God, those NoW journos were utter scum weren't they?

[headfairy]

apparently by deleting Milly's messages her family still had some hope that she might still be alive

can I have 2002?

Yes, but is it going to run and run? It's on all the 'top thread' lists.

This one may go on to 10,000.

I agree - RM is assuming this will help him. Six months to get some NI skeletons out of the cupboard and move on to the real deal - getting all of Sky. I said to DP the other night - I bet they now try and take over all of Sky including News, saying that dropping 7.5m Sunday readers makes the deal less anti-competitive. Thing is, I didn't expect them to do it this early in the game. But unlike another poster I feel quite strongly that this is not a shambles for RB/JM/RM, rather this is a move they have been planning for quite a while.

I'm wondering if RM is telling the PTB that he will happily shut down all NI newspapers - putting lots of people out of work and leading to a smaller choice of print news media - if he does not get his way.

And what a mission statement from him - print media doesn't work financially in the internet age, newspapers are redundant. TV is the only thing that matters in terms of making money.

And given the experience of Fox News in the US, news channels can be a handy way of pushing your own personal agenda.

ohh - was i 2006?

2006 & 2007, teej

I agree he is assuming this will help him, but I think he is being wildly over-optimistic. Interest may wane a bit over the next few months but the Guardian will certainly make sure it stays front page

ponders the thing that worries me is how few paid attention to the whistleblowers before now! he's banking on the majority not thinking/caring...

That sounds depressing but true teej. He sells the newspapers to the Barclay brothers or some Russian oligarch and laughs.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/11/media-corrupt-hippocratic-oath-journalists

Good piece just up about how it all needs a big (to put it mildly) change

Good Guardian piece about how something's got to change
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/11/media-corrupt-hippocratic-oath-journalists

The papers cannot announce that their purpose is to ventriloquise the concerns of multimillionaires; they must present themselves as the voice of the people. The Sun, the Mail and the Express claim to represent the interests of the working man and woman. These interests turn out to be identical to those of the men who own the papers.

So the rightwing papers run endless exposures of benefit cheats, yet say scarcely a word about the corporate tax cheats. They savage the trade unions and excoriate the BBC. They lambast the regulations that restrain corporate power. They school us in the extrinsic values ? the worship of power, money, image and fame ? which advertisers love but which make this a shallower, more selfish country. Most of them deceive their readers about the causes of climate change. These are not the obsessions of working people. They are the obsessions thrust upon them by the multimillionaires who own these papers.
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/11/media-corrupt-hippocratic-oath-journalists

love Monbiot. no comments til tomorrow morning though. there'll be a big ruck.

I'm so glad this thread is still going strong - the passage of a bit of time has done nothing to diminish my crossness.

The poor bloody Browns. Horrible for them.

Re the effective request for referral to the Competition Commission - I think it's an attempt to stall, to make it all simmer down so that by the time findings are announced no-one will care and we'll have moved on to something else. I hope not - but the public has a short memory. Sooner or later The Guardian will run out of revelations and in six months' time they'll be saying "whatever". This is my worst-case-scenario, you realise, not what I want to happen.

The public will get board and angry with all the political mud slinging imo.

I can't see how the RM saga will be allowed to wind down now. Not only have the Guardian and the Telegraph stuck their necks out, Milliband and Clegg now have no choice but to push and push at this. They, especially EM, have taken a huge gamble on this and the only way it will have been worth it for them is if they kill of RM's power over British politics or at least minmise it very significantly. EM has played it well by putting DC on the spot over this: either DC looks like RM's poodle or he looks like he's following EM's lead.

Have loved following this thread too.

I hope so too, jenny

bloody hell - tip off re: Fraser Brown came from Edinburgh Infirmary - and RB was more worried about the Sun having the exclusive, telling GB not to release his statement.

Ed who was at the most oppulant party imaginable 3 weeks ago with the now infamous brooks and co. Perleeze, none of the mps apart from one or two can take the moral high ground.

Anyone watching newsnight? How inhuman is RB? Tom Watson's coming out of this well imo.

and they got round it, beating the statement from the Browns going to all the media by giving Sky news the exclusive so it stayed in the NI stable

chipstick are you not slightly chilled about this? i've picked up from the threads that you are a Sun/NoW reader but can you imagine what it would be like for you if RM was not playing to your politics/views?

we (imperfect though we are) vote in a perhaps imperfect society for an imperfect government. but at least we vote for MPs on the basis that we expect them to govern us. we don't vote for them on the basis that they will do what a blinking tab editor/RM tells them what to do...

Burn the witch

Not sure how Brooks feels able to hold her head up having heard this about the Browns' family medical information. Combined with the awful intrusion re Milly Dowler's phone etc, she must surely go by the morning..?!