DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

before i look i'm gonna say bikini shot of kate middleton and a free pound of butter for every reader

not bad

oh so close on the butter

Well, you've got the Riposte to Health Fascists Bit right

if you mix bread and water you get butter i think

lead story on daily mail website:

Public sector salary myth exploded: State workers earn MORE - not less - than equivalent staff in the private sector

I really hope that all this gets the country, as a collective, to really think about what we want and expect from our press.

Totally with you on this, boxedjoy. But about "the all too competitive nature of the industry": in the end it's the people buying these fucking tabloids. The people are the industry. So to have those same people think about "what we expect from our press" leaves one horribly depressed indeed.

Plus, there is a massive discrepancy about what people in the UK file under journalism. Newspapers and tabloids, most people don't know the difference and see them all as "press", all as the same "journalism". This has been a unsettling discovery for me (as a Dutchman who's an editor-in-chief of a newspaper in Holland that'll be looking for a job in journalism in the UK next year).

Wait does "health fascists" mean the Express likes them or not?

I went out for 3hrs and this story went absolutely mental and could get worse but Caek basically wins ILX for that 9/11 post.

Yeah, Hillsborough aside it's rare to get a serious boycott for tabloid shit. But that doesn't mean readers don't condemn it, either, or that papers don't get burnt. The Sun's readers famously give it doings when it misreads them, like on Frank Bruno and a few of their "immigrants gtf" stories; I think at least some NoTW readers will on this, too.

The problem is that it's invisible -- a story got by voicemail taping just looks like any other in print. One answer is a PCC with balls, but the hopes of that also leave you a bit depressed. xxp

Would love to know the messages that Murdoch is leaving on Brooks' phone right now.

Would love to know the messages that Murdoch is leaving on BrooksCameron's phone right now.

seriously cheered by tomorrow's express. it's like it's written by one irate guy in a box-office just working through everyone who ever slighted him. 'experts'.

FT laying this squarely w/Murdoch http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cec0d512-a736-11e0-b6d4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1QwRIct2n

Yeah, Hillsborough aside it's rare to get a serious boycott for tabloid shit. But that doesn't mean readers don't condemn it, either, or that papers don't get burnt. The Sun's readers famously give it doings when it misreads them, like on Frank Bruno and a few of their "immigrants gtf" stories; I think at least some NoTW readers will on this, too.

The problem is that it's invisible -- a story got by voicemail taping just looks like any other in print. One answer is a PCC with balls, but the hopes of that also leave you a bit depressed. xxp

― stet, woensdag 6 juli 2011 1:02 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

True, I was zooming this out to "UK Journalism" level style discussion, also because of what Boxedjoy said. I agree to a certain extent that it is invisible to the reader caught unaware. Even though it should be anyone's guess how these tabloids can come up with the crazy stories they do sometimes. One can only hope more advertisers will withdraw, readers too. It's up to them to make a difference and make NotW really see how they feel about it.

What's News of the World's frontpage of tomorrow btw? Are they full-on defending themselves or giving it the silent treatment? Is it out there yet?

it's a Sunday paper

What's News of the World's frontpage of tomorrow btw?

It's a Sunday paper. The Sun is the sister daily.

Really hoping someone is working on some sort of Rebecca Black/Rebekah Brooks piss-taking viral.

Ok sorry guys, should've known that, thanks.

Basically, the NOTW have got until Saturday night to photo Wayne Rooney snorting coke off Pippa Middleton's arse while dressed as Hitler.

Haha NickB :-)

I was already thinking if they'd be going "ok guys, uhm, where's that one photo we always keep back for emergency occasions? Because this is that ocassion!"

time for Thatcher to take one for the team and croak Saturday night /poortaste

I was already thinking if they'd be going "ok guys, uhm, where's that one photo we always keep back for emergency occasions? Because this is that ocassion!"

basically, paul daniels and debbie mcgee should be feeling very anxious this weekend.

Coulson gets stabbed in the front.

The tabloid's owners have passed to the police e-mails which appear to show that payments were authorised by the then editor, Andy Coulson.

Hanging Coulson out to dry doesn't seem sensible, surely he could go nuclear on this if he wanted?

Maybe he's being offered some incentive by NI to take the rap

To try and protect Brooks maybe? Seems crazy.

McMullen is just incredible, like a villain out of a Dirty Harry flick.

Apparently he thinks the Prevention of Corruption Act is "a bad law"

Spot the odd one out:

http://i.imgur.com/zKPNy.jpg

Did the Sun have some kind of giveaway this morning because for some reason I ended up in a tube carriage full of people reading it?

Wouldn´t be surprised if they are handing them out for free at this point, to prevent people to buy another tabloid.

i think their new "IVF Lotto" game has proven very popular

really flabbergasted by the moralistic handwringing over journalistic "ethics" here.... we're talking about tabloid reporters and paps - this is what they do! there is absolutely nothing new here at all. the scandal is who at the met, who at vodaphone or whatever, agreed to give up the info (on the frequent occasionas where a birthday or "0000" didn't work)?

god forbid people might be "moralistic" about this

it's as much of a crime to bribe someone as to be bribed. i suspect that they will move on to the corrupt cops later, but my guess is the purpose behind the leaks is to create an atmosphere where internal politics in the police can't effectively obstruct the investigation.

bonus fact: the DAC sue akers who's in charge advised helen mirren for prime suspect!

Presumably in suspected murder cases mobile companies will willingly give up mobile details to the police if they don't have them anyway? Strikes me that the leak within the police is where the scandal is, unless the phone companies are directly leaking to the press.

Tracer, I don't think hacking a missing girl's phone and deleting the messages, thus giving her parents false hope that she's still alive, is just "what they do". When your expectations get that low then you're letting them off the hook. Genuine public revulsion is not handwringing.

I mean they're not hacking the phones of suspected criminals here, but the same victims of terrible crimes (the Dowlers, 7/7 survivors, doubtless many more) that they're courting for exclusive interviews. Do you not think there's something wrong about that? A moment for journalists to re-examine what's acceptable when chasing a story?

it's top story at the times tbf (although i haven't seen a paper copy).

lol daily mail otm

The police, sadly, come out of this terribly. Afraid of upsetting a powerful newspaper group, which employed several ex-senior officers as writers, they botched their first hacking investigation and cursorily refused a second one when further evidence was produced ...

This is the same David Cameron who, of course, in a disastrous misjudgment, made the disgraced NotW editor Andy Coulson his press officer.

And then there is the newspaper industry itself. That the Press Complaints Commission has been dilatory is now all too painfully apparent. Bereft of any investigatory powers, it accepted — perhaps naively — News International's lies and, together with the newspaper industry, must learn huge lessons ...

And finally we come to the sorry figure of Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the man who, in a decision that will shame him and the Tory Party for years, refused to refer News International's hugely contentious takeover of BskyB to the Competition Commission. How sick that now looks.

there is absolutely nothing new here at all.

i think it's more that there is now concrete evidence that the standard tabloid bullshit has intersected with a criminal case in a way that's genuinely, clandestinely destabilising & dangerous, all while disrespecting people who are out of the circle of seemingly-inevitable-targets. i mean maybe it's a matter of degrees compared to previous behaviour - their overreaching has always been destabilising - but this is so much shit at once, and in such a sensitive area, that it's kinda mindblowing & indicts their standard behaviour. it's the same as if their mis-info leads to a mis-trial in a criminal case; immediate consequences rather than a general & gradual derogatory effect.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxp

This is the same David Cameron who, of course, in a disastrous misjudgment, made the disgraced NotW editor Andy Coulson his press officer.

yeah i am obviously mainly enjoying the fact that DC is couched between these two players & it reflects badly on him, but really, gambling on coulson's expertise & convenience & proximal value outweighing his blow-up-in-yr-face flaws was BAD MATHS

To suggest some kind of impropriety is laughable, as we all know.

DL it's kind of sick but no different than anything tabs have done for decades. they doorstep grieving families, they do all kinds of things. i don't think you'll ever be able to stop it. but i think it would suit the met and rupert murdoch very nicely if the finger of blame rested on them and went no further. in a sense it all comes back to the pap's classic complaint: we do what we do because there's a market for it. in this case, not only is there a market for it, there are people in positions of responsibility not to compromise private information who have in fact done so and i blame those people far more than some hacks just paying for information, like they always have done.

xpost no it's true that the voicemail deletion thing is truly sensational. and sensationally stupid. it's the kind of brilliantly horrible detail that you'd find in a really excellent tv show.

the daily mail going for the PCC is quite significant. dacre is chairman of the editor's code of practice committee.

presumably the sudden conversion is to forestall a wider public inquiry, which would have to look into the nearly 900 instances when over 50 daily mail journalists hired private investigators who were in 2003 arrested and convicted of charges related to misuse of private data.

they doorstep grieving families

there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

well i think there is. but Tracer's assertion that the corruptors are less culpable than the corrupted seems bogus to me too.

Doorstepping grieving families isn't the same as hacking into their phones dude. It isn't remotely the same.

it's not the same of course but imo it's also immoral

incidentally i can't work out if the new Bribery Act 2010 is in effect yet or not but it makes interesting reading for NI and Met employees.

If an individual is found guilty of a bribery offence, tried as a summary offence, they may be imprisoned for up to 12 months and fined up to £5,000. Someone found guilty on indictment, however, faces up to 10 years' imprisonment and an unlimited fine. The crime of a commercial organisation failing to prevent bribery is punishable by an unlimited fine. In addition, a convicted individual or organisation may be subject to a confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, while a company director who is convicted may be disqualified under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.

xp There's enough blame to go around. And there's something wrong about newsroom climate which makes hacks think this is acceptable behaviour - it's not just about nailing certain individuals but causing a rethink (however limited and temporary) of practice.