The Official Newscorp/UK end of season finale/Rebekah Brooks did 9/11 thread

i was just thinking about the vetting thing; did that ever go anywhere? the last time i was tuned in it was those letters rebounding between the g & #10, repeatedly asking questions about who knew what. i don't know whether it somehow proved a dead end or is just in limbo.

Think this government is using the time honoured tactic of not answering questions. Once again, where are you Liberal fucking Democrats? I'm sure it did happen under New Labour (they employed Alastair Campbell after all), but it seems like these days I'm constantly hearing broadcasters saying, "We asked the government to respond, but no-one was available."

oh yeah but, for the duration that the story was developing the guardian seemed to make real, incremental progress, with the crowdsourcing of vetted staff done through the blog & everything else. and i know there were editorials contrasting it with cameron's commitment to transparency. it's just frustrating that being walled off seems to have frozen the actual story. through this, at least, the guardian have been the most valuable 'opposition' in the place of an opposition party or coalition partner

Riots + Libya + what have you. Hasn't gone away though.

Interesting that Robert Peston broke this story. A deliberate attempt to break away from the "Chipping Norton set", perhaps?

if you want an example of LOTS HAPPENS nothing seems to happen LOTS HAPPENS then libya should cheer you up: things don't need to be in the papers to be happening

i would actually be glad of a rest, a week without news please

"Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/08/interview-prison-murdoch

piet-throwing man called 'activist'

I came to meet him on the day of his release from Wandsworth Prison,

But why, Laurie? Why?

what did you do in the revolution, daddy?

I just turned up, and suddenly I'm running through the woods being chased by horses, trying to improvise consensus decision-making with people I'd never met before.

Before that, Come Dine With Me is what we were mainly watching. Endless, endless episodes of Come Dine With Me.

don't remember that bit in Bronson

Your real name is Jonathan May-Bowles. Are you secretly posh?

Cutting edge stuff this

RIP print journalism

Multiple xp's:

Interesting that Robert Peston broke this story. A deliberate attempt to break away from the "Chipping Norton set", perhaps?

Could be, but I guess the counterargument to that might be that they knew it was going to come out eventually, so they might as well put it out in a controlled-ish way, at the most politically expedient time (i.e. when, as Tom D says upthread, everyone's too busy with riots + libya, and perhaps also a bit of hackgate-fatigue has set in).

former colleague of stuart kuttner, NOTW managing editor, dishes the dirt:

A greasy yob who wore handmade Lobb shoes, Kuttner’s main aim in life was to expose MPs in their liaisons with rent boys and call girls.

His Pandora’s box of bugging devices was legendary. As was his habit of parading in drag as a prostitute on the streets of Mayfair’s Shepherd Market, supposedly on undercover missions to spot unwary pillars of society at play. A staff photographer covering a story about prostitution thought he’d found a beauty lurking in a doorway and snapped off a few frames. “It’s me you fool!” hissed an enraged Kuttner.

the whole thing is worth a read:

http://www.noseweek.co.za/article/2580/Out-on-a-limb

There's a new mea culpa culture at the Financial Times. Weeks after the newspaper printed the word "Murdock" on a front-page sub headline about the News Corp boss's appearance at the media select committee, the repercussions at the pink'un go on. Martin Dickson, the deputy editor, who was in charge on the fateful night, summoned the page one editor into his office and gave him a first official warning for not spotting the typo that appeared in the first edition. When the production editor heard about the bollocking, he told Dickson that he was also to blame – so he got a written warning too. News then reached the hapless sub editor who actually wrote the word, so he went to see Dickson – and got an official warning as well. If the guy who sells the first editions outside Waterloo station wants to pop into the FT offices … you can probably guess the rest.

Removed: Financial Times article

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 September 2011 12.37 BST
Article history

This article was taken down on 1 September 2011 pending investigation.

waht

Not entirely sure why, though.

idgi, isn't "murdock" a headline pun?

My first thoughts.

lol the guardian

nah, the guardian is wrong, the headline typo didn't appear on the day of the select committee so the "dock" pun doesn't work. also, it's the FT.

http://twicsy.com/i/p9tZJ

But the important aspect of the story is not that another person’s phone was hacked, but that the “News of the World” were able to obtain the mobile telephone number of an individual who had been given a “secret identity” – known only to a very small number of people – to protect him.

In 2001 the High Court had granted a wide ranging injunction to prevent the identification of the two individual who had been convicted of the murder of James Bulger ([2001] EWHC 32 (QB)). This was granted because of the “clear and credible” risk to their lives from mob vengeance or revenge attacks. It was accepted that if Robert Thompson’s identity had become public knowledge, the exposure could potentially have put his life at risk. We have previously posted the terms of this injunction. It appears that anyone seeking to obtain Robert Thompson’s mobile number would have been in breach of it.

The question is: how did the “News of the World” obtain the mobile telephone number of an individual who had been given a “secret identity”? One obvious possible source is the police. Serious questions have already been raised about the leaking of information by corrupt police officers to the “News of the World”. Scotland Yard’s “Operation Elveden” is now investigating allegations of corrupt payments to police officers. It seems likely that this investigation will now be considering how the “News of the World” was able to find Robert Thompson’s number and then hack his telephone in order to run stories which, potentially, put him in danger.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/8740530/Tony-Blair-is-godfather-to-Rupert-Murdochs-daughter.html

Rupert Murdoch's daughter needs all the spiritual guidance she can get!

Every time I think I've got a handle on the different parts cynicism to pure self-delusion in Tony Blair something like this comes out.

NI is flogging the wapping site

hope it's in public

The old offices, not the new ones.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3315998.htm

THREAD DELIVERS.

NATALIE ROWE: I mean it's been said in the newspapers that he was at university. He wasn't. At the time he was working for William Hague. I remember that vividly because he called William Hague insipid and I didn't know what the word meant. I do now.

ahahahaha

we all do now

it's kind of impressive, how little people care about sleaze any more. is there anything that could actually threaten that little shit's job security?

lol at Guido framing the story in exactly the same way as the NotW did originally - http://order-order.com/2011/09/12/50318/

Wow, that is tremendous.

The nut:

"But if you look at it because there was a nice gloss put on the story and an editorial that effectively gave George Osborne the benefit of the doubt then you could say well, George Osborne was almost indebted to Andy Coulson.

"Andy Coulson had done George Osborne a favour and perhaps it was time for George Osborne to reciprocate and do a favour back."

This story doesn't need 'phone hacking' as an element:

1) Girl tells/sells story to DMirror.
2) Said paper contacts Tory offices regarding story, to make sure it's not totally libellous.
3) GOsb 'confesses' situation to the 'powers-that-be'
4) Powers-that-be say "Don't worry about it, we're on the case"
5) They contact NOTW to draft a safety curtain with as much detail to spike the original slant, and enough editorialising to totally discredit the story's original source.

Same old.

is she saying s.thing new and potentially actionable* that has scared off the uk papers or?

*as they say though, he's never sued anyone over her claims before

xpost

2-5 is total speculation, right?

http://www.britishblogs.co.uk/images/373908.jpg
Think there should be a "Photoshop this image of George Osborne onto other pictures" thread.

need higher res

Or get Private Eye to run it on their letters page every week.

2-5 is total speculation, right?

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 12 September 2011 11:04 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yes, officer. Mods, please add "allegedly" to every line.

I have a friend who knows the ppl of posh world. Years ago she passed along a story abt how the Cam/Osb crowd were friends with a dominatrix. A detail I haven't seen brought up elsewhere is that her pals would occasionally pop in and shit on the chest of clients who liked that sort of thing.

Think there should be a "Photoshop this image of George Osborne onto other pictures" thread.

Think Moira Stuart was wise to obscure her features behind those flowers though. Allegedly.

See, when Barack Obama found himself at a stag do in Wokingham, he was savvy enough to leave before the strippergram arrived.

Sad thing about this is that it shows the awful little sneeze expulsion isn't a racist on top of everything else.

i don't think this is really a gauge of that at all; which isn't to say that he is or isn't, just that whether he is should probably be judged on something less convoluted than 'why some of my preferred dominatrixes are black!'

enh who knows

i do think he should answer the question why he was hot to hire coulson

he'll never say 'bc he did me a solid', but what will he say?

xp

haha yeah