The Official Newscorp/UK end of season finale/Rebekah Brooks did 9/11 thread

Via twitter:

PaulLewis

I've been at Sean Hoare's house. Police/ambulance there 11am-3pm. Then nothing. Story breaks. Forensics arrive 9pm.

Hahaha Ned, unlike GM, this interviewee has never had a homosexual experience.

Say hi to William Hague for us!

looool

i mean just in the last 24 hours there's been

- the supposed suicide of a key whistleblower
- a mysterious bag with computer and files in it found near rebekah brooks' house
- hackers who claim to have snaffled all NOTW and the Sun's emails

in the 24 hrs before that there was rebekah brooks' arrest and the chief of scotland yard's resignation. this is starting to make "house of cards" look unimaginative

BTW if this were happening to any other news org the Post would have NEWS CORPSE for tomorrow's HL.

i will now admit that this may actually be somewhat of a big deal

i mean just in the last 24 hours there's been

- the supposed suicide of a key whistleblower
- a mysterious bag with computer and files in it found near rebekah brooks' house
- hackers who claim to have snaffled all NOTW and the Sun's emails

in the 24 hrs before that there was rebekah brooks' arrest and the chief of scotland yard's resignation. this is starting to make "house of cards" look unimaginative

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 19 July 2011 08:46 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol and you left off John Yates

xp i may concur.

ned t you are making me feel bad with that display name

- the supposed suicide of a key whistleblower

wait who has suggested it was suicide?

Widely reported as "not suspicious" until just recently.

just a whistleblower killing self after scandal breaks nbd

suicide or murder aren't the only options! he had a long history of heavy drinking and drug use and nick davies recounted this:

In the end, his body would not take it any more. He said he started to have fits, that his liver was in such a terrible state that a doctor told him he must be dead.

quite prepared to believe he was murdered, especially as the news of the world private detective jonathan rees, who was accused of killing a guy with an axe, is still at large, but there are reasons to believe this guy was ready to go at any time.

Course if it turns out he was slowly poisoned like the ex-KGB dude...

row row fight the power

Lulzsec scares me.

I met Sean Hoare a couple of times at music dos in the late 90s. Nice guy, usually pissed (as in drunk, not angry).

NI and Times sites also down/hacked. perhaps include the Mail's site out of fairness?

quite prepared to believe he was murdered, especially as the news of the world private detective jonathan rees, who was accused of killing a guy with an axe, is still at large, but there are reasons to believe this guy was ready to go at any time.

― joe, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 09:14 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Definitely an easy target, then. The timing cannot be ignored.

you're not making any sense. the fact that he was very possibly ill and likely to die of natural causes means... that it's easier to murder him? but you were implying it was a presumed suicide earlier. our putative murderer can't have made it look like suicide and natural causes all at once.

there's enough conspiracy here already without jumping to conclusions and making your own.

Conspiracy theorists embarrassing themselves on this one IMO. As with David Kelly, (a) it's too late - the damage is done and (b) you don't go knocking people off in the full glare of the media spotlight.

Tell that to Bin Laden / Saddam Hussein

you're not making any sense. the fact that he was very possibly ill and likely to die of natural causes means... that it's easier to murder him?

It's an obvious alibi.

but you were implying it was a presumed suicide earlier. our putative murderer can't have made it look like suicide and natural causes all at once.

I said the press reported suicide.

there's enough conspiracy here already without jumping to conclusions and making your own.

How about not jamming words into my mouth.

So if the lulzsec crew makes available the full data grab to UK/US cops, can any of that be used legally, if not as admissible evidence, then something?

Also, iPhones now autocomplete for 'lulzsec'. FYI.

xp where did the press report a suicide, is what i originally asked? it wasn't in any of the reports i read (guardian, mostly).

Widely reported as "not suspicious" until just recently.

― invite ← VERB (Schlafsack), Tuesday, 19 July 2011 09:05 (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Okay, I just realised you probably didn't know that "not suspicious" is press code for suicide.

it wouldn't also be used if it just seemed like someone had died of natural causes or in circumstances in which it didn't ... seem ... suspicious?

xp i work as a news reporter, and i know that if you assume a "not suspicious" death is a suicide, you sometimes get made to look like a fool.

It is more often than not code for suicide, though. If someone died of natural causes they say that.

CNBC saying Murdoch Jr considering position.

conclusion: fuuuuuuuuuuuuucked

We covered the suicide/no-suspicious-circumstances thing in detail at uni in the '90s. Right now all I can find is mentions on various blogs and page 2 of this (opens a pdf).

xxp AWESOME

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-18/news-corp-said-to-consider-naming-chase-carey-as-ceo-suceeding-murdoch.html

who is Louise Boat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG7IURgryjA

Think CNBC meant Rupert going too and I picked it up wrong.

joe i'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole "not suspicious" convention in the uk. you're saying it could mean an OD?

In a number of paper style books I've seen the advice for reporting suicides is to report them as deaths not in suspicious circumstances, because of the risk of copycats. Accidental ODs can be and are reported as such

From that pdf link I posted (Aus Parliament House):

At the time of the establishment of the Press Council in 1976, the Australian press tended not
to report suicide, whether the story related to a particular self-harm incident or to a coronial
inquiry into such an incident. In order to avoid references to suicide, the press employed in
such reports some circumlocutions that persist to this day, for example, "the police say that
there were no suspicious circumstances".

As stet said it's by no means nomenclature that applies only to suicides but it's reasonable to interpret it that way unless explicitly informed otherwise.

so.... what are the other things it can mean?

joe i'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole "not suspicious" convention in the uk. you're saying it could mean an OD?

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 19 July 2011 01:01 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

i don't think it's necessarily a convention in this case, they've probably not carried out a postmortem yet so all they know is that there's a sudden death with no obvious external cause. there are coded euphemisms for violent deaths, when "no suspicious circumstances" does mean that the only logical conclusion is suicide. but for non-violent deaths then "not suspicious" can just mean a guy died, and that's it - but when someone dies randomly in watford and neighbours call the police after they've not been seen for a few days, it's not usually national news.

Given most stories still say unexplained-but-not-thought-suspicious, I think it currently means anything from natural causes to OD to suicide, but no obvious foul play.
xp

accidental death would be another 'not suspicious' one

This isn't really a universal code, no, but once the death is explained, most of these other explanations would be reported as such. The report would just say "believed to have died of an accidental drug overdose" or "accidental death". When you have an explained death that's reported as nothing other than "the circumstances are not believed to be suspicious" that's usually a p. clear code for suicide.

Because this is so high-profile, though, they won't be circumspect about it -- people will report if it's thought to be suicide (cf David Kelly) rather than dancing around it. But it sounds like the cause of death isn't clear, so it's going to take autopsy etc before that happens.

I feel this story would be complete if they could get that nice Freddie Patel to do the post mortem.

lol

Because this is so high-profile, though, they won't be circumspect about it -- people will report if it's thought to be suicide (cf David Kelly) rather than dancing around it.

Yeah, if a suicide is that high-profile somebody will get to the big headline first. I'm now so accustomed to seeing local reports of e.g. a road death attributed to 'no suspicious circumstances' that I rarely think twice about it.

it's such a cocktease of a phrase

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

cameron-and-a-hoodie.jpg

from toynbee today, btw:

the Mail on Sunday reported that Cameron intended to hire the BBC's Guto Harri as his press secretary. So close, apparently, was the appointment that the Harri family visited the Camerons one weekend in 2007 at Chipping Norton to discuss it, but the job went to Andy Coulson after Rebekah Brooks "is said to have told Mr Cameron that the post should go to Mr Coulson to strengthen links between the Tories and News International". Is this true? Reviewing the papers on the Andrew Marr programme on Sunday, I pointed out this story and said Harri was well-known in the BBC as a straight-as-a-die, honest man. I was pleased to get a text from Harri just after the show saying "Thanks". Does that mean it is true? I called Harri, who now works for Boris Johnson, to check. Yes, he said he'd heard tell that his name was not acceptable to News International. "I heard it as gossip on the grapevine – but I have no idea whether or not it's true. Yes, I did talk to David Cameron about taking the job – but whilst I lingered they'd clearly approached Andy Coulson." He had a good idea who the source from the Sun was for the story. How Cameron must wish he had given Harri the job. The idea that News International planted their man in the heart of Downing Street is truly shocking.