uncommon surly

Interesting class tensions emerging in a pre-modern way as The Tyranny of Murdochia starts throwing people out of the balloon – it’s most productive operatives at that. Senior management breaks the feudal compact, Sun sub editors walk out in solidarity with their fellow yeoman serfs and the courtiers, factotums and jesters in the middle start getting very, very nervous. For the king is frowning, his nobles are gazing upon the multitude with a calculating mein, numerous among the labouring classes have been sent forth; and those that remain are uncommon surly.

Comments

[johnf]

I think they only walked out for 30 minutes. They know on which side their crust is greased.

[Phil]

HuffPo:

Boycott the paper! - but do people really expect someone to quit their job, or not accept it in the first place, because they morally object to some of the things their employers do, or may do?

Do we really expect people not to go and work for Murdoch? Gosh, that's a difficult one. Yes, we - at least, those of us old enough to remember Wapping - really genuinely do. This isn't the week when people started thinking like this - just the week when they started expressing it.

(Full disclosure: I've written for the Times. But only once, and the piece hasn't been published; all being well it won't appear for some time yet.)

[ejh]

I have also written for the Times, but only once. Any more?

[Richard J]

My name's appeared in The Times at least twice, but only in mundane circumstances.

[skidmarx]

Perhaps boycott HuffPo.

I've been in a cab with Giles Coren, but only once.

[Chris Williams]

Something I wrote for History Today got abstracted in it. I thus fall into the suspiciously narrow 'acceptable' band.

[Alex]

Also, check out Blairite spin wanker Hopi Sen's decent-tastic moral clarity!

Yes folks, the real issue is who floppy locks fucked in the pre-Cambrian...why don't they love us, Peter?

[jamie]

Well, you know. "I never liked Stalin, but frankly I'm not impressed by some of the people coming out of the woodwork now he's dead." He's just a bog standard smooth cadre.

[johnf]

I was once reviewed in The Times twice by the same bloke in the same edition.

On a page likely to be read by his superiors he said this was a typical piece of BBC filth etc etc.

On a page highly unlikely to be read by his superiors - the radio reviews - he said how much he'd enjoyed the play - real insight, venom, good fun etc etc.

[Phil]

I'm stunned by that tweet, which is something I never thought I'd say. I watched QT for as long as I could STAND listening to Jon GAUNT! (he's on the radio?), and I thought Hugh Grant played a blinder. Nobody will care what he says about anything in a couple of months' time - any more than people are still consulting Charlie Althorp on the paparazzi, Joanna Lumley on immigration or Martin Bell on corruption - but cometh the hour, cometh the reasonably perceptive and articulate person who's got a bit of a platform and has decided not to back down on this one. Jamie is clearly right about the power(-worshipping) dynamics involved - I'm just amazed it's so blatant. I guess that's the power of Twitter - from your unconscious to the world, one line at a time.

[Alex]

The other thing is that if you made a career out of sucking up to the NI papers, you've now got a problem.

[jamie]

Plus the fact that NI bullying helped keep Labour from doing anything that might appear overtly leftwing. The bottom seems to be falling out of a whole concept of "moderation".

[john b]

My name's appeared in The Times at least twice, but only in mundane circumstances.

Likewise.

[belle le triste]

I have dodged all this, though the NOTW ran a story once long ago on how my absurd uncle broke up his marriage, with a pic of my aunt looking very beautiful and very cross. It was a very silly and minor old-school NOTW story: neither of them are even slightly famous, even locally, and the facts in the case were as mundane as every other mid-life crisis affair in a small rural village.

[Alex]

The Tory defence plan seems to be a) hide behind the civil service b) counterattack on Tom Baldwin, Labour press chief, because he worked for the Times.

At face value, that suggests that the whole of News International is now unacceptable. It also suggests that Michael Gove, former assistant editor of the Times, must resign.

[dsquared]

Ooh. Now I did not expect that.

The Secretary of State will consider carefully all the responses submitted and take advice from Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading before reaching his decision. Given the volume of responses, we anticipate that this will take some time. He will consider all relevant factors including whether the announcement regarding the News of the World’s closure has any impact on the question of media plurality

The bolded sentence is of course the important one. It admits of all sorts of interesting interpretations, but one that particularly strikes me as interesting, is that the question of "How much genuine plurality is there in the media if they are completely unwilling to investigate misdeeds of News Corporation?" might have been brought on topic.

[belle le triste]

Didn't watch Cameron -- but i get the sense (from reading tweets of many who did) that Tories too are waking up to the possibility of a murdoch-free public life; that it would have an actual upside for them as well as drawbacks?

Political courage and clarity in short supply -- as ever -- but desperation can sometimes stiffen sinews.

I am so behind with work.

[ajay]

The Graun has an interesting discussion with Cameron:

Did you know that your director of communications had employed a murder suspect?
-- No, I did a background check and nothing came up.
But my boss, Alan "The Russ" Rusbridger, told you himself.
-- I do not recall being given any specific information.

[CharlieMcMenamin]

I hear that, behind the scenes, NI are quietly sounding out this guy as a possible new CEO

[Richard J]

Didn't watch Cameron -- but i get the sense (from reading tweets of many who did) that Tories too are waking up to the possibility of a murdoch-free public life; that it would have an actual upside for them as well as drawbacks?

Mainly from the Telegraph-orientated Tories, which gives me a sense of caution regarding the Barclay brothers' involvement in this.

[Malcs]

I once had a review published in the TLS and would gladly order a cab to drive through Giles Coren. Am I off the hook?

[Chris Williams]

I wonder how much the m-word is going to trend in the next few days. BTW, for the first time ever in my life I have found a Telegraph headline deeply entertaining and apt: "Goodbye Cruel World"

[john b]

From Popbitch:
"such was
their apparent determination to rid the
country of child sex offenders, it wouldn't
have seemed too weird if a senior NOTW
figure sympathetically handed over a
mobile phone at no expense to the victim -
so that they could all keep in touch. And
then, of course, there would be no problem
monitoring those phones, would there?
If the rumours going around News
International about who the person
handing out the phone was are anything
more substantial than chatter from
understandably bitter ex-employees then
we might see some action on this website
before too long:
http://www.hasrebekahbrooksbeensackedyet.com/

Popbitch not famed for its reliability, of course.

[Alex]

Meanwhile, WHOIS beat. thesunonsunday.co.uk/sunonsunday.co.uk was registered on the 5th to a UK nontrader called "Mediaspring", probably an American web design firm although they haven't got back to my calls yet.

sunonsunday.com, which you might think would be top of the list, is registered to an Italian and has been since 2007, and points to his band's MySpace page.

thesunonsunday.com was registered on the 5th to a "keep your details quiet" registry firm.

[Alex]

And the hrbbsy.com and hjmbsy.com sites are clearly the same person.

[dsquared]

and would gladly order a cab to drive through Giles Coren

I think you mean "over", not "through".

[Malcs]

Depends how fast it's going.

[Cian]

And now OfCom are asking whether NI are a fit and proper owner of BSkyB. Which could theoretically jeopardize their existing stake.

[Cian]

I have ordered a Taxi to drive through Giles Coren. Unfortunately he's made of rubber.

[Cian]

Robert Peston is saying that the decision to close NotW was James Murdoch's.

[Barry Freed]

I watched QT for as long as I could STAND listening to Jon GAUNT! (he's on the radio?), and I thought Hugh Grant played a blinder

Anyone have a link to audio/video? Thanks.

[Alex]

Oooh, what did happen to those e-mails?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/08/phone-hacking-emails-news-international

Journaling filesystems can be so annoying..

[belle le triste]

Twitter is saying -- unconfirmed -- that the Met are raiding the Daily Star's offices.

[bert]

There's this, Barry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkTs1Ayq8qo
Check out the entire audience nodding together at the end.
For more, you may need a UK proxy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012hfpq/Question_Time_07_07_2011/
It's the BBC. Colonials not welcome I'm afraid.

[bert]

No offence meant, btw.
The reason the BBC blocks non-UK IP addresses is that it's funded by a hypothecated tax.

Taxation, representation, something along those lines.

The attack on this privileged position in James Murdoch's speech to the assembled media establishment a couple of years ago makes highly entertaining viewing today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2009/aug/29/james-murdoch-edinburgh-festival-mactaggart

[belle le triste]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2011/jul/08/news-of-the-world-phone-hacking-scandal">Daily Star raid confirmed but NI-connected, I think. They're not going after the Mail group yet. And copying all your stories from other tabloids s not yet illegal.

(When I first read Daily Star, I actually thought Daily Sport: "Double decker bus not found on moon, says Met")

[Cian]

The Daily Star still exists?

The deletion of the emails has to make them look even less like a fit and proper company. And then of course is the question of who ordered the deletion.

If they lost BSkyB and James Murdoch was no longer "fit and proper" to be head of the company. Well that would be interesting.

[john b]

Bert: not really with the hypothecated tax. It's primarily to do with rights ownership - for foreign-made content (including news footage as well as US dramas etc), the BBC only buys the UK rights, while for BBC-made content, BBC Worldwide sells exclusive rights to foreign broadcasters.

Belle: Star's Royal correspondent is a certain Clive Goodman. It'll be interesting to see whether raid is focused on him, or spreads wider.

Cian: "fit and proper" only applies to broadcasters, not publishers. So if they lost BSkyB, then it wouldn't matter that JM was no longer fit and proper.

[Cian]

It matters in the US for overall control of NewsCorp company, if he ends up with a criminal charge of some kind. Would complicate the succession.

[john b]

If a criminal charge, yes. Dsquared will hopefully confirm whether this would apply if he were found unfit & improper by OFCOM without being prosecuted by cops.

[ajay]

Star's Royal correspondent is a certain Clive Goodman.

Ah, that explains it.

[bert]

John B - Yes, fair point. QT is independently produced, btw. And I don't know how much of an audience it would have outside the UK. Is it even screened anywhere else? I've no idea. But rights are an issue, no question.

However, streaming video is very data intensive, and correspondingly cost intensive. Giving unrestricted access to freeriders would put a dent in the BBC's service to the licence-payers underwriting its whole operation.

[jamie]

Apparently Ladbrokes have stopped taking bets that Cameron will leave the cabinet. Silly money I suppose, but interesting.

[Cian]

The BBC plan to make it available to fee paying customers over the next couple of years. I imagine this is mostly of interest to ex-pats, and will be priced accordingly, but nonetheless.

[bert]

The Guardian has a different revenue model, and lets everyone tune in. Nick Davies' video is highly recommended: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2011/jul/07/news-of-the-world-phone-hacking-nick-davies-rupert-murdoch-video

[donpaskini]

For a different take, the former General Secretary of the Labour Party argues on Iain Dale's new website that the closure of the News of the World shows the contempt which the middle class twittering political elite have for a great newspaper and its readers:

"But I also deplore the middle-class hypocrisy and snobbery around that celebrates the closing of great century old tabloid newspaper with the loss of hundreds of decent law abiding Staff. Last night Twitter was full of middle class cries of ‘we’ve got the News of the World – now let’s take the Sun.’ What utter rubbish – twitter at it’s very worst. It says a lot about much of the political elite that they cannot see that their attitude to the hacking scandal and the News of the World says as much about them as it does about the immoral journalism.

Firstly it has inadvertently exposed the raw patronising contempt that many in the world of politics have for millions of voters. Over 2 million people bought the News of the World, and yet because it wasn’t a broadsheet and full of ‘worthy’ stories, but instead a tabloid, then it is condemned by the political elite as being a terrible newspaper that deserved its fate. Perhaps if it had reviews of literary festivals or essays on the pros and cons of Blue Labour or the Big Society then a more moderate stance would have been taken? The fact is that tabloids are popular, entertaining and undertake some brilliant investigative journalism. So called progressives and intellectuals might not like tabloids but that doesn’t make the newspapers themselves bad. It’s called a market – you can choose to buy or not. Some people buy a paper because they want to read in depth stories. Some because they like the gossip. Some like long stories other shorter ones. And the fact is that millions choose to buy tabloids – it doesn’t make them inferior.

Secondly Law breaking is law breaking. There has clearly been a culture in some newsrooms in the recent past where ethical standards have fallen well below that which should be expected. That is to be condemned. But the same has been true in Westminster over the last few years. Have we all conveniently forgotten the expenses scandal? The public certainly haven’t and they won’t differentiate. It will just confirm what they believe anyway - that politicians, journalists and the police are all at it. Quite frankly politicians and politicos need to calm down a bit and think about how they look to an already cynical public."

http://iaindale.com/posts/lets-ditch-the-news-of-the-world-snobbery

[Alex]

It is, indeed, called a market and the market has fucking spoken.

[Leonard Hatred]

I can't think of any time I've seen the phrase "decent, law-abiding" (or "decent, hard-working") used in anything that was worth paying attention to.

I think Alex has this one.

[hellblazer]

That passage quoted by donpaskini is either a prolonged exercise in missing the point, or risible mendacity.

What TYR said.

[skidmarx]

My first reaction to hearing that Lord Ashdown has taken the opportunity to have a go at Tom Baldwin was that that's dragged theTimes into it.
Another thought is that Ashdown is not Millie Dowler.