what we talk about when we talk about...

This morning’s Sun front page had a mock up of a picture of a man. It was instantly recognizable because everyone had seen the original picture anyway: both me and Mrs Treasure had been independently shown it on people’s phones yesterday.

Also this morning I had a discussion with fellow dog walkers in the park about the man whose picture could not be shown but which we had all seen. I had the same conversation with Mrs Treasure last night. She had previously had it with her workmates, and they had been having it with each other when she came into the room. It seems to be what people get round to talking about when talking about the man in the picture everyone has seen but which cannot be shown. Last night Sky news insisted on framing the issue as one of ‘intrusion into the lives of the Royal Family’. That, in a highly specific sense, is what the conversation involves.

It's also a conversation only the public can have, which is no bad thing. It’s not exactly a mind changer, or a matter of urgent public interest. Having the red tops and the Mail crawl all over it would inject an atmosphere of malice that you don’t get right now when people have that conversation. It’s just something people enjoy themselves with for a few minutes before they go on to talk about other things. And it’s nice to be able to have such conversations without big media barging in and insisting on setting the agenda. Some secrets are best kept open.

Comments

[guthrie]

Ah, but according to some numpty called Neil Wallis they daren't publish because of Leveson:
(quote lifted from yahoo Sky news article)

"The decision by the British press not to publish the naked pictures of Prince Harry is a sign that the Leveson Inquiry has resulted in "neutered newspapers", a former News of the World executive editor has said.

Neil Wallis said he would have published the photos before the inquiry into media ethics began.

He told Sky News that newspapers were now "terrified of controversy" and would not print the pictures even though it was in the public interest."

*tone of scorn* Aye, right. You're just a snoop, a voyeur who can't tell the difference between in the public's interest and what the small percentage of nosy buggers want to know.

[ajay]

And, of course, the Sun has now published them.

[ajay]

Having re-enacted them in the previous day's issue with the aid of naked interns.

[guthrie]

Is that what you have to do to get a job as a journalist these days?

[ajay]

I didn't even know the Sun had fashion pages. But it does, and they have interns, who will apparently take their clothes off on demand.

[redpesto]

The thing is: how can the Sun claim it's in the public interest to print the photos when everyone already had access via the internet? It sounds more like 'the public won't let us monetise the fact that Harry has a penis, the bastards.'

And it’s nice to be able to have such conversations without big media barging in and insisting on setting the agenda.

Yes, because according to Louise Mensch, it's about 'security' (even if everyone was literally strip searched? Or maybe the assassin hid the M-16 where the sun (or the Sun) doesn't shine), while over at Comment is Free, it's all about the female intern, and so on and so forth...

[dsquared]

how can the Sun claim it's in the public interest to print the photos when everyone already had access via the internet?

Because (as I was saying on Twitter last night) they have, possibly prophetically or possibly erroneously, decided that British newspapers have made the transition from an ongoing business to what the Joe Pesci character in Goodfellas would call "a burn down". News Corp is being rearranged and the Sun isn't going to be in the profitable bit with Sky and Fox and the movie studios. It's going to be packaged up with a load of money pits and the Wall Street Journal. There's no point in playing for the long term, working with the regulators or maintaining credibility with advertisers. You might as well take every quick sales pop you can get and spend the rest of your day trying to get college students to take their knickers off. Fuhgeddaboutit.

[Richard J]

Key thing to watch out for: which bit the £600m odd printing presses they built in the middle of the last decade end up.

[Charlie W]

Don't those get shipped to a developing nation? The same way Malaysia stamps out old Fiats, or used to.

[Alex]

Probably not. My recollection of the Grauniad's retooling for the Berliner format (which only one, small, paper in Berlin prints in) is that a newspaper printing plant is about as disaggregate-able as a cat. You'd have to move the building.

[Charlie W]

My mistake: Proton made Mitsubishis, not Fiats. Not even sure how much tooling was moved.

[Jakob]

I think Fiats were made under license in the USSR weren't they?

[ajay]

a newspaper printing plant is about as disaggregate-able as a cat. You'd have to move the building.

From your link on the tour of Fortress Wapping, the presses are gone, but the foundations are massive and probably permanent.

[ajay]

I think Fiats were made under license in the USSR weren't they?

Yes, the original Lada was a modified Fiat 124, built in the Russian city of Togliatti.

[Richard J]

From your link on the tour of Fortress Wapping, the presses are gone, but the foundations are massive and probably permanent.

Not talking about those presses - they built large presses in three places round the country (Thames Gateway, Scotland, and IIRC, the M62 corridor) - if those end up in GoodCo, but grant a license to BadCo to operate, rather than sticking all printing activities in BadCo, it's a sign of trying to cushion the effects of impending doom.

(Related: old conveyor luggage belts in Western airports generally get sold to developing nation airports at the end of their life. This probably explains a lot.)

[ajay]

Aha. But why would GoodCo want them? It's not going to print its own newspapers, and is Britain really undersupplied with newsprint presses?

[Richard J]

If BadCo goes bust, its assets would be liquidated to pay off the creditors, leaving the shareholders with bugger all. Although the printing presses might not have much value if BadCo goes bust, at least if they're held in NewCo, the shareholders don't lose out.

[ajay]

Thanks.

[Alex]

Fiat also sold the Fiat 126 line to Poland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_126

VW produced Beetles in Mexico years after they stopped in Europe, Peugeot sold the 405 tooling to Iran (not a bad deal)...and the UK managed to wish the Hillman Imp and the BAC1-11 airliner on Ceaucescu's Romania in one spectacular rip-off.

[Richard J]

And most surviving flying Bf109s were actually built in Spain of course, thanks to the Germans helping set up a production line there in 1944.