It was all going so well…and then those chickens started coming home to roost.
Leveson has been ‘disastrous’ says Guardian legal chief
The Guardian’s director of editorial legal services Gill Phillips has said the outcome of Leveson Inquiry has been “disastrous”.
Phillips told delegates: “What Leveson has come up with is the worst of all worlds.
“His attempt to please everybody and avoid being a dusty footnote on a shelf somewhere has led him down a road that has proved to be pretty disastrous.
“We don’t have anything that could be perceived as effective or credible by either side of the debate.”
I imagine that when an inquiry, supposedly wideranging, is actually predicated upon the sole intention of reining in one man and his supposed ’empire’ (it’s all relative….see below) things get distorted and that old law of unintended consequences rears its ugly but inevitable head.
From the Guardian:
Media plurality is now about much more than curbing Rupert Murdoch
The BBC, and online media, are included in the government’s consultation on plurality in the industry. And about time, too
The BBC, notes the DCMS, spends £430m a year on news provision – more than all other UK broadcasting put together. It reaches 86% of the population and accounts for 73% of TV news-watching. How, for plurality purposes, can you pretend it doesn’t exist?
Of course it operates under a pall of officially prescribed fairness and balance. But that, in itself, limits its plurality role. It can’t (see the latest contentious BBC Trust verdict) let John Humphrys loose for an individually crafted report on welfare dependency. It demands facts, figures and equivalencies, not personal perceptions. And the BBC is held to account for what it reports, not for what it leaves out. Sometimes it picks up a newspaper story and runs hard with it. Sometimes not. Sometimes Edward Snowden may as well not exist.
It’s often a negative power, but it is power. You can’t calculate pluralism without it. It’s the same online, as bbc.co.uk scoops up 40 million or so unique visitors in Britain alone. What’s the point of counting paper copies when the Telegraph can boast a combined monthly reach of 10.7 million? When the Guardian notches 12.4 million and the Mail 18.8 million. Even the Sun, at 16.9 million, doesn’t seem such a winner in company like this – and, as the consultation adds, that’s before you drop in the Huffington Post, Google News and more in a market place that obeys few conventional rules.
Media censorship and “pluralism” originated, not with the government or Leveson, but with the EU, which is trying to dictate what gets printed, broadcast and blogged about. But you won’t get the BBC or its sister organisations to admit it.
http://britain-today.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/european-censorship.html
http://britain-today.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/be-nice-to-minorities-says-leveson.html
The support of Hacked Off, Common Purpose and (until recent events) the Guardian for EU plans means these outfits have a lot to hide. But they didn’t originate them.
Even if the BBC does get broken up under the pluralism plans – which is doubtful – the successor broadcasters will still be mandated to promote “European values”.
Leveson has always been about censorship of the non-leftist world view by a network of leftist pressure groups – several articles by Andrew Gilligan in The Telegraph refer.
It’a amazing how few people have woken up to this fact.
Maybe it’s me, but that Guardian headline reads like they’re surprised it wasn’t just about silencing nasty Uncle Rupert.
And the line right before the one you bolded made me laugh out loud. The BBC doesn’t want personal perceptions? What are all those titled editors doing, then? Perhaps the writer needs to remind the BBC of this crazy idea of demanding facts next time there’s a mass shooting, or a Palestinian militant pm’s a photo to one of their correspondents.
but that Guardian headline reads like they’re surprised it wasn’t just about silencing nasty Uncle Rupert
Which begs the question; are they complete fools or venal liars?
Yes.
Leveson nothing to do with the BBC.
The post does go to show the Beebs popularity as a trusted news source globally.
The Trust finding about Humphrys welfare programme is a little more complex than suggested here too.
Fail.
Quisling hillbilly,
Then let the rest of the globe fund the Quisling Broadcasting Corporation.
‘The Trust finding about Humphrys welfare programme’ … ‘is a little more complex than suggested here too’. Standard Quisling deflection procedure, as you don’t feel obliged to cite the complexity.
The next Quisling deflection technique is ‘contextualisation’. So again you’ll say its all about contextualisation but again won’t go into any detail.
I think he’s already blown his load with that comment. He’ll now rest for several hours before posting again under a different name to try and make his view look more popular than it actually is. But of course he still won’t go into any detail about it.
Check first who are the members of the Trust and what is their expertise. You will find a pattern that makes it impossible for the Trust to be effective or fair.
Trusted? ROFLMFAO
Hillbilly, the Guardian brought the BBC into it, not Alan. The bit about Humphrys was also written by the Guardian writer, not Alan. You’re the one who failed here.
Where’s that non-lurking journalist who was scolding me for failing reading comprehension now?
My guess David is Hillbilly is, in all probability said non-lurking journalist.
I see the Trolls are liking their own posts again. It’s so sad how desperate they get with their need to be liked.
hilarious – the bbc , the grauniad and hugh grant have completely messed this up.
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has tied himself in knots by claiming to support both Leveson and a free press. This is the same editor who went to the Leveson Inquiry and declared to the Lord Justice that the British press had been ‘under-regulated’ – that is, too free.
Now it appears that Rusbridger particularly objects to the Royal Charter’s proposal for allowing exemplary damages to be imposed on dissident newspapers. This is the same Guardian editor who was praised by the Tories for suggesting that Leveson might impose VAT for the first time on papers that refused to sign up to the new system.
Having championed the idea of imposing a tax on the unregulated press, it is hard to take seriously his belated objections to the Royal Charter’s own financial penalties and the costs rules in defamation cases.
almost as funny as Al Qaeda, Hizbollah , ISIS and the FSA killing each other at the Syria/Turkey border !
Seriously, he wanted to add VAT to papers? That’s the Grauniad to a tee. No ability to provide working solutions, just new taxes.
Click to access Supplementary-Statement-of-Alan-Rusbridger.pdf
page 10 – sign up to the pcc or face VAT being slapped on your newspaper !
of course this would not affect the bbc
Only the Guardian could see it that way
Is it any wonder many people still think the Guardian is owned by the BBC?
Or vice-versa
The Graudian may not be owned by the bBC, but it’s circulation figures get a huge leg-up from the taxpayer-funded, monopoly broadcaster.
Look-it`s Leveseon, Grant, Coogan, Guardian and the BBC trying to do something….what else would your expect but stardust, flatulence and faces behind teachers back…with big words that come as flatpack solutions to nobodys problems but their own guilt and self-regard.
But they won-for they all got plenty nectar from the beehive to chew this shit through….”ouanquers touts”
It demands facts, figures and equivalencies, not personal perception
Almost every piece to camera by a BBC reporter ends with sentence of opinion often coming without any supporting evidence from the preceding report.
Speaking of BBC/Guardian, BBC TV news has been running a piece all day on the ever-increasing size of TVs. A new wall-sized interactive TV thing is demonstrated. “You can even read the paper on it” intones the BBC drone as he turns to the wall on the left to look at an 8′ x 4′ online copy of ………….. The Guardian.
Shameless.
I was brief because I’m using my phone.
The Trust report was published for all to see
If you’re interested in bbc bias…here’s an idea. Why don’t you go read it.
As predicted Quisling hillbilly,
You think it beneath your quislingess to provide detail.
‘I was brief because I’m using my phone.’
By amazing coincidence, that is the attempted excuse made by BBC Editors when one of their ‘accuracy wouldn’t fit’ headlines crashes and burns in the face of truth and facts.
That and telling folk to go elsewhere to try and divine the actual story like that cuts it any more.