News Of The World

[Glyn_Wigley]

Who's not buying it this week (or indeed ever again)?

Not only were they hacking Millie Dowler's mobile and tampering with the messages on it, they were also hiring people to obtain the ex-directory telephone numbers of her relatives, presumably to hack them as well.

Does anybody actually think this is a one-off? It wouldn't surprise me if the two-faced bas**rds did exactly the same thing to Sarah Payne's family - you know, the one the paper cried crocodile tears over when pushing for 'Sarah's Law'.

And we can judge a man by his friends can't we, Oily Dave?

Anybody think that it was just the NOTW too? How many other papers were doing the same thing? My guess: those who are keeping their mouths shut and not crowing about the NOTW being found out.

[RedJ]

NOTW is an absolute disgrace of a paper, along with its sister paper the Sun. I rank it with the Daily Fail.

I never have (or will) bought it. Can't stand the paper.

Speaking of Dave - as well as hacking Prezza's,  didn't they hack Bliar's phone too? or did they not manage to prove that?

[Snods Shinpad 2]

Story here.

Milly's voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the News of the World intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it.

The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police by confusing the picture when they had few leads to pursue.It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence.

And the police knew about this and did nothing...

[Glyn_Wigley]

And the police knew about this and did nothing...

My guess is that they wouldn't have known who did it until this revelation. As the story you link to says, it confused the issue.

[Snods Shinpad 2]

According to the article...

The newspaper also made no effort to conceal its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly's phone, the paper informed police about it. It was Surrey detectives who established that the call was not intended for Milly Dowler. At the time, Surrey police suspected that phones belonging to detectives and to Milly's parents also were being targeted.

One of those who was involved in the original inquiry said: \"We'd arrange landline calls. We didn't trust our mobiles.\"

However, they took no action against the News of the World, partly because their main focus was to find the missing schoolgirl and partly because this was only one example of tabloid misbehaviour. As one source close to the inquiry put it: \"There was a hell of a lot of dirty stuff going on.\" Two earlier Yard inquiries had failed to investigate the relevant notes in Mulcaire's logs.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Sorry, missed that.

But to me that reads :'We as a police force haven't got enough money or manpower to do anything about it, and we'd get slaughtered if we followed it instead of concentrating on the Millie Dowler case.'

Wouldn't surprise me if the NOTW (and other papers) have a load of coppers in their pockets too, bunging them cash for inside info.

[andysly]

Bottom feeders the lot of them

[Savvy]

Lower than a snakes belly, as someone as already said, the paper should be boycotted! Nobody, it appears, is prepared to take on the giant that is News International but perhaps \"David\" Cameron could start by introducing a new law. If the heads of such corporations were made \"vicariously liable\" for all such acts and a prison term as a minimum sentence, then we might see them acting in a more ethical manner!!!

[DRFC-PERKINS]

It makes me laugh how this paper can continue to excist, and the people in charge are not put in prison, how much can they get away with? I'd love someone like Wiki Leaks to hack there shit and expose whatever else they are hiding.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I agree with everything on here, but it's unarguable that a society gets the media it deserves. We as a society clearly get our rocks off by this sort of voyeuristic intrusion into other people's lives. We are fascinated by what they do in bed and how they deal with their grief. We can't help peering in and tut-tutting at what we see.

If we weren't obsessed by this, no-one would buy this sort of shit rag and the journalists wouldn't make a living raking through other folk's private lives.

As it is, 1 in 10 of us read NOTW every week and a similar number read The Sun every day. Draw your own conclusions.

Oh aye, and while I'm at it, the other media story of the day is even more disgusting. The way the likes of the Sun and Mirror reported the arrest of Christopher Jeffries last December in the Jo Yeates case. Effectively, they were saying, \"He looks like a weirdo and he scares kids. Hang the Kitson.\"

Now. Honest. How many people read that at the time and agreed with it?

[River Don]

I don't buy the Sun or the NotW and this is disgraceful.

I will say though, that I don't mind one bit if the news media want to print stories about the private lives of celebrities. It's far less satisfactory seeing the likes of Ryan Giggs trying to prevent the press from reporting what the rest of the world can read on t'interweb.

[DRFC-PERKINS]

In the words of Bill Hicks 'You are free to do as we tell you'

[Glyn_Wigley]

The quickest and simplest way to sort this out is to remove the right to withhold your sources, so that if a paper is taken to court they HAVE to explain where they got the story from. The information can still be given in camera to protect the source, but they would have to demonstrate that it was obtained legally.

[RedJ]

The quickest and simplest way to sort this out is to remove the right to withhold your sources, so that if a paper is taken to court they HAVE to explain where they got the story from. The information can still be given in camera to protect the source, but they would have to demonstrate that it was obtained legally.

That's the Mail fcuked then.

[jucyberry]

The quickest and simplest way to sort this out is to remove the right to withhold your sources, so that if a paper is taken to court they HAVE to explain where they got the story from. The information can still be given in camera to protect the source, but they would have to demonstrate that it was obtained legally.

That's the Mail fcuked then.

Nah, they pinch all their stories straight from the Sun.. I've never yet seen one saying this report from the Guardian..lol.


Contemptible scum. Just when you think the gutter press can't sink any lower. terrible thing is it makes you wonder what we don't know. they seem to be a law to themselves and that is frightening.

[donnyguy61]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Article/201107116024802

[Glyn_Wigley]

Well you surely didn't think it was a one-off, did you?

This will have been standard practice in every bloody news story they could use it.

[jucyberry]

Seems like News international is going to get hit where it hurts the most, in it's pockets..Hopefully more and more of the major advertisers will drop the paper like a hot potato....

I thought the editor of  a paper was supposed to know everything about what their staff were up to, I also thought it was the editor who gave the orders on what to do, so I find it very hard to believe this womans protestations of total lack of knowledge..To me it smacks of self serving damage limitation.

I would like to think that these events will lead to a radical overhaul of the red tops, but sadly I can't see it somehow, I can't see them being the only paper to use dirty tricks to get the story..perhaps  newspapers are like the football league, smal local honest papers and journalists, the higher up the chain tho the more honesty is lost to get the headline.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Wouldn't surprise me if the NOTW (and other papers) have a load of coppers in their pockets too, bunging them cash for inside info.

And lo and behold...News International have now handed to the police e-mails showing Andy Coulson authorised payments to coppers.

Mind you, somebody of a more cynical frame of mind might wonder why these have only just suddenly appeared...and just at the moment Rebekah Wade is having the finger pointed at her, too. One might think that it looks like an exercise in diverting attention...but that would be really, really cynical, wouldn't it?

[RTID75]

Both The Sun and NOTW are cheap, nasty, disgusting rags and if all this recent stuff is true they should be forced to shut up shop. You only hope that if that doesn't happen that the loss of advertisers and no doubt readers would make running the paper profitably impossible.

Personally, I have never and would never read either of them. Not even for free.

[RobTheRover]

We have a free press in this country, and so the government cant shut them down.

Only us, the paying punters can do that by not buying it.

[Glyn_Wigley]

The courts can cripple them for doing something illegal if they only found enough backbone to do it. The PCC has never had the teeth (or the inclination as it's a 'self-regulatory' body ie don't rock the boat chaps) to do anything.

I hope the celebrities who are taking them to court over it tell them to stick their inevitable out-of-court settlement attempts where the sun don't shine and drag them through a proper trial for everyone to see. (Mind you, I wonder how much coverage it'd get in the papers )

[jucyberry]

It must be bad, the ahem, jurnos at the mail are now pinching bits out of The Guardian and Independant instead of their usual sources..

I cannot believe that the buck stops with that smug hard faced cow personally, who is to say it wasn't a directive from the very top?  I'd think there is far more milage in this yet, and sadly it looks as if they would be better off naming those who haven't had their  privacy infringed...

All I keep thinking is Holly and Jessica's poor parents once again seeing those pictures of their babies on the tv screen agan , ripping open scars that will not even begun to have healed..

[River Don]

Here's the latest.

XXX Filthy Chat Lines have just announced they won't be advertising in the News of the World anymore, they don't want the name of their organisation tarnished by association.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Unintended joke of the day yesterday. That harridan who was the editor of the NOTW stated that she was working hard to ensure that the reputation of News International remained intact.

I think you can rest assured on that one love.

[jucyberry]

I was watching This morning today, they were interviewing the lad who lost his legs in the 7/7 bombings..He said when his wife fell pregnant they told no one because they didn't want the survivor has baby hoopla in the press... THEN he got a call from a reporter saying there was an anonimous (sp) tip off that they were expecting and that it was going to run as a story, with our without  his imput. He said at the time they thought that someone had seen them out shoping, but that now..... Well you can guess the rest...

Ross Kemp likes to do hard edged investigations, I wonder if he would like to do one on his not so lovely ex-wife?

[Savvy]

Unintended joke of the day yesterday. That harridan who was the editor of the NOTW stated that she was working hard to ensure that the reputation of News International remained intact.

I think you can rest assured on that one love.

[attachment=697]mcl_2011-07-06.gif[/attachment]

Billy, just nearly choked on my coffee when reading that! joke of the day indeed!!!!

[BillyStubbsTears]

You couldn't make it up Savvy could you?

Meantime, here's the top 50 advertisers with the shit rag in question.


The responses of the advertisers are illuminating. Morrison's supermarket in particular. It translates from the original Professional Yorkshireman as: \"We don't give a f**k about folk being eaten up and spat out by NOTW. There's brass to be made by advertising with them and we'll continue to do so regardless. We have no morals whatsoever.\"

I wonder what Kirkham's response will be?

Politically, Cameron is in deep shit here. News International are clearly pointing the finger at Coulson for the whole shit storm. Last year Cameron said he had total confidence in Coulson. At the very least that us a catastrophic misjudgement. At worst, Cameron may have even known what Coulson had been up to and ignored it. They were as thick as thieves after all. It's inconceivable that Cameron wouldn't have quizzed Coulson on what had gone on.

This is a political open goal for Miliband. It's what Oppositions dream of.  If he can't badly wound Cameron over this then he's not up to the job.

[StocktonRover]

He's not up to the job.

He's already had numerous opportunities to take Cameron to task and his ineptitude has ensured he's missed every one of them.

I bumped into his Brother at Sunderland at the end of last season (a thoroughly likeable and chatty bloke who was happy to chat away at length with the commoners (in the directors lounge!)Theres no love lost between the brothers, he couldn't believe the missed opportunities at that time, never mind now.

[BillyStubbsTears]

He's not up to the job.

He's already had numerous opportunities to take Cameron to task and his ineptitude has ensured he's missed every one of them.

I bumped into his Brother at Sunderland at the end of last season (a thoroughly likeable and chatty bloke who was happy to chat away at length with the commoners (in the directors lounge!)Theres no love lost between the brothers, he couldn't believe the missed opportunities at that time, never mind now.

Do you want to list the chances and exactly what Miliband did or didn't do?

I fully agree that Ed Miliband comes across badly in the media. But you have to bear in mind that the very media that we are currently talking about are dead set against him, having very much wanted his brother in charge as heir-to-Blair. The last thing that Murdoch wants to allow is a vaguely left-leaning Labour leader.

The Times has recently been running vitriolic editorials against him, calling him incompetent, not up to the job, immature. All the while totally ignoring the fact that Labour, under his leadership, has come from 7% behind the Tories at the Election, to a consistent 5-8% ahead of the Tories for the last 6 months. No party has ever been so badly defeated at an Election and bounced back so strongly, so quickly. It is PRECISELY because Labour have a strong a stable lead over the Tories that Murdoch's press have got their knives out for Miliband.

The current debacle is Miliband's chance to rise above all this and take the centre stage as a statesman. Take the media on. The public has finally seen Murdoch's lot for the scum they are. Murdoch is on the back foot for the first time in his life and it's a once and for all opportunity to slap him down for good. A statesman and consumate politician would do that very thing and fatally wing Cameron in the procerss for being part of the same cosy clique. That's Miliband's task.

As for there being no love lost between the Miliband brothers, frankly, who cares? There are genuine political differences between them. There was a vote. One won, one lost. Just because David Miliband carried an air of Leader-in-Waiting about him, it did not give him a God-given right to win the leadership election. There are many, many better politicians than him who never got to lead their parties. He is smarting from losing, I'm sure, but tough shit. That's politics.