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

[ViolentPanda]

Bollocks, they nailed Robert Maxwell.

Not really, he only really got nailed posthumously, and his kids then took most of the flak. The old cunt himself went to his grave unpunished.

 

[dylans]

@ lbj - someone might say that by working for coca-cola, however low-paid and mundane your job is, you're indirectly helping to take part in the destruction of rainforests, chemical poisoning, etc etc that company takes part in ...

This is the nature of bureacracy in an industrial age. It breaks down tasks into a myriad of seemingly innocuous elements and in doing so breaks down responsibility. For example on leaving school I used to work in a factory, not an arms factory or anything so clear cut, just a factory making various valves and screwed components etc. One day an order came in for some shiny bits of plate that needed a special tool and specifications. It came wrapped in tissue paper and only their own tool setter was allowed to set the tool. We had to drill 4 screw holes in the corners to very specific requirements and each one had to be individually checked by quality control. It later turned out that the plates were for something to do with nuclear weapons, no idea what. Now the point is, to the people in that factory that were bits of metal plate. Do I bear some responsibility for nuclear weapons? Well in one sense yes but on the other hands it was just a bit of fancy shiny metal plate to be drilled. Is there a difference between the guy in my factory who drills four holes in a bit of shiny metal and the guy who presses the button. Yes i think there is. One is a guy doing his job and the other is a career choice made in the full knowledge of the consequences of his actions.

Now the same argument could be said for the guy who does the filing at NI, maybe he has no responsibility for the propaganda that rolls off the presses. He has never written a racist story in his life. But there is a difference between the filing clerk and the journo who writes the stories, searches for the benefit cheat story or the Asian taxi driver who won't fly the union jack in his cab or the single mom with the plasma TV or whatever and splashes across the front page. One is just doing his job and the other bears direct responsibility for hurting others.

 

[Idris2002]

went to his grave unpunished.

Assuming it was natural causes, yes.

Maxwell did a lot of business with the East Bloc, so he might well have had connections to the security organs. Though that's a bit OT.

 

[ska invita]

As I said earlier, a few frinds of my GF's worked for the Fabulous magazine, and it's difficult not to feel sympathy for them (though apparently this will be kept on elsewhere in NI)

My impression is that many people will get rehired in the SOS (at lower wages? who knows) - isnt that where the fab mag is going too? I think i heard that.

The only danger in this ditching of NOTW and retrenching within The Sun is that supposedly phone and email hacking is normal practice across many red tops - and that has to include the World Exclusive Love Rat Sun. if some beans get spilled about it happening at The Sun, and advertisers again pull out...

 

[Dan U]

Robert Peston, and others, now reporting that Ofcom is likely to launch a 'fit and proper' persons test.

if NI fail it, apparently they could even be forced to divest from BSKYB, which would be quite an outcome...

 

[frogwoman]

How many people work at the Sun?

 

[damnhippie]

the Sun on Sunday is now confirmed, apparently.

@ self ...dick.

anyway, Huffington Post in the US are now *claiming* the Daily Star offices have been raided...

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/07/08/andy-coulson-arrested-as-_n_893013.html#352_source-daily-star-sunday-offices-raided

 

[Ted Striker]

My impression is that many people will get rehired in the SOS (at lower wages? who knows) - isnt that where the fab mag is going too? I think i heard that.

The only danger in this ditching of NOTW and retrenching within The Sun is that supposedly phone and email hacking is normal practice across many red tops - and that has to include the World Exclusive Love Rat Sun. if some beans get spilled about it happening at The Sun, and advertisers again pull out...

Sure.

I still thin the SoS will be temporary and a NotW will come back after all this has died down, if only for a re-branding relaunch (public seduced by the word 'new' and some heavy advertising), so after the dust has settled, all the staff will be on worse contracts, and the 6 months or so it was out of print will be merely seen as a blip on the radar

 

[ericjarvis]

Journos will protect their own. Just listen to all the sentimental crap about honourable, innocent hacks at the NOTW who have lost their job.

This ^

The important thing to remember here is that the NotW phone hacking stuff is the tip of the iceberg, a tiny (though particularly purulent) part of the festering heap of corruption that we laughingly call the British press. There's a culture widespread throughout journalism in this country that assumes that a journalist has no responsibility to act ethically if it might interfere in getting "the story", and that "the story" is whatever will sell to the public regardless of whether it has any importance, relevance, or even any vague resemblance to reality.

Journalists with other publications may be happy to see a rival go down, but the very last thing they want to see is public scrutiny of their own methods.

I'll just point out again that there are some very fine journalists in the UK. However they are a tiny fraction who have become increasingly marginalised over the years, partly as a result of the willingness of many of their colleagues to lie, distort, intimidate, harrass, and arselick, to order.

 

[creak]

R5 say Daily Star offices have just been raided. Any links?

 

[Ted Striker]

The important thing to remember here is that the NotW phone hacking stuff is the tip of the iceberg, a tiny (though particularly purulent) part of the festering heap of corruption that we laughingly call the British press. There's a culture widespread throughout journalism in this country that assumes that a journalist has no responsibility to act ethically if it might interfere in getting "the story", and that "the story" is whatever will sell to the public regardless of whether it has any importance, relevance, or even any vague resemblance to reality.

Quite

 

[ericjarvis]

No. State your case, back it up with facts on the ground, and debate.

Now, why do you disagree with me then on the last point?

I think that may actually be the point of disagreement. You, and I, and many urbanistas, operate on the basis that we believe that one should argue logically and on the basis of objective evidence as far as possible. Whereas EoY clearly believes that one should simply spout any old bollocks and never be criticised for it. This, I suppose, is the minority belief she thinks should be protected.

I sort of agree. I think morons should have the right to make complete arseholes of themselves.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

brookes meeting notw staff at 4pm, "will be fireworks" according to twitter

 

[Badgers]

R5 say Daily Star offices have just been raided. Any links?

Oooh, interesting.....

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...l#352_source-daily-star-sunday-offices-raided

 

[Roadkill]

R5 say Daily Star offices have just been raided. Any links?

'Unconfirmed' reports according to the Torygraph's live blog.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...707/News-of-the-World-phone-hacking-live.html

14.19 Breaking: Unconfirmed reports that the Daily Star offices have been raided by police. Clive Goodman, who was arrested this morning, currently works for the Daily Star Sunday.

 

[sheothebudworths]

R5 say Daily Star offices have just been raided. Any links?

Clive Goodman currently works for them so will presumably be in relation to his arrest?!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Unless you have the raw figures in front off you I would advise not trusting a single statistic on revenue or readership they give you.

Yup, newsland stats are notoriously skewed. Even daily and sunday circs still include institutional drops as sales (pumping circs by thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands of copies).

 

[ericjarvis]

You could say that about any commercial company that's in business to make money! Should their workers have no rights?

So basically you are saying that workers who have no right to act according to their consciences must be allowed the right to continue to work in a situation where they have no basic rights. Clever. I sincerely hope you are a deliberate parody, because I really hate the idea of being the same species as any creature able to be that utterly stupid for real.

 

[sheothebudworths]

Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.

The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005 revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators. The messages are potentially highly valuable both for the police and for the numerous public figures who are suing News International.

According to legal sources close to the police inquiry, a senior executive is believed to have deleted 'massive quantities' of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a small fraction to be disclosed. One of the alleged deletions is said to have been made at the end of January this year, just as Scotland Yard was launching Operation Weeting, its new inquiry into the affair.

The allegation directly contradicts repeated claims from News International that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal news-gathering. It is likely to be seen as evidence that the company could not pass a 'fit and proper person' test for its proposed purchase of BSkyB.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/08/phone-hacking-emails-news-international

 

[ericjarvis]

It would be interesting to see a diagram displaying how many of the redundant workers hacked the phones of murdered children and terrorist victims for their own ends.

No. What would be interesting would be to see precisely how many NotW employees made any moral objection to what was happening.

 

[claphamboy]

R5 say Daily Star offices have just been raided. Any links?

I so hope so, first they came for the Dirty Digger, then they came for Dirty Desmond.....

Next up, Rothermere?

 

[Roadkill]

brookes meeting notw staff at 4pm, "will be fireworks" according to twitter

I rather like this version:

Dear Splatter Movie lovers, Lots of beered up and soon to be redundant #notw journos meeting with Brooks at 4pm in Wapping. You're welcome.

 

[ska invita]

Does anyone know about the private cases being made by the hacked? Some have settled out of court, but not all have. Yet by the looks of it, anyone who has had a story about them in NOTW (not to mention other titles) was hacked. According to a NOTW unnamed source, if you filed a story without phone messages you'd get asked 'where are the messages?' The police are sitting on a huge list.

Is it the case that the first private case has yet to go through the courts? If it goes through and wins and a price is set for damages, does that open the door for every other person who's been hacked to sue? That's thousands of people and would cost a fortune - even for Murdoch.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I rather like this version:

yes

 

[ElizabethofYork]

So basically you are saying that workers who have no right to act according to their consciences must be allowed the right to continue to work in a situation where they have no basic rights. Clever. I sincerely hope you are a deliberate parody, because I really hate the idea of being the same species as any creature able to be that utterly stupid for real.

I'm not saying anything of the sort. I'm asking a civil question.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Intersting- I'd noticed that the Daily Star had been less then comprehensive in its coverage. I'm sure all the tabloids have been doing the same sort of shite, although praps not on the industrial scale that the NOTW was.

Ofcom to carry out a 'fit and proper persons' test - will take some time cos of court cases but if it finds agasint News International he would have to sell his BSkyB shares. Hes fucked I tell ya - lots of people are out to get him.

He could well die having watched his empire wither to away to nowt.

 

[killer b]

I rather like this version:

Dear Splatter Movie lovers, Lots of beered up and soon to be redundant #notw journos meeting with Brooks at 4pm in Wapping. You're welcome.

yeah, but they all want jobs elswhere at NI don't they? i predict some muted grumbling and loads of bumlick.

 

[sheothebudworths]

I'm not saying anything of the sort.

You totally are, tbf.

 

[_angel_]

They will be fine, all they need to do is sign on and get loads of free money:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/news/907438/Work-Not-on-45K-benefits.html

That's relatively liberal for the NOTW, even tho their angle is obvious, it's no worse than that awful piece in the Guardian sneering at Liverpool for having people on the dole eating all day breakfasts.

 

[Roadkill]

yeah, but they all want jobs elswhere at NI don't they? i predict some muted grumbling and loads of bumlick.

You're probably right, unfortunately. That said, the reports of the NUJ helpdesk being inundated with calls from NI journalists, and a walk-out from the Sun last night, might suggest otherwise...