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Original poster

Les tricoteuses

1004 replies

ThisIsANiceCage · 13/07/2011 13:37

New thread to continue from God those NoW journos were utter scum weren't they?

OP posts:
Terribletriplets · 15/07/2011 11:15

This time members of the select committee will not be threatened with the Sun and the NotW digging into their lives and the lives of their families.

FilthyDirtyHeathen · 15/07/2011 11:17

The timing of this whole scandal is impeccable, it has aligned perfectly with the BSkyB bid, scuppering it just in time to prevent Murdoch pressing ahead.

ClaireDeLoon · 15/07/2011 11:17

Yes Shine was apparently massively overpriced wasn't it? No-one else (non Murdoch) would have got that much was the speculation.

BornSicky · 15/07/2011 11:19

quick legal question.

if they've suppoenaed brooks to present before the select committee - can they arrest her (if there's evidence of course) before? or is part of the point of the select committee to get answers that incriminate NI legally, so arrests can follow?

any legal beagle want to pick that apart?

midnightexpress · 15/07/2011 11:19

headfairy oh yes, of course I am, though I suspect that their lawyers (ah the lawyers, of course, now they will all be doing jus' fine out of all this, no doubt...) will ensure that we don't get too much fun from the occasion.

Original poster
ThisIsANiceCage · 15/07/2011 11:20

I don't think the Murdochs are in full control.

Two weeks ago they were still in that universe where Rebekah could phone the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tell him off for pre-empting "her" news about his son's illness. In 2003 she told a Commons committee that they paid coppers, and nothing happened.

They'd got away with this shit for so long they couldn't imagine they wouldn't get away again.

It's taking them a little while to, ahem, adjust.

OP posts:
headfairy · 15/07/2011 11:20

I think so ClaireDeLoon not being up on the going price of production companies but I think that rattled the Sky board.

Nancy Really? is she a bitch? Having worked with a few highly placed women in media I know that sometimes it can turn nice people pretty awful. James O'Brien was being pretty complementary about her on LBC this morning.

ClaireDeLoon · 15/07/2011 11:21

BornSicky not a legal just going on what I read in todays Indie but the select committee will be briefed beforehand to make sure they are very careful not to ask questions that could lead to those being questioned incriminating themselves.

Flowerista · 15/07/2011 11:22

Ding dong the witch is dead. Get a good nights sleep before Tuesday. It's the real not fake sheikh that's pulling the strings now. He was cool as a cucumber on newsnight!

headfairy · 15/07/2011 11:23

midnightexpress of coooourse (lightbulb) the bloody lawyers. They'll be the ones making money. Goes without saying I guess. I know quite a few hedge funds have lost out as they'd been assuming the sky takeover would go through, I wonder if anyone was smart enough to short Sky? They'd be making a few pennies now?

ClaireDeLoon · 15/07/2011 11:24

Headfairy I just googled it - they paid 13 times earnings, when apparently 6 times earnings would be more appropriate for a production company.

headfairy · 15/07/2011 11:24

Love this tweeted by Have I Got News For You team... "As the News Corp scandal grows ever bigger, the Sun leads with "Massive Elephant Ignored In Room".
:o:o

headfairy · 15/07/2011 11:25

Claire jeeeeze daddy does like to give his kids a leg up doesn't he? You've got to admire the man for that surely Hmm

ClaireDeLoon · 15/07/2011 11:27

Even the Pope is in on it link

midnightexpress · 15/07/2011 11:28

Grin at the Have I got news tweet. I loved the way that the Sun headline on the day after the NoW announced its closure was all about the hike in gas prices.

(Can we move on to energy companies after this all dies down, please, btw?)

headfairy · 15/07/2011 11:30

I must be terribly naive but I had no idea the CofE owned millions of pounds worth of shares in NI...

slug · 15/07/2011 11:35

While I think claig has a point, I think there was a fair amount of subtle blackmail involved on the part of NI when it comes to politicians. All of them entertained the Murdochs and their ilk, but always there was this undercurrent of if you didn't play ball with them they would attack you in the most vicious ways. You only have to look at the evidence of the paper's attitude those who chose not to take the Murdoch shilling to realise just how pervasive this was. The more bolshy and independant the MP, the more NI went for their throat.

sieglinde · 15/07/2011 11:39

headfairy, the NI Corp also helped bankroll the Pope's visit, but this is all just part of their 'we are the Great and Good' push. You only have to read Brooks' resignation speech to see exactly what kind of pondslime she is - the sugary rhetoric is an insulin OD, and I've worked with LOTS of people like her in publishing - ready to cut your throat while patting your hand.

headfairy · 15/07/2011 11:41

sieglinde her statement does seem very much at odds with the person who was ruthless enough to trample on the memories of terrorism victims, murder victims and dead soldiers to sell a few more papers.

headfairy · 15/07/2011 11:44

slug isn't that just going to happen with whichever paper has the largest circulation? If you're selling 2 or 3 million papers a day, and your readership is wider than that, then you have massive political clout. It may not be the NoTW now, but which ever paper over takes it as the biggest seller. If The Guardian had a readership that wide would they not do the same? Or are the journos at NI the only morally bankrupt people in Fleet Street?

teejwood · 15/07/2011 11:51

wow - go offline for a couple of hours and it all goes bonkers again!
agreed the only reason RB is leaving today is because NC's 2nd largest shareholder said so. not exactly taking the moral high ground.
another thing you might like about timing here - in traditional pr practice, Friday was always the best day to push out news you don't really want anyone to notice. pity for RB (not) it does not quite work that way in the age of social media - people don't stop tweeting on Friday - and when your news is part of one of the leading news stories at the current time Wink

teejwood · 15/07/2011 11:59

headfairy plenty more collars to be felt on Fleet Street re hacking (not that any of them are there any more, but you know what i mean). but wrt media influence over mps etc, it's a matter of degree. i think the issue was really the "it was the sun wot won it" culture at NI, where as far as they were concerned they called all the shots.
after this debacle i would hope a) the politicians and police develop a bit of backbone and b) the british public ask more questions regarding motivations wrt what they read in the press. faint hope, I know, but you need to have some hope that something good can come from this mess.

Nancy66 · 15/07/2011 12:01

She was a man's man - no time for her own sex at all. One of those awful women that (publically) championed other women in business then (behind the scenes) did everything she could to make sure none of them threatened her.

Never rated as a journalist but a class A schmoozer

Never one of the team - happy to freeze pay and make redundancies while regularly filing her own £3k a week expenses

sieglinde · 15/07/2011 12:01

Hi, headfairy - am I slug? In case, yes, I too am saying I've met her kind before. And though I'm not a huge Guardian fan, hats off to them for using good old investigative stuff to trump their rival/s. And no, I don't think everyone in the press is quite as corrupt as these NI people. They felt sooooo powerful. And that's always fatal - Tamburlaine, anyone?

Nancy66 · 15/07/2011 12:02

'man's woman' that should read....

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