Josh is motivated by “News of the World”, he writes:
I have been appalled by news this week by the stories that News of the World journalists would hack into anyone’s phone to get access to information.
Journalists are not a separate species, they are just human, but they often seem to take on the mantle of a higher more lofty perspective, of seekers after truth and guardians (!) of our national moral fibre. A slightly moth eaten cape this week I think.
That the UEA, in the wake of Climategate sought to get advice from ex NOTW journalists is unfortunate. But also, sadly and painfully, incredible. What were they thinking?
Lord Acton, vice chancellor of UEA, seems pleased with the results though:
Having your day in News of the World has just lost its’ lustre.
UEA is firmly tainted. The sharks will be circling.
The ‘crumbs of comfort’ are too large, Josh!
Nice one again – alas, ’twill bee the last NotW front page we’ll see, and I guess that your cartoon depicts the last comfy breakfast at Acton Manor, seeing how many people on both CA and the good bishop’s place have got their teeth into this.
The British Murdoch press was shamefully lame during climategate. Even the Guardian stood out against them. How can the British society and democracy win against these cancerous networks ?
“No data computer models”
Uh, would that be “AIGO” (Anything In, Garbage Out)
or
NIGO (Nothing In, Garbage Out)?
Just wondering.
🙂
Lord Acton? He has clearly already been over promoted (as UEA Vice-Chancellor) but he is not the 5th Baron Acton.
Sir Paul Stephenson resigns as Metropolitan Police Commissioner over phone hacking scandal.
And …
Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of The News of the World, has been arrested by Scotland Yard detectives raising further questions over James Murdoch’s knowledge of phone-hacking and corruption at the tabloid.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8644013/Rebekah-Brookss-arrest-raises-questions-over-James-Murdoch.html
The plot thickens and thickens and thickens! There’s an awful lot more still to come out of the woodwork in this mess of sewerage. The entire corrupt system of Old Boy’s Clubs, Influential Friends, Back-Scratchers etc has wheels falling off faster than we can count them.
Our (in the UK) Prime Minister is not above suspicion, either!
Now the investigation of the alleged phone-hacking has spread to the USA, enabling the FBI et al to prod their fingers in the dirt, and possibly to sink Fox News. Wouldn’t BHO be pleased with that?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015624/Rupert-Murdoch-face-US-court-Jude-Law-phone-hacking-NY-claim.html
The only computer models to grace the NotW would be the photoshopped beauties on page 3.
UEA hire a NOTW chap as their PR person. This man has connections to the Met Police Commissioner. Does this man have more police connections, say, to Norfolk Police, or can his pal the Commissioner influence Norfolk Police? In short is this part of why there has been no results of the police investigation nearly 2 years after Climategate? Why is it, in this case, so hard to find out ‘who dunnit’? Or do they know who, and have been prevailed upon to keep quiet?
If you think muzzling the press via more and more privacy laws is in the public interest you would be wrong. Murdoch is in the firing line only because he has made too many enemies amongst the super-rich and ultra-powerful. This time he has given them too much information.
Phone records, police information and even the rubbish in your bin is not “private” as such – it is in the public domain to an extent. I see public interest in the media having access to all this information – the only issue is under what circumstances they publish.
Here we have the unedifying spectacle of the rich and powerful (many of them already exposed as wrong-doers) pointing at the Millie Dowler phone hacking issue and saying “look, plebs, you don’t like it when it happens to you!”. But Millie had been murdered, so the contents of her phone records were no longer of any interest to her. The fact that a journalist might have an interest in her private conversations before she died may have seemed distateful, but is it right to severely restrict the options for the press to obtain “secrets” that may be in the public interest?
We are sitting back and applauding while the super-rich and powerful line themselves up to take another freedom away from us – the freedom to investigate what the rich and powerful are doing to us.
Let me see, if the person tapped is right of center, then it is okay to disclose it. If the person tapped isn’t, then it’s a bad thing???
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/january97/cellular_1-14.html
bill says:
July 17, 2011 at 11:31 pm
“In short is this part of why there has been no results of the police investigation nearly 2 years after Climategate?”
Bill,
You can’t charge someone with “obeying the law”. All the records were subject to FOI request and legislation. They were required to be released.
IanG