Big Sticks and Small Carrots

Last week, as you might remember, the Sun published a story about the RAF’s ability to  intercept radio traffic in Afghanistan. The consequences of publishing such a story were unwittingly revealed in a caption accompanying the article:

Unaware… terror mobs don’t know their words can be heard by RAF

It’s a stunner, alright.

If the story is true, the Sun have revealed an important military secret and consequently put the lives of British troops in Afghanistan at greater risk for the sake of a Muslim bashing headline and Rupert Murdoch’s bank balance. If it isn’t true, that opens up a whole other set of questions.

My attempt to raise these issues by submitting a comment under the story on the Sun website was not successful. Many other comments were published but mine was not. As yet, my attempts to find out why my comment wasn’t published have been equally unsuccessful. My email was apparently passed to the relevant department a week ago but that’s as much as I know at the moment. I’ve sent them another email. Just in case they forgot about the first one. I’m sure I’ll be receiving a satisfactory reply any day now…

To have your views airbrushed out of existence by the supposedly free speech loving media is unpleasant but not unexpected. It’s a common tactic in the “battle of ideas”.  You could say they’re fixing the playing field. You could say that they’re choosing to engage with only only those opponents they think they can beat. (The Sun did allow a couple of not very well considered critical comments through; these easy targets were then attacked by other “right thinking Sun readers”.) You could say this is cowardly, dishonest and unscrupulous.

Others will argue that it’s the Sun’s website so they have the right to maintain it as they see fit. True on the face of it, but having the right to act like a bastard doesn’t automatically mean that you should act like a bastard. It also doesn’t provide a free moral pass.

Anyway, I was wondering what could be done to get the media to more fairly my views and decided that some sort of organisation to promote them is the answer. In this media savvy world where people are constantly bombarded with information, the name is going to be all important. After spending £500,000 on consultants and PR firms, we’ve finally come up with a winner. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

An Influential Think Tank 

Guaranteed media coverage, no matter what dross we come up with.  ”An Influential Think Tank said today that multicoloured swapshop has eroded our cultural moustache in the jellied eels”.

Brilliant! But there’s still a problem. If An Influential Think Tank’s first press release was about the damage done to society by irresponsible reporting in the media, it’d create a standing wave paradox which would threaten the very existence of the universe.

Drat.

At the bottom of this exclusive Sun report on there’s a caption which says:

Unaware … terror mobs don’t know their words can be heard by RAF

It may not be entirely accurate.

In a situation like this, it’s hard to be sure what’s going or where the story came from.

It might be possible to make some educated guesses by observing the government’s reaction. If they launch an enquiry and attempt to prosecute the leakers for compromising an important method of intelligence gathering, that would suggest that there was a leak and that it hadn’t been orchestrated by the government. This is certainly a possibility.

If that’s the last we hear of it however, the story is likely to be a Sun invention or a government approved leak. These are also perfectly possible.

Questions, questions.

Update

Somehow, I have a feeling you’ll be able to guess what happened when I tried to take advantage of the Sun’s “Have Your Say” feature under the article. I thought I’d try some Sun language for this one:

“Unaware … terror mobs don’t know their words can be heard by RAF”

You’ve just told them!

If this story is true, the Sun has now compromised an important method of gathering intelligence on the Taliban. This can only make it even more dangerous for our troops in Afghanistan.

Shows how much the Sun really cares about our lads. Shameful.

Hours later, and with plenty of other comments published in the meantime, there’s no sign of it. I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise. It’s not like they were going to be able to defend their decision to publish this story in a fair debate, is it?

Interestingly,  given the rubbish way the Sun’s comment system works, I suspect very few people would have bothered to have read my comment even if they had published it. This heavy handed approach to criticism does suggest that they’re worried about the fragility of the echo chamber they’ve constructed to hide behind. Let’s hope they’re right about that, at least.

Now, do you think I’ll get a reply to the polite email I’ve sent asking why the moderators have a problem with my comment?

Gordon Brown made his last major public appearance before the Christmas break at his monthly press conference earlier today.

Although it annoys me immensely that politics has become so shallow and trivial, this needs to be said: Gordon Brown should NOT smile in public. Ever.

To see Brown switch on and off that smile, if you can even call it a smile, is an unsettling and slightly frightening experience. I can imagine children all over the country scurrying behind the sofa in terror after catching a glimpse of the PM’s unique rictus on the Six O’Clock News. Either that, or they’ll be expecting Doctor Who to appear and unmask the alien imposter and rescue the real PM.

For the sake of the children if for no other reason, please don’t smile Gordon.

Anyway, Brown’s line today is that:

Many of the things that have been written about for the last few weeks would be forgotten quickly

Is it just me or is that very dangerous attitude to express publicly? It may be a cliché but isn’t it possible that this could be looked back on as his Jim Callaghan moment? Crisis, what crisis?

Brown didn’t say those exact words, of course, but neither did Callaghan. It woz the Sun whot spun it. It’ll be interesting to see how the Sun report Brown’s comments tomorrow.

On the plus side for Brown, for all the economic worries, the doom-mongering and the opportunistic spin from the Tories, the UK in 2007 is nothing like the UK in 1978-79. They had proper great big disastrous crises in those days. (And when we got home, our father would slice us in two with a bread knife. If we we’re lucky!)

All the same, Brown’s words, particularly with regard to the huge data loss and the economy, could come back to haunt him.

No blogging tomorrow as I’ll be down in that London protesting against Christmas (with permission from the Metropoliticians).

Rupert Murdoch has decided to put his son, James, in control of a large chunk of News Corporation. News Corp’s British newspapers, including the Sun, are part of James’s Christmas present.

Who says Murdoch is evil? He’s obviously a very generous man…

The Sun did report this on Friday but for some reason, the”Add Comment” and “Join Discussion” functions were not available on the article. I thought it was a bit sad that the Sun wasn’t letting their readers join in the celebrations so, after checking that their article was indeed listed under “news”, I submitted a new topic to their news forum:

Best man for the Job

James Murdoch is clearly the most qualified man to take over from Rupert Murdoch as chairman and chief executive of News Corporation. As his father said, “James is a talented and proven executive with a rare blend of international perspective and deep, hands-on experience in improving operational results”.

Glad to see the Sun’s parent company supporting the meritocracy of the market once again. Clearly, only the most deranged leftists would see any sort of nepotism in this decision.

How long do you think that post was visible for before it was deleted?*

I’ll give you a clue. It was less than three minutes.

* Note for the record. It didn’t fall off the bottom of the page or anything. It was definitely deleted.

I’ve just been having a wee poke around with the Wikiscanner. For those who’ve not seen it, it allows you to track anonymous Wikipedia edits through IP addresses.

See if you can see what all of these edits from the last 28 days have in common. Deep breath…

1. Conrad Black
2. John N. Gray
3. Gustave Courbet
4. Ingmar Bergman
5. Cobalt Bomb
6. Travels in the Scriptorium
7. The Lay of the Land
8. Martin Amis
9. The Mission Song
10. John le Carre
11. J. G. Ballard

Have you guessed what it is yet? OK, I’ll tell you. Every one of the above edits was to add a link to articles from either The Times or the TLS.

And can you guess who the IP 143.252.80.100 is registered too? Go on, have a guess…

Here’s a little riddle.

I believe that Rupert Murdoch, an Australian with US citizenship, has far too much influence over politics in this country and that he uses his media outlets to push his political agenda at every opportunity.

It is accepted by all but the most confused individuals that the output of News Corp is habitually politically biased. It is also undeniable that British politicians feel they must court him in order to ensure that he doesn’t set his attack dogs on them and that he has had considerable influence over the policies of New Labour. Lance Price famously described him as the 24th member of Blair’s cabinet and he has access to the Prime Minister the likes of which ordinary members of the public could only dream of.

This is not good.

Whenever I try to draw attention to this, there will always be someone who broadly shares Murdoch’s political views ready to tell me I’m a patronising git. “That’s so typical of a condescending bruschetta munching Guardianista. You assume that the great unwashed are stupid mindless drones being helplessly brainwashed by this bias. People are smarter that that, you know. You leftists just can’t come to terms with the fact that people can think for themselves…”

That sort of thing.

Here’s the riddle.

Murdoch’s newspapers, and others who would benefit from the removal of a reasonably neutral news service, constantly harp on about the damaging affects of the alleged bias of the BBC.

So, can the media shape public opinion or not?

And can I have my cake and eat it a the same time?

(I’ve left all the rest of the stuff about alleged BBC bias out because I really just want to focus on this one question. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I do already know that the license fee is compulsory for anyone who receives or records television programmes in this country.)

This post is about 18 Doughty Street. Yes, yes, we’re all obsessed leftist moonbats over here.

The thing is, living in a country where the Sun and the Mail are the two best selling daily newspapers, us on “the left”are quite used to having our views misrepresented, marginalised and ridiculed. We’re used to not getting a fair hearing in the mainstream media.

(In recent weeks, I’ve submitted three comments to right of centre media websites; two to the Telegraph and one to the Sun. Not one of the three made it past their moderators. On the other hand, I’ve never had a comment removed from Comment is Free and it’s awash with people expressing anti-Guardianista views. There may be an interesting point there about hypocrisy and defence of the right to free speech in the media.)

We tend to be less hostile to Auntie because she’s obliged to be politically neutral. As a result, of course, the Beeb looks to be to the left of much of the rest of the media. Claiming that this is proof of a left bias at the BBC rather silly. This claim is part of a concerted effort to move the “centre” to the right. That’s not to say there’s a grand conspiracy at work, just a number of right wing media owners and editors all working towards a goal which they believe will benefit themselves and their companies.

This would be all well and good if Murdoch, Wade and Dacre played fair but they don’t. For example, the Scum currently sells in Scotland for 15p and it has boobs. I know a fair few people who buy it, some for the sport, some for the boobs but I’ve never heard anyone say they buy it for the news. But there is a drip, drip, drip effect going on there which pushes a particular political agenda and ridicules another.

And it’s worth restating the suggestible nature of the human condition. You, yes, you, are suggestible. Advertising is a multi-billion pound industry for a reason. Have a quick peek in your kitchen cupboards and check how many brand names are in there. Why didn’t you buy the cheaper no brand option? We’re all suggestible to some extent.

And it’s the way that Wade and co. go about things which really damages any possibility of honest political debate. As I’ve already said, a key component is misrepresentation of the other view. Us “leftists” are well used to having our views turned into strawmen.

So, it’s just a tiny bit irritating to see the same thing starting to happen on the interwebs.

Anyway, on Friday, Iain Dale wrote that:

Leftist bloggers seem to think that this blog and 18 Doughty Street are somehow funded by some shady Americans.

As a “leftist blogger” who has been writing about 18 Doughty Street, I decided to make it clear that I wasn’t in that camp. I was also curious to know whether Iain could provide any examples of leftist bloggers making these claims:

Iain, could you could provide information as to which “leftist bloggers” have been writing about that? The only time I’ve ever seen that suggested was in anonymous comments made on your blog. These suggestions are very easy to refute and to ridicule.

In fact, in the spirit of “reaching out”, if you point me at any leftist blogs making such claims, I’ll happily tell them they’re talking crap. 18 D… is funded by Stephan Shakespeare, Tory candidate for Colchester at the 1997 G.E. and ex-mayoral campaign manager for Jeffrey Archer. 18 D… is funded and run by British Conservatives, not Republicans or neo-cons.

Fair enough, I thought. Attempt at a little humour without being needlessly rude. To be fair to Iain, his reply was quick and courteous (he’s also fixed the link to individual comments feature which is nice):

Curious Hamster, I have seen it on several sites over the last few weeks, ever since the onslaught on me started. People have queried both my funding and that of 18DS. Someone kept editing my Wikipedia entry to that effect too.

As you say, the only source of funding for 18 Doughty Street is indeed Stephan Shakespeare, something we were totally open about right from the start.

So, no examples for me to go poke fun at. I was disappointed. I did have a sniff around the history of Iain’s Wikipedia page - didn’t find any mention of funding but it was hardly an extensive search - but it was really the leftist bloggers making those claims I was interested in. Guess I’ll just have to keep an eye out for these elusive creatures.

But Iain is quite correct about the openness of the declaration of funding for 18 Doughty Street. Sort of. The relevant section of the 18 Doughty Street FAQ says:

Doughty Media Limited is the company that owns www.18DoughtyStreet.com. The directors of the company are Stephan Shakespeare, Iain Dale, Tim Montgomerie and Donal Blaney. The company is wholly owned and funded by Stephan Shakespeare, the co-founder and Chief Innovations Officer of YouGov Plc.

And I’ve no reason to doubt that this information is absolutely true. Other information which might be considered relevant, however, makes no appearance.

It is perhaps understandable that Mr Shakespeare is no longer keen to remind people of his close asociation with Lord Archer but some sort of indication of his party political affiliations on that page might just add a little bit more credibility to Iain’s claim of total openness. At the moment, the inclusion of his YouGov credentials and omission of his party political credendials creates an impression of political impartiality which isn’t entirely accurate.

I also asked Iain another question but over-egged the pudding slightly in my attempt to keep my comment reasonably short:

On a related note, can you confirm that 18 Doughty Street placed an advertisement which stated that it would be “like Fox News”? (Please don’t try to spin this; the report I read suggested that 18 D… is a vehicle for the promotion of British Conservatives in the way that Fox News is a vehicle for Republicans in the U.S.)

That report appeared in the Register (via). Iain’s answer was interesting:

On your last point, we are not a news channel. However, if people want to say we are like Fox News, I have no objection to that at all. Fox News is highly professional. I am not aware of an advert that said that, and I think it is a fundamental misunderstanding of both the editorial role of Fox News and the Republican Party.

Fox News is totally independent of the Republican Party just as we are totally independent of the Conservative Party. We have a centre right editorial line, in the same way that the Daily Telegraph does. That does not make us slaves to the Conservative Party and more than the Mirror is a slave to the Labour Party.

“I am not aware…”

I’m starting to understand how Paxo feels.

As I said, I over-egged the pudding slightly on the connection between Fox News and the Republicans but “Fox News is totally independent of the Republican Party”? Crikey!

No doubt, the Swift Boat Veterans were totally independent of the Republican Party too.

But let’s just repeat one of the lines above, written by 18 Doughty Street’s director of scheduled programming:

We have a centre right editorial line, in the same way that the Daily Telegraph does.

Given that that newspaper is commonly called the Torygraph, I can’t decide whether Iain is pulling my chain here or what. In any event, Iain’s description of 18 Doughty Street’s editorial line is not quite the same as the one in their FAQs:

Does 18 Doughty Street have a particular editorial line?

Yes. We are anti-establishment.

A large number of issues that matter to voters going about their everyday lives are deemed too sensitive to debate, or the major political parties have adopted a consensus that prevents fresh, innovative solutions being considered for problems that have plagued Britain for decades. We raise issues where an unhealthy consensus has developed (such as on state funding of political parties or on Britain’s membership of the EU) and we ask questions of our guests from a perspective from which they have rarely been questioned to date.

No mention of centre right there. Perhaps there should be. Just for the sake of openness and transparency.

(By the way, it surely can’t be just us lefties who think it’s bizarre that this venture, owned and staffed by conservatives, describes itself as anti-establishment. Unless I’ve misunderstood the whole point of conservatism, it’s just silly. We establishment radicals should not stand for it…)

The fact is that 18 Doughty Street is owned and operated by members of the British Conservative Party. The specific purpose of the channel is to promote a right of centre agenda. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to conclude that promotion of this agenda will include attempts to help the Tories win the London mayoral election, other local elections and the big one; the next general election.

Of itself, there’s nothing wrong with that. The way they’ve sought to present their agenda, however, doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence in the future of British politics.

Update

Credit Beau Bo D’Or

Update 2

And another. Heh.

Like many others, the thought of John Reid becoming Prime Minister fills me with horror. I’m not a gambler myself but it does seem that the odds of it happening are pretty slim. Brown is odds on to become the next Labour leader and Reid is in a very distant second place.

As Mike Smithson notes, it is interesting that Reid’s still second favourite at all given the way the tabloid press, and the Scum in particular, have decided to go after him. To my mind, that’s a sign of just how impoverished the Labour Party has become under Blair. His insistence on a Presidential style government in which all the major decisions go through him - Brown’s relative independence, secured in the infamous deal, aside - has damaged the ability other members of the party to develop as credible candidates to succeed him. The unintended consequence of Blair’s centralist approach, it’s legacy if you like, is that there really isn’t a credible challenger to Brown. I think we all know what Blair thinks about that.

(Just in case you don’t, remember that before there was an alleged plot by Brownites to depose Blair, there was an actual plot by Blairites to undermine the Chancellor and push Alan Johnson as the next PM!)

Mike concludes, rightly in my opinion, that that Reid will definitely not be elected as the next Labour leader. The Scum shows every intention of continuing their search for Reid’s brain until any credibility he might have had is destroyed.

The fact that Reid is hugely unlikely to become the next Prime Minister makes me happy.

But does this mean that I’m grateful to Rupert Murdoch and the traitor for taking him down? Does this mean I’m now going to reconsider my opinion of these unscrupulous manipulators of public opinions? Should I now be not be quite so worried that Murdoch uses his power and influence to promote his own self-serving right-wing agenda while employees of his disingenuous rag pretend that it’s all just a bit of a laugh?

No, obviously not; your enemy’s enemy is not always your friend.

In conclusion, for reasons which should become increasingly obvious if you click through, here’s a link to a post on he who speaks only in the third person. Hamster finds himself in full agreement…

Earlier this year, the Sunday Times published a story revealing the identity of “Abby Lee”, the girl with a one-track mind. Here is the email she received (via) warning her that they were about to publish her identity against her wishes.

Dear Miss [my name],

We intend to publish a prominent news story in this weekend’s paper, revealing your identity as the author of the book, Girl With a One Track Mind.

We have matched up the dates of films you have worked on - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Batman Begins and Lara Croft Tomb Raider - and it is clear that they correlate to your blog. We have obtained your birth certificate, and details about where you went to school and college.

We propose to publish the fact that you are 33 and live in [my address] -London, and that your mother, [her name], is a [her address] -based [her profession]. The article includes extracts from your book and blog, relevant to your career in the film industry. We also have a picture of you, taken outside your flat.

Unfortunately, the picture is not particularly flattering and might undermine the image that has been built up around your persona as Abby Lee. I think it would be helpful to both sides if you agreed to a photo shoot today so that we can publish a more attractive image.

We are proposing to assign you our senior portrait photographer, Francesco Guidicini, and would arrange everything to your convenience, including a car to pick you up. We would expect you to provide your own clothes and make up. As the story will be on a colour page, we would prefer the outfit to be one of colourful eveningwear.

We did put this proposal to you yesterday, but heard nothing back. Clearly this is now a matter of urgency, and I would appreciate you contacting me as soon as possible. To avoid any doubt we will, of course, publish the story as it is if we do not hear from you.

Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Hellen

Acting News Editor
Sunday Times

It’s unusual for the details of one of these emails to come out and fair play to “Abby” for publishing it. Let’s hope that the bastards at the Sunday Times don’t decide to retaliate.

That Sunday Times, the “quality” end of Murdoch’s newspaper holdings, would behave in such a way reveals a great deal about the code of ethics under which his media empire operates. Can it in any way be said to be in the public interest to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger in this way? Clearly not. The only interest at work here is that of News International.

And this sort of thing goes on all the time. Yesterday, H from Steps (I believe that’s his full name) “revealed his sexuality to the Sun” in a relatively sympathetic article. It is written as if he made the decision to come out himself but he’d obviously been on the receiving end of similar treatment and decided to cooperate rather than fight it and get slated.

A family friend’s son plays for a Scottish Premier League football team. After a messy and acrimonious split with his wife, she went to the Scum and made a number of false allegations against him. The Scum offered him a chance to give his side of the story and he denied the allegations. They then printed these false allegations as fact anyway and portrayed him as a monster in a series of articles. Since the stories were published, he has been on the receiving end of constant abuse from opposition fans and has been attacked several times while out in the “real world”. For the most part, he now avoids bars and clubs ; he can no longer enjoy an evening out with friends for fear that he will be involved in another incident.

He has been advised that challenging the Scum over the printing of false allegations would be hugely expensive and would most likely make the situation worse. The fear is that they’d “do a Sheridan” on him (News International lost that case but Sheridan’s reputation was destroyed along the way). Ultimately, there is very little that can be done.

The truth is that the tabloid press, particularly the Murdoch press, is largely unaccountable; they do what they like with little fear of unwelcome consequences. Our politicians are certainly far too scared of them to confront them.

That leaves us, the paying public, as the only ones who can do anything about this.

I’m pretty certain that no-one has been surprised by anything I’ve written here. That this sort of thing goes on is not really a secret. And I’m also pretty certain that no-one approves of the behaviours described here. But am I sure that no-one who reads this gives any money to Murdoch’s empire? Not so much.

Here are the brands to avoid if you don’t want to contribute to paying people like Nicholas Hellen’s wages.

• The Sun
• The News of the World
• The Times
• The Sunday Times
• BSkyB

Book lovers should know that Murdoch owns HarperCollins Publishers and interwebbers should remember that he also owns MySpace.

Seriously, how many people do you know who’d be disgusted by the above email? And how many of them buy one of Murdoch’s rags on a regular basis? Have a word with them. It can’t do any harm and it might just do some good.