Murdoch: Ouf! Is this meltdown?

[Mandryka]

It doesn't take a sophisticated person to appreciate that Murdoch's 'performance' for the Dowler family would have been carefully co-ordinated by the expensive PR advisers he's hired.

[ahinton]

It doesn't take a sophisticated person to appreciate that Murdoch's 'performance' for the Dowler family would have been carefully co-ordinated by the expensive PR advisers he's hired.

No, of course not but, as I've suggested, why would anyone assume otherwise? Isn't this what similarly permeates the police, government and other pertinent activities and absence thereof in the present context and is this not what most of us expect and have no choice but to expect?

[hackneyvi]

It doesn't take a sophisticated person to appreciate that Murdoch's 'performance' for the Dowler family would have been carefully co-ordinated by the expensive PR advisers he's hired.

Alas, I'm less than sophisticated because it's taken me 96 hours to work this out.

Who should be surprised at any of this and who can do anything about it?

The realisation has come as a horrible surprise to me. For the first 48 hours, I believed him. It wasn't until I heard Brooks' solicitor and then watched Yates' resignation performance that I began to see.

You and Mandryka knew already?!

[Sydney Grew]

No, of course not but, as I've suggested, why would anyone assume otherwise? Isn't this what similarly permeates the police, government and other pertinent activities and absence thereof in the present context and is this not what most of us expect and have no choice but to expect?

May we not then conclude: "no really nice person would wish to go into politics - the occupation itself is distasteful" - "no really nice person would wish to join the police - the occupation itself is distasteful"? Each of these professions must by its very nature attract only those persons who have a fundamental desire to dominate and are thus not really very nice. (Some of them are also drawn to the clerical profession, but there they are thankfully a minority.)

The same cannot be said about journalism though, which at its best can be a branch of literature - look for example at that worthy and well-educated woman Mrs Lyall ("Miss Whitehorn"). The badness of bad journalism lies not in the occupation per se but rather in the character of its perpetrators and consumers. In that, bad journalism just continues the tradition of the "penny dreadful" of old. Think of Robin Hood! Think of Sawney Beane the Scotch cannibal! In the late 1880s the depraved quality of juvenile reading-matter sparked off a middle-class moral panic; numerous cases were cited of children seduced into crime by unwholesome fiction. Bad journalism is very like bad music and "jazz" - each is written by the ill-educated lower classes to pander to the brutish needs of ill-educated slum-dwellers. So yes, Mr. H is right! If we harbour unrealistic expectations we are bound to be disappointed!

[Stillhomewardbound]

Well, Theresa May, for one, is having a bloody good war, so far!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

an interesting take from Brendan O'Neill quoted in the Graun Blog

The respectable commentariat has effectively declared war on a man who was merely the beneficiary of historic political fallout, not the orchestrator of it. Remove him from the picture and those various profound problems - the emptying out of both left and right ideologies, the aloofness of the political class, the transformation of politics into a purely elite pastime - will still exist. Our politicians will still have nothing of substance to say, just fewer tabloids in which not to say it.
source

[eighthobstruction]

Select Committee on digi now....Yates .....Stephenson....http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/...00/8167512.stm

[handsomefortune]

thanks for the link to live discussion eo.

evidently, the select committee is a lot better attended, than when yates answered to deciding not to reopen the hacking investigation, a while back eigthobstruction!


(i don't remember yates then mentioning black bin bags either)! :whistle: seemingly, to this day stephenson is apparently unaware of the bin bags ....? incidentally, as he's resigned, why hasn't he got civilian clothes on?

[Anna]

I wonder if anyone watched last night's Panorama special on the phone hacking and the Murdoch empire? What struck me was the sheer incestuous of it all, the Chipping Norton set, politicians, press, police, all schmoozing each other. The most sensible comment summing up the situation actually came from Ed Miliband when he spoke of "The irresponsibility of the powerful. People who believed they were untouchable". I think that sums it up.

[eighthobstruction]

This information re 11 out of 45 employees in Press Office having had work with NI.....

Thought they should have asked Fedorcio to comment on this....

[Mandryka]

I wonder if anyone watched last night's Panorama special on the phone hacking and the Murdoch empire? What struck me was the sheer incestuous of it all, the Chipping Norton set, politicians, press, police, all schmoozing each other. The most sensible comment summing up the situation actually came from Ed Miliband when he spoke of "The irresponsibility of the powerful. People who believed they were untouchable". I think that sums it up.

Murdoch found it very easy to gain a foothold in the UK and, in a way, the politicians have only themselves to blame for leaving the door wide open for him to extend his power.

The Daily Mail had a delicious piece on the Chipping Norton set's 'last roar' on 2nd July. The ubiquitous Robert Peston was there (well, why shouldn't he be? He's everywhere else) and this has been the cause of much ribaldry among commenters on his BBC blog.

[Chris Newman]

This information re 11 out of 45 employees in Press Office having had work with NI.....

Thought they should have asked Fedorcio to comment on this....

Fifth Columnists spring to mind. Personally I think that relationships with NI raise an enormous national security scandal that deserves to bring down the establishment.

[eighthobstruction]

Why don't they ask Yates if he asked Peter Clarke what evidence there was; left over after royal Hacking....also exactly which officers he asked re July 09 review....

[Bax-of-Delights]

This little gem just popped up on my Facebook page - a parting shot at Murdoch from the late Dennis Potter. What he has to say at around the 3 minute mark SO applies to the present state of R3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnVrK38xI-A

[Anna]

The Daily Mail had a delicious piece on the Chipping Norton set's 'last roar' on 2nd July. The ubiquitous Robert Peston was there (well, why shouldn't he be? He's everywhere else) and this has been the cause of much ribaldry among commenters on his BBC blog.

At that party were also "Michael Gove, the education secretary, was there. So was David Cameron's consigliere Steve Hilton, and the culture minister Ed Vaizey. The Labour figures in attendance included Peter Mandelson, the ex-work and pensions secretary James Purnell, the shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander - and his shadow cabinet colleague Tessa Jowell, who reportedly arrived with her supposedly estranged husband David Mills. They were joined by David Miliband – who, let us not forget, was supported in his quest for the Labour leadership by the entire Murdoch stable of newspapers."

Also present was Lord Alan Sugar, he was swiftly asked to leave however due to his speech in the Lords that not only journalists, but the Editors and Board of Directors should be banged up as well (the last information was courtesy of the Panorama programme)