Les Tricoteuses - Part Deux

[BornSicky]

new thread to discuss phonehacking scandal.

claig - that was a hilarious claim of Kavanaghs, considering that Murdoch has spent the past 2 decades bashing the Beeb.

Does anyone know why the Today programme actually chose Kavanagh? Surely they could have interviewed someone better informed less able to dodge the questions by feigning ignorance? He came across as an avoidant prick, IMO. Is that how he comes across in his columns?

PMSL at the claim of Murdoch's that anyone else was creating 'state-sponsored journalism'! Oh, the bitter irony!

Everyone always says that Kavanagh is or was a very important newspaper person. Maybe that's why they sought his opinion.

Yes, but if he could get away with claiming ignorance because he's an associate editor, then he shouldn't have been on there. Shoddy.

When he told Montague that the Beeb had lost perspective by focusing on the story I desperately wanted her to come back with: "You think that a story about an alleged corruption scandal that embroils the very fabric of our democracy is not significantly newsworthy?" I loathe it when interviewees slip through the net with their silly 'catch-me-if-you-can' games.

so claig, two examples - one of an appalling failure to adhere to their own rules (and were later held to account for it) and one an imagined bias.

now, tell me how many examples of bias to any political position can find me in the mail on sunday?

answer - the whole paper. the whole lot.

this is what it would mean if there was no beeb, everything would be biased, no clear reporting and no responsibilities.

I agree, she should have pushed him better than that.
He said he doesn't work in the office, so doesn't know.
Murdoch doesn't work in the NOTW 's office.

All papers have bias to the left or right. Everybody knows that. The BBC is supposed to be above bias, because the public, both left and right, are paying for it. I'm not arguing that there should be no Beeb, and I don't think Dacre is either. In his speech he said he would pay the licence fee for Radio 4 alone.

But I don't believe that the BBC is unbiased. Even Marr said that it had 'an innate liberal bias' (but let's not revisit that).

there's no "even Marr". he's just one person out of thousands at the organisation. and he was referring to individual staff and their personal politics, not the professional politics they present, in an UN-biased way.

I said "even" Marr because he is one of their flagship presenters on a reputed salary of hundreds of thousands a year out of the public purse.

I have very recently heard NN from Monday. Thx. The name of the man is *Matt Driscoll'. He told that he and the late Sean Hoare (that be right?) were the only two blowing on the pipe coz they didn't sign confidentiality agreements. This MD, have you heard of him?

(Claig, I remember that BBC cutting and p'ing the footage of the mining men. Not sure that that could happen now)

Terribletriplets, I hope it wouldn't happen now.

Matt Driscoll? Will go and look him up. Well spotted, madame!

sports reporter - filed a disability discrimination suit against the paper.

www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/23/andy-coulson-now-bullying-payout

I think that be the bloke who appeared on NN on Monday night. He had huge pay out but appear not to have committed to confidentiality contract.

He has undergone hair lacking, it would appear, but that be the man.

Matt Driscoll

nearly £800K is a huge payout for a case like that...

ooooh, spooky, I just read about him in the NYTimes article from last Sept (posted on the 'should Cameron resign?' thread)

'Despite the earlier arrest of the private investigator Steve Whittamore, the dark arts were still widely in use. Former reporters said both the news and features desks employed their own investigators to uncover medical records, unlisted addresses, phone bills and so on. Matt Driscoll, a former sports reporter, recalled chasing a story about the soccer star Rio Ferdinand. Ferdinand claimed he had inadvertently turned off his phone and missed a message alerting him to a drug test. Driscoll had hit a dead end, he said, when an editor showed up at his desk with the player?s private phone records. They showed Ferdinand had made numerous calls during the time his phone was supposedly off. Driscoll was disciplined for supposed inaccuracies and later dismissed ; he proceeded to win 800,000 pounds in court, which found he had been bullied by Coulson and other editors'

The Ferdinand missed drugs test was in Sept 03, the unfair dismissal case was in 2008

'A Stratford employment tribunal upheld a claim of unfair dismissal claimed by senior sports writer Matt Driscoll, and stated "We find the behaviour to have been a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour". The judgement singled out Coulson for making "bullying" remarks in an email to Driscoll.'

see this all just ties into why coulson never went through the full security checking etc.

of course he had knowledge of everything going on, but he was also apparently a bully.

Just popping in to markmmy place again. Am off to bed but need to catch up on this in the morning...

Good to see you're still at it claig

I'm like Thatcher "the lady's not for turning"

OK apologies if I missed it somewhere above, but Mulcaire has said he has no statement to make at the moment, "But that could change."

I hope he's got a bodyguard.

OMFG claig

Now I have missed 3 pages of comments as I have just come in from a rare pub sesh witha friend, so forgive me here but highly amused that you think reading a review of ''Stick it up your punter' is enough but not actually reading it. It is a great book and not for reasons that of neo-con crap

Can I also suggest the 'Shock Doctrine' by Naomi Klein.

I hope that Matt D do have a bodyguard.

LucaBrasi, yes I agree it does sound like a great book. I will have to read it if I get time after reading my Daily Mail. Yes I have heard of Shock Doctrine and that sounds good too.

I like Mackenzie anyway, he can be very amusing. I love this quote from the 'Stick it up your punter' book

'Despite failing most exams at school, he turned up at Fleet Street with sufficient self-belief to address senior colleagues like this: "Did you write this f-- stuff? It's all crap!"

Better than any sitcom comic character.

Apparently it was such a good book that they even based a movie on it.