Posts Tagged ‘Fleet Street’
Fleet Street Celebrates Total Victory Over Leveson. The Public Interest Is ‘Collateral Damage’.
This article started as a comment on an excellent piece in 'The Conversation'
by Professor of Communications, University of Westminster.
Politics versus public interest in battle over press regulation.
The Fleet Street Mafia has successfully subverted and corrupted our political leadership to ensure that Leveson has achieved nothing in bringing the worst excesses of the press under control. In fact, if anything, press regulation is even weaker and less effective than before Lord Justice Leveson first assumed the chair of the inquiry.
The Leveson Inquiry. A Waste Of Time And Public Money.
The whole exercise has been a farce and a waste of public money. Cameron and his cronies are so terrified of the press that they will do literally anything; change any policy, ignore any evidence, promote any untruth, in order to comply with the wishes of Murdoch, the Barclay Brothers or Paul Dacre.
IPSO, the replacement for the PCC, is even more corrupt, dishonest and fraudulent in its practice than its predecessor. It fails to enforce the Editors’ Code and instead finds excuses for publishers to breach the code as it suits them. It acts in expressly the opposite interest to that which it pretends. It seeks to support the interests of the press over the interests of the public at all stages.
IPSO’s new strategy to deal with troublesome and substantive complaints is simply to dismiss them, even without any consideration. The PCC would have made a play of investigating complaints before dismissing them but IPSO simply closes them down saying they do not raise any possible breaches of the code – even when they consist of blatant inaccuracy and distortion.
John Whittingdale MP. Sycophant And Toady To The Press Barons.
The net effect of Leveson is to place the public in a worse position than before it started. We have gone backwards. The press is more powerful, politicians are supine. In the case of weak, corrupt individuals like John Whittingdale, he has become the servant of the press barons, doing their bidding, performing at their wish from inside government where he betrays the electorate and subverts our democracy.
Fleet Street is like the Wild West but with immunity against any consequences of any actions. The only hope that we have is the terminal decline of newspaper circulation and that the power of this unelected elite of editors and proprietors will crumble over time. It would help if our other media, particularly the BBC, would stop letting Fleet Street set the news agenda. We need to accelerate the move to online news content.
The whole corrupt edifice is well illustrated by the regular Sunday morning spectacle of Andrew Marr, a dyed in the wool Fleet Street stooge, interviewing low-rent tabloid hacks such as Amanda Platell or Jane Moore, before another servile chat with a government minister. This defines the shabby, dishonest politicking within and around the Westminster bubble.
We do not have a a ‘free press’, we have an out of control, rampant, vested interest. While we need ‘freedom of the press’, in that journalists may investigate and publish the truth, we also need ‘freedom from the press’ and its bullying, self-serving control of our country and its political system.
How The Disgusting Daily Mail Flipflopped From Migrants To Refugees.
Even though the British people have decisively rejected Fleet Street as a purveyor of reliable or impartial news, so the political elite and our broadcasters still allow a small gang of press barons and editors to set the agenda.
Cameron has changed his hateful, ‘walk on by’ attitude to the refugee crisis just like the Daily Mail. These desperate people are no longer migrants who we need to fear but refugees who we need to rescue.
Nothing corrupts UK politics like the Fleet Street Mafia. We are deceived, tricked, misled and cheated by this adherence to the minority views of a few rich, bigoted and out of touch men. The sooner the BBC stops following the Fleet Street agenda, the sooner we can start rebuilding our society in accordance with the wishes of the people.
It’s Time To Put The Daily Mail Out Of Business.
Paul Dacre, Editor of The Daily Mail, Butcher of Truth.
Freedom of the press is a crucial ingredient of any free society but so is freedom from the press that habitually lies, misleads and distorts. This is the very essence of The Daily Mail. It is the way it does business. It is its editorial policy and its business strategy. If a story can be twisted, evidence misrepresented or opinion disguised as fact then that is the route that The Daily Mail will always choose.
I am no supporter of Red Ed but now I have a reason other than his delusional policies to feel sorry for him. The disgusting and shameful abuse of his father is beneath contempt but it is exactly what one would expect from the most vile and offensive man in the media, Paul ‘The Butcher’ Dacre.
Dacre is the butcher of truth, the master of distortion and the cause of great misery and misinformation throughout Britain. No other individual has been responsible for more ‘inaccurate, misleading and distorted’ reporting. Those are the words at the heart of the Editors’ Code which is supposed to determine the standards by which newspapers operate. The Daily Mail’s editorial is defined by its direct contradiction to the requirements of the code. It is not just in breach of it. It is the antithesis of it.
The tragic irony is that Dacre chairs the Editors’ Code committee. His perverse influence means he rules the Press Complaints Commission with an iron fist and it, despite the good intentions of its staff, is a laughing stock and a rubber stamp for whatever lies monsters like Dacre want to print.
There may be a silver lining in this latest despicable episode. It just might give Cameron the backbone he needs to implement Leveson in full, to kick out the ‘capo di tutti capi’ of the Fleet Street mafia and restore some decency and truth to British journalism.
The British Press Shamed By Prince Harry
I don’t know about you but I found the sequence where he is in the middle of being interviewed and then is ‘scrambled’ to take-off, WWII Battle of Britain style, extraordinarily moving.
He is right about the lowlife exploiters who work in Fleet Street. They are the very worst of Britain and need to be taken down.
The Only ‘Freedom Of the Press’ That Fleet Street Wants Is The Freedom To Distort, Mislead And Exploit.
Bonkers
The Butcher
Please sign the Hacked Off petition here calling for the Leveson report to be implemented in full.
Mr ‘Slippery’ Cameron vowed that unless the report was “bonkers” he would see it implemented in full. Questioned by Andrew Marr in September as to whether that remained his position he said “Absolutely”. Now he’s been got at by the press barons who are flexing their muscles, saturating our country with their propaganda which blatantly misleads about the urgent necessity for independent regulation.
The Bitch
On seven occasions in 70 years the press has been given a ‘last chance’ to continue with self regulation. Every single time they have proved to be unfit to do so. Are we going to allow these self-serving bullies off the hook yet again?
The Bully
The furious misinformation and spin flooding our streets, trying to frighten and intimidate with nonsensical allegations about state control of the press is the dishonesty and manipulation of Fleet Street exemplified.
Independent regulation, backed by statute, is essential. As proposed it will enshrine a newspaper industry as independent from the state. It is a necessary and progressive move in support of freedom and liberty and against the corruption and vested interests of the media megalomaniacs.
Phoney Fleet Street Dissemblers Yanking On Mr Slippery’s Strings
The lying, cheating, self-serving, abusive charlatans that call themselves ‘Fleet Street’ editors are in raging apoplexy about the suggestion that they might be held to account.
Spineless, Mr ‘Slippery’ Cameron has flip flopped as usual. Just a little bit of pressure applied in the right place and he’d pimp his grandmother if it seemed expedient.
There’s Nothing “Bonkers” About The Leveson Report Mr Cameron But As For You…
Now comes the news that the ‘Butcher’, the repugnant, mendacious Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail is to chair a meeting of editors to consider their response to the report. Anything that Dacre touches turns to the dark side. I don’t know why he earned his nickname but it well expresses what he does to the truth.
Butcher Of The Truth
I fervently hope that the public just won’t stand for this. Fleet Street’s desperate last stand is to claim that an independent regulator underpinned by statute is a slippery slope or crossing the Rubicon and will inevitably lead to state interference in the press.
Absolute hogwash! This is the press using their unrivalled expertise to deceive, mislead and distort the truth. Why the hell should these amoral, exploitative, habitually dishonest barons be above the law?
In fact, an independent regulator backed by statute is the best possible way to guarantee a ‘freedom of the press’ that is in the interests of us all. The only freedom that Dacre and his cronies want is to be able to continue their despicable, self-serving manipulation of facts, news and people’s lives for their own ends. At all costs, the nightmare scenario of more ‘self-regulation’ must be resisted.
Hacked Off, the campaign for a free and accountable press, is running a petition calling for the Leveson report to be fully implemented.
UPDATE On Legal Medicinal Cannabis In Britain
My article on Jim Starr and his medicine has been bouncing around the internet for nearly two weeks now. It was offered to every quality national newspaper and The Daily Mail but none have seen fit even to cover the story. The Daily Telegraph, to its credit, covered the BMJ article about how cannabis prohibition in the US is counterproductive. Other than that all the press can be bothered with is trivia about celebrities and cannabis. The truly important news that tens of thousands of people now have legal access to the medicine they need is of no interest to the erudite editors of Fleet Street. I wonder what their readers would think?
The feedback I have received has been overwhelming. I know of hundreds of people who have written to the Home Office asking for confirmation that they may follow in Jim’s footsteps. Many have telephoned and it seems a different story or excuse has been given to each one. What is certain is that the prohibitionists and legislators who care not one jot for others’ pain and suffering are in disarray.
I can now add further clarification and evidence in support of the rights of those who need medicinal cannabis. Surely now those cruel politicians and civil servants who are depriving so many British citizens of the medicine they need must relent. The truth is out!
1. Under the United Nations Single Convention On Narcotic Drugs, the UN International Narcotics Control Board determines the documentation required for the transport of such medicines across international borders as, simply, “a valid medical prescription”.
2. Under article 23 of the Geneva Convention (which specifically applies to all parties even outside time of war), protection is provided for the transport of medicines across borders.
3. Article 75 of the Schengen Agreement also provides protection for persons to carry their medicine throughout the EU. The UK has been bound by this since 1st January 2005. In support of this, I refer to the proceedings in the European Parliament on 1st December 2009 on the Right To Freedom Of Movement In The EU, in which the European Commission Advocate stated unequivocally that article 75 of Schengen is “binding” on the UK. I also refer to the letter from the Home Office dated 14th December 2009 to Mr Noel McCullagh concerning Bedrocan medicinal herbal cannabis.
UPDATE 9th November 2010
Noel McCullagh has asked me to remove the reproduction of the letter to him from the Home Office. He originally published the letter on this site himself but now for reasons only known to him he wants it removed. Suffice to say that in it the Home Office confirmed he was entitled to import Bedrocan herbal medicinal cannabis under the protection of a Schengen certificate.
Peter Reynolds 