, now for the other exciting and far less cerebral part of my day.

Those of you who know me are aware of my undying love for hamburgers. Few things bring me such delight. This afternoon during an unexpected break from classes, I was wandering through a little market near my hall and stumbled upon a delicious smelling food stand:



This little gem is called The Naked Sausage (cheeky), and was advertising a 1/2 pound bacon and cheese burger for only 3.5 pounds! My arteries started warring in protest with my greedy stomach, and my stomach won out, so I ordered one with onion marmalade (it's like caramelized onion spread), mayo and ketchup.

Let me tell you, this was perhaps THE BEST BURGER I HAVE EVER HAD. They split the patty while grilling it and filled it full of cheese, while next door on the open faced grill a slab of bacon was frying to a crisp in the remnants of the day's grease. Sounds gross, you say? I assure you, this was the Sistine Chapel of hamburgers. When the whole concoction was assembled, it was placed tenderly inside a soft, doughy wheat bun, and this was the result:



It may not look like much, but your taste buds don't have eye balls.

I was so inspired by this burger that for a fleeting moment this afternoon I considered creating a second blog about my love of burgers. It would have been perfect, because today in our online journalism class our professor said our blogs need a focus, and I'm not sure if you've noticed but this one is more just a hodge podge of my musings (thanks for sticking around!).

This new, highly conceptualized blog was going to chronicle my quest for the perfect burger, one global patty at a time. I'm just not sure that I'm ready to commit (are you surprised?). I planned to call the blog "Blonde Meets Burger," but my clever friend Corinne amended it to "Blonde Meats Burger."

At this point I think I'll stick to one blog, but who knows what the future will bring? For now, I think I'll just plan to go back for another of those burgers very soon.