Whilst we wait for the Leveson report to be regurgitated by the media, a quick round up of comments on Twitter and Facebook reveals that the media fear that Leveson will take a few extreme examples of outlandish behaviour and tar an entire section of the population with their bad example; that statistics may be manipulated, that too much emphasis will be on celebrities, and that the conclusions and opinions published in his report will have been manipulated to represent the agenda of a few insiders and movers and shakers.
Just like a Tabloid, in fact…
“The Daily Leveson”, available in your newsagent; great for lining the budgie cadge.
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
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Borrowing Budgies?
Tabloids up before The Beak?
As the report will be reported in The Tabloids, by The Tabloids, I suppose they can put any spin on it they want to.
He has been asked to report on a subject and like all those before him will feel bound to make “recommendations”.
Perhaps there is a bonus for producing more than in the previous public enquiry or just a desire to outdo Lord Justice Whatsisname , who produced it (Leveson in in the running for the post of Lord Chief Justice)..
One day, someone will stagger us all by producing a report saying the existing rules are far to stringent and should be relaxed – That’ll be the day!
Having watched “Exposure Parts One and Two” – produced under the apparently strictly-regulated itv television network – I tend to think the pot and the kettle are well-matched. One has no lid and quickly fills the rooms with steam, whilst the other is sealed tight except for the piercing whistle that demands attention. Both are powered by the same hot air and can only operate when somebody else lights the fire.
“I mean there’s enormous pressures to harmonize freedom of speech legislation and transparency legislation around the world – within the E.U., between China and the United States. Which way is it going to go? It’s hard to see.”
Julian Assange
First they came for the Press Barons, but I didn’t complain because I was not a Press Baron.
Then they came for the Bloggers, and the Internet.
And a bad time was had by all.
The Daily Leveson will be worth considerably less than the material that subsequently lands upon it in the cage..
Indeed!
Not for nothing but to have Cleggy break with the coalitious, homo erotic spooning fest over this irrelevant whitewash does seem to offer a 50 page glossy supplement as to the utter banality of the whole government. I’m a bit of a Tory but some of the stuff this government has done re: ATOS, greenbelt, banking reform, school academy status, tax rates etc do give rise to legitimate concern eyt Cleggy goes native over a report that no-one really gives a monkey’s about just appears pathetic, really. Anywho, bored witless by the whole sorry charade.
I am solidly with you Dick – bored witless by the whole sorry charade, indeed…..
I caught the first few minutes of Leveson’s announcement before I had to go out to do more important things.
I’m afraid I disagreed with his first words – I don’t believe any sane person cares tuppence that ‘poor’ Millie Dowler’s ‘phone was ‘hacked’, no doubt by using the default setting. That was just the Metropolitan Media and Politics bubble doing its usual X-Factor/Big Brother/Princess Di dog-tail chasing act. Either these people’s minds really are all full of the pap that they inflict on us or it is just one big scam to numb the collective mind to the real issues of the day.
OK, Leveson was a nice well-paid party for the Metro Legal set. Now chuck it in the bin and let us have a people’s inquiry into Parliament with the power to conduct a real root-and-branch reform. A jury with teeth and claws in fact.
Wonderful idea. Will, unfortunately, never happen this side of the revolution.
So they’re all guilty of Institutional Tabloidism?
I wonder what the whole shooting (make that shouting) match has cost the taxpayer so far? A pretty penny no doubt.
Colour us stupid. We deserve it.
£3.9 million is being quoted. £1700 per page of the report.
It has all really upset me. But I ever was a naive fool.
Leveson is either merely a sock puppet OR someone of the elite who desires the status quo to continue and therefore his report will be only be useful for lighting fires with; the only industry politics has ever been proficient in.
1st lesson I got taught in my Tory days was don’t fight the meeja, it needs volunteers. Leveson is naval gazing fluff mining. To see the full beauty of inquiries it does well to return to Chilcott. Will Hutton writes for the Observer, i say writes but it’s more like wiping his arse on a piece of paper, scanning it, then e-mailing it to some death row mentalist awaiting his maker for shagging a porkupine in the school canteen, head first in the deep fat fryer screaming pray hossanah Marjorie Daws at the top of his lungs; anywho, whatever he’s for you can be damn sure it’s utter bollox. I buy the Guardian because it is proper funny. Leveson’s done a job, let’s just fucking forget about that shite, eh?
O/T, sorry Anna.
As Labour wun int Rotherham yet, appen?
ps: one last push at the reverse midas touch…:(
Couldn’t disagree more with the general tenor of article and comments here that Leveson was some kind of waste of space and meaningless.
I am sick and tired of self-righteous, self interested articles from the print press about how important what they do is, how precious their profession, how vital – VITAL! – they are to freedom, democracy, and holding the powerful to account. Am I living in the land of the looking glass or are they? If they are all of the things they claim then they have power – they are not simply clear vessels reflecting the ‘will of the public’. And if they have power then who holds them to account? Please nobody say ‘the market’ – the market is not an animate object. And please don’t say other newspapers, because that is not the case either.
I am not waving a flag for Hugh Grant and I feel sorry for the Dowlers but that hacking story was more complex that it appeared. In fact there is a case for arguing that the Guardian, through faults in its reporting(!), caused an awful lot of journalist to lose their jobs. A couple in Glasgow had a son who killed himself because a campaigning journalist in a broadsheet newspaper chose to, over several articles, mis-represent their daughters death in pursuit of some obscure class point. I remember those articles and remember thinking they were a bot one-eyed at the time. That same couple were treated unsympathetically, even with contempt, by the paper’s editor when they had the nerve to complain. Who did they think they were? Didn’t they understand how important this journalist was? How important the Press are? Now lets substitute ‘Papers editor’ for ‘NHS Manager’ – how does that scan now?
If me or mine ever fell victim to a terrible accident or crime that was of interest to the print media I would have to, in addition to all the other things I would be coping with, hire a lawyer to make an announcement that I would quite like my privacy respected and would everyone please leave me alone. Explain to me how that can possibly be right?
Cameron set up Leveson to kick a can down the road and then hopefully the great unwashed would have calmed down – silly things – and he could ignore whatever was found. After a whole load of ‘oh, yes, your soo right, it was terrible. What were we thinking!’ the print press are now busy saying leave everything as it stands. I can safely predict Cameron will get universal praise – no self-interest there then eh? I can safely predict that Leveson will be buried and that Saloon will remain open for business – no licensing hours or minimum pricing will apply there. I can safely predict in a few years time there will be another Leveson by another name, another bout of hand-wringing, another bunch of non-famous people whose lives will be damaged by the press, and another round ordered at the bar of The Last Chance Saloon.
Press freedom is fabulous – unless you are one of the poor bastards run over by them. What do we call them? Collateral damage. Well if so, don’t sneer at MP’s or Military when they use the same expression.
Regulation of the press would be yet another assault on our birthrights as British subjects, and yet I do feel for the innocent victims of the media, especially those who do not have the necessary funds to sue for libel.
Just a thought – why don’t Stephen Fry, Steve Coogan, Hugh Grant each donate a few million quid to start a ‘fighting fund’ to help low-income, non-celebrity victims of press misbehaviour take the offending organ to court? They could ask their friends in show business and government to contribute.
A lot said about the innocent being bullied but what about the guilty who are bullied, harassed, humiliated and made a plaything of a mendacious tabloid mentality that convinces the great masses that they have ‘lost all their rights’ etc (even in death)
Does anyone really think that David Cameron and his government will bring in legislation to regulate the press?
There’s more chance of a referendum on Europe.
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