Murdoch Leaves Select Committee As Seen By The Guardian

The Guardian continues its fair and balanced coverage of Hackgate with this picture of Rupert Murdoch leaving the enquiry with James Murdoch and other News Corp Execs behind him...

Minor Mistakes and Little White Lies

So, the News International flagellation continues unabated. There's no sign that their competitors or politicians want to focus on other media organisations that we know have been at least equally guilty of using dubious information gathering methods, so it's not going to move on any time soon. But I note that the anti-News International lobby have a new bit of spin.

It's a cunning line, based on the reported words of Rupert Murdoch in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. Murdoch, referring to News Corp's handling of the crisis since it broke, said they'd handled it well with only and few "minor mistakes". I've now seen this has been reinterpreted by some (BBC reporters and Labour politicians, including John Prescott, so far) as meaning the accusations against the News of the World (such as the accessing of Milly Downler's voicemails) were minor mistakes. Clever. There will be many that may disagree that News Corp have handled the crisis well with only a few minor mistakes, but no one would agree that the accusations regarding the accessing of innocent private individuals' voicemails, including victims of crime, are minor mistakes. Indeed, it's a line that, had he actually said it, would add to the public outrage and focus it more sharply on Rupert Murdoch himself. Which is, of course, their agenda.

After Gordon Brown's dodgy claims regarding The Sun this week we can see that the, mostly politically motivated, anti-News International campaign is resorting to lies and smears to progress it's agenda. It may seem like natural justice for the press, and I wouldn't be too bothered, if it wasn't for the fact that all this energy is being focused on one organisation, mostly because it upset a political party when it turned it's back on them. The worry is the wider problem in the press generally won't be addressed. What we need is the same tenacious focus on The Mirror, People, Mail etc. No one seriously suggests they've not been using similar methods as the News of the World. It will be interesting to see if Labour MPs maintain the same level of passion and indignation and the BBC continue wall to wall news coverage, when the story moves on to the non-News International papers and, God forbid, Labour papers like the Mirror and People.

Hoist By His Own Petard?

Now we've had the politicians express their, rather hypocritical, disgust at the behaviour of News International, perhaps we can move on to the real, broader issue of press ethics generally? The Mirror, Mail, People, in fact almost all of them, have been involved in questionable activities.

If anything good can come of this epiphenominal imbroglio it will be a shift in the taste of tabloid readers, away from the salacious tittle-tattle that they now know is gathered using illicit and morally dubious methods.

A rather amusing and ironic consequence of such a change in demand would be less work for the likes of Max Clifford, one of the most vocal celebrity phone hack victims.




What a shame that would be.

Estate Agents Have Some Catching Up To Do

All but one of the groups that top the public's love to hate league have accommodatingly behaved appallingly over the past few years.
MPs, investment bankers and now journalists have all disgraced themselves royally and confirmed themselves in the collective public mind as the greedy, grubby shits that they generally are.
But, one remaining group have not been keeping up in the race to plumb new depths of depravity or avarice, or both... estate agents. They continue to be untrustworthy, annoying prats but really need to get their act together if they are to keep up with those other bastards.

Hmm...

It'll have to be big to compete and overshadow the others. It wouldn't surprise me if the final News of the World edition on Sunday uncovers something like a massive paedophile ring at Nationwide Estate Agents or Mann & Co or somewhere. Perhaps it could be that these sick, slick haired Trevors are in cahoots with perverted tech-savvy online agents at Rightmove, using their web site as front for their disgusting picture trading. That'd put estate agency back in contention in the race for the abhorrence of the British people.

Come on estate agents! Sort it out or you'll start looking like saints compared to your abominable peers.