Murdoch hacking scandal latest

[amateur51]

The only thing I find surprising about this story is that so many people claim to be suprised by it.

Anyone with the merest knowledge of tabloid journalism knows that its most successful practitioners live by a very strange moral code, to put it politely.

The off-message Tory journalist Peter Oborne had a very good piece in the Telegraph this week (think it may even have been referenced upthread).

Having read between the lines in a Guardian article, I'm concluding that Ms. Brooks is a bicycle that can be ridden by any man (or woman, for that matter) in possession of power, influence and connections. Which would seem to explain her indispensability to Mr.Murdoch, Mr. Cameron (with whom she is said to be 'more than intimate'), as well as Mr. and Mrs. Blair.

In view of the comments that you make here about Rebekkah Brooks, Mandryka, I think it would be a good idea for you to provide a link to the Guardian article to which you refer as being the inspiration for your comment.

Thanks

[johnb]

Having read between the lines in a Guardian article, I'm concluding that Ms. Brooks is a bicycle that can be ridden by any man (or woman, for that matter) in possession of power, influence and connections. Which would seem to explain her indispensability to Mr.Murdoch, Mr. Cameron (with whom she is said to be 'more than intimate'), as well as Mr. and Mrs. Blair.

I'm not sure how you came to that view - perhaps you have been reading the NotW too much.

However, it is well worth reading the article:

Guardian article on Rebekah Brooks

Also interesting is the article on the (alleged) destruction of e-mails by NotW and their lack of co-operation with the police:

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

[Mandryka]

In view of the comments that you make here about Rebekkah Brooks, Mandryka, I think it would be a good idea for you to provide a link to the Guardian article to which you refer as being the inspiration for your comment.

Thanks

Happy to oblige:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/08/rebekah-brooks-profile-phone-hacking

The inference to be derived from this article is that Brooks will do (almost?) literally anything to further her career/get that story. There are several words in the English language to describe such people and none of them are complimentary.

[Frances_iom]

The inference to be derived from this article is that Brooks will do (almost?) literally anything to further her career/get that story. There are several words in the English language to describe such people and none of them are complimentary.

she is ,as as now being publically aired, the human shield for James Murdoch - heir apparent and wouldbe destroyer of the BBC - he is the one needs to be hung to dry.

[Mahlerei]

frances

You're absolutely right, Brooks is just a temporary lightning conductor. that said, i bet she will make mischief for the Mirdochs after they ditch her.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Newsnight is managing to rock tonight!

[scottycelt]

Unworthy I know, but does anyone else feel a slight glow of satisfaction at some of these senior and ex-senior News Corp people now getting a taste of their own medicine?

Furthermore, the sight of an obviously irritated and grim-faced Rupert Murdoch and Andy Coulson being chased and hounded by a pack of screaming hacks, whilst steadfastly 'refusing to comment', does have its funny side ...

[Lateralthinking1]

In nearly every short biography of the famous I have read, they have mentioned the professional backgrounds of the person's parents. Often you hear about their siblings too. With Wade/Brooks, it is as if she exists entirely on her own planet except for her extraordinary ties with the movers and shakers. The cynical part of me wonders why. What part of the Establishment did Ma and Pa inhabit?

Unlike the late Queen Mother, you don't often see her in photos. Very much like her, though, this is a woman who has had as many significant conversations as anyone and yet is almost entirely without a voice. In fact, the only fifteen words I have ever heard her utter are in this clip. Ten form a sentence and the other five, in two parts, don't get near to one. With that kind of reticence, she might as well be working for GCHQ (or to put it another way, contrast the shadows around her with the huge amounts of publicly available information on Stella Rimington and Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1AJjnl2y8U

I do not wish to be unduly unkind here. We can't know her. Not yet. We only have descriptions of her working methods. There is no proof that she has done anything wrong in legal terms. But rather like so many who are viewed with awe, I feel that I am missing something. What I see from the tiny glimpses we have all been given is an attractive looking woman who one could easily believe might be a very tough, ambitious, middle manager in a regional insurance office or a larger branch of a clothes shop chain.

Rather than being a brilliant anything, she looked completely out of her depth when questioned by Bryant.

[Boilk]

Newsnight is managing to rock tonight!

5 minutes into the debate with Steve Coogan et al I really wished I'd been recording it. Hopefully it will come up on iPlayer tomorrow.

For me one of the most memorable Newsnight episodes since the Paxman vs Howard "Did you threaten to overrule him?"

[Frances_iom]

In nearly every short biography of the famous I have read, they have mentioned the professional backgrounds of the person's parents. .

Appleton is the posh bit just south of Stockton Heath which lay on the old Cheshire side of Manchester Ship Canal - both looked down onto industrial (+ very much old Labour - MPs were the Sumerskills the mother being a driving force in early NHS) Warrington which then was in Lancashire - part of Appleton had old established Cheshire families (old wealth that ran deep based on farming) but also new money from Manchester + Liverpool - Eddie Shah bought the century old + staid Warrington Guardian and turned it into a provincial weekly tabloid - testbed for new printing techniques which he used as a springboard into the seedy tabloid he started in London

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

E_A I never knew you were born on the same day as Pablo! But will Sunday's loss match that of 23/04/1616?

So you think I'm a pseudonym for Lionel Tertis? But I'm afraid the significance of your date has passed me by. Please can you put me out of my misery?

[Stillhomewardbound]

Look, all you need to know is this, I helped an old lady across the road today. Actually, I'm one of a disparate army of people that helped many old ladies (or, I ought to say 'older') across the road today. Whereas, this complete irrelevance of a person that some seem to be so galvanised by, well, in essence, she stepped out of a company car yesterday to tell two hundred people they were out of a job, because of something that they didn't do. She promptly stepped back into here company car and departed, still employed, and very faux Thatcher.

Indeed, it occurs to me that this person is the very reason why older folk have to be helped across the road.

Lateralthinking, spare her not a moment's further thought. This is all so much a bonfire of the vanities!

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes, you are quite right - back to my records I think.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . Rather than being a brilliant anything, she looked completely out of her depth when questioned by Bryant.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think women have no business being in business. It does not seem at all appropriate; their place has always* been in the home.

*Always: for thousands and thousands of years.

[scottycelt]

Call me old-fashioned, but I think women have no business being in business. It does not seem at all appropriate; their place has always* been in the home.

*Always: for thousands and thousands of years.

I much prefer the word 'traditionalist', Mr Grew ....

Seriously, on a known performance basis concerning this affair, while it is indeed difficult to grasp what is so "special" about Ms Brooks, exactly the same surely can be said about Andy Coulson and, even more importantly and revealingly, Prime Minister Cameron.