Entertainment For Lively Minds
News International: a butterly beats it's wings...
Whilst we're (probably) all fairly delighted that the Murdochs and their appalling henchfolk are well in the klartz, and no-one will be too sad to see their slimy grip on British public life slip, there is always the law of unintended consequnces.
A couple of things spring immediately to mind:
It's been mooted that SKY is intending to move from being basically a broadcaster of bought in US telly, to being a major producer of indigenous programs, rather in the mould of HBO and Starz in the US.
Probably not for any artistic reasons you understand, but mainly to cash in on the kind of profits that are available from controlling the advertising to the ABC1's who tend to watch this stuff. Talk of up to £1billion of investment.
The Premiership is deeply reliant on SKY revenue to maintain it's levels of debt (I doubt anyone makes a profit).
If this was to drop, the consequences would be dire for both of these.
The Medici's may have been b'stards. But they did give us the Renaissance..... "strokes chin reflectively".
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Now...
...I'm a bit wary of the current Murdoch clusterfuck, if only because I'm concerned that the debate over wider media ethics is getting lost. I strongly dislike Murdoch, however, and the Sky takeover would worry me enormously from the point of view of plurality in broadcast media in this country.
Right now, NC owns 39% of Sky - not enough to make me uncomfortable. I don't want them getting a stranglehold on it, though, mainly because they'll try and use it as a lever-point to completely savage the BBC and OFCOM.
As for the quality of the drama it produces and the Premiership, I honestly couldn't give the tiniest fuck. Non-issues, compared to the political power the takeover would grant the Murdochs.
The Tiniest Fuck
similar in many ways to The Littlest Hobo, but with a marginally smuttier theme song.
A pedant writes
It's its.
Does this mean that overpaid (IMHO) footballers might finally be paid a realistic wage instead of holding their clubs to ransom? If so I'm all for it.
Sky's review of its reliance on sport as a form of entertainment is long overdue but lots of people are going to be suffering from 'unforeseen consequences' just now.
An estimated 13,000 people (according to unions) whose jobs are at risk in the fallout from Bombardier's review of its operations in the UK and Derby.
Sorry, rant over. As you were.
You part time pedant
What about butterly?
Pah! You're no stickler.
I can only blame over enthusiasm and a rubbish Lenovo
keyboard. Chinese cack!
Chinese Cack
Similar in many ways to Chinese Rocks by Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, but with an even less Disneyesque denouement than the original:
I love my Lenovo Ideapad
The keyboard reminds me of the Sinclair QL (short lived successor to the ZX Spectrum)
Chinese Rocks!
Oh no!
The premiership endangered by Rupe's travails?
Oh sorrow! Alas! Oh the humanity! Won't someone PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN?
Sorry man, but if there's something I could give less a fuck about than football, it's the possibility of losing more Terry Pratchet, Mark Billingham or Marina Cole adaptations on Sky 1.
Indeed...
as someone who does love football I would be thrilled to see sky pull out as it would be the best possible thing for the grassroots game.
Sky has done far more harm to the game than good.
absolutely
goddam right.
the end of overpaid seriously average players. my heart bleeds
"The Premiership is deeply reliant on SKY revenue to maintain...
...its levels of debt..."
I can't foresee how this would play out in reality, but am I alone in thinking - now that we all know that hitherto impossible-seeming scenarios can indeed happen - that some kind of situation in which the Premierships broadcasting funds dried up or were seriously renogotiated downwards would be a welcome one?
Yes, even if clubs went bust. Nothing lasts forever.
The levels of money involved in players salaries is truly obscene - which would be nobody's business but their own if they could afford it. But they can't.
May I humbly suggest...
that the Medici family's contribution to civilisation was greater than that of Murdoch allowing us to watch petulant, obnoxious, pampered oafs like Ashley Cole kicking a football around. :-)
Yeah.
Just imagine where the Assassin's Creed series would be without Renaissance Italy. I shudder to think of the loss to my Xbox.
Compare and contrast
Case A) Rupert Murdoch runs a huge multi-platform media empire, part of which is in the business of mass market newspapers that rely on "sensational scoops". In order to get those "sensational scoops" a small number of employees or freelance contributors have been involved in highly dodgy, inexcusable practices that has caused great distress to innocent people. It is now being said that this makes the company as a whole unfit to run a TV station. Because it "presides over" unacceptable practices.
Case B) The BBC is a huge, multi-platform media empire which, because of the "unique way it is funded" should be absoultely above reproach when it comes to editorial integrity. Yet it has, within the last month, been forced to admit that it used faked footage of "slave labour" in a documentary about Primark. This was done deliberately to create a "sensational" programme by suggesing that a major high street retailer uses illegal slave labour. This inevitably threatened the reputation of the company and thus threatened the livelihoods of the thousands of people, both here and overseas, who earn their living from it.
Does this mean Panorama should be shut down? And that the BBC, and the people who run it, are, because they "presided over" such dodgy practices, unfit to run a TV station?
Systemic vs. isolated.
The Primark thing was awful, but we're not really comparing like with like here, Richard. Do I suspect there's systemic editorial / institutional corruption in the BBC? No. More importantly, do the BBC have the ability to intervene at the highest level with the workings of our democracy? Again - no.
It's the latter that really worries me, and that's not just a Murdoch thing. I wonder when Mr. Dacre might have his collar felt?
The Mail
has been very cautious in its reporting of this story and Dacre is being called out by Rusbridger et al to be more vocal on the subject. The silence is very unDacrelike and one can only assume that this is an indication of guilt.
n.b. Very surprised to hear that Dacre is extremely well regarded as a newspaper editor regardless of his politics (cf Guardian Media podcast)
Yeah.
I've heard Dacre described unironically, and not in right-wing papers, as the greatest newspaper editor in living memory. I was surprised too, but then I realised that I have no idea what makes a good newspaper editor and I was confusing "slimeball twat" with "bad at his job", which he apparently isn't.
I don't know if it's apocryphal, but I heard that one of Dacre's mottoes used to be words to the effect of "if the reader doesn't hate someone by the end of the article, the writer's failed".
Apparently Heinrich Himmler
was very well regarded by his staff as a considerate and thoughtful employer.
A model, modern, manager.
Pol Pot was the same.
Seemingly his door was always open, his grasp of workplace logistics was remarkable and his ability to inspire his staff was nothing short of miraculous.
You mean...
... he voss zer very model of a modern Herr General?
Why exactly should Mr. Dacre "have his collar felt"?
For threatening "democracy" by running a popular newspaper that doesn't support the Labour party? I'm sorry Bob, but that's what it sounds like.
For hacking phones.
All the papers have done it, some more than others. Daily Mail are seemingly amongst the worst. Lenny Law posted these on a previous thread, I've just cut and pasted it.
"This is sourced from an ICO Hacking Report in The Guardian and comes via Hugo Rifkind, scribbler for The Times. To do with reporters using the services of phone hackers, the top figure is the number of transactions positively identified, the second the number of journalists / clients using the services. What a shock when we see what's at number one. And this is also why the papers aren't making too much of this. They're all at it. And let us not forget that it isn't the papers themselves doing the REALLY dirty work, it's the PIs. They produce the information and pass it on for money. The papers get their story and don't care how.
Daily Mail
952
58
Sunday People
802
50
Daily Mirror
681
45
Mail on Sunday
266
33
News of the World
182
19
Sunday Mirror
143
25
Best Magazine
134
20
Evening Standard
130
1
The Observer
103
4
Daily Sport
62
4
Sunday Times
52
7
The People
37
19
Daily Express
36
7
Weekend Magazine (Daily Mail)
30
4
Sunday Express
29
8
The Sun
24
4
Closer Magazine
22
5
Sunday Sport
15
1
Night and Day (Mail on Sunday)
9
2
Sunday Business News
8
1
Daily Record
7
2
Saturday (Express)
7
1
Real Magazine
4
1
Woman’s Own
4
2
Daily Mirror Magazine
3
2
Mail in Ireland
3
1
Daily Star
2
4
Marie Claire
2
1
Personal Magazine
1
1
Sunday World
1
1"
Haha,
I would love to know who was hacked by Woman's Own and why.
For the secret of 20 quick and tasty summer puddings
of course.
No! Of course not!
For using phone hackers nearly as enthusiastically as NI. Check out the 2006 Information Commissioner's report "What Price Privacy Now".
Fine
On that basis shut down any newspaper that has ever used illegal methods to find information. That's the Telegraph gone for a kick-off - the big MPs expenses story was entirely based on the contents of a stolen CD. (That's blatant collusion with, probably instigation of, and certainly profiting from a blatantly criminal act.) In fact there wouldn't be a single newspaper left. If that's what you think should happen, fair enough.
I'm simply suggesting a bit of perspective, proportion and consistency might be in order.
And what we are suggesting...
... is that illegal methods of gathering information is fine when the story merits it. Like MPs expenses. It's perspective that we are calling out for, eg that victims of crime, relatives of dead soldiers and maybe even celebs don't deserve to be spied on.
That makes me feel uncomfortable
Because you only know whether the the story merits it after the event. If I bug your phone, and it turns out you're committing a crime, then great. But if it turns out you're not, them I've committed a crime for no reason. In fact, I've committed a crime in both instances.
Me too.
I just don't want the news media committing crimes for a story, end of.
I think accepting leaks is rather different from proactively hacking phones. I also think, under certain limited circumstances, leakers should be protected under whistleblowing legislation.
But generally, a crime's a crime. If you absolutely NEED to commit one to break an important story, then accept that you'll likely get it in the neck from the justice system when you do it.
Idealistic
but unrealistic. No right thinking person wants 'the news media committing crimes for a story'. US journalism is often derided here as 'boring' yet when I'm looking for information beyond what the FT and Gruaniad provide it's off to the Times/Post/Mercury News.
However even Woodward and Bernstein committed 'crimes' in working to bring down a corrupt administration and end an unjustified war.
Indeed.
But if you bug my phone, find out I have committed no crime, but do find out that I'm having an affair, don't write the story afterwards.
And have a reasonable suspicion as to why you need to gather information from me to begin with. Don't just bug me because I might be related to a murder victim, dead soldier or a minor royal.
"Persepctive, proportion and consistency."
I mentioned the Mail only because they were close to top of the list. But yes, every newspaper that has used illegal methods to write stories should be prosecuted. I don't want them shut down - I didn't particularly want the NOW shut down - but I want them to take responsibility for what they've done. I don't care about left and right when it comes to this.
What, should we just let them off because they were all doing it?
Sorry, Bob
I'd like to answer you properly because you've been good enough to respond fairly to an unpopular point of view. (I was anticipating snarling abuse.) Pushed for time at the mo, but I'll get back to you later.
Surely the problem is the criminality
Not the stripe of politics? People ARE very angry and there is an edge to it because its Murdoch but its the institutionalised shitting on the ordinary public caught up in tabloid stories that has enraged people surely? Prior to that it was largely trendy Private Eye readers and leftie gits - like me - who were so angry but you need to look at the actual facts of what is coming out - not the hidden agenda (or not so hidden) of some of the commentators.
Anyway I hope you don't feel persecuted on here, I do sometimes write with my angry face on but there doesn't seem to be much actual rudeness
If the Mirror has been doing the same (likely) it absolutely deserves the same kicking. One of the reasons Blair and Brown were so vilified was because they did the bidding of the big corporations like NewsCorp = though with the revelations now about the Sunday Times and Brown you wonder if all that grovelling did him any good after all.
Murdoch has the same sort of power that in previous years the Harmworths and Beaverbrooks had, maybe our only protection is their eventual senility and hubris - in the absence of proper privacy and libel laws or indeed any written constitution
"should we just let them off because they were all doing it?"
Well - and here's a phrase you don't hear much these days - I honestly don't know. I think it's a really hazy area which is why I brought up both the Panorama/Primark business and the Telegraph expenses story. The first was a deliberate attempt to mislead by the use of fake evidence in order to create a "sensation". The second was a great story, the basis of which - in fact, the whole of which - was a stolen document.
Finding out stuff people don't want you to know about, by fair means or foul, is pretty much what newspaper journalism is all about. Obviously the NOW journalists/paid PIs overstepped the mark. They should and will get their comeuppance.
But there's something about this whole business that bugs me. And it's that rigid certainty, the stark black and white. The evil Murdoch empire vs The good Guys (except the Mail whose turn it is next). The Liberal/Left media (Guardian/BBC/Twitter-Consensus) on the prowl and sniffing the blood of Murdoch who've they've been after since Wapping. And I think this whole campaign is driven more by the political and commercial interests of those waging it than by a concern for journalistic ethics.
As for the enormous political power and influence of the Murdoch empire. I agree with DC Eisenhower below. This is really overplayed. The only newspaper I buy and read every week is the Saturday edition of The Times. Now, according to the Guardian/BBC/Twitter-Consensus Party this is a highly partisan "right-wing" newspaper. Well you could have fooled me. Lets just go through what I read in that paper that is vaguely "political":
* The leader column. Never read it. Never have. S'boring. In fact the only reason I know that The Times "came out for" the Conservatives at the election is because I heard about it on BBC news and radio.
* The "Opinion" columns. The Saturday times has three Opinion columnists.
Mathew Parris: He is a former Conservative MP, from the Liberal wing of the party. Being no longer active in politics he doesn't toe any party line and his take on matters is all the more interesting for that. Still quite Tory, but he doesn't always think what you might imagine a "Tory" would think.
Giles Coren: Bit of a div but you know how it is, when you're on the loo you're on the loo. Doesn't really "do" politics apart from being devoutly "Green".
Janice Turner: Humble origins in Doncaster which she likes to remind her readers of, pretty much all the time. Staunchly pro-Labour. I like her. She's done a couple of really good magazine pieces recently about Caroline Flint and about a teacher who's doing some innovative work with "problem" primary school children in NW London.
Rachel Sylvester & Alice Thompson: Both former Telegraph writers who do a joint interview/profile piece most weeks about some politician. Difficult to tell where their political allegiances lie although Alice is married to a Tory MP and Rachel is a supposed "New Labour insider" married to a former political editor of the Guardian.
I sometimes glance at Anatole Someoneorother who does business/economics but tend to pack in halfway through when he comes over all "University seminar room", the only place where Keynesian economics actually works.
And that's about it. Mustn't forget Caitlin Moran though. She's the star turn of the Saturday Times. She touches on politics every now and then in the same way she might touch upon poached eggs or Little House On The Prairie or mittens. When she does she nails her colours firmly to the mast. She is a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist.
All I can say is if Rupert Murdoch is running his newspapers to promote some "right wing" agenda he isn't doing a very good job of it.
Left/right is irrelevant
You've posted several times about the political leanings of people who are angry about Murdoch and now you have done a breakdown of the editorial of Times.
What's that got to do with anything? How is that relevant to phone hacking war widows or stealing private health information about Gordon Brown's son by decelption?
When Piers Moron faked photos of British troops committing atrocities in Iraq or when his paper was caught insider trading Viglen shares off tips they planted - is that left/right? Or is he just a vicious dishonest cretin?
Its about power, corruption and lies, not a dubious reading of how Tory or otherwise the Times columnists are. It might make you feel a bit better about still reading the Times but I fail to see what it has to do with New International imploding in front of us in a welter of long-suspected criminality
Newspaper scoops transcend political leanings.
The Telegraph contains some terrifying drivel sometimes, especially in their truly awful blogs, but their work on MPs expenses was sterling stuff. Obtained from a stolen CD they paid for. So I will say, newspapers cannot do their jobs if they remain strictly within the law at all times.
Bugging and hacking victims does not add to any story. Bugging and hacking d list celebs should only be done if they are suspected of being involved in criminal acts. Bugging and hacking corporations and institutions sometimes work wonders. And it takes editorial judgement to work in this world. Fundamentally, in the case of NOTW, it's the total lack of editorial judgement which rankles.
Simply addressing one of the main reasons
Simply addressing one of the main reasons people are suggesting that RM should not be allowed to run a TV station: that he is highly partisan and uses his papers as political propaganda. I don't think he is; and I don't think he does.
And personally I don't see why anyone, provided that they don't broadcast stuff that is illegal (libel, hate crimes etc.) should be barred from running a TV station. It's not as if he's expecting taxpayers to fund it. It'll pay its own way or sink.
He doesn't use his papers as political propaganda
Took five minutes.
The unions stopped this page being printed, of course, hence the mocked up sub deck.
And another five minues to weed out the 1997-2010 era
The years when The Sun was just as vociferously rooting for Labour.
That's my point. Most British newspapers are highly partisan - Mail ,Telegraph on the right; Mirror, Guardian, Independent on the left - and shape their news agenda from a fixed ideological point of view. That is, to some extent, propaganda. The Murdoch titles aren't like that. They respond to - and in the Sun's case shout a lot about - what's going on, but not from a fixed position. Would The Guardian ever endorse the Tories? No. Would the Mail ever urge their readers to vote Labour?. No. But there is a newspaper group that isn't as fixed in its ideology. The News International titles are the most politically neutral British newspapers. Fact.
A history of newspaper alegiances
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/04/general-election-new...
I don't know what this does to anyone's arguments, though I'm interested to see that the Sun was pro-labour until 1974 and the Guardian was pro-Tory in the '50s.
It's also worth pointing out that News International publications only supported Labour when they took a huge (and popular) lurch to the right under Blair. As I recall, the popular gag was that Tony Blair MP was an anagram of 'I'm Tory Plan B'.
You are joking, I assume?
Murdoch is a right-wing nut job and his papers reflect that agenda. The evidence is overwhelming - have you ever seen Fox News?
He wants, first and foremost, to make as much money as possible, of course. And he wants to make sure that there is a political culture that continues to allow him to do so, without let or hindrance.
I don't think that either of those things are in the interests of the rest of us.
We've seen how the power of his newspapers was misused. I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt over a TV station.
Murdoch is a right-wing nut job and his papers reflect that agen
I think the only "overwhelming evidence" here is that the Sun supported Labour in the 1997, 2001 and the 2005 General elections, the Times in 2001, 2005.
No I haven't seen Fox News, but I understand that it's right wing, very popular and entirely legal. And in a democratic society I don't see why that point of view should be suppressed because it offends "liberals". That smacks of totalitarianism.
Nor do I see what's wrong with making money. By and large in the private sector people can only make a lot of money by making stuff people want to buy. Is that so wrong?
Politicians compete for Murdochs backing
Labour went to him after John Major's election because Murdoch destroyed Foot and crippled Kinnock.
Brown was doing the same with Dacre at the Mail.
They got the support of the papers by doing deals - it didn't come the other way round - things might have been different in the past but one of the most shaming things in recent years has been politicians crawling to media barons with concessions to get their support.
And again I say that left/right isn't relevant - in any case since Blair the idea of the 'Left' in UK politics has simply faded away - Murdoch is about power and monopolies - and its the means by which he exercises that power which has finally been dragged out into the open.
The points of view espoused by Fox News are legal - what about its methods? Its employed a huge number of Republican politicians over the years - any favours owed I wonder?
You like the Times and reckon its not right wing - but what about its opinions on the BBC for instance? Virgin Media? Any tiny smidgeon of an agenda there? I'm sure the Guardian and the Mirror are equally compromised on editorials - not comment pieces - relating to their own commercial interests.
And the worry is that ALL papers now bend the actual news stories as if they were comment pieces - there has to be a narrative.
Its a nasty game I agree but the corporations have been using their hold over the politicians to bend the governance of this country and the USA right out of shape - you really have to start looking past the nominal right/left allegiance of the media corporations hirelings and products
The Sun
and The Times both supported the winners. And in all three of those elections the Tories were felt to be (rightly IMHO) unelectable. And in the same way, in 2010 the Labour Party was pretty much unelectable.
I can't help but feel the way the Murdoch Press (and with the best will in the world, that is what they are) were reflecting the will of their readers. They would love to feel that it was them wot won it, but they didn't. If you want to make money you do not go around alienating your customers.
They ARE alienating their readership
Such is their contempt for all of us - and the law. Why on earth are you and Richard going on about left/right politics? Its about power and money and the depths to which the police and governments of this country will now stoop
"liberals"
Why be an apologist for Murdoch just because you have a dislike of "liberals".
This is about criminality not left/right. Perhaps you should watch some examples of Fox "news" before deciding that neutrality in news reporting is such a bad thing.
Who said anything about disliking "liberals"?
I don't dislike "liberals" at all. I just think the "right" is just as entitled to have a voice and, if they want to, and if enough people want to watch it to sustain it commercially, a TV news channel. I imagine a Littlejohn/ Jon Gaunt - angled TV news channel would be pretty horrible really but I still think it has a right to exist.
I'm not an "apologist" for Murdoch. I can't stand The Sun and The News Of The World. But plenty of people like them and I don't think they should be sneered at for doing so. And nor do I think that what's happened at NOW - which I disapprove of as much as anyone - should disqualify Murdoch from buying a TV station. It's a small part of a very big media empire. Where do you draw the line? Should Murdoch films and TV programmes be banned?
And to answer FG's point I think this whole thing is political. Would the Guardian and BBC have made such a big deal of this if it was the Mirror that was found to have been listening in to incoming phone messages? Some people might think they would have done. I don't.
On your last point.
I do. Absolutely I do.
We'll have to agree to differ then
I don't. Nor do I think that this sort of thing only happened at News International.
If The Mirror had been suspected of hacking...
... into the phones of murder victims, the families of dead soldiers and the royals, the right wing press would have had a field day. Frankly The Guardian would still have had a field day. The tone would not be as ferocious and the coverage would not be as extensive because Trinity Mirror are not as influential as News International, but other papers would splash.
I repeat, hacked murder victims, soldiers and royalty. Revulsion at this is not restricted to those either on the left or the right.
I've not actually read this
sub-thread, but I know from experience that by the time things get this narrow, it's usually time to wheel out Rik (1m 25s):
Excerpt from "The Young Ones: 'Bored'".
Well ....
Of course you're right about the other papers it certainly happens there. I personally can hardly wait to see the Mail and Express group get theirs - but its the Mirror too. None of this is in doubt.
As to the kicking the Mirror would get - do you remember them faking the photos of British troops torturing prisoners in Iraq? It was a COLOSSAL row right across the hand-wringing end of the media as much as the Sun - and quite right too - and it was nothing like as big an offence as what the NoW did with Milly Dowler.
They've lived by the sword and they're dying by it - but you persist in seeing it as a liberal conspiracy against somebody's robust and popular right wing views. You're continually comparing apples with oranges. And this retribution is REALLY HAPPENING, its not what a bunch of bunny huggers like me WANT to happen.
If they've been doing the same in the States Murdoch is finished. Really finished.
Hmm.
"Do the BBC have the ability to intervene at the highest level with the workings of our democracy? Again - no."
Alastair Campbell would, no doubt, beg to differ on that one.
Ironically, the ABC1s have probably worked out that...
... you can fast forward through the ads with Sky+
Too right we have
I watched The Killing in real time channel 4 last week. Both me and Mrs LB spent the ad breaks pacing round the house making tea and looking for other things to do. We'll watch the sky+ recording this week.
Thanks for the grammar correction Bob
Endemic error in my use of English I've never been able to correct. Wife is always on to me about it.
Also drive my wife crazy with my cavalier disregard for the "i before the e except after c" rule.
your not my wife by any chance?
Ey!
It wasn't me who corrected your grammar! No fair!
Football
Just as the whole phone hacking scandal has been morphed into a "get-the-Murdochs" discussion, we're in danger of doing the same with football.
From an economic point of view, Murdoch's pumped huge amounts of money into the economy from this - the football clubs give this money to their players who then pay huge amounts of tax and NI. The rest has kept dressmakers, luxury car manufacturers, builders and suchlike in gainful employment.....
The main issue isnt football, and isn't Murdoch. The Daily Mail used the same investigators and spent more on them than NI yet appear to be whistling away as they run for the hills.
How important is football to the UK economy?
A while back, it was claimed that despite being very successful in the Premier League, Manchester United was a relative minnow financially with around £500m turnover (I have no idea how profitable they are, don't they spend money hand over fist on players?)
You're right but the dam has only just broken
Murdoch has more political power than the Daily Mail group but Paul Dacre certainly wields a significant clout as well. And as you point out they are more in it than the NoW. But none of this seemed likely a few months back.
I think the Screws got slapdash and stopped caring if they were caught or not - and the hatred for Murdoch has precipitated things far further and faster than expected when a few loose ends came unpicked.
And if the Murdochs can be driven to abandon the NoW in an attempt to wrest back control of events, despite which it looks like there will be a judge-led enquiry into the whole sorry mess, then the Mail's turn will surely come.
It really could be Watergate. Cameron really could be finished.
Robert Peston is now saying that NOTW....
... may have paid a royal protection officer for details of the mobile numbers of members of the Royal Family. It looks like they date from the period when Andy Coulson was editor.
You know I'm also starting to think that Watergate could be a valid comparison as well. If the prime ministers former spin doctor authorised the hacking of phones belonging to royalty, crime victims and relatives of war casualties, then we genuinely have an astonishing situation on our hands.
Watergates dont happen in the United Kingdon
The establishment does what it has always done - close ranks to protect itself.
For "Public Enquiry/Royal Commission" see - "kicked into long grass until everyone's* calmed down, then say they were all very naughty boys"
Knighthood anyone?
* For BassClef = not sure if this is the correct use of an apostroph'e. Yet another example of me being fast and loose with the language of Shakespeare.
Watergates dont happen in the United Kingdon
The establishment does what it has always done - close ranks to protect itself.
For "Public Enquiry/Royal Commission" see - "kicked into long grass until everyone's* calmed down, then say they were all very naughty boys"
Knighthood anyone?
* For BassClef = not sure if this is the correct use of an apostroph'e. Yet another example of me being fast and loose with the language of Shakespeare.
It was worth saying twice
In my view.
Something is changing though
I really don't think in a couple of years it will be back just the same as if nothing has happened. Too much dreadful stuff coming out and plenty more of it to come...
Speaking of journalistic hubris...
...it's not related, or nearly as big, but let's not forget that until last week, the biggest scandal in journalism was the execrable Johann Hari. The New Statesman, to their great credit, are still chasing Hari down after the plagiarism thing. It might be worthwhile googling "Johann Hari David Rose" and seeing where that takes you. Suffice it to say, I've had my suspicions about the rotund fabulist for a while now. Now they're not just suspicions.
Anyway, my point is this: in this country, the right wing press has become pretty powerful, but let's not kid ourselves that if the Indy or Mirror had ever been in the NOTW's position, they wouldn't have abused it just as merrily. Course they would. Our problems with our national press transcend left and right.
Yep
And it isn't really a left/right issue, its power. Blair and Brown grovelled before Murdoch (and Dacre too) in return for a generally easier ride than Labour PMs have had in the UK.
I do think that this is going to be much harder than usual for the Establishment to kick into the long grass, there are too many ways for the story to progress now without being dependent on what Fleet Street allows to emerge
On the Hari thing...
...here's Cristina Odone on the latest food for thought.
Wow
You know what? I've been a bit annoyed with all the anti-Hari stuff circulating recently. Not because I support what he's done, or think he has a get out of jail free card because he's on 'our' side but because I get tired of the This Week's Outrage thing.
But this...
My God. The implications of the information here (and in the Jack of Kent article) are pretty worrying. Pigeon feed compared to NOTW et al, but pretty dreadful when you consider that he represents 'proper' journalism and discourse.
It makes me question all those articles I've been so impressed with.
Yeah.
I've been pretty interested in the Hari story, but I can see why people are bored of the Twitchforking and internet pile-ons. But this was something else.
My previous view of him was that he was sanctimonious, selective with his evidence and didn't fact-check his articles at all well. As someone who broadly sympathises with that liberal-left agenda, this pissed me off doubly: we expect it from the Mail and co, but he liked to present himself as standing for better, and I expected better. The plagiarism thing made this infinitely worse, and the more I look into the sockpuppet not-quite-allegations-yet... well. It's interesting stuff.
What I'm looking forward to
and I'm not proud of this, honest, is how his fans on Twitter, including some who I hold in high regard, handle the aftermath of any such revelations (if indeed there are any). I'm not a particular fan of his, nor a particular detractor. I've read some of his stuff and it seemed to be well-researched and well-written (at least to my casual reading of them), but then these "rumourvations" come out and make me think "have I been hoodwinked?" I tended to trust him because he was followed and, for want of a better word, endorsed by people who themselves seemed to be trustworthy and likeable.
I guess the reason this interests me is because as a keen observer of Twitter and its rules and conventions I find it interesting how the immediacy of it can lead to hasty judgement or advocacy and how that relates, if at all, to subsequent retraction or reappraisal. This happened with the whole NOTW thing with some Tweeters very obviously avoiding the issue of the responsibility of NI. Some of these tweeters were employed by NI, some were clearly bezzies with NI employees, yet they mostly wanted to very much confine the nastiness to NOTW, just as Murdoch and Brooks did.
Interesting...
Private Eye was asking questions about Hari's methods years ago. I've always liked his writing, but hadn't ever quite forgotten the Eye allegations (from unreliable memory, I think they were to do with making up sensational "facts" in his articles?). The new revelations made me wonder about the old ones.
The Sky era
has given us uncompetitive top-flight football, obscenely overpriced ticketing, and an unsustainable business model which has forced clubs to cut every corner in order to make petulant, mediocre Liberian left-backs into multi-millionaires.
It has given us, in 2010-11, the most tedious season in professional sport since the invention of Alpen in 1753, and it has laughed in the face of local talent by filling it's academies with 6ft 7ins-tall Moldovan 11-year-olds.
They have also made it a criminal offence to represent your country unless you are an emotionally incontintent, hyper-lachrymal, graceless, coke-shovelling, fan-hating, super-injunctionising, potato-faced sister-in-law-fucking WIMP who spends the close-season gluing hair on to their forehead that has been gathered from underneath third-world barbers' chairs in a futile attempt to make themselves look less like a shrek-faced kiddie-fiddler on steroids.
Michel Platini? bring it on...
Liberia, Moldova, the third world...
...your boys took a hell of a beating.
Alpen
I bought a box of the sugar free version at lunchtime. I had no idea it had been around for so long.
2010-11, the most tedious season in professional sport
Assuming you're talking about the Premiership clubs (which of course is the one most affected by Sky money), you had a league decided in the last couple of weeks as per usual, you had an end of season relegation battle that changed 19 times in the course of the final afternoon, you had Birmingham winning the Carling Cup for the first time, you had Manchester City winning a trophy for the first time in 35 years, you had Spurs terrorising the best in Europe (for a while), you had Stoke in the cup final and into Europe for the first time ever. We had Blackpool beating those that shouldn't come close to them and only just failing to stay up, next year, there's Swansea in the Prem for the first time in years.
Yup, just tedious....
You've basically given me a
List of events and numbers which actually have very little to do with the game itself, thrilling as they might seem in their soap-opera-ish way . Spurs notwithstanding, it was a dull season on the turf, which is where it actually matters. The only real source of amazement was the fact that a team with as ramshackle a midfield as Man United managed to make every other team in Europe apart from Barcelona look like that really rubbish one in "Ripping Yarns".
And the fact that there's s team of sheep pesterers in the top flight for the first time in the post-Alpen era just isn't enough to set my soccerminge aquiver, I'm afraid.
Sorry...
Pax, you've lost me I'm afraid. If the progression of a competition with more genuine excitement about who wins and loses isn't about sport then what is?
One might argue
The actual quality of the fare on the pitch. The actual visceral emotion you get watching a game. That's what was drab.
Yes,
That's what I meant. Ta, mate.
Only two teams can win the competition, jockblue.
If you factor in the less likely results of 'tie' and 'sunk' in the boat race, the boat race is clearly a more competitive competition.
Apologies Bob, It was that Basscleff..
wot did it..
one for Rupert
I can't believe the amount of shite being spouted about Murdoch's so-called 'influence'. For once, I'd agree with Alastair Campbell. He states unequivocally that Labour didn't get elected in 1997 because the Sun backed them; rather, the Sun backed Labour because it thought Labour was going to win. Murdoch merely (and sensibly) backed the winning horse.
I completely disagree with the OP about the "slimy grip" of News International. Of course, there are folk who should be carrying the can for recent reprehensible behaviour (since when has journalism been seen as an honourable profession?), but -for all its faults- I would argue that the NotW was an important part of the British cultural landscape. Or rather, it's an important part of any cultural landscape that supports intellectual diversity.
As some folk have already pointed out, the rush to give News International a kicking opens the door to a real danger that certain freedoms of the press will be sacrificed. When a politician calls for 'more scrutiny' of the press, you can be assured that what he is asking for is 'less scrutiny' of politicians.
The other morning, I had BBC 5-Live on from 8am until mid-day. During that entire period (aside from brief news summaries and sport bulletins), they talked about nothing else apart from the NotW 'crisis'.
No agenda there, obviously.
No press freedom is being challenged
What is being challenged is corruption on a mind boggling number of levels. What is being challenged is:
1) That newspaper proprietors through labyrinthine links to the national media can peddle influence on a grand scale. No press freedom is being challenged here, in fact if anything, it is recalibrating the press' moral axis. It was press freedom which uncovered this scandal, how can it curtail it?
2) It's challenging why media companies have such a sway on legislation and issues of public policy and morality.
3) It's challenging the corruption of public institutions and their servants - why were a former senior terrorism copper and a tabloid editor mobbed up? Both have lied in public inquiries of one sort or another. Surely it's the role of a free press to make this public.
4) It's asking why the Prime Minister had someone who he (probably) knew had perjured himself in court as his most senior media aide? It was overtly to keep a communications channel open to an unelected media baron. Surely challenging this unelected power is the stuff of a free presss?
5) The NoTW was an important part of the cultural landscape of Britain, but the left wing press with their agendas didn't shut it down, Rupert & James Murdoch did, thinking they could pull a sly one. It's just no-one fell for it. Murdoch made those journalists unemployed not the BBC or the Guardian.
6) Finally, any investigation which implicates one of the world's biggest media figures in a corruption scandal in a grand scale, sees a key figure perjure himself in court, calls into question the judgement of the Prime Minister, lays open the corruption of public institutions and their servants and has a major bearing on media legislation in Britain, must be worth a morning's coverage.
It is the defining story of our era.
really?
"It is the defining story of our era".
That's only true for the chattering classes. I returned to work on Thursday after a short break abroad and, apart from one brief exchange on the Milly Dowler voicemails, I haven't yet heard anyone talking about it. It's still getting wall-to-wall coverage on the beeb, obviously.
All discussion of serious news...
...mostly only happens in a relatively small subsection of society, no? What does "the chattering classes" mean, anyway? Isn't that just a sneery way of saying "politically engaged people"?
"Isn't that just a sneery
"Isn't that just a sneery way of saying 'politically engaged people'?"
No.
Fair enough.
What does it mean, then?
chattering classes
I thought that phrase was commonly used to describe people who work in the media - pundits, journalists, correspondents, presenters etc.
IMO, they are usually all over stories about the media in a way that most 'ordinary' folk just aren't. I'd wager that most folk don't give a toss who owns a TV station or a newspaper. They just care about the cost and quality of the product.
The Milly Dowler revelations
I would have thought this bit was of interest to more than just a small, engaged minority. Or do you think the scandal will die down relatively quickly? I'm not so sure, myself.
None of my closest friends...
...and certainly none of my colleagues works anywhere near the media. Everyone I know has been talking about this - well, maybe not everyone, but certainly a majority.
I was genuinely looking for a meaning of "chattering classes" - I know the phrase, but never quite understood what it was supposed to signify. I always assumed - since you generally only hear it used on the right of the media's political spectrum - that it was just a sniffy way of dismissing the opinions of politically-engaged non-righties, a bit like "Guardianista". Glad to have my perception corrected.
"The Chattering Classes"
... those that have the sheer cheek to "chatter". The first minute or so of this clip more or less sums it up what those that use such a phrase could possibly mean ...
I didn't realise
You were employing such scientific methods.
quite
I'm clearly not employing scientific methods and I never claimed to be; I merely offered an honest observation based on my recent experiences. Do you think that observation is somehow invalid?
At the height of the MPs expenses scandal, everyone at work was talking about it. This story is all over the TV and radio and yet nobody I have met seems all that concerned.
Maybe I should put on a powerpoint presentation to rescue those poor benighted fools in the office from their ignorance? :)
To your questions,
Yes and no.
As for the rest - Wevs.
I'm not going to repeat myself. The reasons for it being the story or our era are self evident. In terms of home news, there has been nothing this newsworthy since, well actually can't remember when.
?
Do you mean 'yes' the observation is 'invalid'?
That would be quite a statement to make.
Yes
because in making that observation your assumption is 'my work mates aren't talking about it, therefore it's all the play thing of the chattering classes.'
That corollary is problematic.
If I have misread it then, apologies.
apology accepted
There was no 'assumption' on my part. I merely offered a little bit of anecdotal evidence that I thought relevant to the discussion, hence the comparison with stories about MPs expenses. I just don't get the sense that Joe Public is as engaged in this story.
One would have to be a spectacular idiot, surely, to conclude that 'me and my mates aren't talking about this, therefore nobody in the world is interested'.
If you're going to do a Powerpoint presentation
can I refer you to this? :-)
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/death-powerpoint
I think
a few people here have been talking about it.
Toxic Brands
I can't help wondering if someone might buy the News of the World brand. It's a toxic brand, but my impression is that the toxicity has leeched to the parent company. Someone buying the brand and relaunching it in a way that distances it from its recent history would probably do quite well.
I have no idea if it's even possible, mind. And you'd have to be one hell of a gambler to risk it.
Not necessarily
I already have a hunch that DMGT may well capitalise on the vaccuum and rush out a second title with NOTW's "new broom" Myler and the pick of his former team at the helm.
It seems that there IS still a degree of warmth for the title and a public perception that a lot of clean journalists were made to carry the can, and it would allow DMGT to exploit their disaffection, give them the space to restore their reputation, and attack NI, New Lab (who, lest we forget, cosied inside Murdoch's rectum for the best part of 14 years) and, above all else, the much-despised Cameron on two fronts.
If the worst comes to the worst it may also give DMGT the opportunity to launch a clean brand in case any mud sticks on the Mail in the coming months.
If anyone sees this whole thing as a victory for the left, then they're very much mistaken. I think we'll very shortly have a majority government of a much bluer hue once DC has been despatched, and they'll be very much driven by a Mail-style "public decency" initiative. What could help them is that NI don't have the power any more to blow the lid on the hypocrisies that undermined Major's "Back To Basics" agenda.
I think The Labour Party may well be damaged for a generation over the next year if the relevations keep coming this thick and fast, as their current leadership is not equipped to deal with this kind of storm.
Ah, do you remember the days when...
we used to write lists and talk bollocks about music round these parts ;-)
YDFMD.
Good point, well made
.
eh??
what's that then??
edit: don't worry Bob I just searched the site for the abbreviation.
Butterly Beats
Anything to do with biscuity base?
Utterly
Later than a Norman Hunter tackle chaps...
Please scroll upwards.
What they hacked peoples phones? shocking!
There's a certain comedy in watching the whole of the broadcast media drop its jaw, in what looks like a kind of mock amazement. If there is any surprise at all in this story, its not that it happened, but only how widespread it was. Its been common knowledge for years that this was going on, with reports and personal testimonies going back as far as 2002. Its only the lack of interest in the issue, and fear at tackling it, thats been interesting to see.
These other papers are now, quite deliberately, being given a short time period to cover themselves. Its fair to assume that there's a fair amount of running around like headless chickens doing just that as we speak...
As for the tone of the way this is being reported: I think the average man in the street was blissfully unaware until a few weeks ago, that listening to someone's phone calls or messages - was an offense of such an epic nature! Equivalent perhaps to murder, fraud or pedophilia.
Very amusing though is watching Murdoch, Brooks and Coulson being beseiged by reporters every time they poke their exhausted heads into the street. I'm a little disappointed I must say, that no one has done any serious investigation into their sexual lives yet. Serious investigation remember, means not just questions. But considerable sums of money slipped into envelopes and paid to relatives in parking lots.
You're making some reasonable points
But perjury and paying the police for information are criminal offences. And listening to the messages of murdered children - thereby damaging the police enquiry - or the phones of widows of soldiers is to put it mildly breaking whatever contract existed with the readership of the papers that support 'Our Boys'.
The papers have turned on their own readership and are treating the public with the same contempt they treat minor celebs. But - as with the banks who used our money as the stakes in their insane bets - we didn't even know we were part of the game
It also seems more than likely that as well as using the power of the press to bear down on politicians to make them accede to their owners commercial interests, there may be some actual blackmail going on - though in their lovable roguish way they probably saw it as 'monstering'.
'They're all at it' isn't enough to excuse this
"Contract with readership"
Yes I've now heard that "contract with readership" phrase used a few times with regard to this story. Unfortunately no such thing actually exists. Unless I missed it on page 13, next to the zoom shot of Jordan's boob job. Maybe I missed that issue, did it say "Please return this contract in the envelope provided, and do it before reading any further. Suckers"?
The first time I heard the phrase used on this story, was the Guardian editor on Newsnight. Lovely guy of course, but woefully idealistic like most of us lefties are.
I might be a woefully idealistic leftie
But this is ACTUALLY HAPPENING - its not some sort of hand-wringing aspiration - they've just hauled off the fucking Prime Ministers former communications director and the people who might be expected to not care - the suckers you describe - are very angry. Lets see what happens.
Look on my works, ye Mighty
and despair!
Everything that Rupert Murdoch values is disintegrating in front of his very eyes.
And there's not a damn thing he can do about it.
I'm glad he has lived to see it.
a word about the Mail
There are few comments above about Dacre. I'd argue that the Mail exercises an equally malevolent influence on public discourse in this country. Their whole philosophy is a moralising, high minded, little Englander mish mash of prejudices and populism.
Lets see whether this story turns up on their doorstep too. I'll be clapping if it happens. I'm sorry to see the NOTW fold. It was a good laugh at times and I never felt preached at or judged when I read it. But the Mail? I wouldn't use it to wipe my arse.
Damage to reputation?
Adam Curtis's piece on Murdoch from earlier this year sheds some light on whether Murdoch cares about reputation or money.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/01/rupert_murdoch_-_a_portrai...
Currently his family owns roughly 12% of News Corp valuing the stake at nearly $5bn. This has fallen some 13% since 5th July which must be deeply upsetting for the poor confused octogenarian but hardly disintegration.
This is very good.
Those kind folks at Gawker have uploaded a Daily Show clip where they discuss News International which can be watched without downloading a thing.
It is excellent.
http://gawker.com/5820243/jon-stewart-tackles-the-news-of-the-world-scan...
I John Oliver sums up the whole story, very well with:
Hugh Grant - "The guy that got car head from an LA prostitute is the moral compass of my nation."
This is a brilliant, pithy summing up from John Oliver and Jon Stewart. Well worth a watch.
http://gawker.com/5820243/jon-stewart-tackles-the-news-of-the-world-scan...
I like Jon Stewart and all that...
...but was quite put off by his "I'm throwing up" comedy routine whilst they were discussing this - it was an odd reaction to something that there is a lot of serious issues and good comic value to be had from without resorting to slapstick/toilet humour.
Geez, I sound like something from the Daily Mail now...
You do indeed...
... it genuinely struck me as an honest and funny response.
John Finnemore on The Now Show last week did something which you might prefer (That's not me being sneery by the way! It's genuinely good.)
Yes, that's better thanks!
I probably just have a thing about wretching:-)