When Andy Coulson resigned his position as the Prime Minsters spin doctor he said that the spin doctor could no longer perform his job when he became the news story himself and he was certainly right about that.He claimed to be innocent of the various accusations made against him and News International certainly didn’t come out and say he was wrong to make those denials.

Now that the NoW has become the big story it could hardly continue gloating at finding finding fleas on other people when it was a maggot farm itself. It had to do something drastic to change its image. As it turns out they were not given the opportunity to try to make ammends. So now the News Of The World is no more.

It is a sad day when a newspaper that has existed for 168 years is closed. Not for lack of interest or sales of the paper but closed in a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding body of  News International and Rupert Murdochs empire.

The NoW has always seemed to be a newspaper more interested in title tattle and finding a vicar who was sleeping with a parishoner than it was in educating the nation about the state of the world but it had its place in the market and a lot of people liked it enough to buy it every Sunday.

I found it annoying that it could be so hypocritical as to have a story about someone sleeping with someone elses wife on one page and the next page was semi naked women and a story that suggested we should all be out having more affairs but it was a very popular newspaper. People liked it and it continued to sell millions of copies each week. Perhaps it was all those Vicars wondering if they had made the paper that Sunday?

In a stroke 168 years of history has been killed off. Was it the newspaper that was evil? No. Did the building have evil spirits within it that corrupted the journalists who worked there? I think not.

It has been suggested that there was intrinsic corruption throughout the staff during the period of the phone hacking cases. We are expected to assume that every journalist that was employed at that time had a secret agenda and they wanted to perfom their evil acts. I don’t buy that line at all.

I do not believe for one moment that it is the journalists who run a national newspaper. Especially a newspaper in the Murdoch empire. I do not believe for a moment those journalists who were involved with phone hacking did so off their own back without any pressure or encouragement from management. I do believe it was a pressured environment where they were expected to get results and that pressure may well have turned decent people towards the darkside.

I have no doubt that all newspapers sail a little close to the wind when it comes to legality and obtaining stories. Sometimes they may overstep the mark and break the letter of the law to get a story and if that can be shown to be in the public good then I would say well done to them for taking the risk because we need people prepared to go out on a limb to challenge authority. So long as there is a justifiable and legitimate story to be told.

The NoW went way beyond anything anybody with any sense of decency or honesty would have considered acceptable and they did it under the editorship of Rebekah Brooks, the woman who is now Chief Executive of News International. How come she wasn’t sacked when the news of this debacle first came to light? How can she be defended while all the decent and honest workers who are now at the NoW face the prospect of unemployment?

It is so remarkable that it makes the mind wander and speculate what it is that makes her so special as to be armour plated. I have little doubt that if it had been anybody else she would have been long gone and she would now be busking for her supper.

This is a story that has some way to go.  The Guardian is reporting that Andy Coulson is to be arrested tomorrow over phone hacking which is sure to spoil his nights sleep. It seems that the Murdoch empire has thrown him to the wolves and destroyed the NoW with its 168 years of history in a damage limitation exercise intended to stop the rot from spreading ever upwards. It remains to be seen if it can succeed.

It is dramatic news and will bring a sense of relief to many while it will presumably be very bad news for a lot of decent and honest people who work for the newspaper both as journalists and production staff. It is certainly a bold move.

Something significant did need to be done to stem the flow of pus seeping from the boil that was the news of the world. It had the potential of spreading the damage to the other papers in the group as people have talked of having nothing to do with News International following the leaks of dreadful goings on.

There is a worry that this is an attempt to stem the flow of bad news to take the pressure off and hope that this will remove this story from the front pages. Even worse would be if it were to reduce pressure to have a full inquiry into the activities of the press in this country.

Whilst the wicked goings on happened at just one newspaper, apparently, we must not let the closure of that newspaper reduce the anger and disbelief at what they had been doing to the point that it gets forgotten and nothing changes.

We need a big overhaul of the press and a huge improvement in their ethical standards regardless of what happens to the NoW.

Well done to Rupert Murdoch for taking action and closing the newspaper but I would rather have seen a complete overhaul that turned the News Of The World into a true newspaper that anyone could be proud to read. It looks like that will never happen now.

RIP News Of The World

BBC News – News of the World to close amid hacking scandal.

Chequebook journalism has grown and grown over recent years.  Some media organizations have developed a reputation for searching out the dirt rather than finding a worthwhile story of real public interest and they have been happy to pay whatever it took to get those dirty stories. We all love a bit of gossip but things have clearly got completely out of any sort of control at the News Of The World.

It is reported that journalists and/or a private detective working for the NoW hacked into  and listened in, to the recorded messages on Milly Dowlers phone after she went missing. Not content with just doing that they actually deleted some messages to make space for further messages to be recorded. This came at a time when her family were desperate for any news that might suggest she was safe and well somewhere so when they discovered her phone messages had been listened to and deleted they assumed she was alive and well and accessing her mobile phone. Unfortunately it was already too late and she had been murdered.

The NoW was responsible for raising the hopes of desperate family members at a time of enormous distress. We cannot begin to imagine what it must feel like for Milly Dowlers parents to be dragged through this whole sorry story yet again. They have surely suffered enough already.

For years the NoW has been claiming that there was a rogue reporter who went to far and hacked, of had hacked on his behalf, the phones of various people in the public eye. It was an unjustifiable intrusion on the private lives of those people affected but we were encouraged to belive it was not a big problem.

The story has developed over several years and  we are discovering more and more of what appears to have been a culture of  ‘Get a story at any cost’ at the NoW. It now turns out that it is not just politicians and celebrities who had their phones hacked. Now we can add to the list the parents of Milly Dowler, the parents of the two girls murdered by Ian Huntley in Soham. Now it seems that the families of victims of the 7/7 bomb attacks in London were also targeted.

Do these people at the NoW have no moral code whatsoever? It is simply staggering that anyone could do what they have done and think it was in any way legitimate or reasonable.

We don’t yet know who knew what was going on. We may never know the whole truth but there is no way the management of the newspaper at that time can claim it is nothing to do with them. It should never have happened yet they allowed a culture to exist where it could occur. They developed the culture that somehow led journalists to think that this sort of thing was what was required of them.

I have been disappointed to see ridulous sums of money offered and accepted for sordid stories of private bedroom antics which in the vast majority of cases are of no legitimate interest to anybody outside the circle of those involved. The standards of journalism in many newspapers seem to have been getting lower and lower for years now but these latest revelations must surely have hit the bottom and gone way beyond what anybody could possibly call acceptable behaviour.

I would urge all businesses that have advertising placed in the NoW to never advertise with it again until it proves it has changed it’s ways or the paper is sold off to a new owner who knows what a moral compass is.

I would urge everybody to resist whatever temptation they may feel to buy the NoW until it can demonstrate it has changed its ways of operating. They must demonstrate they will resist the appeal of having their palm crossed with silver in exchange for causing enormous hurt and pain to people who deserve to be treated with consideration and respect.

I would urge Rupert Murdoch to ask himself how he would feel if he had had a child murdered and then found out his phone had been hacked for juicy details to be placed on the front page of a newspaper. What action would he want to take after such behaviour. What would he want to do to change the way the newspaper acted in the future. He is in a position where he can do exactly that and he should.

The internet has introduced us all to a whole world of information. Before the internet existed we were limited to the information around us. It could be the books we owned or the TV we watched but the result was that we had limited access to the information that existed around the world.

We had to go out of our way to see other points of view and to find out about things that were beyond our local information sources. If we bought a newspaper we saw the editors view of the world. If we wanted to see a different view then we had to buy another newspaper with a very different point of view.

The internet changed all of that. We could do a search on the net and find various opinions, various interpretations and a variety of different approaches as to how that information might be interpreted. This may no longer be the case.

No Longer Do You See A Broad Variety Of Opinion

All the search engines and many of the larger sites on the web now try to tailor the information we recieve to match what they perceive as our requirements. No longer do you see a broad variety of opinion and interpretation. When you do a search on Google or Bing they try to second guess what you want to see. You don’t see a broad spectrum of opinion, you see what they think you are most likely to click on.

This may make searching for specific things easier but it restricts your options in other ways. You see fewer opposing views that might challenge your opinions and make you question the world as you see it. You may be denied access to things that you would like to see.

This Page Could Disappear From The Search Engine Results

It is happening now in some ways. If Google doesn’t like a certain site because it doesn’t meet their Webmaster Guidelines they will remove it from their search results. It is their search engine and they are entitled to do what they like with it but they do have the power to restrict a users ability to find the information that is out there on the internet.

With power comes responsibility and Google is now such a huge deciding factor in what sites become popular or not we need to be able to have full trust in them to ensure we see the widest spectrum of thoughts and opinion about any subject we choose to search for. Apparently around 85% of all searches are carried out through their search engine and that means that anything they decide has an impact on almost all of us.

The result is that for many of us, Google decides what you can or cannot see. If Google were to decide they don’t like this page you are reading right now, for whatever reason, the chances pretty good that nobody will ever find it unless they came here directly through a link somewhere on the web. That is the power of search engines. They are the gatekeepers to the modern information age.

Giving A Searcher What They Want To See

It may all be done with the best of intentions. Google always has made a big thing of trying to give a searcher what they want to see but sometimes we need to see the things we would not choose to see. We need to see alternatives to our current opinions and our view of the world. The problem with personalized searches is that it is taking us back to the days when you only saw a limited and restricted view of the world. Those days when your understanding of what was going on in the world was limited to the edited opinions and choices of those who controlled the information sources you had available to you. The big difference is that now the people who control the flow of information are bigger and more powerful than anyone could have imagined only 20 years ago.

We now face the scary prospect that the wonderful freedom the internet brought us is slowly but surely being restricted and controlled. Personalization of the internet may seem to make life simpler but in doing so it erodes the openness and the freedom of discovering new ideas, different opinions and potentially could be used in a draconian way that would be bad for democracy.

It would not be a huge leap to imagine a large corporation paying the search engines to restrict the display of a competitors website or products. A company owned by shareholders has a legal duty to do what is best for its shareholders, not the public at large.

So far the search engines see their own best interests as being totally independent but nobody knows if that will always be the case. Things can change fast on the internet. If you can’t pay the search engines to do your bidding then maybe you could buy them out and then you could do whatever you liked. Governments could lean on search engines, perhaps offering tax breaks and incentives, to encourage them to deny us those web pages that disagree with the official government line and thus restrict dissenting opinion. The possibilities are endless and worrying.

The Internet Could Become Shackled By Commercial Or Political Interests

I don’t see this as something happening right now and I like to think it would never go that far but it is a scenario that is slowly developing. There is a very real risk that at some point in the future, our freedom of the internet becomes shackled by commercial or political interests. This amount of control could never have been imagined by those who wanted to impose their opinions and preferences on us in the past. Can you imagine the power this would give to a modern day Hitler or Stalin?

Sometimes I Need To Be Proved Wrong

It is human nature to want to see the world in a way that makes us feel good. A world where we feel significant and one where our opinion is proved to be right. The truth of the matter is that none of us is always right and it is vital for democracy and freedom that our views and opinions are challenged.

We all want searches that produce useful and relevant results but we also need to see those irrelevant results that do not entirely match our personal view of the world. We need search results that help us see beyond our own narrow horizons. Personal search results that match our previous behavior online may deny us that wider view. Is personalization of the web good for us? To be honest, I think probably not.

It certainly has oodles of potential but somehow they haven’t quite found their feet yet. I hope it is given the time it needs to develop into something as revered as TWTWTW back in the days of black and white TV.
I don’t quite understand why it was felt important to be live but there may come a time when a live story is breaking and they can add their brand of cutting edge humour to the events as they happen but so far I would say that a bit of editing might have tightened up the show.

The problem seems to be that they can’t decide which is more important. Interesting interviews and discussion or jokes. Trying to make a serious interview funny by throwing in silly quips just doesn’t work for me.
I will stick with it but if they don’t figure out what they are trying to do I fear I may be one of the few viewers still with them when they move it to a less popular time slot. It is competing with the main evening news, newsnight and question time which seems like strange scheduling to me since people who are interested in news and politics are likely to be watching them and people who aren’t won’t want to watch satirical political comedy anyway.
10 O’Clock Live has the potential to be funny, entertaining and interesting and I hope they find the right mix soon.

The campaign is running with the hashtag of #IAMSPARTACUS in a reference to the film in which all the defeated slaves said they were Spartacus to prevent the Roman soldiers identifying the true leader.

It is a wonderful demonstration of how ludicrous the decision to prosecute the original poster was. We all say stupid things at times and I expect many of us have had to resist the temptation to report the only thing we have to declare at an airport is the bomb we packed earlier.

Yes it is stupid to think they would think it was funny and people who have said such things have found themselves arrested but saying something at an airport is very different to saying some throwaway comment on Twitter or some other social networking chat site.

The authorities now look extremely foolish. Everyone knows it was even more stupid to prosecute this person than it was for him to post that tweet in the first place. At least when he typed that he was doing it without thinking as an off the cuff remark. Whereas the authorities must, we assume, have thought about what they should do.

Now they are obliged to either check every tweet referring to a bomb and Robin Hood Airport and perhaps prosecute hundreds of people or they will just look really stupid.

If they thought it was a credible threat they obviously had to look into it but having done so it was clear their was no threat and they should have dropped it there and then. If they were worried that it might lead to lots of people tweeting such comments well they got that totally wrong. There are now hundreds of such tweets.

It makes you wonder if there are legions of policemen spending all day tracking tweets to see what people are saying to see who they can jump on. Presumably the authorities are of the opinion that terrorists operate by giving rather silly warning messages on twitter and if that is how they think then god help us.

If I tweet that someone has annoyed me and I am going to wack him around the head with a cast iron saucepan it could be a real threat but most likely it isn’t. If every person who ever issued a threat of some sort was to be arrested then there would be very few people doing anything other than investigating or being investigated and we would have a lot more very full prisons.

The whole case is a joke and those in charge should be feeling very embarrassed and if you want to make a point then Tweet with the hashtag #IAmSpartacus

Most people don’t buy top of the range expensive tvs. Most people buy a cheap TV with as big a screen as they can afford. You only have to look at a demonstation of different TVs in a store to see the wide variation in the quality of the images produced. If you can’t even get a top quality picture on every TV produced why do these same cheaper TVs need to be worrying about HD images? Marketing.

There are some people who really do want HD TV. Those enthusiasts for particular sports and interests who want to see the details down to the tiniest degree but most of us don’t care.

HDTV has cost the TV production industry a fortune to change all their cameras and equipment and I remain unconvinced of any great benefit. The quality of the images produced for adverts promoting HDTV, which have been made to be view on normal TVs, shows that the quality of images on normal TV can be very impressive. I wonder if the efforts should not have been placed into better cameras, lighting and camerawork but HDTV is with us whether we like it or not.

Now the industry is pushing for us all to have 3D TVs. Why? Have you ever exxpressed the desire for a 3d tv? I know I haven’t. I suspect that one day 3d holographic images may become readily available but even then I am not sure I want a cops shoot-out appearing in the middle of my lounge.

The industry wants to sell more TVs, replacement TV cameras, studio equipment and everything else that goes along with a complete change of output like this but do we the consumers ever get consulted?

If I were asked if I want 3d TV I would say no, but nobody asks me and in a few years time I expect I will only be able to buy 3d TVs.

I guess the argument could be made that when we changed from the old 405 to 650  screen resolution nobody was asking for it but the improvement is obvious. These changes to HDTV and 3d are no less obvious but I just don’t care about them. I do care that the BBC has had to use an enormous amount of licence payers money to change to HD and the change to 3d is likely to be even more expensive.

It would be great if the TV industry could just worry about producing top quality TVs that give me a great picture at standard resolution and TVs that lasted for twenty years. Now that is something that I would welcome but HDTV and 3dTV? No, you can keep it, thank you very much.

Will knowing who the stig is do anything other than spoil the mystery and mystique of the Top Gear TV show? I don’t think so. Maybe if it had been revealed in Tony Blair’s book that the Stig was in fact Tony Blair that would have been interesting to know or maybe if it had been Phil Collins but right now I just thing this has been a lot of hot air about nothing at all.

I understand and actually, support the BBC in their attempts to keep the identity a secret because that way it made the Stig interesting but the person who is behind the mask? Irrellevent and totally uninteresting. In the world of 15 minutes of fame I reckon it merits 30 seconds tops.

I do understand why the man behind the mask wanted to publicise his book and make a few quid while he remains slightly relevant but it is a shame that one of the few myths in television has been spoiled now but I am sure the Beeb will be able to find a new angle and perhaps find some way to benefit from this new and rather unexpected disclosure.

OK. enough about all this rubbish. There must be a soap opera star getting drunk somewhere. Now that’s a real story…

Why are these helicopters needed? Does anybody really care about the views we get from these helicopters of people standing outside buildings or walking down the street? How much money is being wasted on these helicopters? I find it ridiculous that the BBC is wasting money on such a pointless and expensive toy.

Surely somebody at the BBC would stop and question if this is a sensible use of licence payers money.

We could keep them there during the election campaign and for some time afterwards. It would make for fascinating television as they attacked each other. In fact it could be that only one would survive and he, or she, would have to be Prime Minister but the best part would surely be that the election would be held and they wouldn’t know the result.

It would be wonderful to see the losing side continuing to claim to be the only people who knew how to run the country even after we all knew they had lost. Can you imagine the fun we could all have watching those who claim to be so superior to the rest of us behaving like complete idiots. Oh, it sounds like so much fun.

Sadly I can see a flaw in this idea. Between the lot of them I doubt they could manage to run the house. They all admit they are incapable of running the Postal Service so they want to privatise it and we have seen what happens when they try to run the country so what likelihood is there that they could run the Big Brother house? They would probably all end up starving because none of them could sort out the feeding arrangements. I wonder if they would turn to cannibalism? They do say that politics is a dog-eat-dog world.