Why are journalists so scared of giving people what they want?

Since I landed my new job as executive editor at Breitbart London, my old Fleet Street friends and colleagues have reacted with a mix of envy and horror. The envy part comes from the fancy title and their ludicrously exaggerated idea of how much I’m being paid; the horror from the fact that I’ve gone and joined what’s known disparagingly in the trade as a ‘vertical’.

A vertical — the opposite of a horizontal, obviously — is an online enterprise that caters to a niche audience: dog owners, say; or foot fetishists; or, in the case of Breitbart.com, readers of a mainly American persuasion who like their news curated and served up in an uncompromisingly right-wing way.

So, for example, at Breitbart.com you won’t find too many stories on the shining genius of Barack Obama or the government’s lamentable failure to provide more social housing for one-armed lesbian single mothers. But you will find plenty on Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Islamic extremism, enviro–lunacy, fake Republicans and all those other push-button issues guaranteed to send red-meat conservatives into paroxysms of ecstasy or righteous rage.