Sometimes something happens that makes me realise I really don’t understand ‘big’ business and that there really is a ‘them’ at the top and an ‘us’ under their heel – and them and us play by different rules. And the rules are always theirs.
Rebekah Brooks, the former head of News International, was paid £10.8m after she resigned, it has emerged.
This isn’t rant at Rebekah Brooks, as such, or News International, but just the latest in a long line of such occurances. Most happen without hitting the headlines. I just can’t work out why, how ever much I think about it.
Ms Brooks had a job. Ms Brooks resigns from the job. Ms Brooks get a fucking massive wodge of cash as compensation for loss of office.
But hang on, she didn’t lose her office. She gave it up, didn’t she? If she gave it up then why should she be compensated? She wasn’t sacked unreasonably. She gave up the job of her own accord. Resigning is not losing your office.
Contrast that to someone working in a shop, a warehouse, an sales rep. They resign, they have to work a notice period, anywhere between a week to 6 months. They don’t get a payoff. In some, still uncontroversial, circumstances they might be paid in lieu notice, but then that’s still not a surprising amount.
So that’s the first difference. The lucky few resign and get a fucking big credit entry on their bank statement, the masses have to carry on working their notice or they’ll get fuck all.
But, Ms Brook is being investigated, and has been arrested, for wrong doing within the company she was employed at, so it’s not just a straight case of someone resigning to go to another job. She resigned to protect the company, or because her position became untenable and she was asked to resign.
Now, either way she has brought the company into disrepute. Either by being negligent and not knowing what the fuck was going on under her tenure or for at the very least looking the other way while her minions broke the law.
This fuck up of hers, and others, is costing the company a fuck of a lot of money. Once again, the ‘ordinary mad in the street’ would’ve been sacked. No chance to resign, just a push out the door whilst being told to fuck off.
Why do these people get the chance to resign? It’s not like they actually have their CV typed out on a couple pieces of A4 and might worry what sacking might do to their chance of future employment.
Now, I don’t know how much Brooks was paid a year for her job, but £10.8m is a fuck of a lot. That’s £900,000 a month over a year, or what someone would be paid at £50,000 a year, if they worked for 216 years.
… and I think I’ve just cleared up my confusion.
Brooks must either have one hell of a lawyer, or know some very dark secrets that the Murdochs’ don’t want out in the open.
So that’s going to be my business plan. Get some dirt on my boss until I can afford a shit hot lawyer.
Whether editing your own Wikipedia entry is A Bad Thing or neither here nor there depends on who you are and what edits you are making.
What is A Bad Thing is bullshitting about why you’re editing your little claim to fame.
Paul Staines has been, so he says, long been invited to edit his own entry by the editors. So that’s ok then.
But really? Did Staines really get an email asking for help. I wonder how it went…
Dear Mr Fawkes,
Your entry in Wikipedia is in such a mess and so full of inaccuracies that it really needs a good tidy up.
Seeing as it is in such a mess, and it is about you and you’re soooooo important and brilliant in all walks of life, from journalism to high finance, would you do us the honour of gracing our webpage and having a clear out. We just know you’ll do a sterling job at keeping it impartial, too.
Please? Pretty please?
Your loyal subjects,
The Editors
I do wonder how many other people have edited their own entry though, at the invitation of ‘the editors’.
Wikipedia isn’t just a free-for-all. It has some guidelines, as you’d expect.
Subjects sometimes become involved in editing material about themselves, either directly or through a representative. The Arbitration Committee has ruled in favor of showing leniency to BLP subjects who try to fix what they see as errors or unfair material. Although Wikipedia discourages people from writing about themselves
Small edits by the subject of an article may be over-looked, but the key phrase “Wikipedia discourages people from writing about themselves” certainly doesn’t sound like they offer invitations like the one Staines claims he got, especially to people that in the scheme of things, aren’t very big, famous or significant in any way.
Everyone fucks up. You do, I do. Everyone does sometime or other. We either say the wrong thing, misunderstand something or as happened tonight at several newspapers, press the wrong button.
Amanda Knox won her appeal against her conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Several papers, as the verdict was given, published their stories. The problem was that they jumped the gun a little and published stories about Knoxs’ conviction standing. The Sun did it. The Guardian did it.
Knox was found guilty of slander against a bar (or was it a hotel) owner she accused of the murder, and it was this guilty verdict declared by the judge that these papers hit the big red ‘publish’ button on. Ooops!
All three papers corrected themselves pretty quickly, as you can imagine, and in itself isn’t a problem.
Since the beginning of time, newspapers have always raced to get the story out first. On an occasion such as this, the newsdesk will have written two stories. One for a ‘guilty’ verdict and one for an ‘innocent’. In their rush to be first, these papers fucked up and published the wrong story.
That might’ve been that last of it, apart from a lil’ bit of ribbing on Twitter.
What this mistake has done, however was call into question, again, the use of anonymous sources and how can we be sure someone actually did say what the paper says was said?
You see not only did the Mail publish their story about Amanda Knox staying locked up, they also included in it quotes from one of the prosecutors team that were made up…
Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that ‘justice has been done’ although they said on a ‘human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail’.
This quote along with other details such as…
Following the verdict Knox and Sollecito were taken out of court escorted by prison guards and into a waiting van which took her back to her cell at Capanne jail near Perugia and him to Terni jail, 60 miles away.
…are complete fabrications thought up by someone in London.
Now, we all suspect that these nameless ‘sources’, ‘insiders’, ‘someone close to…’ and ‘…who wished to remain anonymous…’ are sometimes made up, only real in the head of the reporter or editor, but because of the presses right not to reveal their sources it is extremely hard to pin down the actual source of a quote.
There is one little difference between this nameless source and the usual anonymuos quote: There is a tracability to the false quote. The quotes aren’t quite anonymous.
The prosecutor is Giuliano Mignini. There is your starting point. I’m sure a better blogger then me, or even a proper journalist, could get an official denial/confirmation from him.
But what of this big fat lie? Well, the Press Complaints Commission are unlikely to do anything. The story was written in advance and published by mistake and quickly taken down again. It was never put into print for there to be any need of a correction and the amount of people who would’ve actually seen the article would be relatively small. As far as the PCC would be concerned, there is nothing for them to do.
What it shows is that the Daily Mail is prepared to lie about a fairly big thing. With a path to be able to fact check it’s quotes from a major player in the story.
If the Mail feels it can make up a massive part of it’s story with made up quotes from one of the major people in an event, then what about the smaller stories, the ones that feed the papers agenda?
Is the Mail really going to go to the trouble of getting a quote from Joe Bloggs who’s been passed over for a council house in favour of a Somali pirate seeking asylum or because of the equalities commission isn’t allowing him to call a lesbian a dyke in his office or are they just going to print what Paul Dacre thinks and attribute it to “someone close to Mr Bloggs”?
The Mail fucked up. They made a mistake anyone could’ve done, but with that mistake they’ve revealed so much about the dishonest way they conduct business.
So, I suppose I had better post about the conclusion too. Here’s a post from the blog of the Open Rights Group…
We’ve just received a cheque for £1,000 from the Daily Mail’s publishers, after they admitted publishing photos from Alice in Wonderland blog without permission. The photos featured ultra-skinny mannequins. The Daily Mail had asked Alice for permission, but refused her £250 fee (given to a charity of her choice).
“I don’t like the Daily Mail, and didn’t want to give them commercial use of my pictures for free.” she explains.
But they published anyway. Alice wasn’t best pleased at this blatant commercial abuse of her copyright, and demanded they donate a grand to the copyfighters at ORG, alongside MIND. After some excuses, they relented, and today we received their cheque. You can read thefull story on Alice’s blog here.
A massive thank you to Alice for her heroics and the very generous donation!
A few days ago, I snapped a picture in The GAP on Oxford Street: their ALWAYS SKINNY mannequins’ legs are not only always skinny, but anorexically/starved so.
I tweeted it, and TwitPic’d one picture. Then Cory BoingBoing’ed it. Then the WashPo emailed, asking permission to reprint, and asked for a quote or two. I said yes. I sent them a further pic, too.
Then the Daily Mail got in touch. Could we use the photos, they said. I said, yes, if you donate £250 – a standard photo fee in my book, certainly less than what Getty charges, say – to a charity of my choice. I don’t like the Daily Mail, and didn’t want to give them commercial use of my pictures for free.
The Mail said £250 was not within their budget and so wouldn’t be using the photo. I bet you can’t guess what happened next.
Go read the rest of the post and marvel at the hypocrasy of Paul Dacres’ henchmen.
(Thanks to George in my previous post reminding me about this)
The scale of private links between David Cameron and News International was exposed for the first time last night, with the Prime Minister shown to have met Rupert Murdoch’s executives on no fewer than 26 occasions in just over a year since he entered Downing Street.
What the fuck is this all about then? 26 meeting in 15 months? Nearly one meeting a fortnight for over a year? Who the fuck did Cunty Cameron think News International are? A fucking PR agency? What? Oh.
What other company gets to have it’s executives meet with the prime minister every other fucking week, not counting short spells when there may be ideas for a policy being bandied about? These weren’t just reporters getting a statement or interview, these meetings were with people that were guiding and and shaping the direction of the News International. What the fuck were they talking about?
I can understand why Cameron would have 15 meetings with the execs from News International since May this year, they do have to get their story straight, don’t they.
I’ll ask again, in normal circumstances, and that period was supposed to be ‘ordinary’ as both Plods’ and New Intls’ enquiries had come to a close, what other fucking company gets it’s top nobs an exclusive audience with the prime minister once a fortnight?
As the Wapping Cowboy landed in London he was asked what his priority was. His smiling reply was “this one”, gesturing to Rebekah Wade Brooks who was with him at the time.
What the hell does that mean? Why should Brooks be his priority? in what way is she his priority? To ensure nothing is pinned on her?
I’d have thought his priority would’ve been along the lines of sorting this mess out, repairing the damage to his/News Corps reputation, getting justice for the phone hacking victims (too far fetched?) or even making pots of cash. But Rebekah Brooks is his priority?
What has she got on Murdoch that he wants, almost seems to need her within his empire? Murdoch could cut her loose, not even hang her out to dry, just let her resign with dignity, in their eyes, and a big part of the problem goes away.
Unless, of course, he’s just fucking with our minds… as usual.
Whoa! Something has got Nadine Dorries pissed off this evening and she really wants to take it out on someone.
After two lines expressing her disappointment about the judgement of a plumber that harassed his wifes’ lover, with one of those two lines taken up by the hyperlink, Dorries embarks on a tirade against Tim…
I myself am in the position, as noted by Guido, http://order-order.com/ of being subjected to a particularly nasty form of online harassment.
Noted by Paul Staines? With a link to his blog, not where he does actually note it. And what’s this ‘particularly nasty’ form of harassment? Being called out on lies? Bringing to the attention of the public rather large payments to a friend for not a lot work? Trying to get personal information someone is legally entitled to, but being ignored?
Mainly due to the fact that I campaign against late term abortion and for a more responsible society which allows our children to enjoy a childhood free from the influence of an over sexualised culture and for a more responsible approach to sex and relationship counselling.
No, this level of scrutiny is due to avoiding the truth, not telling the truth and hiding the truth, whilst being a public servant.
One of the especially ‘poorly’ compulsive obsessive’s, recently alarmed the Police enough for them to issue a verbal warning on tape following a five hour interview. Following the warning, his tweets and blogs have remain monitored, as are those of people he communicates with on a regular basis in which I am discussed or mentioned.
Oh, I just love the scare quotes around the word ‘poorly’, implying this person not well. Obviously, the scare quotes mean that that is not what is meant. But we know, don’t we? We’ve read newspapers, we know how they work, don’t we? *gives conspiratorial wink*
Yes, this man, fuck it. We all know she is talking about Tim. Yes, Tim was given a warning. A verbal warning. A verbal warning is not anything official, like a caution. It was for one incident, the Flitwick husting. Not for any series of events. If you’ve been following this saga, you would not be surprised that it took five hours for the police and Tim to discuss this issue and it’s complexities.
Seeing as I am in quite regular contact with Tim, and a member of the Nadine Dorries Project, can I assume that, and I am gonna ‘sex’ this up a bit, can i assume that I am being bugged? Probably not. You see, the letter from the police saying that Tim got a verbal warning, for which he had to ask for, also explains that the matter is closed and only relates to the one occassion. Why would the police monitor all the people Tim has contact with to keep an eye on any mentions of Dorries if all they can do is say ‘be a bit careful in future’?
Frankly, I remain blissfully unaffected. I don’t ever read them and never come into contact with anyone in my constituency who does. I believe that to read them lets a sliver of nastiness into my day that I just don’t need.
Dorries doesn’t read anything that isn’t from a supportive constituent either. She leaves it to her staff to filter out the non-supportive and supportive mail.
This particular man also harasses anyone he comes across who has any contact with me, by bombarding them with emails, freedom of information requests and repetitive telephone calls.
No. Tim asks questions. When he gets the run around, he investigates further as to why they are being evasive. And usually comes up with something that explains why they are being evasive.
He even travelled across the country into my constituency once to a local meeting pretending to be a local to film me and lied to the meeting organisers and the audience about what he was doing, until a Labour supporter ‘outed’him.
From Tims’ place to Flitwick is hardly ‘across the country’. Its an hour away. As for lieing to the organisers of the Flitwick hustings? Take a look for yourself…
TIms’ post about it is here, along with independent accounts here and here. Make up your own mind.
Therefore, I cannot mention on my blog where I am going, only where I have been and am very careful about photographing who I have seen, tagging or naming people on photographs. I don’t mention what people have said or who they work for. I am careful about mentioning the names of anyone I am in contact with, where they live or where I am or what I am doing on any particular day, until the day is done. I hardly mention anything, because I don’t want other people to be subjected to what Ed West, of the Daily Telegraph, describes as ‘deranged’ behaviour. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100090868/nadine-dorries-is-right-about-child-sexualisation-why-does-this-make-people-so-angry/
But Dorries does mention all those things, and twist things up. She used the stabbing of another MP as the reason she shut her blog down and closed her Twitter account, saying it was on police advise. The stabbing of the MP happened after she closed her blog though.
This online menace certainly appears deranged as the other people he harasses in a less public way than me will testify.
Who? Who will testify that Tim is that deranged that they have had to involve the police? No one. That would be why there is nothing on police record.
And therefore, for the sake of the people who work for me (he has already forced one member of staff to resign) I had really hoped for a different outcome today.
Dorries’ mate resigned when Tim looked into their business relationship and started asking questions about how little work was seemingly being done for the amounts being paid.
Let’s hope another court case comes up soon with more compelling evidence. Who knows, maybe it will have to be mine.
The amount Dorries bleats on, she should have plenty of evidence to get Tim banged up for a spell.
I wonder why the police have done so little, then…
Update: 18/6/2011 11.20am
Dorries’ post has now been removed, but I have a screen grab here (see next update if this link doesn’t work).
Update 19/6/11
Dorries has reposted her work of fiction, under the title of My Day In Court. It is pretty much the same but with added guff, and no more truth.
I have given the original screen grab a more permanent home. You can find it here, and a screengrab pof the new post can be found here. (Due to a plugin-in or something, you may need to copy and paste the URL into a new window/tab to get a full size look at the screengrabs.)
For anyone who cares to know, blogger, Tim Ireland, who chooses to write blogs which are malicious, un-founded and for the most part totally untrue, has been warned by Police not to enter Bedfordshire.
Without going into the mailicious, unfounded and un-true part of that sentence (I know who I believe, and it’s the person that produces evidence to back up his claims), I do not believe for one second that Tim has been warned off from entering Bedfordshire.
Seeing as Tim has not had a visit from the police [see Tims’ comment below] about his behaviour towards Nadine, they’re hardly going to send someone/a message to him to warn him off from going x miles near Nadine. They might do if they had previously had reason to tell Tim to cool it, but they haven’t.
The police cannot stop someone going anywhere without a court order, ASBO or some other statutory instrument, again, of which Tim would’ve been notified of if there was one against him. Which there isn’t.
So what we have is a member of parliament, again, smearing someone with the accusation that the police are on to him and he is up to no good without any evidence.
However, this doesn’t stop him from wasting tax payers money via freedom of information requests and then letters of complaint to the information commissioner when they don’t work. Stopping that comes next! My poor staff :(
So, how exactly is Nadine going to stop someone submitting FoI requests and writing to the Information Commissioner? What powers, exactly does she have to stop it?
