Post by Teddy Bear on Sept 5, 2013 21:17:33 GMT
We posted numerous articles on this forum at the time when the News of the World hacking scandal became evident, and how the BBC were pursuing the story with a relentless obsession.
I say pursuing the story, but in fact they were leading a pogrom, and succeeded in making sure that right wing Murdoch's previous bid for BSkyB wasn't going to happen.
Clearly their manner of reporting on this story was purely for their own self interest, preventing a voice that would tell a different story than their usual agenda, and neutering to some extent their own propaganda.
The following story shows when the BBC has no personal interest in the outcome, hacking barely raises an eyebrow.
I ran a search of the BBC website to see how many articles there were using the keywords of 'blue-chip hacking', the term given to the current scandal, I was given 3 articles.
I say pursuing the story, but in fact they were leading a pogrom, and succeeded in making sure that right wing Murdoch's previous bid for BSkyB wasn't going to happen.
Clearly their manner of reporting on this story was purely for their own self interest, preventing a voice that would tell a different story than their usual agenda, and neutering to some extent their own propaganda.
The following story shows when the BBC has no personal interest in the outcome, hacking barely raises an eyebrow.
I ran a search of the BBC website to see how many articles there were using the keywords of 'blue-chip hacking', the term given to the current scandal, I was given 3 articles.
At last, the blue-chip hackers are about to be exposed. But I still fear a whitewash
By Stephen Glover
By next Monday, the police or a Commons Committee will have released a list of names which should cause a political earthquake and dominate the airwaves for days to come.
These names are those of a hundred or so large companies and individuals, including 22 law firms, which have allegedly employed private investigators who have hacked, blagged and stolen personal information about business rivals and members of the public.
Sound familiar? The practices of these supposedly respectable firms — though there is no evidence that any of them knew what was being done on their behalf — recall the News of the World’s hacking of the mobile phones of celebrities and others.
A number of the Sunday red-top’s former employees, including Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, who was later David Cameron’s spin doctor, await trial on charges related to phone-hacking.
So one might expect that not dissimilar allegations concerning these large companies would also ignite a media and political storm, and lead to official inquiries, and possibly criminal prosecutions.
Some of these companies have already been named in newspaper reports. They include the huge accountancy outfit Deloitte, investment banks Chase Manhattan and Credit Suisse, the insurance giant Aon, and large law firms such as Herbert Smith and Clyde & Co.
Perhaps what is a small squall will gather force. I hope so. But I’m not going to bet on it. Most of those who were obsessed with the News of the World’s misdemeanours have so far shown little interest in the wrong-doing allegedly carried out in the name of these companies.
There are honourable exceptions, which I’ll mention first. The Commons Home Affairs Committee has insisted that the list of names be published. In fact, it has told the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which has been sitting on the list for years, that unless it releases it by Monday it will do so itself.
Keith Vaz, the sometimes bumptious Labour MP and chairman of the committee, may not always be everyone’s cup of tea. In this instance, he emerges as a champion of transparency and open government.
The Information Commissioner’s Office should also be congratulated for just launching its own inquiry, having belatedly been handed the list by those secretive boys at Soca.
That’s about as far as the plaudits go. Whereas the police have devoted enormous resources to investigating newspaper malpractices, often with remarkably few results, Soca for a long time refused to publish its list of companies, and no prosecutions have been brought against any of them.
And although some newspapers, such as the Mail and the Independent, have taken a keen interest in the story, other media outlets which were driven almost to apoplexy over phone-hacking have hitherto barely concerned themselves with Soca’s little secrets.
In particular the BBC, which led hundreds of new bulletins on the phone-hacking scandal, has not been able to raise much enthusiasm about the remarkably similar allegations made against these companies.
And the Guardian newspaper, which was responsible for exposing the phone-hacking story, has in this case so far shown itself remarkably reticent.
Why the difference? It might be argued that what rogue private investigators did on behalf of these companies is small beer in comparison with the News of the World’s skulduggery. But actually we don’t know whether that is true because so few details have been made public. These cases could be just as bad, or worse.
In particular the BBC, which led hundreds of new bulletins on the phone-hacking scandal, has not been able to raise much enthusiasm about the allegations made against the companies
In particular the BBC, which led hundreds of new bulletins on the phone-hacking scandal, has not been able to raise much enthusiasm about the allegations made against the companies
Let me suggest one difference that at least partly explains why the BBC and the Guardian have downplayed the story. It can be simply expressed in two words: Rupert Murdoch. He was the owner of the now-defunct News of the World.
How well I remember that episode of BBC2’s Newsnight in July 2009 which revealed that Mr Murdoch’s company had paid £1 million to silence victims whose mobiles had been hacked into by his Sunday red-top. The ecstatic presenter, Kirsty Wark, resembled a prophetess who had glimpsed the promised land.
The story was published in the following day’s Guardian, and the all-powerful BBC led every bulletin with it during the next 36 hours. This pattern was repeated over the next two years, culminating in the (in fact untrue) allegation that the News of the World had deleted voicemail messages from the mobile phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and given her parents ‘false hope’ that she might still be alive.
Rupert Murdoch was, and remains, a hate figure for the Left, and the Guardian was itself gripped by this animosity. So was the BBC, which had the additional motive of fearing its increasingly successful Murdoch-owned rival, Sky Television.
It didn’t matter to his enemies that Mr Murdoch was almost certainly unaware of the phone-hacking at the News of the World. How could he have known, given that he spent most of his time in America, and that the paper constituted about one per cent of the revenues of his media empire?
The tycoon was hauled in front of a Commons committee, along with his son James, and generally held responsible for whatever had happened at the paper, which he had decided to close.
This assumption of responsibility is very important. The companies which employed rogue private detectives who hacked and blagged will doubtless say they had no idea of the methods used. But they cannot absolve themselves from ultimate responsibility, any more than Mr Murdoch was able to.
I would love it if I were wrong. I would be delighted if the liberal media, the so far somnolent police, and the Government examined these new allegations with the same energy and robustness they showed in respect of the News of the World.
Even Mark Lewis, the lawyer who represented Milly Dowler’s family and abominates the tabloids, has said: ‘Consistency demands the same rules apply to all, whether you run a newspaper, a pharmaceutical company or a law firm’. Hear, hear.
But do they? Will they? It would be an intellectually respectable argument to say that what the News of the World did was not all that serious, and so what corrupt private detectives have done on behalf of these companies is also not worth getting worked up about.
Yet almost no one is saying that. The Government and police have shown the utmost revulsion towards phone-hacking by journalists. It gave rise to a 2,000-page report from Lord Justice Leveson, who scrutinised the entire Press, and made proposals for its tighter regulation.
I do not suggest there should be another protracted inquiry into the conduct of law firms and other companies that may have erred. Life is too short for that. We would all be driven mad. But it does seem reasonable and fair to ask for even-handedness.
That is why we should examine the response to the imminent publication of this list. Expect some outrage. But if the matter is soon buried by the authorities, we can only conclude that there is one law for large companies — and another for the Press.
By Stephen Glover
By next Monday, the police or a Commons Committee will have released a list of names which should cause a political earthquake and dominate the airwaves for days to come.
These names are those of a hundred or so large companies and individuals, including 22 law firms, which have allegedly employed private investigators who have hacked, blagged and stolen personal information about business rivals and members of the public.
Sound familiar? The practices of these supposedly respectable firms — though there is no evidence that any of them knew what was being done on their behalf — recall the News of the World’s hacking of the mobile phones of celebrities and others.
A number of the Sunday red-top’s former employees, including Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, who was later David Cameron’s spin doctor, await trial on charges related to phone-hacking.
So one might expect that not dissimilar allegations concerning these large companies would also ignite a media and political storm, and lead to official inquiries, and possibly criminal prosecutions.
Some of these companies have already been named in newspaper reports. They include the huge accountancy outfit Deloitte, investment banks Chase Manhattan and Credit Suisse, the insurance giant Aon, and large law firms such as Herbert Smith and Clyde & Co.
Perhaps what is a small squall will gather force. I hope so. But I’m not going to bet on it. Most of those who were obsessed with the News of the World’s misdemeanours have so far shown little interest in the wrong-doing allegedly carried out in the name of these companies.
There are honourable exceptions, which I’ll mention first. The Commons Home Affairs Committee has insisted that the list of names be published. In fact, it has told the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which has been sitting on the list for years, that unless it releases it by Monday it will do so itself.
Keith Vaz, the sometimes bumptious Labour MP and chairman of the committee, may not always be everyone’s cup of tea. In this instance, he emerges as a champion of transparency and open government.
The Information Commissioner’s Office should also be congratulated for just launching its own inquiry, having belatedly been handed the list by those secretive boys at Soca.
That’s about as far as the plaudits go. Whereas the police have devoted enormous resources to investigating newspaper malpractices, often with remarkably few results, Soca for a long time refused to publish its list of companies, and no prosecutions have been brought against any of them.
And although some newspapers, such as the Mail and the Independent, have taken a keen interest in the story, other media outlets which were driven almost to apoplexy over phone-hacking have hitherto barely concerned themselves with Soca’s little secrets.
In particular the BBC, which led hundreds of new bulletins on the phone-hacking scandal, has not been able to raise much enthusiasm about the remarkably similar allegations made against these companies.
And the Guardian newspaper, which was responsible for exposing the phone-hacking story, has in this case so far shown itself remarkably reticent.
Why the difference? It might be argued that what rogue private investigators did on behalf of these companies is small beer in comparison with the News of the World’s skulduggery. But actually we don’t know whether that is true because so few details have been made public. These cases could be just as bad, or worse.
In particular the BBC, which led hundreds of new bulletins on the phone-hacking scandal, has not been able to raise much enthusiasm about the allegations made against the companies
In particular the BBC, which led hundreds of new bulletins on the phone-hacking scandal, has not been able to raise much enthusiasm about the allegations made against the companies
Let me suggest one difference that at least partly explains why the BBC and the Guardian have downplayed the story. It can be simply expressed in two words: Rupert Murdoch. He was the owner of the now-defunct News of the World.
How well I remember that episode of BBC2’s Newsnight in July 2009 which revealed that Mr Murdoch’s company had paid £1 million to silence victims whose mobiles had been hacked into by his Sunday red-top. The ecstatic presenter, Kirsty Wark, resembled a prophetess who had glimpsed the promised land.
The story was published in the following day’s Guardian, and the all-powerful BBC led every bulletin with it during the next 36 hours. This pattern was repeated over the next two years, culminating in the (in fact untrue) allegation that the News of the World had deleted voicemail messages from the mobile phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and given her parents ‘false hope’ that she might still be alive.
Rupert Murdoch was, and remains, a hate figure for the Left, and the Guardian was itself gripped by this animosity. So was the BBC, which had the additional motive of fearing its increasingly successful Murdoch-owned rival, Sky Television.
It didn’t matter to his enemies that Mr Murdoch was almost certainly unaware of the phone-hacking at the News of the World. How could he have known, given that he spent most of his time in America, and that the paper constituted about one per cent of the revenues of his media empire?
The tycoon was hauled in front of a Commons committee, along with his son James, and generally held responsible for whatever had happened at the paper, which he had decided to close.
This assumption of responsibility is very important. The companies which employed rogue private detectives who hacked and blagged will doubtless say they had no idea of the methods used. But they cannot absolve themselves from ultimate responsibility, any more than Mr Murdoch was able to.
I would love it if I were wrong. I would be delighted if the liberal media, the so far somnolent police, and the Government examined these new allegations with the same energy and robustness they showed in respect of the News of the World.
Even Mark Lewis, the lawyer who represented Milly Dowler’s family and abominates the tabloids, has said: ‘Consistency demands the same rules apply to all, whether you run a newspaper, a pharmaceutical company or a law firm’. Hear, hear.
But do they? Will they? It would be an intellectually respectable argument to say that what the News of the World did was not all that serious, and so what corrupt private detectives have done on behalf of these companies is also not worth getting worked up about.
Yet almost no one is saying that. The Government and police have shown the utmost revulsion towards phone-hacking by journalists. It gave rise to a 2,000-page report from Lord Justice Leveson, who scrutinised the entire Press, and made proposals for its tighter regulation.
I do not suggest there should be another protracted inquiry into the conduct of law firms and other companies that may have erred. Life is too short for that. We would all be driven mad. But it does seem reasonable and fair to ask for even-handedness.
That is why we should examine the response to the imminent publication of this list. Expect some outrage. But if the matter is soon buried by the authorities, we can only conclude that there is one law for large companies — and another for the Press.