Guilt By Press Association?

Is this another blow for Cameron? Jeremy Clarkson, who was at a party attended by the evil James Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks and the Camerons (yes, even the fragrant SamCam is involved in this tawdry affair), reveals all that happened in today's Sunday Times...

We began with a cocktail made from crushed socialists and after we’d discussed how the trade union movement could be smashed and how News Corp should be allowed to take control of the BBC, Rupert Murdoch joined us on a live video feed from his private volcano, stroking a white cat.

Later, I remember vividly, a policeman knocked at the door and Rebekah gave him a wad of cash. Cameron tapped the side of his nose knowingly and went back to his main course — a delicious roast fox.

Sadly, well sadly for any Guardian readers out there, this wasn't the case. It turns out conversation was fairly mundane, including discussion of such things as sausage rolls and the environment (James Murdoch taking issue with Jeremy Clarkson, apparently).

Of course, the very idea that Cameron was friendly enough with the News Corp execs to attend a party with them (and the even more reviled Clarkson and his neighbours) is enough to send the left into spasms of conspiracy fits. It won't be explanation enough to point out that most of them live close to each other and are friends. But, there's certainly a question to be asked about Cameron's judgement in maintaining friendships with people who have clouds hanging over them. But I judge someone by their actions. And, had Vince Cable not compromised himself in an attempt to impress two young ladies (sent by the evil Telegraph to "illegally*" expose what an egotistical coalition malcontent he was), Cameron was all set to allow the Murdoch hating octogenarian (I don't mean in age but in number of times he's predicted recessions in the past 10 years) to make the final decision on the BSkyB takeover by News Corp.  Surely that would be the last thing the "puppet master" Murdoch would have "allowed".

As it happens, there's very little evidence that the values and opinions of the right-wing press (News International owned or not) have had much, if any, influence on Cameron's government, much to the dismay of many of its Conservative supporters.

But guilt by association is the name of the game for Cameron's opponents currently. Let's hope the general public see through the flimsy attempts to link the phone hacking scandal to Cameron personally and they judge the proponents of these self-serving arguments harshly while demanding they look more closely at what really matters - press ethics, police corruption and oh, yes, the small matters of massive government debt, an unreformed NHS, education, etc etc...


* It's not illegal to use subterfuge to gain information if it's in the public interest. However, this particular rule looks like it may have had its day. And how pleased many dodgy MPs, judges, medical charlatans etc will be about that.

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.

They're All At It!

When the serious allegations regarding the News of the World phone hacking scandal emerged last week it was clear that this "scandal" had finally produced some real substance. Previously, the faux outrage being exhibited by left leaning papers, politicians and celebs was transparently in their own self-interest. Bitter at News International for turning their back on Labour after so long, their hatred had undermined the case that was being made against the press, mainly because they sought to focus on the one organisation. But now we hear the extent of the use of phone hacking went beyond those in public life to include innocent private individuals, even victims of crime. The worst accusation involves PI Glen Mulcaire, apparently in the pay of The News of The World, listening into voice mail messages of Milly Dowler when she was still missing. This is an appalling revelation and all the outrage and indignation was well justified.

News International has moved decisively and ruthlessly to cut out the cancer in its midst by closing down the title in the frame for this disgusting behaviour. It seems massively unfair to the many staff and journalists, not to mention millions of readers, who have not done anything wrong. But such was the damage to the paper's brand and the potential for that damage to seep into other News International titles that Murdoch clearly felt the action was necessary. However, more and more revelations are emerging that could yet threaten his other titles. Ironically, it is this threat that would do more damage to media plurality that any BSkyB takeover would.

What is sickening is seeing Ed Miliband attempts to be seen, all of a sudden, as a leader of the campaign against The News of the World and now News International. This is a man who employs a News International ex-journalist as a press secretary who was, just a day before the story broke, following his advice to lay off the topic. Miliband even undertook a complete about turn over night by saying the BSkyB/News International deal was not affected by the revelations one day, and then calling for the deal to be reassessed the next, when he had to appear in Prime Minister's question time... on the telly.

The danger is that the politically motivated johnny-come-lately opposition politicians and original protagonists in this saga will, in their attempts to maintain focus on Andy Coulson because of his 4 year stint in the employ of David Cameron and News International generally, distract attention from the broader issue of how the press conducts itself. So desperate are they to implicate Cameron in the scandal and destroy Murdoch's company, they may deny this country a real opportunity to reset the values and moral compass of our tabloid media, or at least deny them easy access to ill-gotten information without a true public interest justification. By public interest I don't mean "interesting to the public", of course!

It is this last point that I think everyone who used to buy the News of the World or any other tabloid such as the Mirror, Sun, Mail... should ponder. What motivated these journalists to go to such lengths to get info on people? It was the fight of readership. You get what you deserve in the real world, not necessarily what is good for you. We have the press and politicians we deserve. The truth is salacious stories about celebrities (or anyone who finds themselves in the public eye) sold newspapers. The News of the World was the top selling Sunday newspaper for a reason. It did sex and scandal better than its rivals. And we lapped it up. Despite what the anti-Cameron/News International brigade want you to believe, the NotW's competitors are just as deeply immersed in the mire of dark arts in the search for a juicy story. As the What Price Privacy Now report found, there exists a market in confidential personal data, often provided by private investigators (like Glen Mulcaire), grubbing around in bins, blagging confidential information, accessing personal voice mail messages and exploiting contacts with the police etc, to get information on anyone they think the tabloids would be interested in. And if you thought it was only the News International titles making use of these dodgy services, think on...

So, it's great that we have a public enquiry into the activities of the press. I hope it exposes their practices which, for decades, have been hardly questioned because of the assumption that anything was justifiable in the name of a free press; the myth that such practices were ultimately in the public interest. In reality they were mostly pandering to the salacious interests of the public and didn't care who they hurt or destroyed along the way. It wasn't just the News of the World, or the Sun or the Mail (the papers most of those on the left want attention focused on). It was all papers, including left leaning ones like the Mirror, the Observer and the People. Yes, the Observer. It's not even limited to tabloids! The whole industry needs to be looked at. Party politics has no place in these deliberations. It is shameful that there are those that wish to make it about Cameron or the "right wing press". I think Miliband and others will come out of this looking very shabby indeed.

But once the enquiries report and we understand the full picture, lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The MPs expenses scandal required the receipt of stolen goods to be overlooked as the story was clearly in the public's interest. Phone hacking is similarly perfectly justifiable if it is in the search for information that could lead to similarly important story being broken. The public needs to understand how journalists get their information and be reassured that, should they use illegal methods without a real public interest case, they will be prosecuted and their paper will bear a heavy cost for overstepping the mark. For that to happen we need to:

• Have a clearer definition of "public interest" - this isn't as easy as it sounds. A real public debate is required to sort the answer out. But the real penalties that will make Newspaper's think twice before using intrusive measures to dig up information.
• That there isn't a corrupting relationship between the police and media that could be exempting journalists from their legal responsibilities (hence Cameron's second enquiry into the police's role in this scandal)
• Politicians that are not frightened to hold media organisation to account. Something all party leaders have only now, belatedly and only after all media proprietors are running scared, started to do.
• A newspaper buying public that doesn't reward papers that publish the most base, sensationalist and scandalous stories. This final requirement will be the hardest to achieve. Impossible in fact, unless the nation changes its tastes all of a sudden!

The Daily Spurt Issues Forth Its Last

Who says tits sell newspapers? Despite having more baps per page than any other tabloid newspaper, or even any other broadsheet newspaper for that matter AND that's including The Telegraph, The Daily and Sunday Sport is being wound up. As if there weren't enough massive tits in the paper already, they had employed Lembit Opik, the ex-boyfriend of one for the cheeky girls, irregular TV personality, asteroid watcher and ex Liberal Democrat spokesman for Wales and Northern Ireland, as a columnist. But even he could not save them.

What a shame to lose such a throbbing organ of thrusting journalistic excellence. Let's take a few minutes to remember some of the scoops the papers exposed to our astonished eyes...