Archive for March, 2009
Even Home Secretaries have a right to privacy. Remember Brittan?
The political crisis that is currently burying the Home Secretary offers a clear example of how media revelation of prurient, trivial details of private behaviour can dramatically alter public image.
Naturally I object to tax-payers underwriting more than that which is strictly germane to an MP’s public function, but if Jacqui Smith’s husband had chosen to view a couple of nature programmes or the most recent version of Pride and Prejudice, or a football match, this almost negligible error of abuse of parliamentary expenses would have been rectified without it ever coming to public attention.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Anti-censorship campaigner out of focus on protection of privacy
Jo Glanville is a well-regarded journalist and former BBC producer with a special interest in Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Since December 2006 she has been a professional campaigner against international censorship as editor of INDEX ON CENSORSHIP, an organisation dedicated to fighting any constraints on reporting by the world’s media.
It is a valid and necessary aim in a world where totalitarian regimes routinely control the flow of information to their populations as much as they can. It isn’t evident from their website who funds the organisation. Broadly, one must assume, individuals and bodies committed to international freedom of expression. It seems likely, too, that some newspapers might support it.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Sir Christopher doth protest a helluva lot
Outgoing PCC Chairman, Sir Christopher ‘RedSox’ Meyer doth protest a lot – you could say, too much. He complained yesterday while giving evidence to the HoC Culture, Media, Sport Committee Inquiry that a number of London media law firms regard the PCC as their sworn enemy. He was referring of course to those law firms who act for plaintiffs who have been libelled or had their privacy violated by the newspapers whose excesses Meyer’s organisation is supposed to keep in check.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Jaded truth
Even the Guardian gave Jade Goody a front page splash today: At peace – and finally out of the limelight they said. They gave her a full page obit, too. This is surprising, but doesn’t compete with the Sun’s 9 pages of coverage or the Daily Mirror’s absurdly sanctimonious front page:
“MUMMY’S IN HEAVEN NOW.”
What do they mean?
Popularity: 1% [?]
We should insist that Free Masons declare themselves in public elections
Shropshire, where I live, is about to undergo one of those administrative disruptions that Central government inflicts on the shire counties of England from time to time. The district councils that are currently part-autonomous entities within the existing Shropshire County Council are to be done away with and all their functions taken on by a newly constituted unitary authority, ‘Shropshire Council’ (why no longer a ‘County Council’ isn’t explained). This will exclude ‘Telford and Wrekin’, which although geographically part of the county are already an independent Unitary Authority.
There will be an election on June 4th of a new council of 74 councillors, drawn from 63 divisions. One of the most significant, and potentially contentious powers that will pass from the old District Councils to the new Shropshire Council will the granting of planning permissions.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Mariella Frostrup defends the Shag-Rags Right to Pry
Mariella Frostrup, writing in the Guardian today, feels that laws (bizarrely headlined ‘draconian’) proposed to protect personal privacy are a threat to public interest. The idea that papers should be required to forewarn victims of the intended publication of intimate details of their private lives was put forward by Max Mosley in his evidence to the ongoing CMS Committee Inquiry. Ms Frostrup and most other commentators on the subject are journalists who persistently show a knee-jerk aversion to any suggestion that their sacred right to reveal whatever they like should be restrained. Most readers of serious papers wouldn’t argue with the importance of wholly truthful reportage when it concerns matters of genuine public interest (a politician’s lies, a criminal’s crimes or a bishop’s hypocrisy) but Mariella Frostrup and many of her colleagues continue to ignore the fact that any breaches of privacy or transgressions of the Data Protection Act are (and would remain) clearly defensible in law on public interest grounds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Mosley petitions Parliament for privacy law
The House of Commons Culture Media Sport Committee Inquiry into Press Standards continued today, 10th March in Portcullis House, with FIA boss Max Mosley in the hot seat. He’d asked if he could address the MPs, and they had – I imagine readily – agreed to question him.
His aim is to see law created that will prevent the loss of dignity that he has suffered, happening to other, sometimes less well-off British citizens. His own private cat is out of the bag and has bolted several times round the world since the News of the World posted their illegal video of his private S&M party on their unedifying website.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Screws' newshound Jobson hot on the scent again
News of the Screws royal hunters, young Ryan Sabey backed up by ‘Royal Editor’, Bob-a-Jobson, have been up to those voyeuristic tricks that their paper’s gossip-monger boss likes so much to see in his Shag’n’Brag Sunday rag.
Like a pair of grubby mac wearers, they’ve been dogging the steps of a 24 year old man to spy on his private romances. They reported today that Prince Harry was seen leaving a London club in the small hours with an attractive blonde girl who, they have discovered, is a friend of Prince William’s girlfriend.
This utterly unremarkable, un-newsworthy event, believe it or not, becomes the story that makes the front page splash of Rupert Murdoch’s leading Smut’n’Butt sheet.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Coy about Coulson
Stephen Brook reports in MediaGuardian today that the Sun’s American editor, Emily Smith is coming back to London, and her replacement will be based in Los Angeles (where the celeb gossip is) rather than the East Coast (where the real news is).
Brook points out that Smith, and her successor, Peter Samson have both worked on the Sun’s Bizarre column, the principle gossip page in a paper that is owned by a man who mainlines on gossip. He reminds us that Bizarre is regarded as a stepping stone to higher places and has spawned a lot of hacks who have gone on to greater things.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Has Murdoch misplaced his marbles?
Last week, News Corp chief operating officer, Peter Chernin announced his tactical withdrawal from the post. There’s been a lot of speculation that his action may presage his skipper steering the Titanic media conglomerate straight at the iceberg of recession with not enough lifeboats on board. And he knows his skipper longs to take on a pile more passengers, which might sink the mighty liner before it’s even hit the ‘berg.
But the Rumpled One must be cursing his bad timing.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Hello Peter
Listening to you at the Leveson Inquiry today, I thought you might be interested to have a look at ...
@Fleur,
I suspect he still has a job because he knows where the bodies are buried. 
Not much to write home about Neville? 
hi peter,great website. i bought your book news of the world and managed to get hold of CAMERA ASSASSIN 2 ...
they finally caught the little toad if he can lie at a small tribunal he certainly can rely on ...