Journalists launch ‘Investigations fund’
A group of well-known journalists have launched Britain’s first ‘Investigations Fund’ to “encourage a new generation of reporters, and support independent journalism.”
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The dark arts come back to haunt Coulson
While most are only following this News of the World story back to when Clive Goodman was found, with the help of the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, to have intercepted the messages of Prince William, as well as other flunkies in the royal household, it in fact goes further back to the arrest of Stephen Whittamore, a private detective who was used by almost every national tabloid, as well as a few broadsheets, to gain information not just from cracking into mobile phones but also from national databases which he had more than a knack of blagging into.
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Government scraps sedition laws
From a press release
Writers and freedom of speech campaigners today expressed relief that the Government has finally relented, and agreed to abolish the offences of seditious libel and criminal defamation. The Ministry of Justice’s move comes after a long campaign by free speech organisations, their advocates, and opposition politicians.
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The phone-hacking scandal no-one wants to talk about
If there was ever the evidence needed that much of our press operate in a world where different rules apply, and how other national institutions cooperate in that process, then the phone-hacking scandal is a brilliant example.
Let’s go over some facts again here.
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Time to spit out those strawberries?
If you watched Ken Loach’s recent film It’s A Free World then this will sound eerily familiar. Busloads of Eastern European migrants lured into England with promises of a fast buck, savings and accomodation, only to discover slave labour.
Today’s Independent investigation focuses on the biggest fruit growers and suppliers to Tesco and Sainsbury’s, a company called S&A that, already back in 2005, grabbed a few headlines (though not enough) over ridiculous working conditions.
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Daily Mail wants Nigerian criminals to remain in Britain
In a surprising U-turn, The Daily Mail said yesterday that instead of being sent back where they came from, Nigerian criminals should remain in Britain to take your job and rob your house.
Confusion erupted as the newspaper more commonly associated with its pro- ‘put-them-all-on-the-first-banana-boat-back-to-Africa’ stance on immigration also decided it would rather spend more taxpayers’ money keeping brown nogoodniks here than save cash by helping to build a dedicated facility in some far-off African land where they could be pleasantly forgotten about.
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Right-whingers and Newsnight
Tim Montgomerie on Conservative Home is very angry about Newsnight having four “lefties” and no “righties” on its new ‘Politics Pen’ show.
These “lefties” are: Deborah Mattison, Gordon Brown’s opinion pollster. Matthew Taylor, Tony Blair’s former adviser on political strategy Greg Dyke, who voted Liberal Democrat in 2005, warned that if Labour were elected then ‘democracy was under threat’, and is currently an adviser to the Conservative Party on the UK’s creative sector
Digby Jones, the former Director General of the CBI, who was approached by the Conservative Party about being their candidate for Mayor of London, who described trade unions as ‘backward looking and not on today’s agenda’ and Labour as ‘always in thrall to the unions’, and who wouldn’t join the Labour Party even when Gordon Brown appointed him as a minister
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NotW hacking: how the story is developing
Commons launches investigation
Press watchdog reopens investigations
How are mobile phones hacked?
How news sites are treating the phone tapping story
Huhne calls for Cameron to sack Andy Coulson
In pictures: Celebrties hacked by News of the World
John Prescott: My letter to Cameron
Andrew Neil: Nobody comes out well of this…
Sunder Katwala: How Les Hinton lied to the Commons
Key questions that Andy Coulson needs to answer
Coulsongate: a huge indictment of our system
It’s amusing to watch Tories try and dismiss this massive bombshell so easily. According to the BBC, a spokeswoman for David Cameron said he was “very relaxed” about the story. “The ramping up of this story is ridiculous – this is about a payment made well after Andy (Coulson) left the News of the World.”
But the focus on what payments were made and when is besides the point. Here’s the crux of the matter: it is alleged that while Andy Coulson was deputy editor and editor at the News of the World thousands of people were being illegally spied on and their data tapped into by a big network of journalists at News International.
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Coulson and Cameron: blogger reaction
Paul Burgin / Mars Hill:
Plus what are the chances of Conservative bloggers covering this this evening! They have sometimes accused Labour bloggers of a “Move along now…” attitude, its amazing how silent they are the moment a story against the Conservatives breaks out!
Sunder Katwala / Next Left:
Keeping Coulson may prove too difficult, But the attempt to do suggests that the only ethic that matters is one of convenience – and that different rules apply to the inner circle.
David Cameron’s McBride moment is here, but Tories remain silent
The Conservatives milked the Damian McBride affair for all its worth – turning up on television almost everyday in faux-outrage at how someone could be so nasty in politics. Every day a succession of outraged right-wing bloggers and backbench politicians said they expected better standards from Parliament.
If that is the case, what will they now say about the allegations levelled at Andy Coulson – David Cameron’s director of communications.
The Media Guardian reports:
The paperwork from the Information Commission revealed the names of 31 journalists working for the News of the World and the Sun, together with the precise details of government agencies, banks, phone companies and others who were conned into handing over confidential information on politicians, actors, sportsmen and women, musicians and television presenters, all of whom are named in the paperwork. This is an offence under the Data Protection Act unless it is justified by public interest. Senior editors are among the journalists who are implicated.
A certain Andy Coulson was first deputy editor and later editor of the News of the World while all this was going on.
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Terrorist 5-a-side…
With levity making a welcome return it LibCon courtesy of Jamie’s sparkling pisstake of Mad Mel and Laurie’s Harry Potter post I think its well worth directing your attention to Charlie Brooker’s new comedy quiz show, ‘You Have Been Watching‘, the first episode of which aired last night on Channel 4 (and can be viewed by anyone who missed it on 4OD).
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‘Local homes for local people’ is meaningless
contribution by Tim Finch from ippr
After shooting himself in the foot with “British jobs for British workers” you would have thought the Prime Minister had learnt his lesson. But no, just last week we had a story headlined in The Sun as “Local Homes for Local People”.
It was trailing an announcement by Gordon Brown that the government was going to change the rules on how social housing is allocated. It was made clear that councils were to be given more scope to prioritise the housing needs of local people – in other words, the white working class who deserted Labour in droves in the recent elections.
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The tyranny of the gay agenda
Iain Duncan Smith and his band of super Tories at the Centre for Social Justice are to issue a report which will shape Conservative policy on the family. It is widely expected to put the God-given sanctity of marriage at the heart of family life, make divorce more difficult and promote marriage preparation classes and ‘family relationship centres’, as well as tax breaks for married couples.
Hooray!
The report comes not a minute too late, following countless years of social engineering designed by Labour to do nothing but obliterate traditional familial values of a mother, father and two children sitting round a stone fireplace telling ripping tales of Grandad’s adventures in the Great War.
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The toothless PCC strikes again
To get an idea of just how useless the Press Complaints Commission is, you only have to look at its non-investigation into the Alfie Patten disaster.
You would have thought that they might just have something to say about how the Sun, the People and the Sunday Mail had almost certainly paid his family for personal interviews which led to some of the most invasive and potentially damaging intrusion into the private lives of children for some years, only for it to subsequently turn out that, oops, Alfie wasn’t the father after all.
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Andrew Gilligan – still working for Iranian state television
In an interview with the Guardian last year, the former Evening Standard journalist Andrew Gilligan was quoted as saying:
“But I don’t think [Ken Livingstone] is progressive. Livingstone is the ally of some of the most reactionary forces in this city. I’m thinking of Ian Blair, I’m thinking of property developers he’s in bed with, I’m thinking of City big business.”
But it’s a bit bizarre that this champion of ‘progressives’ is still working for Iranian state television in the UK – Press TV. This is while even more right-wing colleagues such as Nick Ferrari have resigned. Press TV had recently also promoted Holocaust denial. Gilligan refused to say anything then either. Very principled, our Gilligan.
Update: And he’s part of their ad campaign too!
BBC gets more complaint over Jackson than expenses
A Media Guardian story today uncovers the interesting nugget that the BBC has received more complaints over excessive coverage on Michael Jackson’s death than the expenses of its own senior management.
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#MichaelJacksonRIP vs #IranElection
Evenin’ all. I wanted to make a quick point about certain global news stories, and the relative amount of news coverage given to each.
Its fashionable, yet incredibly easy to complain that the Michael Jackson death has crowded out news of other more pressing matters. Shawn Micallef sounded an early word of warning about this attitude:
There is no need to compare MJ & Iran – completely dif, just intersect on same medium, not a social/moral lesson to be learned.
Then (again via Twitter, though the link is now lost in the maelstrom) I came across this MJ/Election mash-up, and it occurred to me that coverage (be it on Twitter, blogs or the international MSM) is not a zero-sum game, and that coverage of one piece of news could promote awareness of another.
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The faux-outrage over BBC expenses
As non-stories go, BBC executives claim hardly anything on expenses over five year period is a pretty high ranking one. Director-General claims for flight back to Britain to deal with manufactured newspaper scandal, as any other business would accept in an instant, creative director claims on insurance for stolen handbag, and a £100 bottle of champagne for someone regarded by many as a national treasure is about as weak as it gets.
To give an idea of just how removed these are from the MPs expenses, Radio 1’s controller Andy Parfitt claimed £340.43 on meals last year (PDF), the highest such claim. That’s £60 less than most MPs were claiming in a single month on food.
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How Judge Eady went from press villain to hero
It’s not unusual for public figure to experience severe reversals of reputation, and the distance between “nation’s sweetheart” and “national disgrace” can be as short as a few column inches. But Lord Justice Eady’s recent rehabilitation in the eyes of the press is a remarkable one – for the swiftness with which some editors have shifted position, and for what it suggests about the future possibilities for scrutiny in the media.
Around the end of 2008, Eady was the most unpopular judge on the circuit as far as newspapers were concerned. His rulings on privacy – including extending indefinite protection from publicity to Maxine Carr, preventing the exposure of an adulterous sports star, and most famously awarding hefty damages to Max Mosley when he sued the News of the World for publishing details of a private S&M session – seemed to get lambasted every time a tabloid editor made a speech.
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» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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