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the daily mail, at it again...

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3274069/Regulation-laws-substantial-threat-British-press-freedom.html

"a major report claims laws passed after the leveson inquiry are the biggest threat to free speech in the modern era".

Its called leveson's illiberal legacy- so little doubt about which side of the argument its come down on. and its got support out there- "campaigners" (unspecified) warn state regulation will encourage dictators, apparently.

the print version even carries it as the main editorial, referring to it as 'a devastating report', and 'an authoritative study', which made 'damning observations'.

so who prepared this masterpiece of analysis? well, you won't find out in that link above. but if you read down to the end of the article in the print version, 19 paragraphs in, indeed, in the last paragraph, it says the following:

"the report was produced by press freedom group 89Up with financial support from Telegraph Media Group, news UK and DMG media, publishers of the Daily mail"

so- the Mail pays for a report on leveson, which happens to reach conclusions that are critical of those irritating rules that they were obliged to follow after it turned out that the entire press were conducting industrial scale phone hacking. and then fails to mention that they paid for it in 2 out of the 3 places it was mentioned, and sneaking it in at the very end of the 3rd place.

got to admire their audacity. though not their openness and honesty...

cheers
gregor

edit: to be honest, i'm surprised how limited the negative claims they made were. it wouldnt have been a shock to find that leveson's laws also caused an increase in immigration, benefits claimants, cancer and Jeremy Corbyn...
Post edited at 20:37
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Wiley Coyote2 16 Oct 2015
In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

> after it turned out that the entire press were conducting industrial scale phone hacking.

Really? The entire press? All of them?

Let me start by saying that I am a retired journo, which judging by your post, may allow you to dismiss this but....

At the last count I can find there were about 1,500 different newspapers in the UK plus God knows how many magazines, including, of course, climbing titles. I wonder who they'd be hacking and why? To the best of my knowledge a handful, and a small handful at that, of tabloids have been found to have been indulging in phone hacking in search of celebrity tittle tattle.

To condemn 'the entire press' and thousands of diligent honest journalists on the strength of the revelations we have had is a bit like saying all GPs are mass murders because of Harold Shipman.

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In reply to Wiley Coyote:

Touche...



As a retired journo, what do you make of the mails behaviour in this story?

Cheers

Gregor
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Wiley Coyote2 16 Oct 2015
In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

Fairly bog standard, I'd say. The Mail and other papers believe that MPs are using the hacking scandal to bring in overly heavy-handed controls, designed not to stop hacking, which was already illegal, (Don't forget Goodman and Mulcaire had already been jailed long before Levison came along) but to stop reporters looking at what govts and politicians are up to. This is partly because all govts would like to have a firmer grip on the press and partly in retaliation for the exes scandal expose. So the Mail are publicising anything that supports their case. I must confess I have to give the Mail credit for quoting Hacked Off's criticism in the piece. I've not read the bit about their bankrolling the report but they would wouldn't they? Who else is going to?

Hacked Off, for their part, are doing similar, drumming up publicity for anyone who supports their cause and trashing anything that doesn't. That's fair enough, it's what lobby groups do and is all part of the checks and balances of public policy debate.

Throw in the internecine warfare between newspapers themselves (Who says dog does not eat dog?) and you have the makings of a complete dog's breakfast and months of entertainment for the rest of us.

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In reply to Wiley Coyote:

It wasn't so much them paying for it- it was paying for it but then reporting the findings as if this was news to them.

Having published in the medical literature I've had to sign a declaration of interest disclosure, and quite right too. That it was their own report they were covering was clearly material to the story - to my mind any form of ethical journalism would have acknowledged this from the outset of the story.

But then ethical journalism and the daily mail aren't regular bedfellows. ..
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Wiley Coyote2 16 Oct 2015
In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

This isn't scientific lit its a newspaper. Practically every one of those 'surveys' you read about in Monday's papers (it's usually Monday because not much happens at the weekend so Sunday-for-Monday stories are the easiest to get into print) has been carried out or paid for by a commercial organisation and then trotted out in a press release by that organisiation/company's PR dept in the hope of some cheap publicity.
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In reply to Wiley Coyote:

I know- im asking whether you think there is a problem with that

And with newspaper proprietors buying reports to pressure politicians to change the law to suit them, while pretending they are nothing to do with the report.

Fine if they want to lobby government- but there should be transparency about the fact that this is what they're doing.

Would it influence readers views of the report if they knew it had been bought by the papers that were publishing it? I think it would. What do you think?
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Wiley Coyote2 17 Oct 2015
In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

No it doesn't really bother me. As I said, it's fairly standard procedure in lobbying/commerce. Politicians know what's going on and, as I said above, this has little to do with hacking, which was already illegal, and a lot more to do with scaring the press into not looking under political stones. The average reader, I suspect, doesn't much care about a few celebs' phones being hacked anyway if it produces some salacious tittle tattle for them to read over breakfast. The public only got, rightly, angry when it emerged Millie Dowler's phone had been hacked.

I'm much more worried about, for example, medics getting inducements to prescribe certain drugs by pharma companies, for example. Mr GP bro-in-law, for example, went on quite a few exotic hols thinly disguised as 'conferences' paid for by pharma companies.
In reply to Wiley Coyote:

Not any more he wouldn't. That sort of influence has been banned, and rightly so. And politicians have to declare all sources of income so as to make explicit any conflicts of interest.

I think the sort of misdirection in the story that I linked to is just as pernicious. Clearly the mail know that or they would have been happy to declare that they bought the report at the top of the story. But while 'report into leveson and press regulation that we paid for concludes that regulating what we do is really bad' would be a true reflection of the story, it just might undermine the validity of the report in readers' minds.

Declarations of interest and transparency are important wherever vested interests have the opportunity to try to shape processes that impact on us all. This applies in medicine, business, and politics. It also applies every bit as much in journalism. And there is a irony here, when much of the best journalism is devoted to uncovering such conflicts of interests, that the press don't seem to be at all bothered about engaging in the same sharp practises themselves.

Lobbying is fine. Misleading readers to shape opinion in order to generate pressure for the outcome they want isn't.

There was a big play over how ethics are taught in journalism courses now. Would be interested to see what is being taught- it certainly doesn't seem to survive contact with the real world.

Cheers
Gregor
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 wbo 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Wiley Coyote: given that your best argument seems ro be that 'it's ok cause everyone does it' do you think it's ok to bribe coppers , make up interviews and so on?

The excesses of the press went to far. With 'media' coverage moving away from traditional sources and controls that's no longer acceptable, or possible to hide. I think the press are very keen on scrutiny till they are the ones being scrutinised

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Wiley Coyote2 17 Oct 2015
In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

Well all I can do is repeat that the reporting does not bother me at all. Nor do I think it is misleading since it says quite high up the tale that the campaigners are 'backed by the Free Speech Network', an organisation that is perfectly open about its membership. It will hardly come as a shock to anyone with two grey cells to rub together that UK newspapers (including IIRC the sainted Guardian) are among its supporters. Who else would it be? GCHQ, MI5 and the Cabinet Office? Any reader who is interested in who they are can find out instantly on Google.

As for transparency about the paper's self-interest in the story surely that's completely self-evident. Even if you don't know who the FSN are you'd need the brain power of an amoeba not to be able to work that a paper running a story campaigning against press regulation might have an axe to grind.

In fact the only surprise to me in the report is that the Mail gave so much space (2 quite lengthy pars in an 11 par story) to Hacked Off to attack the report, which, as I've said higher up, I think is commendably fair of them. Being a tad cynical that suggests to me they were actually leaning over backwards to be seen as reasonable - not by readers, who frankly don't give a toss about the subject - but by a more influential audience in Westminister.

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Wiley Coyote2 17 Oct 2015
In reply to wbo:

> given that your best argument seems ro be that 'it's ok cause everyone does it'

That was a reference to lobbying

> do you think it's ok to bribe coppers ,

No. It's actually illegal and you can go to jail for it so its a very silly thing to do

> make up interviews and so on?

No. That's defrauding the readers. My attitude was always 'If it ain't right it's just sh*te

> The excesses of the press went to far.

This is where I came in. The press is not a handful of London tabloids. Please do not tar all reporters on hundreds of perfectly well-respected and trusted papers and countless magazines up and down the country with the misdeeds of a handful of high profile papers

> I think the press are very keen on scrutiny till they are the ones being scrutinised

There's no 'think' about it. Of course the press does not want more scrutiny. This puts them alongside just about every other group, industry and profession. Of course newspapers don't want scrutiny any more than teachers want OFSTED inspections or the police want the IPCC or the bankers want the FCA. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.
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 Greenbanks 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Wiley Coyote:

As someone with an insider view, what's your take on 'Flat Earth News'?
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Wiley Coyote2 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Greenbanks:

> As someone with an insider view, what's your take on 'Flat Earth News'?

I've just had to Google it to even know what it was. I've been retired eight years and have little or no interest in newspapers any more. I've only become embroiled in this because Gregor's original post (to be fair, since corrected) accused 'the entire press' of hacking on an industrial scale. They did not. A few London tabloids did.
 Timmd 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Wiley Coyote:

I took it to mean he ment the excesses of the press went too far, ie not all of the press, but the excesses in the form of hacking etc.
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Wiley Coyote2 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Timmd:

> I took it to mean he ment the excesses of the press went too far, ie not all of the press, but the excesses in the form of hacking etc.

Really? When Gregor wrote 'the entire press were conducting industrial scale phone hacking' I took it to mean just that. Call me old fashioned but where I come from 'entire' does not mean 'a tiny proportion of' and, to his credit Gregor quickly acknowledged that. That was my only objection. I'm certainly not going to defend hacking or any of the other so-called 'dark arts', which is just a glib euphemism for criminal and unscrupulous actions. Nor do I know any other journalist who would.
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 Timmd 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Wiley Coyote:
We're both referring to different things he posted, the excesses aren't going to be people doing things by the book, I'd have thought, so I just took it to mean things like hacking. I couldn't think what else excesses would be referring to.
Post edited at 11:58
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Wiley Coyote2 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Timmd:

Ah. Sorry. I misunderstood which post you were referring to. I don't think any reasonable person could possibly deny that the actions of the Sun, NoW etc went too far. They did not just cross the line, they carried on going until they were not even in the same postcode as The Line. You'll get no argument from me on that.
 Timmd 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Wiley Coyote:
No worries.

Post edited at 12:33
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 Timmd 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Wiley Coyote:

I didn't imagine you were that argumentative to be honest.
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 The New NickB 17 Oct 2015
In reply to Timmd:
Can I just say, whoever it is that dislikes all of Timmd's posts, seemingly just because they are made by Timmd, you are one sad individual!
Post edited at 12:40
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In reply to Wiley Coyote:

> Well all I can do is repeat that the reporting does not bother me at all. Nor do I think it is misleading since it says quite high up the tale that the campaigners are 'backed by the Free Speech Network', an organisation that is perfectly open about its membership. It will hardly come as a shock to anyone with two grey cells to rub together that UK newspapers (including IIRC the sainted Guardian) are among its supporters. Who else would it be? GCHQ, MI5 and the Cabinet Office? Any reader who is interested in who they are can find out instantly on Google.

> As for transparency about the paper's self-interest in the story surely that's completely self-evident. Even if you don't know who the FSN are you'd need the brain power of an amoeba not to be able to work that a paper running a story campaigning against press regulation might have an axe to grind.

> In fact the only surprise to me in the report is that the Mail gave so much space (2 quite lengthy pars in an 11 par story) to Hacked Off to attack the report, which, as I've said higher up, I think is commendably fair of them. Being a tad cynical that suggests to me they were actually leaning over backwards to be seen as reasonable - not by readers, who frankly don't give a toss about the subject - but by a more influential audience in Westminister.

No need to get tetchy (I obviously don't know if you actually are, but it reads like that...)

There is an interesting angle to this, that the on line and print versions of the story read like they are from two different publications. The print version didnt carry the reply from hacked off at all, and while the print article did mention the financial interest of the mail in the report, the purple prose of the leader didnt. I'm speculating, but are the demographics of the people that access mail on line different from those that read the print version? Certainly, the people I know who buy the print version (parents, in laws) don't look at it on line. I wonder if this had an impact on the slant of the story in each medium.

And there is a distinction between an independent report coming to a conclusion that happens to coincide with the views you'd like to promote, and paying for a report. Likewise, 'backing' something is not necessarily the same thing as bankrolling it. I'm backing Scotland's rugby World Cup bid, but I'm not paying for their hotel bills...

It troubles me that you dont seem to see the difference. Most people (even mail readers... ) would treat the findings of the report differently if they knew it was directly paid for by the people who are reporting its findings, especially when the people reporting the findings are rather opaque about their financial interest in it. The person who pays the piper always calls the tune; if the mail wants to run a smear campaign against press regulation ('encourages dictators', really...?) then why doesn't it just run one, instead of creating a sock puppet and pretending that its an authoritative indepedent body?

Yes, I'm sure some googling uncovers the links - but we both know that people don't run every newspaper article they read through sourcewatch, and so do the mail. The financial interest in the report should have been declared in paragraph one, and would have been had the national press an ethical framework it actually paid more than lip service to,

Best wishes
Gregor
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In reply to Wiley Coyote:


> There's no 'think' about it. Of course the press does not want more scrutiny. This puts them alongside just about every other group, industry and profession. Of course newspapers don't want scrutiny any more than teachers want OFSTED inspections or the police want the IPCC or the bankers want the FCA. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

I don't get this bit. Why shouldn't journalists be put alongside every other group? I don't argue for a second that the media performs a vital role in society; they're the fourth estate. But, every other profession, as you point out yourself, is regulated, and with good reason; they tend to behave badly if theyre not.

You can probably work out my background from the content of my posts; and I can say that I have no problem at all with the regulation we operate under, even though this has massively increased in recent years. Public confidence in us is essential, and just being a member of my profession does not miraculously guarantee high ethical standards. Far from it, as it sounds like you have personal experience of. Too-cosy relations with industry can damage the reputation of the profession as a whole, and tighter regulation of these contacts was essential. We 'get' that; I wonder, do journalists 'get it'?

If they did, and journalism was really about acting as a balance to the power of the other estates through the exercise of scrutiny of their actions and behaviour, then the turkeys would be voting for Christmas, and demanding greater regulation; because they can't properly do that job without public confidence, which is not exactly brimming at present.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes... No one, at present, it seems, and they want to keep it that way...

Best wishes

Gregor
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Wiley Coyote2 18 Oct 2015
In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

My God, Gregor that's a lot to dump on me at this time of night after two beers watching MOTD but I'll try to answer your points in some sort of order.

No, I'm not tetchy, perhaps just naturally ascerbic. It comes from many years of reading reporters' copy and then yelling across the news room "What's this sh1t meant to be? Is there no beginning to your talent?" And that was just the stuff I liked and hadn't already spiked!

I've no idea if there's a difference between the demographic of the print and online versions of the Mail. One would suspect the online readership would be younger but that's just a guess.

The print version may have omitted the Hacked Off response for any number of reasons. It may have been they did not get a reply in time for deadline or it may have been space. Print is tight on space. One of the key skills of a reporter is to cram as much info as possible into as little space as possible. They think they are quite good at this, however once they consider they have boiled it down to the bare minimum it goes to the news desk who proceed to hack out even more, much of which the reporter thinks is important. Well tough, they have no say by this stage and probably won't even know how bad the savagery has been until they see their by now scarcely recognisable piece next morning. It is not a collegial process. It then it goes to a sub editor who hacks out some more before a revise sub slashes and burns yet more and then finally a stone sub may slash it again because half the space the story was originally allocated is now needed for another breaking story. It should be said these cuts are usually made with a chainsaw rather than a scalpel. It is not a process for the squeamish nor the sensitive and explains why reporters hate everyone else whose role in life they believe seems to be to butcher their finely-crafted prose and then leave them to carry the can for any errors that have crept in because it is their name on the story. It is also not a process that lends itself to footnotes, convoluted explanations or even long words. Online can in theory be more expansive but old habits die hard.

Websites also effectively have a continuous deadline so if a quote comes in too late for print it can be added to the website, a luxury not available to the print version which has trains or vans to catch to reach the shops on time.

As for reader response to the two versions, I suspect it would be exactly the same, ie they could not give a monkey's. This is a subject about which most readers can scarcely contain their indifference. It's boring, technical and sod all to do with the price of fish or houses or the benefits bill, immigrant numbers, the size of Jordan's boobs, Jeremy Corbyn's latest gaffe or indeed any of the 1001 other things which so exercise Mail readers. It does not even drag itself into the graveyard category of 'worthy but dull'. It's just a squabble between papers, Hugh Grant. Steve Coogan and a few politicians trying to make a name for themselves in Commons committees or curry favour with the papers. How dull is that! Nobody else much cares. Even I don't care.

It is in the paper/on the website purely to get it on the record and to create the cuttings and print outs that the miniscule handful of people who give a toss can wave under each others noses in debates that most of the rest of us ignore.

I am however a bit perplexed as to why you think the Mail's bankrolling of the report is some dark guilty secret since the only reason you know they did so is because they themselves told you, albeit only in one version of the tale but as I said this morning, I'm losing no sleep over that since it is self evident to anyone with an IQ in double figures that they have an axe to grind in putting this report before the public and are not impartial. So newspapers don't want politicians or their proxies sticking their noses into their affairs? Well, who'd have guessed. eh? What a turn up for the books. I'm stunned.

Moving on to your second post re regulation. I did not argue they should not be regulated just like other professions. In fact I was trying to say that their wish not to have an outside regulator made them exactly like every other profession, all of which think they can handle such matters far better by self regulation than by outsiders who, needless to say, they believe do not really understand their particular profession/industry. Nobody, absolutely nobody, wants an outside regulator for their own fiefdom though they usually think it would be a jolly good idea for everybody else. My daughter, a teacher, for example, is absolutely convinced of the need to get rid of OFSTED. Her attitude is that teachers know what they are doing and should be left to get on with their job without this interference from a bunch of idiots, theorists and ivory tower dwellers who have no idea what front line teaching or education should be about- so not a million miles from the view held by newspapers re their regulation or the police re theirs etc etc.

My only interest in this whole thread was to correct the initial scattergun assertion that the 'entire press' had engaged in hacking when it was a tiny, albeit high profile, proportion - namely the national tabloids of News International and it now seems the Mirror Group - who did so. The initial post carelessly accused thousands of honest papers and journos of criminal acts of which they were entirely innocent and I wanted to correct that error.

Beyond that I really don't care. That's not being tetchy, by the way, just honest. Compared to trying to find something as small as my interest in this the hunt for the Higgs Bozon was childsplay.

I hope that's everything answered but it really is time for bed.

Wiley.

.
In reply to Wiley Coyote:

Only 2 beers by half past one in the morning?

You're letting the reputation of your profession down!



Off out for the day, will pick up on some of your points tonight

Cheers

Gregor
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 Root1 18 Oct 2015
In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

Lets face it most of the press and especially the red tops are designed to divert the mass majority from whats really going on in this country by feeding them total bullsh-t.
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Wiley Coyote2 18 Oct 2015
In reply to Root1:

> Lets face it most of the press and especially the red tops are designed to divert the mass majority from whats really going on in this country by feeding them total bullsh-t.

Really? I always thought we were for wrapping chips. Suddenly my work feels much less important and much less useful.
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In reply to Wiley Coyote:

There's little doubt that large parts of the national press look like the circus part of a 'bread and circuses' strategy....

Off out with kids now will pick up on this later. ..

Gregor
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In reply to Wiley Coyote:


right, back in now, so some responses to your late night post. Firstly, to note the irony of a post about how you used to ruthlessly edit other peoples' verbosity being so verbose...



Now, re the online vs print versions of the story- the print one was considerably longer, so the absence of the quotes from Hacked Off in it cant be explained by space factors. And yes, it did carry the funding connection to the report, but as i said, in para 19- as a journalist you'll be well aware that the number of readers getting to the last paragraph of a long article is a fraction of those that start reading it, so it is a form of hiding the information in plain sight. Most will take the impression that this was an independent report backing the Mail's position.

would they care if they knew it had been bought by the Mail? of course, neither of us have any idea. but judging by the public's reaction to other situations where a financial interest hasn't been disclosed, they may do. Perhaps they'd just set it aside as likely to be ghost written by the people that paid for it; perhaps they'd be irritated enough to decide that the press do need regulating after all. Like i said, the Mail obviously thought it worth having an 'independent' report backing their position; else why go to the trouble of creating a sock puppet to write the report?

> As for reader response to the two versions, I suspect it would be exactly the same, ie they could not give a monkey's. This is a subject about which most readers can scarcely contain their indifference. It's boring, technical and sod all to do with the price of fish or houses or the benefits bill, immigrant numbers, the size of Jordan's boobs, Jeremy Corbyn's latest gaffe or indeed any of the 1001 other things which so exercise Mail readers. It does not even drag itself into the graveyard category of 'worthy but dull'. It's just a squabble between papers, Hugh Grant. Steve Coogan and a few politicians trying to make a name for themselves in Commons committees or curry favour with the papers. How dull is that! Nobody else much cares. Even I don't care.

this is not true. the public does indeed care about the ethics and integrity of the media. editing the parents of Millie Dowler, and Christopher Jeffries, out of the list of 'interested parties' you give is verging on dishonest. News International cared enough they euthanased a major title. local press may be a beacon of good practice and integrity, but many of our major national newspapers appear to be quite the opposite. ok many people dont give a toss about steve coogan's privacy being intruded in, but when they went after 'ordinary' people they lost whatever scrap of integrity they had; and the fury and disgust at them was real. Leveson came out of that, not out of bugging alan partridge. If the press really believes that this is just a celeb and politician thing, that would be a misjudgement that the may regret.

but they don't- or rather the Mail don't- hence the report in story that triggered this thread... you do yourself an injustice if you say that newspapers just reflect the opinions of the people that already buy the paper; they can clearly lead opinion too. and thats what they're trying to do here.

> Moving on to your second post re regulation. I did not argue they should not be regulated just like other professions. In fact I was trying to say that their wish not to have an outside regulator made them exactly like every other profession, all of which think they can handle such matters far better by self regulation than by outsiders who, needless to say, they believe do not really understand their particular profession/industry. Nobody, absolutely nobody, wants an outside regulator for their own fiefdom though they usually think it would be a jolly good idea for everybody else. My daughter, a teacher, for example, is absolutely convinced of the need to get rid of OFSTED. Her attitude is that teachers know what they are doing and should be left to get on with their job without this interference from a bunch of idiots, theorists and ivory tower dwellers who have no idea what front line teaching or education should be about- so not a million miles from the view held by newspapers re their regulation or the police re theirs etc etc.

well, your daughter is wrong. if all teachers were as hard working and talented as i'm sure your daughter is, then she'd be right. but they aren't. nor are all doctors, nurses, police, lawyers, bankers, politicians, or journalists paragons of ethics and technical competence. some are useless, some are frankly corrupt, some are actually criminals. in that situation, some form of regulation is necessary. i certainly have no problem with being regulated- as i said last night. the alternative is damage to people who come to us for help, and damage to the reputation of the profession.

only the naive would reject regulation; if journalism actually performs and important function for society, rather than just salacious gossip and pushing proprietors' agendas, then journalists would be calling out for it.

> My only interest in this whole thread was to correct the initial scattergun assertion that the 'entire press' had engaged in hacking when it was a tiny, albeit high profile, proportion - namely the national tabloids of News International and it now seems the Mirror Group - who did so. The initial post carelessly accused thousands of honest papers and journos of criminal acts of which they were entirely innocent and I wanted to correct that error.

> Beyond that I really don't care. That's not being tetchy, by the way, just honest. Compared to trying to find something as small as my interest in this the hunt for the Higgs Bozon was childsplay.

Wiley, this just isn't true- i corrected my hyperbole in the second post i made on day one of the thread. since then you've made multiple (and lengthy!) posts... that's not the behaviour of someone that's not interested!

anyhow, hope you've had a good day, and that this doesnt keep you up as late as it did last night...



best wishes
gregor
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Wiley Coyote2 18 Oct 2015
In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:


> Wiley, i corrected my hyperbole in the second post i made on day one of the thread.

Hi Gregor, Yes, I know you did and if you can pluck up the interest (tho I can't for the life of me see why or how anyone would) to plough back thro the posts you will see that I have acknowledged that and given you credit for it IIRC on at least two occasions. It may be more but I certainly can't be arsed to go back and count, I'm afraid.

> since then you've made multiple (and lengthy!) posts... that's not the behaviour of someone that's not interested!

The first part of that statement is true; I have but you misread my motive. I was just trying to be polite, as my mother taught me to be, and answer questions and points put to me as best I could. Since there were so many questions some of the posts have been lengthy. Now my capacity for courtesy is exhausted. The absolutely crucial bit to pick up on here is that I really, truly, honestly don't care.


In reply to Wiley Coyote:

Given that your courtesy extended to writing a lengthy essay at 1 am, I can only salute you! I mean, I consider myself a courteous sort, but I have my limits... and missing out of my sleep to humour strangers on the Internet is outside them. Personally, I'd only do that if I was discussing stuff I really cared about.

You're a better man than me, gunga din. Your courtesy is an example to us all...



Gregor

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Wiley Coyote2 18 Oct 2015
In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

I worked on morning papers for many years so 1am is not late for me. Just don't expect anything of significance before lunchtime!
In reply to Wiley Coyote:

Lol, spoken like the true journalist!

Ok nice discussing it with you... and as I seem to have found myself at no 2 in the top 40 posters, I'm clearly spending too much time on here myself, even if its at hours that aren't quite as antisocial! So happy to leave it there for now

Best wishes, and don't stay up too late posting on here. ..

Cheers

Gregor





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