Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail "hacked by News of the World"

[smokedout]

we get the press we deserve, and an awful lot of people deserve the notw.
it reflected their world view back at them, as do all papers.

the shit in papers is a direct reflection of the shit in people, and at some point this general outrage needs to be tempered by that knowledge. even killing off the murdochs won't change that, someone will replace them to cater to the same market. the digger is just someone who operates a daily, mass opinion poll.
he knows better than anyone what people are interested in, he gets the results every day. certain types of story sell, so those are the ones that get printed. certain names sell papers, as do certain things. so long as the scandal sheets have no political power, they can continue to trade in embarrassing gossip.
but that sort of salacious detail is used to influence politics, so something has to change.

so what, what are you saying, what do you want

 

[ericjarvis]

they have their lives and their experiences which teaches people far more about politics than the fucking guardian ever will

That teaches them about REAL politics. So fair enough to that extent. However there's also all the crap that goes on in Parliament, in Brussels, and in Council chambers around the country. For that aspect of politics the vast majority of people (and I don't mean just working class Sun readers, I'm including middle class Guardian readers and upper class Telegraph readers too) only get a load of misrepresented dishonest crap instead of any actual information.

The problem is that reality and "political/media politics" interact. People vote on the basis of both.

 

[ericjarvis]

i said furthest to the left, not left

Yeah. I'm just hoping against hope that somebody can come up with an example that actually qualifies as something verging on left wing.

 

[ericjarvis]

there's many millions who regularly pay for shit 'journalism'. a few hundred thousand paying for 'quality'. so market forces dictate shit 'journalism' thrives
qed we get what we deserve

Wrong. The main difference between the journalism in the Sun or the NotW and the journalism in the Torygraph or the Grauniad, is that the tabloids don't pretend to have higher standards. There's bugger all fact checking of news done anywhere. There's precious little investigative journalism other than opportunist exploitation of whistle blowing exclusives. There's no form of sanction against misrepresentation or even outright lying, so both are rife.

Anyone paying for quality journalism and buying the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Times, the Independent, is basically getting ripped off and fed much the same shit in a classier wrapper along with the odd tit bit of real journalism just to keep them suckered.

 

[Pickman's model]

how dare we try to communicate with each other in a clear and consistent fashion

one day i'd like to see you actually communicating in a clear and consistent fashion. but i suppose we'll have to put up with you trying - and failing - for some time yet.

 

[ericjarvis]

i agree their should be greater, or in fact equal right to redress for people without the money to hire lawyers, in fact its kind of my point, but that can be achieved without any need to further legislate against the media, although it doesn't seem to be particularly high on hugh grant's agenda

I'm not in the slightest bit interested in Hugh Grant or anyone else's agenda. Trying to decide how things should work on the basis of who supports what and why is ridiculous (if sadly too common). What I'm saying is that currently there is no available redress for people badly treated by the press other than hugely expensive libel cases that the vast majority of people can't afford. Changing that requires legislation.

You can't make it illegal for a newspaper to report certain things without it being basically totalitarian censorship of the press. However you can make it possible for newspapers to be held responsible for what they print and journalists held responsible for what they write. That would be quite enough. However the media won't be interested in that because it's the very last thing most of them want. So it's going to play out as a call to rein in an out of control gutter press versus a call to keep the media free from censorship. Which completely ignores the real issues. And thus avoids anyone in the media having to worry about taking responsibility for what they do.

 

[laptop]

Anyone paying for quality journalism and buying the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Times, the Independent, is basically getting ripped off and fed much the same shit in a classier wrapper along with the odd tit bit of real journalism just to keep them suckered.

Errm... saving myself typing I'll quote Henry Porter:

It was galling last week to listen to the likes of Lord Falconer, Tessa Jowell and Alastair Campbell pronounce on the shortcomings of the press without for one moment acknowledging New Labour's part in the creation of the incubus that was Murdoch's power. We do indeed need a new body to regulate the press, as they argue, and new laws concerning the concentration of ownership, but let's not forget that a journalist, not Lord Falconer or Alastair Campbell, was responsible for exposing the scandal.

 

[Pickman's model]

there's many millions who regularly pay for shit 'journalism'. a few hundred thousand paying for 'quality'. so market forces dictate shit 'journalism' thrives
qed we get what we deserve

a few hundred thousand paying for 'quality' journalism? the sales of the daily telegraph alone are in the region of a million / issue. if we can judge what you read from the quality of your posts, then you're somewhere sub-daily sport.

 

[AKA pseudonym]

From Billy Bragg, Here's the new song I wrote yesterday and debuted tonight: Never Buy The Sun

 

[ericjarvis]

I'm not disagreeing with you but is there not a contradiction here in the fact that britain has one of the harshest libel laws in the world, to the point where rich and powerful people explicitly can decide to sue in britain, and where the law to be tightened up even further under the current set-up then the rich and powerful would be able to basically have even fewer restrictions on what they can and can't do with impunity ...

have we all forgotten the superinjunction scandal where the problem was people NOT being allowed to report certain facts? IMO you can't be against premiership footballers being able to cover up affairs by paying people millions of pounds, and at the same time, argue for a draconian restriction of the press, which will actually prevent scandals like the phone-hacking scandal coming to light in the first place ...

I'm not asking for existing libel laws to be tightened. That would be stupid. The problem isn't what the libel laws are. The problem is that there is NO other way for somebody lied about in the press to get any form of redress, and that libel prosecutions are only currently available to the extremely wealthy.

What I want is a Press Complaints AUTHORITY. Something that has the teeth to force newspapers to print proper retractions of falsehoods. That can hold a journalist to account if they do things that would normally be beyond the law in order to get a story.

I want to see it become more expensive for a newspaper to print lies and distortions than to employ somebody to fact check before they go to print. I want to see it become risky for a journalist to harrass somebody simply because they are related to somebody in the news. I want newspapers to be able to print anything they like, but I want them to be held to account if what they print is demonstrably false or if they screw up other people's live in order to get a story.

 

[ericjarvis]

What's to be done about hari? He should be made a laughing stock. Why have you tried to confuse this with censorship?

As Johann Hari said to me yesterday, eyes shadowed from lack of sleep and fingernails bitten to the quick. "Why? Why would this happen? It's hard to tell, since we're not allowed to see their workings. There seem to be conflicts of interest here."

 

[AKA pseudonym]

has anybody got a link to the NOTW PDF?.. was meant to be sent to me earlier but i haven't got it yet.....

 

[laptop]

Oh, and I've not seen a reference to the piece that says the writing really is on the wall for the Murdoch clan - from Friday's Financial Times:
The Murdoch empire at bay: Digger in a hole

Great headline. Read it all - sorry if already referenced.

 

[ericjarvis]

It's just the old i despise what you say but i'd defend to the death the right to say it thing i guess, and if I want to read about a paedo with fifty legs or someone's dog earning 100,000,000 in benefits, or about which celebrities are shagging each other, why shouldn't i? and why does it make me a bad person?

The point is that the story may be something you know is false and "a bit of a larf". However there are often real people involved. If you haven't been close to the scrimmage that happens when the gutter press and paparazzi arrive en masse then no amount of description will explain quite how horrifying it is. Somewhere in the midst of that is a human being.

Fair enough if that human being is somebody actively courting fame. However that is far from always the case. Furthermore, if a paper runs a story about somebody illegally claiming benefits then that person's claim will be pretty much immediately shut down. What if the story is distorted or made up? Should the newspaper get away without some recompense to the person whose life they have completely fucked over? Because at present they don't.

 

[AKA pseudonym]

 

[AKA pseudonym]

Supposed phone number of News International’s Chief Executive leaked on Twitter

 

[strung out]

there's a whole online version of the paper here if you don't want to buy it http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/downloads/finalissue/pageflip.html

 

[Mrs Magpie]

No there isn't.

 

[strung out]

works for me

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I clearly have an ethical computer!

 

[strung out]

or go to this page and click on it from here, if that doesn't work http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/exclusive/e_news/1011377/ePaper-article.html

 

[Buddy Bradley]

I particularly like the full-page advert for LGBT adoption services. And the readership have nowhere to vent their moral outrage any more...

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I particularly like the full-page advert for LGBT adoption services. And the readership have nowhere to vent their moral outrage any more...

That is funny,

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Oh the irony!

 

[dylans]

My cornflakes taste better this morning. Good riddance. The world is a better place today

 

[revlon]

What's to be done about hari? He should be made a laughing stock. Why have you tried to confuse this with censorship? And censorship with regulation? And why are you saying that no one is stopping someone having an opinion and simultaneously asking what 'we' would do about someone's opinion? Why are you arguing for and against regulation whilst saying that you're not? You're all over the shop here.

clearly i said censorship and regulation are two different beasts. Should hari's articles be monitored for accuracy, for reflecting in a truthful way the events he recollected, for not misrepresenting those he is quoting and for not deliberately misleading his readership in the words he uses? Who does the monitoring? The court of public opinion relies of him being found out. Should he have been stopped from publishing stuff about Negri the was clearly untrue?

of course hari saying 'negri is a bit shit' is his opinion and he is welcome to it.

I'm not arguing for or against regulating the press. I am saying using the 'freedom of the press' as an excuse against regulation is an erroneous one.

 

[lopsidedbunny]

The BBC are beebing on about NOTW editor being on t.v. ... snore...

 

[dylans]

Good article here on Murdoch as a military strategist

So while everyone was asking where was the line in the sand in the hacking scandal, Murdoch threw sand in all our faces. The closure of the News of the World proved a distraction to the ongoing police investigation and dramatic new arrests. It also changed the mood. Despite protests from News International that this was a few rotten apples, all journalists had became reviled. The paper's closure restored these loathed creatures to human beings again, men and women with children and mortgages, thrown out of work because of wrongdoing in a previous regime......

Military historians will recognise Murdoch's tactics from every successful conflict through history: he might have planted the horse at Troy, ridden with Hannibal over the Alps, shelped mastermind D-Day. It is impossible to keep the military analogies out of modern-day business, and the crop-haired James Murdoch's air of contained violence owes something to the Marines. We talked of the Wapping bunker, but the Murdoch gang might have named it the Situation Room, planning the daring rescue of hostage Brooks. As the American confederate commander Thomas J Jackson taught: "Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy."

Military commanders use the light, the weather, camouflage, the time of day to confound the enemy. In Macbeth, Malcolm ordered his soldiers to disguise themselves in the branches of Birnam Wood. The timing and conditions of the Wapping announcement were similarly planned for maximum effect. Brooks was there, and then as suddenly she was gone.

Murdoch understands too the psychology of warfare and business: you cannot blink. Critics thought they had the Murdochs on the run, but the family was preparing, like Julius Caesar, to cross the Rubicon.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...mander-is-the-master-of-surprise-2309784.html

 

[DaveCinzano]

Transpontine blog is now running with an article connecting the dots between Operation Nigeria and other Daniel Morgan murder investigations and the Operation Weeting/Elveden #NOTW phonehacking inquiries - lots of South London links!

http://transpont.blogspot.com/2011/07/power-corruptions-and-lies.html

(Cross-posted from the Dave Courtney thread.)

I suspect the Transpontine post may kick up some as-yet unreported dust, as its readership often chips in with interesting stories and anecdotes.

 

[WWWeed]

or go to this page and click on it from here, if that doesn't work http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/exclusive/e_news/1011377/ePaper-article.html

I see they have gone for a 'look at how much good we have done' angle, obviously failing to mention all of the shit storms they have caused and families they have ripped apart.

The only adverts in the final edition are for charities (to make NI look sympathetic) and other NI companies!