Rupert & Rebekah - now less popular than...

[Cormac]

Is this limitless? Is it fair for example, for the media to reveal all, or only some, of these potential "scoops":

1. A politician selling state secrets to foreign powers
2. A politician using his or her position to secure wealth for him or herself
3. A politician having an affair with a person who is a security risk (for example - the Profumo affair, where a politician with responsibility for defence was having an affair with the mistress of a Russian diplomat)
4. A married politician having an affair with a member of the opposite sex (but not doing anything to compromise their political role)
5. A married politician having an affair with a member of the same sex (but not doing anything to compromose their political role)
6. An unmarried politician having an affair with a member of the opposite sex (but not doing anything to compromise their political role)
7. An umnarried politician having an affair with a member of the same sex (but not doing anything to compromose their political role)
8. A politician who is suffering from an illness that doesn't compromise their political role
9. A politician who is suffering from an illness that might at some stage compromise their political role
10. A politician whose spouse is suffering from an illness
11. A politician whose child is suffering from a chronic illness
12. A politician whose child is suffering from a fatal illness.

For me the media have a duty to reveal 1-4, because these actually impact on areas of real public interest. None of the others are anyone's business, and the media step over the line when the do. The only possible exception is 9, but the timing of this is very important.

Politicians are human beings, and they don't sit in isolation - they have spouses and children. Revealing matters that aren't of "public interest" can have devastating effects on the lives of the politicians AND their spouses and families.

Human beings are frail creatures, prone to errors, mistakes, and imperfections. To expect that politicians are different to the rest of humanity is to put them on a pedestal that is just unwarranted. It is also very dangerous, because:

1. It inevitably drags politics into disrepute, by causing the public to erroneously conflate behaviour in private life and human error with the political process (which is damaging to democracy)
2. It causes people to put unwarranted trust in politicians who promise to clean up politics, which exposes the democratic process to the abuses of demagogues and would-be dictators.



Apart from all this, we set limits on how the police can use espionage to investigate crimes - and there are good reasons for this. Why do you think it is ok for the media to have completely unrestricted use of these techniques?

We restrict all sorts of agencies, government and private, in how they can gather, store, transport, and use personal data. We impose severe punishments for breaches. Why do you think it is ok for the media to be free of these restrictions that are imposed on everyone else?

Why do you say that 4 is fair game but not the rest exactly?

Sorry - correction - 1-3, and in certain circumstances - 9.

[Cormac]

What about actors and the like?

They make a life out of being famous, since the more known they are, the more contracts and the bigger pay they get... Those who make a clear distinction about their private lives, like never talking about it in interviews or inviting the press in their homes, are entitled to it. Those who even start trying to boost their fame by mixing "private" life and gossip into it become fair game, plain and simple. (short of collecting data through criminal deeds of course)

To an extent, agreed. If you parade your children and your spouse/partner across the media, then to an extent, the media are entitled to report.

But there is a limit to this. Because, while the "celeb" themselves may be comfortable with media scrutiny, where children are involved, it is not right to claim open-season.

[Audley Strange]

@ Cormac. Cheers for the clarification.

I agree with much of what you say, except that in quite a few cases much of what seems to be press intrusion has been engineered.

For example lets say a failing comedian, popular in the nineties but not been in the public eye for a while hires a P.R. agent to get himself into the media again after a decade or so of indifference by the public. The P.R. agent, knowing that this indifference (as well as the tired act of said comedian) is going to be hard to promote instead goes to the press to get them vilify his client, who reveal his drug fuelled sex parties with prostitutes while at home his wife was dealing with a newborn with M.S.

This then puts the figure in the public eye again, though they may not be happy about the type of attention they get, they are getting attention nevertheless. All they do then is make the usual public act of contrition and blame the vultures of the press for victimising them and presto, chat shows, celebrity hardbacks, perhaps even a spot on one of the countless celebrity quiz shows.

Again, we get the press we pay for. Not all of those who claim they are victims are victims.

[Chinaski]

Frankly I'd rather see those who paid for his services suffer. A diseased whore he may be, but he would not have had the influence he did if those claiming outrage weren't queuing up day in and out for his services. Including last Sunday when his rag sold more copies than ever to a "horrified public".

The fucking hypocrisy of those who claim the moral high-ground always makes me laugh.

Most people bought the NOTW for sports and titties.

[Cormac]

@ Cormac. Cheers for the clarification.

I agree with much of what you say, except that in quite a few cases much of what seems to be press intrusion has been engineered.

For example lets say a failing comedian, popular in the nineties but not been in the public eye for a while hires a P.R. agent to get himself into the media again after a decade or so of indifference by the public. The P.R. agent, knowing that this indifference (as well as the tired act of said comedian) is going to be hard to promote instead goes to the press to get them vilify his client, who reveal his drug fuelled sex parties with prostitutes while at home his wife was dealing with a newborn with M.S.

This then puts the figure in the public eye again, though they may not be happy about the type of attention they get, they are getting attention nevertheless. All they do then is make the usual public act of contrition and blame the vultures of the press for victimising them and presto, chat shows, celebrity hardbacks, perhaps even a spot on one of the countless celebrity quiz shows.

Again, we get the press we pay for. Not all of those who claim they are victims are victims.

It isn't that I'm naive about such manipulation, but that activity is also damaging and should not be tolerated.

This kind of shit is also pulled by dodgy politicians. When political PR is cooked up like this, and presented to the public as if it was an independent journalistic report, as opposed to a press release, it is misleading.

When journos breach one standard, they'll breach the other. A culture of cynicism towards society and the people arises. When this is between the press, politicians, and police, we have the makings of a culture that is very dangerous for democracy. This has been the state of affairs in Britain since the rise of New Labour.

[Audley Strange]

Frankly I'd rather see those who paid for his services suffer. A diseased whore he may be, but he would not have had the influence he did if those claiming outrage weren't queuing up day in and out for his services. Including last Sunday when his rag sold more copies than ever to a "horrified public".

The fucking hypocrisy of those who claim the moral high-ground always makes me laugh.

Most people bought the NOTW for sports and titties.

I disagree.

It isn't that I'm naive about such manipulation, but that activity is also damaging and should not be tolerated.

This kind of shit is also pulled by dodgy politicians. When political PR is cooked up like this, and presented to the public as if it was an independent journalistic report, as opposed to a press release, it is misleading.

When journos breach one standard, they'll breach the other. A culture of cynicism towards society and the people arises. When this is between the press, politicians, and police, we have the makings of a culture that is very dangerous for democracy. This has been the state of affairs in Britain since the rise of New Labour.

Well no, the collusion between Reith's Establishment BBC, Mainstream Politics and the Press to demean unions and social movements went on even in the thirties, its a culture predates New Labour by a long way, though with the Profumo affair I'd suggest there was a watershed moment in that power balance evinced more overtly by Thatcher's courting of Murdoch. Though you'd be spot on about the ascendency of P.R. over politics rising with New Labour.

[Svartalf]

Surely you can't buy anythiong from murdoch as a source of information or insight about the events?

[Audley Strange]

I'm not sure, you might get an insight to their rationale free of the witch hunt rhetoric.

[Cormac]

Frankly I'd rather see those who paid for his services suffer. A diseased whore he may be, but he would not have had the influence he did if those claiming outrage weren't queuing up day in and out for his services. Including last Sunday when his rag sold more copies than ever to a "horrified public".

The fucking hypocrisy of those who claim the moral high-ground always makes me laugh.

Most people bought the NOTW for sports and titties.

I disagree.

It isn't that I'm naive about such manipulation, but that activity is also damaging and should not be tolerated.

This kind of shit is also pulled by dodgy politicians. When political PR is cooked up like this, and presented to the public as if it was an independent journalistic report, as opposed to a press release, it is misleading.

When journos breach one standard, they'll breach the other. A culture of cynicism towards society and the people arises. When this is between the press, politicians, and police, we have the makings of a culture that is very dangerous for democracy. This has been the state of affairs in Britain since the rise of New Labour.

Well no, the collusion between Reith's Establishment BBC, Mainstream Politics and the Press to demean unions and social movements went on even in the thirties, its a culture predates New Labour by a long way, though with the Profumo affair I'd suggest there was a watershed moment in that power balance evinced more overtly by Thatcher's courting of Murdoch. Though you'd be spot on about the ascendency of P.R. over politics rising with New Labour.

Oh, I didn't think political interference by the press began with New Labour. I'm just surprised at the alacrity and delight with which New Labour jumped into bed with him.

Going all the way back to Rothermere and Northcliffe (brothers who rose from Dublin poverty to become comparatively even more dominant over media in their day that Murdoch is today).

Nonetheless, what has developed over the last 15 years is more dangerous than any cosying up done under Thatcher. With New Labour kissing his arse, Murdoch had the two main parties in his hands - in addition, it seems, to some senior police officers.

At least when Labour would have found him as distasteful as Brown is now pretending they did throughout the Blair-Brown era, there was a smidgeon of balance...

But the triumph of PR over politics couldn't happen without press collusion, and lazy journalists submitting press releases verbatim.

(Incidentally, quite a lot of the coverage of the Israeli problem comes in the same form - Press Releases from the IDC published verbatim.

[Santa_Claus]

Stop ruining my thread by posting stuff in it

[Rum]

The bosses continue to fall - and Murdoch prints an apology in all today's papers. It begins:- 'The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account'.

No it fucking wasn't! It was in the business of grubbing up salacious gossip and troughing about in the pain and anguish of other people for the 'entertainment' of its very very low brow readership. Fuck off Murdoch you hypocritical arsehole.

[Audley Strange]

@Rum, he said others, not his own media, unless he did, I don't read newspapers so I have no idea what the "apology" contained. Your description was as it stands accurate except the hypocrite part. Now while I think that any civilised country would have his head rotting on a spike over the gates of the Capital, I'm not sure that he's the hypocrite in this drama. Not yet at least, though I'm sure we'll be able to accurately add that to his list of faults by the end of the week.

[Rum]

Brooks arrested. Commissioner of the Met resigned..and so it grows.

[Audley Strange]

Isn't it grand? I fully expect that by Wednesday that will be implicated and resign too.

[Santa_Claus]

I think James Murdoch is in a world of shit.............