What unadulterated twaddle.

News international is in no way a monopoly. Anyone is free to print and sell any old rubbish in the UK, as the money-losing Guardian so clearly shows us. TV and Radio, especcially with the advent of freeview and satellite TV, is also massively diverse now – much more so than when only terrestrial channels were available.

It’s basically lefties saying they don’t like Murdoch – though they weren’t signing that hymm when he was supporting Labour, were they?

Nor indeed has Murdoch himself, or any other News international arm been implicated in this phone hacking scandal.

Oh Tyler, pray tell, if you truly believe Murdoch to be such an inveterate Nu-Lab leftie, why are you wading into all these threads to defend him?

Also, it’s worth pointing out that the NotW made all that profit *while dealing in stolen goods*.

[2] Well, judging by your blog, you should know all about unadulterated twaddle, Tyler. It’s certainly been instructive watching the Tories over at pb.com defending Murdoch as though he was their own mother – which politically speaking I suppose he may be.

The OP makes one mistake, however: we are not the only country so compliant to Murdoch’s wishes – his influence in Australia is even greater, as might be expected, since it’s where his daddy began the family business in the first place. So it should all fall apart on James’s watch if “rags to rags in three generations” still holds good.

@1

“It’s basically lefties saying they don’t like Murdoch – though they weren’t signing that hymm when he was supporting Labour, were they? ”

Yes, we were. Signed – Lefties everywhere.

‘There are three solutions needed to ensure that it never recurs: the first is the rooting out of corruption; the second is reform of the media.

‘The third is the breakup of News International.’

The fourth is to end the market for ‘stories’ based on no more than prurience.

The distinction between private and public life has been eroded because of market forces that commodify every aspect of ‘celebrity’ life on the one hand, and an intrusive State that monitors our every move on the other.

We need to recover a sense of respect for other people’s privacy.

The fourth is to end the market for ‘stories’ based on no more than prurience.

The distinction between private and public life has been eroded because of market forces that commodify every aspect of ‘celebrity’ life on the one hand, and an intrusive State that monitors our every move on the other.

We need to recover a sense of respect for other people’s privacy.

I agree but I’m not optimistic.

This has been going on for many, many years. But ‘the public’ wasn’t bothered about invasions of privacy of people in the public eye – politicians and celebrities and suchlike. As I see it, it’s only the dead children and soldiers that have got their gander up.

@1

Tyler, you’re full of crap. Quit the implicit suggestion that it’s all the Guardian’s fault.

And what’s this about “any other News International arm being implicated”? And why are you stopping at phone hacking?

Hell, it’s as if we were back two years ago and the right were all whining about it being a non-story. It isn’t. Get over it.

“and is in no way answerable to the British public.”

That simply isn’t true. The British public buy Mr Murdoch’s newspapers. They may, if they wish, stop buying them. If they were to do so, Mr Murdoch would go out of business.

“This is one man, one organisation, who can essentially censor the elements of the news that they do not like, and in a democratic society this is inexcusable. We are the only country to be so compliant and accepting of this.”

You what?

I challenge you to name one mainstream media organisation in the world that does not “censor… elements of the news”. Murdoch is one of the worst right enough, but it’s foolish to pretend there’s any real alternative (a ‘clean’ media).

@9

Hmm but there are steps that could be taken to limit the influence, (off the top of my head) say one particular media company only allowed to own a small percentage of media etc.

“That simply isn’t true. The British public buy Mr Murdoch’s newspapers. They may, if they wish, stop buying them. If they were to do so, Mr Murdoch would go out of business.”

Not that simple though, is it? See Tyler’s whinge upthread about the Guardian, for example. Or consider that no-one *buys* Metro, or buys the Evening Standard any more.

Looks like Murdoch’s real reason for closing the NOTW is that he can now legally destroy documents relating to wrongdoing at the newspsper. Anyone know of how he can be stopped? Injunction?

“This is perhaps a once in a generation chance to challenge the Murdoch empire and to break up this un-democratic blight on our society – it must be taken.”

Even if Murdoch goes he will simply be replaced by another wealthy right-wing psychopath whose media will be given a licence to lie just like Murdoch’s is.

This country is corrupt to the core and is beyond redemption. The only solution is to burn down the rotten edifice and rebuild again from scratch. Only fire can purify the filth and corruption of this country.

Few things make me reach for the off switch faster than the combination of Andrew Neill and Michael Portillo but Alan Johnson made the point on last night’s This Week that by approving payments without fully investigating the circumstances James Murdoch could be open to charges under RIPA

You don’t have to be a NI groupie to point out that the claim that Murdoch has a virtual monopoly on news media in the UK and can control which stories get heard and which don’t is plain daft. He didn’t do a very good job at keeping the hacking scandal quiet did he? The biggest news and media organisation in the UK is the BBC and that is state owned. Add to that the Guardian, The Independent, The Mail, Express, Telegraph, ITN and that interweb thing and it is obvious that Murdoch is only one voice among many. His power lies in his ability to sell papers, not his stranglehold over the market. I am delighted that hacking scandal has been exposed and I hope that there are bigger scalps to come, but there is no call for hysteria. And don’t forget that journos on all those respectable non-Murdoch papers are implicated as well.

My mum and my sister read the NotW. Should I think of them as chavs?

Yet yesterday’s loss of a newspaper has given rise, at best, to speculative analysis of what is going on inside News International, or at worst to expressions of schadenfreude and glee that the four million dimwits who liked reading phone-hacked stories about Wayne Rooney on a Sunday morning will no longer be at liberty to do so. Many of those politically sensitive commentators who shake their heads in solemn fury upon hearing that a newspaper in a place like Belarus has closed down have barely been able to contain their excitement about the self-immolation of a tabloid here at home.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10746/

“He didn’t do a very good job at keeping the hacking scandal quiet did he?”

He didn’t?

Haven’t you hear about the scandal vimothy?

@10

So how are you going to restrict media companies to only a small percentage of the market?

If a media comapny has a particularly popular product how do you propose to restrict it?

@ 13 Bruce Wayne

“This country is corrupt to the core and is beyond redemption. The only solution is to burn down the rotten edifice and rebuild again from scratch. Only fire can purify the filth and corruption of this country.”

Cool it, Torquemada.

Some of us have been saying for years that the Met was taking money from The gutter press, for information, and was very selective about what it investigated. but the tory trolls just laughed, and screamed “conspiracy theories don’t exist.”

Some of us have been saying for years that the gutter press was acting illegally and tapping peoples phones,. Some of us have longed since thought that the gutter press has nothing but contempt for its readers, its staff, and indeed groups like the armed forces and the victims of crime who the papers cynically cosy up to . Pretending that they “back out brave boys“ or share in the “pain of your loss” But the tory trolls screamed “conspiracy theories don’t exist”

Some of us have been saying for years that the politicians are terrified of Murdoch, and that his papers are very important to getting elected. (Murdoch has not lost an election all the way back to 1974.) But the tory trolls screamed “conspiracy theories don’t exist, his papers have no power”

I would just like to say to all those tory morons, and New Labour scum…..Fuck you!

…Or, come to think of it, why is someone called Bruce Wayne repeating the creed of Ra’s al Ghul? Strange things afoot in Gotham City!

To be honest, I don’t really read the papers or watch television, but from what I can gather from the odd Oborne column, this has been kept quiet for years, papers other than the Guardian have failed to cover it in any depth until now when the full scale of the NotW’s shameful behaviour is no longer ignorable, the PCC didn’t do its job properly, Ed Miliband didn’t want to mention it for fear of the NI response, Cameron is in the clique anyway…

So it seems fair to say that Murdoch has done a pretty good job at keeping the scandal quiet until now. Perhaps I’m missing something though. I dunno, if this can somehow be blamed on the Guardian and the BBC, that’s cool with me.

Tyler being a dick as usual….. “It’s basically lefties saying they don’t like Murdoch – though they weren’t signing that hymm when he was supporting Labour, were they? “

Oh dear, you really don’t understand do you? New Labour was not left wing.

Fascinating how the tory trolls always want to give the benefit of the doubt, and due process to their right wing thug heroes. The NOW, or any other Murdoch rag never cares about due process when they are “ruining other peoples lives.” Print and be dammed is their call. Yet, whenever these right wing monsters get caught, they always run to their lawyers, and demand the best legal protection they can buy. These same people who attack defence lawyers and “political correctness gone mad” always want the best protection they can get. Murdoch, Conrad Black and his ludicrous wife, they are all the same. Sanctimonious hypocrites. Laws, morals, and taxes are for the little people.

“He didn’t do a very good job at keeping the hacking scandal quiet did he?”

Well, I’m not sure you or I would get away with blatantly selling stolen goods for the best part of decade (although a coterie of useful idiots bleating ‘move on, nothing to see here’ would no doubt help us string it out for a little while).

“Well, I’m not sure you or I would get away with blatantly selling stolen goods for the best part of decade (although a coterie of useful idiots bleating ‘move on, nothing to see here’ would no doubt help us string it out for a little while).”

Everybody in the media was buying and selling this stuff, the police were involved politicians hate taking on the press, it is incredibly hard to prove and yet it still came out. Hurray for the open society. If Murdoch had the control over the press that is being claimed by some hysterics, he would simply have squashed the story.

I suspect these people took labour at it’s word, I’m disabled, when I phone up the council they have a speech recognition device or as it’s called a lie detector listening in.

Then you had Labour hiring a company to check out all disabled peoples bank accounts, did not matter if your innocent or guilty we were all cheats or scroungers.

Between phone calls being checked, any credit cards were checked to find if I was spending more then I had in benefits living beyond my means. Our phone calls could be checked, people could enter our homes any council official would be allowed into my home to ensure I did not have a Plasma TV.

I suspect the News papers just took labour checks one step further.

25. Neil

Well, I’m not sure you or I would get away with blatantly selling stolen goods for the best part of decade (although a coterie of useful idiots bleating ‘move on, nothing to see here’ would no doubt help us string it out for a little while).

Why not? Every other fence does. You have to be *really* *really* dumb to be caught by the police doing anything. Something like selling stolen goods is one step removed from the actual victims and so the chances of doing jail time is next to zero.

However here it is more complex. The goods were not blatantly stolen. The law takes a while to catch up with technology. We are not dealing with high tech crime here. They simply phoned up someone’s mobile and accessed their voice box by guessing most people were too lazy to change the defaults. Which many were. It is hard to see exactly what law was broken at the time. The law has got tougher now but why should anyone have assumed this was in any way illegal?

“Everybody in the media was buying and selling this stuff, the police were involved politicians hate taking on the press, it is incredibly hard to prove and yet it still came out. Hurray for the open society. If Murdoch had the control over the press that is being claimed by some hysterics, he would simply have squashed the story.”

Well he very nearly did squash the story. Seeing as the police that were in his papers pay did not fully investigate the issue. They have been sitting on thousand of documents. Why was that? Because they were taking backhanders thats why. Murdoch ownerd the politcal class, and the police. Thank goodness for a few brave souls who fought against such tyrany.

Always good to see the tory trolls standing up for the right wing thugs.

“If Murdoch had the control over the press that is being claimed by some hysterics, he would simply have squashed the story”

But hasn’t it been covered up for years? Therefore, how does it make sense to argue that it could not have been covered up at all, because we found out about it eventually?

“Well he very nearly did squash the story. Seeing as the police that were in his papers pay did not fully investigate the issue. They have been sitting on thousand of documents. Why was that? Because they were taking backhanders thats why. ”

Exactly, you answer your own question. The police did not investigate because the police were involved, not because Murdoch has a near monopoly on the news media. More to the point perhaps, and less comfortable for all the BBC boosters, is why the BBC did not expose this years ago. Perfect fodder for Panorama, I would have thought, but more difficult to do than Strictly.

“But hasn’t it been covered up for years? Therefore, how does it make sense to argue that it could not have been covered up at all, because we found out about it eventually?”

It HAS been covered up. All I am saying is that the cover up was not a consequence of Murdoch’s media control. When the story broke, he could do nothing to suppress it, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it in his papers. I am not saying Murdoch is not a powerful man, he just isn’t as powerful as this article would have us believe. He has his many faults (and his real virtues) but creating these folk devils is just silly.

Torquil – you’ve just constructed a circular argument there.

Torquil: So what you are saying is that because the story was covered up, it could not have been covered up? Or because the conspiracy to cover up this madness was so vast, it was not really a conspiracy?

@vimothy – LOL.

Maybe he means the BBC should use their state-funded time machine to send a Panorama reporter back ten or fifteen years and make a documentary all about this scandal which wouldn’t have happened happened yet by then thus proving Rupert an never cover up anything ever.

Or something.

In each of the four segments (Daily/Sunday, Tabloid/Broadsheet), NI has one title. Not close to a monopoly be even the loosest definition. Besides, the premise of this argument is that the problem was confined to NI titles which is nonsense. The reason only the Grauniad could run with it is because every other paper was implicated. As much fun as it is to kick the Digger, it’s not the point. The problems identified go far beyond NI and this point scoring is only obscures the point. Partisan arguments are equally misplaced for two reasons; firstly we had 13 years to deal with this and didn’t secondly it plays into the hands of the tabs if they can portray it as a party issue. A press that is not above the law is in everyone’s interest.

@32. Torquil Macneil

I agree to some extent re folk devils. But given the context that seems dangerously close to a defence of the indefensible. Everyone responsible deserves to excoriated and publicly shamed, exiting stage-left with their reputations in shreds, never to be seen again, unless it is in a court of law or a pillory.

It’s true that progressives think they are the Rebel Alliance fighting for truth and justice against the awesome power of the Empire, when in fact they are the goddamn establishment. But I don’t see how that’s relevant here. What the NotW did was shockingly in its immorality and there is no getting away from that, as far as I can see. You can’t defend these bozos and maintain the moral high ground–it’s one or the other, I’m afraid.

“Torquil: So what you are saying is that because the story was covered up, it could not have been covered up? Or because the conspiracy to cover up this madness was so vast, it was not really a conspiracy?”

Vimothy, I thought I was pretty clear. I am saying that the conspiracy was covered up like all conspiracies are covered up. A non-covered-up conspiracy is just a plan. But, contra this article, the cover up was not due to the near monopoly media control of Murdoch. He has no such monopoly and is, in fact less influential in the UK media than the BBC. Why did the BBC not expose the scandal? Well that is a worthwhile question, but the answer won’t be that the BBC is under Murdoch’s direct or indirect control, or IS it?

If Murdoch had the control over the press that is being claimed by some hysterics, he would simply have squashed the story.

And if Nixon had been as powerful as some claimed at the time, he would never have been impeached.

Thing is, if he had actually had enough power and influence to prevent impeachment. once exposed, then those saying so wouldn’t have been _hysterical_, they would have been _right_. And, as I understand it, impeachment was a political fight that could plausibly have gone either way.

It’s not generally true that ‘that does not destroy you makes you stronger’. But it is true that surviving things that would destroy anyone else is unarguable proof of pre-existing strength.

For example, there was an incident in 1930′s Italy where it was successfully proved, to most people’s satisfaction, that Mussolini had some political opponent killed. Some expected that to lead to his downfall. Instead, it just meant he became the guy in charge who everyone knew could have anyone killed.

If Murdoch comes put of this still owning 2 newspapers and a TV station, then he will be the guy who everyone knows can do what he wants, get away with anything.

That will not be good.

“Maybe he means the BBC should use their state-funded time machine to send a Panorama reporter back ten or fifteen years and make a documentary all about this scandal ”

What I mean is that the BBC should have used its enormous state-funded power and resources to expose this scandal at some time in the last fifteen years. Surely you agree with that? Why it didn’t or couldn’t is an interesting question.

Tyler – I’ve been saying this even during the time that The Times and The Sun supported Labour. This isn’t party politics – this is principles. No, no other News International arm have been implicated. But they should know what is going on in the groups that they own, and they should deal with it, or they’re simply not good owners.

Mike Killingworth – Point taken, Australia may be lenient too, but the vast majority aren’t.

Shatterface – Whilst I tend to agree, I agree with ukliberty on this one.

Oliver Hutchings – Murdoch isn’t accountable. His newspapers aren’t accountable. The choice is, accept the paper 100% as it is or don’t buy it. What if you want to read the News of the World for instance but don’t want the phone hacking? There’s no room to push NI to drop a particular part of it. Likewise, he has far too much power for an unaccountable figure.

J – Of course there are things missed out by every newspaper. But the trouble is, other newspapers are independent. Something missed by, for example, the Telegraph may be picked up on by, for instance, the Guardian. But if three papers censor information on one group’s wishes then this is a much bigger problem.

“And if Nixon had been as powerful as some claimed at the time, he would never have been impeached.”

That doesn’t follow. The claim was never made that Nixon had monopoly power over the US media. Or even the US executive. Nixon, notoriously, thought his power was undermined and diminished by just about everybody.

The fourth is to end the market for ‘stories’ based on no more than prurience.

The distinction between private and public life has been eroded because of market forces that commodify every aspect of ‘celebrity’ life on the one hand, and an intrusive State that monitors our every move on the other.

Well, that should be easy. After all, it’s not as if the market in popular journalism ever since the invention of the printing press has been in sensational stories about peoples’ private lives or anything.

Damn those pesky 18th century market forces.

No way, that would leave us at the mercy of the BBC with its leftish agenda self regarding bias and greed for our money. On Public Sector Pay, its coverage has been virtually identical to the forgivably one sided TUC line .Quite astonishing
Look at the way it treated the loss of jobs at Bombardier … hardly a mention of the EU and as for cuts ..well they never stop
Without Murdoch we would never have broken the Unions and we would not have
Its the BBC that has to be broken
State sponsored celebrity dancing competitions why why why ? State Pop radio why ? why? why? !!!.
Murdoch gave us 24 hour news ( no need said the Beeb) and in fact just about every advance in the media with the Beeb trailing behind me to-ing at every step

From the original post

This is one man, one organisation, who can essentially censor the elements of the news that they do not like, and in a democratic society this is inexcusable. We are the only country to be so compliant and accepting of this.

I take it Rupert Murdoch (a man who I do not think is a good thing) can control the internet, the majority share of the print journals and the majority share of terrestial TV, never mind almost all radio?

None of which he owns…

I can accept an argument that Mr Murdoch has too much power and influence in the media, but not when it is put like this. Especially since the entire point of the scandal reaching boiling point was not that there was illegal activity (Tom Watson et al had been pushing that for ages with no real outcomes) but that the activities were immoral and clearly wrong to the general public and advertisers (who take note of the public mood) and therefore required action. It was an expected and likely uprising by the readers and popular opinion that caused the scandal to have such dramatic results (and indeed, to return to front pages other than the Guardian’s). In effect, it was the fact that the consumers of the News of the World were considered unable to accept the behaviours involved which forced hands (and forced other media outlets to focus on the story).

@44

Are you employed by Murdoch or something?

“end the market for ‘stories’ based on no more than prurience”

Silly Cnut.

@38

“Why did the BBC not expose the scandal?”

cos of right-wing arseholes complaining about the use of license fee money to pursue what other media orgs may or may not be up to. the Guardian took a huge risk investing so much time & resources into this issue remember.

That doesn’t follow. The claim was never made that Nixon had monopoly power over the US media.

Well no, as he was President, not a media baron.

Or even the US executive.

I think it is generally held that the President of the USA does does have significant sway, if not monopoly power, over the US government, Is your point that existence of Congress and so on made it ok to have a criminal as President?

I would have said it works the other way round: having an open criminal as president would have meant that, as in say the Soviet Union, all those other things were meaningless paper tigers.

Right-wingers have some obsession with ‘monopoly’, as if bad things only ever came one at a time. That’s obvious nonsense: should the police refuse to arrest a murder because ‘there are other murderers out there?’

If someone is running 30% of the criminality in a city, that should make them a high-priority police target. If it doesn’t, if they shrug and say ‘hey, he’s only one amongst many’, then you know what kind of city you are living in.

“Are you employed by Murdoch or something?”

No way. His stuff’s always impeccably subbed.

@ 44 Paul Newman

“No way, that would leave us at the mercy of the BBC with its leftish agenda self regarding bias and greed for our money”

First, the Beeb has a mandate to be impartial. Look it up.

Second, are you seriously accusing the BBC of being greedy and biased in its own interests in comparison to a paper owned by Rupert fucking Murdoch? Because that would be taking confirmation bias to a pretty impressive level, let me tell you!

@16

Spiked in “apologist for something clearly wrong” shocker.

Golly, the righties are in a tizz, aren’t they? Protesting a bit too much now that their sugar daddy looks a bit shaky.

“No way. His stuff’s always impeccably subbed.”

I doubt it will be this weekend!

Problem is: how can you regulate newspapers in the digital age?

If Alan Rusbrdger is to be believed, the dead-tree press will be history in 3 or 4 years time. Then Rupert Murdoch will be just like Sunny Hundal – a bloke who owns some websites.

Are those proposing state regulation of newspapers also proposing the regulation of blogs?

If not, how will you distinguish between newspapers, webzines, blogs etc once the printed versions fold?

Until News International fires Rebekah Brooks and begins to co-operate with the police fully, surely we need to pressurise advertisers to boycott the whole of News International. Renault have taken that step. Why not others?

Golly, the righties are in a tizz, aren’t they? Protesting a bit too much now that their sugar daddy looks a bit shaky.

As a rightie (not a wrongie… or a leftie…) I would worry about anyone on the rightwing who wanted to stand up for Mr Murdoch’s media empire over their behaviour. Indeed, I’d be happy to see Mr Murdoch go away from our public life for ever – he has a baneful influence because stupid politicians seem to think he sets the agenda rather than reflecting it. I do worry many celebrating this seem to think the same thing mind…

Mind you, some rightwingers are purely tribal, and for some reason see Mr Murdoch as one of theirs. Odd really – but if you see politics as a football match, I suppose you’ll always assume the referees (the media in the analogy…) are bias in one way or another.

Owen,

Until News International fires Rebekah Brooks and begins to co-operate with the police fully, surely we need to pressurise advertisers to boycott the whole of News International. Renault have taken that step. Why not others?

Any campaign on these lines will have to address the minor problem that the public perception is that News of the World was in the wrong, not News International.

Anyway, lets see if Ms Brooks survives the police investigation first. That her resignation was not accepted suggests she may have some distance from the problems (and indeed, we should technically consider she might be innocent).

Actually, now that I look at it, persecution of an individual because of something illegal they are assumed to have done is surely taking the law into your own hands? There is something very distasteful about the idea of trying to campaign politically against an individual who has not been convicted of anything.

“I think it is generally held that the President of the USA does does have significant sway, if not monopoly power, over the US government”

I shall tell Barack that next time he calls to cry on my shoulder over his budget.

Chaise – Murdoch has to sell .If people wanted the Guardian he would sell that . The BBC is free to do whatever it wants and is demonstrably leftish .Numerous ex employees have said so Andrew Marr for example but many more .
Polly Toynbee was the editor of social affairs for a number of years ion the 90s Chaise ..POLLY TOYNBEE
How do you feel about letting Simon Heffer have a few years?

I think Watchman has been taking lessons from Comical Ali.

Regardless of the findings of the Met and even if the government try to protect Coulson it will be to no avail. He perjured himself in Glasgow High Court and the SNP administration in Edinburgh through the Crown Office will ensure he faces trial for perjury regardless of what happens in London. Five years in jail I reckon.

I agree with the OP that the whole News Corp is a rotten to the core peddlers of hate organisation. News International is clearly a criminal enterprise and should be taken-over by the government and split up with the capital returned to the shareholders. It is simply too corrupt to reform.

“Vimothy, I thought I was pretty clear.”

I thought so too.

But look, there are two things:

1, The fact that others in the media class are also compromised does not excuse anybody for anything. To say otherwise is to commit the tu quoque fallacy. NotW violated some elementary norms and standards of behaviour. What they did was bad (really, really bad), and they should be censured and then punished accordingly, regardless of anything else anyone else might have done or not done.

2, The extent of the cover-up does not prove that Murdoch does not have monopoly power in the market for political influence. You cannot point to the fact that Murdoch/NI doesn’t directly control institutions and organisations that nevertheless acted in his interests and then, say, hey, that shows that Murdoch’s/NI’s influence is limited.

@ 60 Paul Newman

“Chaise – Murdoch has to sell.”

So? Is that supposed to prove his papers aren’t biased? If not, what’s your point?

“If people wanted the Guardian he would sell that .”

Not quite. Obviously he’d keep reflecting the outlook of his target audience, but the Guardian, unlike the NotW, is not in the habit of twisting the truth to suit the personal agenda of its owner.

“The BBC is free to do whatever it wants”

Nonsense. It has to maintain a reasonable degree of neutrality. It does its best and still gets constant moaning from people on both sides of the spectrum who assume that their personal view must be the middle of the road.

“…and is demonstrably leftish.”

Demonstrate it then.

“Numerous ex employees have said so Andrew Marr for example but many more.”

…And Andrew Marr & friends are free from bias, are they?

“Polly Toynbee was the editor of social affairs for a number of years ion the 90s Chaise ..POLLY TOYNBEE”

Seeking neutrality does not mean only employing robots from the Neutral Planet. The BBC also employs Nick Robinson, so what’s your point?

Richard W,

I think Watchman has been taking lessons from Comical Ali.

Regardless of the findings of the Met and even if the government try to protect Coulson it will be to no avail. He perjured himself in Glasgow High Court and the SNP administration in Edinburgh through the Crown Office will ensure he faces trial for perjury regardless of what happens in London. Five years in jail I reckon.

Not sure what you’re getting at there Richard – I don’t like News International much (maybe their habit of gradually reducing the retailers margins on their papers put me off them…), nor do I like the witchhunt some people seem to want to launch against individuals, or indeed a company. We have a rule of law you know, and you can’t just ignore that. Otherwise you’re wierdly in the same place as the News of the World editorial team members (whoever they were) who allowed the illegal practices… It is quite possible for everyone in a debate to be in the wrong, and I worry that people’s over-enthusiastic reactions lead to just that.

So for whom am I acting as an appologist/Minister of Information? Myself – I’ll accept. News International – not really, since I would not mourn their passing and suspect (but until there is evidence can do no more than that) that the criminal activity was known to senior figures. The idiot witchhunting mob? Not really my thing, and stupid – and indeed if misplaced likely to misfire and let people off the hook (if you go round printing enough accusations that Ms Brooks cannot do her job because she is guilty, her lawyers can claim she could never get a fair trial if she was brought to court).

That Mr Coulson may well be guilty is not something I denied (or mentioned on this thread) – I have defended him in the past because there was no evidence brought forward to implicate him; this time, it looks pretty bad, and he may have made my past decision look wrong (hey – I’m turning into the Prime Minister here…). I doubt this will get to Scotland (anyway, a Scottish court has jurisdiction to try someone resident in England for a crime in Scotland without any political involvement – if Alex Salmond does get involved, that would look rather bad to me).

“Only fire can purify the filth and corruption of this country.”

I think a swift use of the bat-phone will be enough really

“POLLY TOYNBEE”

One of the original founders of the SDP. So more right wing than labour in 1983. As usual right wingers lack understanding of what being left wing actually is. Polly Toynbee only gets highlighted as a ‘left winger’ because she is a lightweight and thus right wingers find it easy to fisk her columns. No different to left wing blogs fisking nadine dorries.

Sunny defending Kia Abdullah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-t4pdP_AOY

Well done, LC had the moral highground for about 24 hours.

“Problem is: how can you regulate newspapers in the digital age?”

I think there are now several issues that any inquiry needs to tackle in addition to hacking. The role of super-injunctions and litigation against websites is of course the other side of this coin. One thing that tends to unite both the left wing and the right wing blogs is when a wealthy individual or corporation uses threats to silence investigations. I think it is a fair assumption that we are all in favour of having a media that is able to expose wrong-doing by powerful people, just as it is fair that we’d be in favour of people – particularly people who have done nothing wrong – having a right to privacy and protection from hatchet jobs. As it stands the balance is entirely the wrong way around, with rich people able to protect themselves in the courts, and poor people having none.

It isn’t beyond the intelligence of both left and right wing bloggers to come up with some proposals for legal changes that can reverse that, and for a united campaign on this.

58. Watchman

So for whom am I acting as an appologist/Minister of Information?

“Actually, now that I look at it, persecution of an individual because of something illegal they are assumed to have done is surely taking the law into your own hands? ”

She is not being persecuted merely the subject of media scrutiny. I am sure she is familiar with that concept.

“… that the criminal activity was known to senior figures. ”

Of course it was known to senior figures as they used company funds to pay police officers. That implicates the whole company as a criminal enterprise.

” Scottish court has jurisdiction to try someone resident in England for a crime in Scotland without any political involvement – if Alex Salmond does get involved, that would look rather bad to me. ”

The Crown Office have already instructed Strathclyde police to launch an investigation for a possible perjury. It is the Prime Minister who has no jurisdiction or powers of direction over the Scottish Crown Office. If you think Salmond is going to pay any attention to what Mr Cameron wants you are barking. If they decide to prosecute him it is just a simple matter of issuing a warrant.

“Police probe suspected deletion of emails by NI executive”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/08/phone-hacking-emails-news-international

I’m getting the (sinking) feeling that at the end of the day, it will be conclusively proved that it were the janitor wot done it.

Has anyone opened a book on the sentences if any of this gets to trial?

Mr S.Pill

@16

Spiked in “apologist for something clearly wrong” shocker.

There were a few good lines in it though.

A self-described ‘high-minded’ columnist in The Times, keen to distance itself from its stablemate the News of the World, says there are ‘several journalisms in Britain’ – there’s the one ‘represented by people like me and those I have worked with at The Times, the Independent and the Guardian’ and then there are ‘our exotic colleagues’. Hugh Grant, actor-turned-hero-of-the-anti-hacking-campaign, put it more bluntly on BBC 1’s Question Time: ‘I’m not for regulating the proper press, the broadsheet press. But we need regulation of the tabloid press.’ There you have it: this is about Us and Them, the Enlightened and the Annoying. There are proper people and improper ones, decent media and scummy media, and the latter must be policed and possibly punished.

@66

“I wouldn’t defend what she said” – Sunny Hundal, 2.42 on that video.

The other guy was far worse, bringing race into the discussion and comparing an (admittedly awful) attempt at humour on Twitter to having sex with a corpse.

Nice try though.

oh and @70

I grudgeingly agree that is a good point, but Hugh Grant does not speak for me nor millions of others who want press reform at both ends of the market. Also the implication by Spiked that only working class people read tabloids is a bit daft – the notion that you have to have a bit of money to read the Times or whatever is a bit old-fashioned IMO (though I won’t deny there’s been a fair bit of barely concealed class hatred going on).

This phone hacking story originally broke because twits working on and for the NotW hacked into royal voicemail boxes. For that they were duly tried, convicted and sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. Only gradually did it seep out that the hacking had extended to a growing list of celebrities – as well as, probably, politicians and other public figures – and that some members of the Police force had been paid for information.

Does anyone seriously suppose that the FT – easily the most expensive daily broadsheet – or, perhaps more importantly, its readers are interested in royal title tatle or gossip about celebrities? I suspect a goodly percentage of FT readers get the paper precisely to avoid just that sort of news and salacious gossip.

Try this (? perceptive) brief about Britain’s daily press:
http://worldnews.about.com/od/7/qt/britishtabs.htm

There used to be a prevailing view in western Europe that Britain’s tabloid press was a national disgrace.

Chaise , the Guardian habitually twists the truth to suit its political agenda and appeal to the Public Sector middle -classes who buy it. Look at its coverage of teachers Pensions for example. It is financed to a large extent by its monopoly of job adverts for the Public Sector which acts as a bung form the state and could be replaced by one cheap web site. So it sings exactly the tune its collectivist paymasters require of it and it does so quite openly. Did you not notice the howls of anguish when Cameron threatened to do just that , of course the Lib Dems won`t have it
I do not object to that especially I don`t have to buy it
I am however forced to pay for the BBC. You want evidence? Well the best evidence is perhaps the Wilson report which reviewed the BBC coverage of the little matter of our entry into the Common Market the report highlighted the institutional mindset as the main problem and concluded there was significant bias . Its coverage of the EU was analysed over five years in the 90s and a ration of 2 to 1 was found between pro and anti EU voices a ratio wildly out of line with the country .
That this organisation entirely failed to alert the British to the significant loss of sovereignty at the time of the referendum could not be clearer
It is not all bad of course and has made some effort to improve its front line news over the last few years faced with the outright fury of the entire right of the country. To his credit the Labour supporter John Humphreys, for example, did not let the BBC spokesman get away with your false equivalence (” It is criticised by both ends of the spectrum”. He immediately scoffed and demanded the apologist admit that it was the Conservative Party who were the the critics 90% of the time as any fule do know
Make of that what you will , yes there are standards but there is also a problem and there always will be whilst we have a blanket state coverage way out of line with comparable countries . Reform is badly needed as it is in education health and much more. people want choice and competition not to be spoon fed by some kindly auntie form the 1940s

“I am however forced to pay for the BBC.”

No so. I gave up renewing my TV License back in early 2009 because I’d long since given up the tedious daily task of trying to find anything worth watching on TV and because I was outraged by the reports of the puerile humour of Jonathan Ross and the exorbitant cost of his contract. That was before news emerged about the expenses charged by BBC staff and the salaries and bonuses paid to senior BBC executives. Hardly a wonder that there was so little money left in the kitty to make interesting TV programmes.

Earlier this year I had a spate of cold calls on my phone asking if my BSkyB equipment was working satisfactorily. All very strange as I wasn’t a subscriber and had no BSkyB equipment. In fact, I’ve never watched satellite or cable TV.

@72

….. but Hugh Grant does not speak for me nor millions of others who want press reform at both ends of the market. Also the implication by Spiked that only working class people read tabloids is a bit daft

Steve Coogan also comes across as a bit holier-than-thou. It must be nice having a few million in the bank and having a life of leisure. And of course, anyone can read the tabloids, but I don’t know anyone in my real life who would have known anything about last week’s Johann Hari story, or would have read his interviews with Hugo Chavez etc.
Surely there is some class distinction there. For those who would want to read an interview with Antonio Negri and those that would never want to do so even if you paid them.

@ 66 Comrade Tebbit

“Sunny defending Kia Abdullah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-t4pdP_AOY

Well done, LC had the moral highground for about 24 hours.”

I just had a listen to that. What I heard was Sunny trying to argue some rationality into a guy who was bent on turning a bad joke into a race issue. The guy claimed that a white journalist in the same situation would have faced a hate mob – and when Sunny pointed out that the same thing had happened to Abdullah, he immediately moved the goalposts halfway across the field and claimed Sunny was trying to garner sympathy.

In other words, this guy was trying to bully Sunny by twisting the argument instead of arguing rationally, and Sunny was standing up to him. Where exactly did he lose the moral highground?

@74 Paul Newman

“Chaise , the Guardian habitually twists the truth to suit its political agenda and appeal to the Public Sector middle -classes who buy it. Look at its coverage of teachers Pensions for example.”

There is a difference between biased journalism, in the form of prioritising stories and views that back the beliefs of the paper, and twisting facts to the point where they’re effectively lies to further political movements that would financially advantage the paper’s owner. The Guardian is guilty of the former, agreed, but even then far less so the the NoTW (or the Sun, the Mail, or the Express)

“I do not object to that especially I don`t have to buy it”

Maybe you should – biased papers don’t only affect the people who read them.

“I am however forced to pay for the BBC. You want evidence? Well the best evidence is perhaps the Wilson report which reviewed the BBC coverage of the little matter of our entry into the Common Market the report highlighted the institutional mindset as the main problem and concluded there was significant bias .”

I’ll have to look into this. Got a link to the report itself? I can only find articles about it (many of them on Eurosceptic blogs). One article I did find (at the Times) claimed that the bias wasn’t found to be deliberate – if accurate, this would argue against your claim that the Beeb has a “leftist agenda”.

“Its coverage of the EU was analysed over five years in the 90s and a ration of 2 to 1 was found between pro and anti EU voices a ratio wildly out of line with the country .”

I would query what exactly is mean by a pro- or anti-EU “voice”. If someone simply states facts that support the EU, that could simply mean that the facts are on the EU’s side. To take an example that is less controversial in this country, an even-handed assessment of the truth or falsehood of evolution would, if published in America, be far more “evolutionist” than the average US citizen – but that wouldn’t be due to bias, it would be due to the fact that creationists are simply scientifically wrong.

I’m not saying this is necessarily the case here, just raising the possibility.

Steve Coogan also comes across as a bit holier-than-thou.

I thought Coogan was great on Newsnight and I have no idea why you think he was holier-than-thou.

It must be nice having a few million in the bank and having a life of leisure.

What’s that got to do with the price of bread?

Good to see. Tory trolls still defending their right wing thug masters.

I thought Steve Coogan did great on newsnight against the little rat faced media scumbag. Have not laughed so much in ages, as little ratty, showed his true colours.

Funniest bit was when the little rat said he was proud of what he did. Case closed your honour!

Quote:

A newly disclosed Downing Street memo has revealed how Tony Blair helped Rupert Murdoch overcome an official investigation which was jeopardising one of his big investments. It shows that Blair, while prime minister, immediately ordered his top officials to help the tycoon who was frustrated that a potentially lucrative scheme was being blocked by a long-running European commission investigation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/01/media-rupertmurdoch

As any observer of Rupert Murdoch and his stable of media outlets knows, the mogul went so far out of his way to defend Tony Blair in office that some say that, were it not for his staunch support over Iraq, the former prime minister would have fallen earlier.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/public-accounts/2010/08/tony-blair-murdoch-times

. . Two years later, the Sun carried a piece by Blair headlined “I’m a British Patriot”; the next day, the Sun endorsed Blair, who went on to win the 1997 election by a landslide. Alastair Campbell, Blair’s right-hand man, has called the endorsement his greatest achievement in politics. The Sun, after all, sells 3.3 million copies a day and boasts nearly 10 million readers — more than all of Britain’s serious broadsheets combined.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/03/AR2005050301695.html