Be Excellent To Each Other

Cavey:

Some people at most newspapers != All people at all newspapers

Later and worser.

Heh.

Also - Thanks for articulating what I was trying to get at, but with more words and more facts.

It's pretty obvious that I'm not talking about people who work for the New Scientist or Evo for heaven's sake. Newspapers - the clue's in the name. Journalists who work for newspapers. Stop being so pedantic, obtuse and/or taking things absolutely literally, when the spirit, context and intended meaning of what's being said is abundantly clear - it's neither big, nor clever. Besides, there is no argument to 'win' here, as stated again and again: this is only my personal opinion in the matter.

Anyway, whatever. You think my position (opinion in this case) is 'ridiculous'? I think yours is equally ridiculous, I can assure you! Given the revelations to date (with plenty more to come, I have no doubt), I feel perfectly comfortable with all that I've said. So then, vindicated? Not half mate.

More succinct. HTH HAND.

Go and get a dictionary and look up the words "journalism" and "journalist". We'll wait.

W,D.

I'll look up 'patronising' and 'twat' whilst I'm at it. Stop being such an insufferable, rude, stupid wanker.

Sorry, double posted.

MAJOR LOL.

"Sorry, only meant to call you a wanker the once!"


Cavey - I think the main thrust of what most people are saying is that yes, most newspapers seem to have been caught up in this, but not every single reporter or journalist from every single newspaper.

Can you not at least agree that SOME journalists are people of integrity who perform a useful task, and that this is not an irrelevant minority?

If not, then why do you always quote them during arguments?

Even counting only newspaper "journalists" (which is, Gaywood's right, a false division - for one thing consider the number of people who work at mainstream papers who only work on their online editions, for instance), we're still talking about a tiny teeny minority. The number of journalists at broadsheets, weeklies (Economist, Spectator etc), fortnightlies (Private Eye) monthlies (er.. ) and local papers far, far far outweigh the number of journalists at tabloids.

And no, the spirit, context and intended meaning of what's been said has not abundantly clear, chap. You haven’t at any point limited your view to tabloids, or even all print newspapers.

Most, MOST of them are people who dont' get up to anythign nefarious! The vast majority of print and online journalists at major titles just repost AP reports.

I've heard that reports from the AP are reposted by most journalists working both in print and online; who are, mostly, people that aren't in any way nefarious.

Although the way The Sun slated every Team 17 game was abit of a giveaway.

In fact you seem to aim your ire specifically at the Guardian, who, frankly, are the least likely paper most would think of tarring with that brush, and are doing the most to draw attention to and get rid of actual "scumbags" like those who have gone along with the illegal stuff at NOTW.

Is that an Amiga Power joke? Go and nominate yourself for POTW.

They immaterially mislead Parliament though, by not mentioning something they may not at that point have had solid evidence for. The scumbags.

But seriously Curio, and I'm trying to be as even-handed as possible, I honestly thought it was pretty clear from what I was saying that, in my opinion, "many" journalists (UK newspaper journalists obv., since that is entirely and exclusively what we have been talking about right from the off and in specific response to a lack of surprise at the specific antics of phone hacking newspaper journalists by Grim... and myself - not car mag or village newsletter "journos" FFS, etc.) were 'scumbags'?

Most people who read newspapers, read tabloids. Their cumulative circulation is much greater than the 'quality' press. Most newspaper journalists are employed by the tabloid, not quality press. On the basis of numbers/percentages, all fair comment then?

I've also tried to argue that even the quality press is not the paragon of virtue that they seem to claim when judging others, as well, with a fair number of what I thought were reasonable, recent examples, and other stuff that PSJ kindly posted.

Regardless though, and I'm perfectly happy for people to disagree, there really is no need for this kind of thing. (My consolation, I suspect, is that most people would doubtless broadly agree with me?)

As I have intimated, I have my own, deeply personal reasons for hating the newspaper press, which I won't go into, but is related to my nasty incident of some many years ago now.

Anyway, 'nuff said. I have my view and that hasn't changed; I'm perfectly happy if other people hold an alternate view and don't feel the need to mock, flame, provoke, patronise and/or insult them for this.

... But presumably still felt happy to go into print about it though, only later and very belatedly, presumably, lacking in the courage of their previous convictions?

Or, when they had evidence their lawyers were happy with. Dunno. Neither of us do, though, same as their underlying reasons for not mentiniong it to the Select Committee.

It just seems quite a weak thing to slate a whole paper for, is all, particularly given all of their crusading ont his since.

I have explained this; they are the ones who are making the play here.

Of course, I applaud the fact that these things are coming to light and since it is The Guardian that has apparently facilitated this, kudos to them. BUT. My contention is that, when criticising others, it's generally a good idea to have a pretty clean sheet yourself; an aspect which I feel is rather lacking in their case?, as per some of the examples given? That's my view anyway; I certainly don't think that any UK newspaper can claim to be whiter than white and we have every reason to be sceptical about possible motives! Plus, as I have said, I feel that there is an inherent issue with investigative journalism of the type we're specifically discussing in this thread; for me, "journalism" (in this specific context) has intrinsic, negative attributes in terms of how information is obtained, who is paid, the elements of subterfuge and so on involved.

Plus the The Guardian, just like any other newspaper, is a business seeking profit through selling newspapers and advertising revenue, categorically unlike the BBC for example.

Firstly, it’s lacking in a tiny tiny bit in their case, depending on what actually happened around that Select Committee thing. Secondly, I don’t think the messenger having once been a little bit less than wholly upstanding (but never having done anything illegal) dilutes the message of someone else carrying out wholesale illegal activities. That’s silly.




Which you have a problem with even when it's not illegal, if I've understood you correctly. Surely, surely, someone having a bit of subterfuge to find out about corruption in the running of some public body is the very epitome of the ends justifying the means, providing they haven’t done anything illegal?

Granted, if the subterfuge is to find out if some local businessman has shagged his secretary, it’s not justified, but you seem to have a blanket dislike of investigative journalism, no matter the target.



True, true, but as I’ve mentioned a fair few BBC journalists come from the press – do they suddenly develop ethics on arriving at Television Centre? The same drivers for their alleged unethical behaviour at the print media are there at the BBC – personal promotion, payrises, fame etc. And the BBC itself has a driver to increase share of viewers, to justify its licence fee.

The Piers Morgan stuff:
http://order-order.com/2011/07/12/piers ... as-hacked/

Is the rumour true that The Sun got the info about Gordons kids not from phone hacking but from the parent of another kid who was also being treated?

If so Gordon has managed to kick himself in the shins yet again. Doh!

In all fairness, mate, he has been the Prime Minister.

Although he won his parties leadership contest by default and got kicked out by the public first chance they got. Say what you like about Blair, Thatcher, Cameron, et al, they did win elections as head of their parties.

Amazingly, you can add Major to that list. I've never worked that one out.

Cameron hasn't won any elections.

he just lost the least.

He effectively came out top in a popular vote. In fact, and I may be wrong here, despite not winning outright in terms of seats his popular vote was slightly higher than Blairs last election. Either way he beat Brown.

No he didn't. We don't vote for Prime Ministers, and Brown is still an elected MP.

A lot of people who voted for the Tories would not vote for Cameron.

It seeks income, but if it's seeking profit, it's failing quite badly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#Ownership

Yeah, right.

I don't think I agree with you there, Sinister mate. I accept that some, possibly many people *do* vote for their MP, I think it is likely to be at least equally true that many voters cast their vote purely on a tribal, political (often unthinking) basis, and still others voting for who they think will be the best PM. I bet many people don't even know who their MP is, less still having met them or even having read a word that they've written?

Chinny is right; much as I dislike Cameron and the type of pseudo-politics he (and Blair before him) stand for, he did win an (initially) hard fought, bona fide leadership contest within his party and his party did win substantially more votes than any other in the last election, AFAIK more than Blair did in his last outright election victory, as I think has been mentioned.

Plus, you'll have to admit, if the true source of the 'leak' in this case is just some neighbour blabbing to the press, rather than underground criminal gangs and the rest, 'kicking himself in the shins' would be a pretty mild turn of phrase.



Very true; I couldn't even bring myself to vote Tory at all with him as leader.

Technically he's correct, in that when you put your vote in the ballot box, your vote is counted for an individual local representative (and it's not even, technically, a vote for a political party - which didn't even exist on a constitutional footing until relatively recently), but yeah, when people vote, what they think they're doing is voting for a prime minister - that's the reason the vast majority of people vote for X, Y or Z party's candidate.

Now on this, I agree with Cavey. Sinister is technically correct, but I think he's substantially wrong; if you do a street poll of 100 people about "who did they vote for" they answer "Tory or Labour" not "Joe Bloggs MP". For my part, as a left-wing voter in a right-wing constituency, I find myself pondering tactical voting and other such nonsense over and above the local-level policies of the candidates I am ostensibly choosing between.

Edit--
This is correct, by the way. 10.7 million Tory votes in 2010 gave 306 seats (from 65% turnout); 9.5 million Labour votes in 2005 gave 355 seats (from 61% overall turnout). How it isn't a completely compelling argument in favour of PR or AV or anything apart from first past the post I simply cannot fathom.

Edit edit -- let's examine that upswing in turnout in more detail. Total votes cast in 2005 was 27.1 million and in 2010 it was 29.7 million. 2.6 million more, then. So let's rejig those figures as proportions and see if my argument still holds. In 2005, Labour took 35% of votes and held 55% of the seats. In 2010, the Tories took 36% of votes and held 47% of the seats. Yup, still looks cockeyed to me.

Mine was more concise.

Fair comment mate, but it's still seeking profit (i.e. looking to sell papers primarily, as well as advertising space) - just not very well by all accounts.

It's certainly true to say that any commercial newspaper (whether profitable or loss-making) differs fundamentally from a public service organisation like the BBC.

I'm still not sure that's wholly true, though - the BBC has the same sorts of commercial drivers, both in terms of needing market share to justify its licence fee, and also literal commercial drivers via its commercial exploitation wing (which is pretty big).

Or:



As for The Sun and Brown, The Sun's scoop was "child has cystic fibrosis!" Man, what a scoop! Interesting wording on The Sun's front page, too. Very carefully done throughout. It's also notable that The Sun has used misdirection anyway at some point, having stated to the Browns that they got the information from the infirmary. Then it said it was told by a family member. Now it says the information came from a "member of the public". Next, they'll be saying "Fraser told us himself, having travelled back from the future".

Ach, I suppose you guys are right, most people do vote for the leader/party. Possibly more so in the last election than usual.


Meanwhile, Al Jazeera thas a bit of editorial on this lot:



It is, when you step back and imagine there are no journalists involved, but just some human beings same as you'd meet anywhere, pretty fucking disturbed.

Yeah, words simply fail me mate.

God forbid, but had that been my precious little girl, the person(s) responsible would, without one shadow of doubt, be dead fucking meat.

Breaking Not Very Surprising News:

NI legal manager has resigned.

Probably for the best, fella.

I don't think a jury in the land would convict if her family burned them all to death at noon in Trafalgar Square.

I was readnig something either in PE or the Guardian that suggested he was being properly set up by Brooks.

Should we hang murderers as well, or just journalists?

Fuck me, it is Private Eyes "From the Message Boards" come to life...

Of course, the question is who are the persons responsible?

Neither. First we need to take care of the solicitors