Trevor Kavanagh (also freezepaged here)…
THE Sun is not a “swamp” that needs draining. Related StoriesThreat to free Press alert
PROBE into practices of papers must not kill free Press, Culture Sec warns
Nor are those other great News International titles, The Times and The Sunday Times.
Maybe not. Lets see where the police investigation leads, shall we? After all, all this phone hacking and poor journalistic practices was, as someone from News International once said, one rogue reporter. And yet here we are.
Yet in what would at any other time cause uproar in Parliament and among civil liberty and human rights campaigners, its journalists are being treated like members of an organised crime gang.
I think people are quite justified in thinking News International and it’s news titles are an organised gang. What are the charges so far? Intercepting private messages. Intimidation. Coersion, sometimes bordering on blackmail. Bullying. Paying the police. Sounds not quite straight up law abiding to me.
They are subjects of the biggest police operation in British criminal history — bigger even than the Pan Am Lockerbie murder probe.
Maybe that’s because of the period of time the investigation covers and the amount of victims, which is more than the Pan Am bombing produced.
Major crime investigations are on hold as 171 police are drafted in to run three separate operations.
In one raid, two officers revealed they had been pulled off an elite 11-man anti-terror squad trying to protect the Olympics from a mass suicide attack.
You’ll excuse me if I don’t take Trevor seriously about this mass suicide attack. Not only has The Sun had dodgy sources in the past, but if this was such a big deal, a mass suicide bombing at the Olympics, don’t you think it would’ve been mentioned in the news already? It would’ve been too good for the press to pass up. They love a good scaremongering. If this mass bombing is real, and the press have kept it quiet so the bombers aren’t given the tip-off, then Trevor has just given the bombers the tip-off. Either way, Nice one Trevor, you cock.
Instead of being called in for questioning, 30 journalists have been needlessly dragged from their beds in dawn raids, arrested and held in police cells while their homes are ransacked.
Yeah, maybe the dawn raids were a bit over the top. I don’t know what the police were expecting if they’d just knocked politely at the door. Journalists hurriedly flushing notebooks down the toilet? But again, The Sun has been one of the loudest shouting that the police don’t do enough and are too soft. You reap what you sow.
Wives and children have been humiliated as up to 20 officers at a time rip up floorboards and sift through intimate possessions, love letters and entirely private documents.
Hmm. That sounds famliar. Pot, meet kettle.
At least the journalists that have had their private stuff riffled through are being accused of more than just screwing someone they’re not married to.
It is important that we do not jump to conclusions.
Nobody has been charged with any offence, still less tried or convicted.
Jesus fucking christ. Listen to him. Has he no idea what his paper is like? Yes, Trevor. It is important not to jump to conclusions.
Yet all are now on open-ended police bail, their lives disrupted and their careers on hold and potentially ruined.
Is it any surprise that Britain has dropped nine places to 28th, behind ex-Soviet bloc states Poland, Estonia and Slovakia, in the international Freedom of Speech league table?
This is nothing to do with free speech. This is about breaking the law with no justifiable defence. The press are just as free to print whatever they want. They can even break the law to get information, as long as it is in the public interest defence. The press is so free to print lies and rubbish by their columinists even the PCC, the supposed regulator, doesn’t think it’s worth pulling them up on it.
So when the police get matters so far out of proportion, we are entitled to ask: Who polices the police?
Well, it certainly shouldn’t be the certain parts of the press, especially when those parts are being investigated for links so close it could be considered the police forces PR department.
Why should questions about police procedures be handled solely by the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is notoriously reluctant to rule against police?
Oh, Trevors noticed then. Once again, it’s been obvious to nearly everyone for a long time but somehow, Trvors only just thought to mention it now his shit has hit the fan.
This inquiry has even begun to disturb those of our critics who have been at least partly responsible for what many see as a “witch-hunt”.
Quite right. We mustn’t presume guilty unless proven. That would be quite wrong, wouldn’t it Trevor?
The Guardian has raised questions about freedom of the Press. Its media analyst, Steve Hewlett, says that when it comes to paying for stories, no newspaper — “tabloid or otherwise” — is exempt.
Maybe not, so those sources that are paid need to be carefully checked. Not just The Suns’ but all the papers. The Sun and Murdochs’ titles may be the titles that people are showing most glee towards when there are arrests but it is the industry that is being investigated. Trevor shouldn’t take it so personally.
Yet in a quite extraordinary assumption of power, police are able to impose conditions not unlike those applied to suspected terrorists.
Under the draconian terms of police bail, many journalists are barred from speaking to each other. They are treated like threats to national security. And there is no end in sight to their ordeal.
And who’s been calling for more draconian police powers…?
Their alleged crimes? To act as journalists have acted on all newspapers through the ages, unearthing stories that shape our lives, often obstructed by those who prefer to operate behind closed doors.
No, their alleged crimes are illegally listening to voicemails and paying police officers for information, amongst other things. In a lot of cases the journalists aren’t unearthing stories that shape our lives, they are puting a spin on them to manipulate the public to get what their proprietors want from the ruling elite of this country. The press, especially the tabloids don’t just report the facts and let us decide if something is right or wrong. They are not just happy with putting their views across through the editorial columns, they have put they’re own agendas into the stories. ommitting details that contradict them, exagerating some aspects and making complete fabrications, as detailed in the plethora of blogs and websites that are dedicated to shouting “bullshit” at them whenever it appears.
The rich and powerful have and always will try to obfuscate and hide things that are damaging or illegal that could be inconvenient to them and quest for more money and power, that is why the public defence clause is there. No one is denying the press need that clause, but they have made it harder and harder to defend when they do the normally illegal information gathering techniques on fucking celebrities.
These stories sometimes involve whistleblowers. Sometimes money changes hands. This has been standard procedure as long as newspapers have existed, here and abroad.
There is nothing disreputable about it. And, as far as we know at this point, nothing illegal.
Money changes hands. Fine, but the checking of it needs to be a fuck of lot more stringent. Just because something has been ‘standard procedure’ for a long time doesn’t mean it shouldn’t come to a stop. Our standard procedure was to hang criminals. In the USA segragation was standard procedure. Tradition is no reason to keep something. Ever.
Without good sources no newspaper could uncover scandals in the public interest.
Certainly, the world would never have learned about the expenses scandal that landed so many politicians in jail.
Very true. The press can get it right, just like a stopped clock is right twice a day. A couple of good stories does not justify the amount of shit raking and filth that the press make us swim in the rest of the time, though.
Which brings us to a sensitive domestic issue within the News International “family” which we cannot ignore.
Using ‘Family’ does bring to mind, rather than a group of companies, a crime ‘family’. I’d have thought Trevor would want to avoid that.
It is absolutely right the company co-operates with police on inquiries ranging from phone and computer hacking to illegal payments.
We are right to hand over any evidence — emails, expense claims, memos — that might aid those inquiries.
As it should, although ‘helping the police with their enquiries is not usually seen in such a good light by the press.
It is right that those inquiries are carried out separately from the journalists under investigation. Nobody on The Sun was aware in advance that ten colleagues were about to be nabbed.
Why should anybody be told of immenent arrests. What has that got to do with anything?
It is also important our parent company, News Corp, protects its reputation in the United States and the interests of its shareholders. But some of the greatest legends in Fleet Street have been held, at least on the basis of evidence so far revealed, for simply doing their jobs as journalists on behalf of the company.
Yes, Trevor. Protecting News Corps interests. That’d be why the original investigation, completely swallowed by the PCC and the Police, to which Nes Intl has close links, went for the cover of a lone rogue reporter. Get the situation closed down as quickly as possible. Move on. Carry on. This is bigger than bloody money. This is about the poisonong of the well in which we all drink. And now The Sun and other companies in it group are not liking it one bit now it has to drink it’s own piss.
And those journalists just doing their job? Maybe, just maybe there is evidence that hasn’t been passed to you. Or they could be innocent of everything. Lets see shall we and not jump to conclusions, as you seem to be so creful of all of a sudden.
Meanwhile, a huge operation driven by politicians threatens the very foundations of a free Press.
We have three separate police inquiries — Elveden, Weeting and Tuleta.
There is a Parliamentary inquiry and of course the free-ranging Leveson Inquiry into newspaper practices.
This ‘operation’ isn’t going to threaten stop a free press. If it does, something would’ve going very, very wrong. What it will do, hopefully, is create a better press. One that doesn’t trade favours with the police, one that doesn’t scare the shit out of people in case they come to the press’ attention, for the right or wrong reasons. A press that can still investigate stories using shady tactics, but does so only for important stories.
The field is open to almost anyone with a grievance to deliver their two cents’ worth, even touching unrelated issues such as Page Three.
The process, costing tens of millions of pounds, threatens to roll on for at least another year and probably two.
People affected by the press should be able to give their view. After all, many of them, even some celebrities have been worried about what sort of dirt the tabloids would dig up on them, that is nobodies business, if they spoke out.
If Trevor is so concerned about the cost then maybe his industry, should contribute towards it. After all it is the behaviour of his industry that has made something of this scale necessary.
Interestingly, nothing on this scale is envisaged for the banking industry which has brought the nation to the brink of bankruptcy.
That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be something like this for the banking industry. But is Trevor asking for the bankers to be treated like the press or the for press to get off as lightly as the bankers, I wonder…
Before it is too late, should we not be asking where all this is likely to lead? Will we have a better Press?
Or a Press that has been bullied by politicians into delivering what they, not the readers, think fit?
As opposed to what we have now? The editors world view imposed on every story so that it fits their agenda rather than delivering news, accurately and truthfully and letting their readers make up their mind?
At least with a politician they can be voted out.
The Sun is a little bit peeved today because it’s freedom of speech is being restricted again and can’t report on someones sex life (istyosty link). I can certainly see why.
A SENIOR executive at a British bank bailed out by the taxpayer has gagged The Sun from revealing an affair with a colleague.
High Court judge Mr Justice Richard Henriques leapt to his defence in a ruling that delivered another blow to free speech in the UK.
Why shouldn’t the Sun be able to report on someones carnal activities? This person worked at a bank that received taxpayer money. We should be able to know everything about them. Doesn’t that judge know who we are? We’re bloody taxpayers, don’tcha know?
The married banker, paid a substantial six figure sum, began the illicit affair before the credit crunch erupted and plunged the country into recession.
Look! He’s paid not just a six figure sum, but a ‘substantial’ six figure sum. What is the judge playing at? Doesn’t he know the bigger the salary the more right we have to know about who he is sticking is knob in?
He was present when the Government was forced to spend almost £1trillion to prop up the banks. Ministers are axing thousands of civil servants to pay for bankers’ mistakes and more than 50,000 workers in the sector have lost their job in the past two years.
This is outragous! He was there when the government gave the banks all of *our* money. Where ‘there’ is, is irrelevant. Was he present at the bank, present in government, in his girlfriend at the time the government handed over the whopping big cheque? It doesn’t matter. He was ‘there’. We demand to know. He is connected to the government, however remotely so he must’ve been telling us not to cheat on our spouses. He must be hypocrite. How can we tell unless we know who he is?
If he’s not connected to the government or not, he gets paid a big fat wodge of dough so he must be a role model for the kids. Either way the public must know who he’s been shagging, where, when, how often and in what positions. It’s in the public interest. This information being kept from us could be a game changer in the way we live our lives.
These people cannot get away with dicking about on their poor, poor wifes without retribution. And I want the Sun to deal it.
One bank insider told the Sun: “Given what was going on at the time they got together, I’m surprised either of them had the time or the energy.”
Jesus snapping arseholes! There’s more! He got paid a big bundle by a bank and he still had free time away from the bank. What were they paying him for? Surely he must’ve been skiving, or bonking on company time. It’s the only explanation. As for having the energy to for all this horizontal excercise? Well, there’s only one explanation. Drugs.
Yeah, ok. Drugs might not be the *only* explanation for someone having enough energy to bonk their girlfriend, but how do we, the public, know unless this man is exposed to public scrutiny?
I don’t know about you but I won’t be able to sleep at night thinking about how this man that worked at a bank was shagging someone that wasn’t his wife… er, without reaping the vengeance of the public.
I demand to know!
OUTRAGED travellers demanded last night that Transport Secretary Lord Adonis return from holiday to tackle the UK’s travel nightmare.
The Cabinet minister had sloped off to a luxury Alpine skiing holiday in Austria while Britons slid and shivered on roads, railways and airport floors.
The above piece isn’t exactly a lie, which is why I’m posting here rather than at The Sun Lies, except that maybe travellers, although outraged, aren’t demanding Lord Adonis cut short his christmas holiday, as most probably didn’t even realise he was on holiday. The reader doesn’t find out, no travellers are quoted in the article, only bods from organisations and the like.
What has pee’d me off about this article is the way that the Sun starts off screaming about Lord Adonis ‘sloping’* off for a ski holiday while the country grinds to a halt.
*From the Suns’ position, that is a fantastic pun. Not only does it fit with Adonis going on the piste**, but it aslo goes with the sneaky, useless Labour government narrative.
**apologies for that one.
The next paragraph carries on the narrative by introducing the bumbling sidekick…
Lord Adonis, 46, left his hapless deputy Sadiq Khan to face the avalanche of fury over cancellations, delays and the road gritting shambles.
That’s the groundwork for the piece laid down: the boss has snuk (sneaked?) off and left his bumbling deputy to cope.
Naturally the shadow local government minister is gonna have pop and say that Adonis should come back, via airports that are closed, to help out with a shovel and a bag of grit.
Once all that is set up there follows a great long list of things that have happened because of the cold, as if it’s Lord Adonis’ fault:
Nine people have died during the cold snap as temperatures plunged to as low as -16C in some parts of the UK.
Two women were killed and almost 50 injured when a coach overturned on icy roads in Cornwall late last night.
In Northamptonshire Paul Litchfield, 30, and Philip Sturridge, 42, drowned as they tried to rescue their pet Labrador from a frozen lake near Ringstead.
Adonis should’ve been handing out thermal underwear, and called the bus company to tell them not to send the driver out and gone onto the frozen lake himself instead of making those two chaps go out on the thin ice themselves to rescue a fucking dog.
In Sale, Greater Manchester, recovery worker Denis Livesly, 60, was killed as he attended to a car in a snowstorm on the M60 motorway.
Malcolm Brown, 32, was also killed in Basingstoke, Hampshire, when a deer smashed through his windscreen during a blizzard.
On the island of Lewis 35-year-old electrician Donald Martin froze to death after locking himself out of his home after a Christmas party.
How could Adonis have prevented Mr Livesly from dying? Deers are a nightmare whatever the weather, is it Adonis’ fault Donald Martin didn’t have the sense to smash a window to get back in his home?
There’s more stories about people trying to save their dogs and people dying after slipping on ice and aeroplanes slipping off the end of runways and trains and the Royal Mail and Asda and Eurostar and roads and… and… and…
If only Lord Adonis was here. The country would be able to stop being so shit at bad weather.
