Rumours that James Murdoch has resigned.....

Edit - turns out it's just as director of the companies that publish The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Sun

Very good point ... defining precisely what is in the public interest is tricky.
We all "know" but would have difficulty defining it.

Nonetheless, we have had statutes before (About whistle-blowing) where the reasonable-ness of the person's belief in it being in the public interest was a key factor.

Comedy is subjective, I am not a great fan of his, but for the papers to tap his phone to get hold of 'tittle tattle' is simply wrong.

someone should start one call Twatter, just for the likes of him

A poor choice of comparison, one might say, Andy.





If nobody bought a publication – of any variety – then it would cease to publish. There has to be a market there. Now there's a history of salacious publications in the UK, so when loads more hit the shelves, it hardly came out of nowhere.

Now I'm not going to start with chicken and egg – because I wouldn't know where to start – but it is a fact that without the market for gossip and salacious, intimate details of people's lives (given voluntarily or otherwise) there would be no such publications.

While people might well have not suspected over the use of the so-called 'dark arts', it occurs to me that people were frequently paying to read about the details of the private lives of people who did not want those details revealed. Let's take the Mosely case as one example: did people really buy the [iScrews[/i that weekend. and for the follow up, in the belief that Mosely had invited the cameras into that aspect of his private life?

So I return to the question of why people think they have a right to be entertained/titillated by such details and secondly, why they find that so entertaining?

Oddly, your mention of the Fritzel case suggests that people snoop (or twitch their curtains) or should do, and should actually pick up on something as ordinary as shopping – even when (presumably) amounts increased over a long time and were a regular factor. Indeed, what you seem to be suggesting is that all of us should snoop – that, in this context, we should all become obsessed with the private lives of others. The Stasi would have loved you.



I would add that the drugs comparison doesn't really work either (or at least not fully). Although it's fairly simplistic a view of a more complex case, most of those who grow or sell drugs do so in the knowledge of what they're doing and, for whatever reason, having presumably reached a conclusion that they will do that.

So that puts the consumer in a rather different relationship to the producer than it does where someone's private life is invaded, without their permission, and then sold for the entertainment of others. That is not to say that there is no ethical complexity to the relationship between drug producer, seller and consumer, but it is clearly not the same.

is he not invited to your next fancy dress party

Why would anyone want to tap their phones

I think its hilarious the way the way the print media are howling in indignation about whether Grant and Coogan's allegations are 100% accurate. Talk about giving it out but not being able to take it.

Its undoubtedly the case that some celebs ask for what they get. And Hugh Grant is never going to attract much sympathy. But it does seems to me that the tabloids treatment of celebs ultimately created the climate where they felt they could get away with their appalling treatment of the Dowlers and Chris Jeffries. If the good guys are to be protected from the worst excesses of the media, those protections are going to have to be extended to everyone, including the celebs. And it should be possible to introduce reforms without curtailing the ability of the press to undertake genuine investigative journalism.

alternatively, he [url=http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-%26-entertainment/britain-prepared-to-forgive-grant-for-his-films-201111224572/"could be forgiven for his entire career"[/url

Aye, the Hugh Grant comments were fantastic. Most of his films are trite but I was in admiration at his attempt to scandalise the [iDaily Mail[/i who have probably peddled more lies than Hitler over the past 100 years or so. Hopefully some of Grant's words will stick although I'm not hoping for that much given their reader's inability to think.

Good article [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/22/hugh-grant-leveson-phone-hackinghere from the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw on Grant's contribution to the debate[/url.

How true as I almost have lol.

I thought you shared similar interests in your spare time!?

Good point, well made.





I think that, as has been said already, there's a big difference between someone who is well known for their work – and someone who actively courts media attention for every aspect of their life.

Indeed, indeed. Although [iRemains of the Day[/i was very good.

To paraphrase from Fawlty Towers, you started it.





I'm not defending the tactics or methods of the gutter press, but what I will defend is their readership from the insinuation that somehow Milly Dowler's phone being hacked and her parents being given false hope is as much their fault as it is that of Rebekah Brooks, James Murdoch, Glen Mulcare or any of those others at NI and NoTW who chose to turn a blind eye to what was going on.

Oh, I do know that.



I would never, ever excuse the people you mention – and quite a few more. But quite serious question: do you think that we, as consumers, have no ethical responsibility to consider what it is that we buy?

Fantastic film and I do like [iFour Weddings[/i too.

Even though not sworn statements, the witness statements of Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant [url=http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/evidence/here[/url make for interesting reading, as I'm sure the others do.

Coogan claims the press have gained details of his cash machine withdrawals and Grant that the press have obtained details of late night emergency hospital visits (including his condition).

The more this goes on, the deeper and more disgusting the rabbit hole gets.

Exactly.
Miller, Mosely, Rowling, Coogar, etc,etc have done nothing other than being successful.
They haven't courted the press like Katie Pric....Jorda...Katie Pr...Jord...Katie Price has so how anyone can then think they are allowed to be a target because they are good at what they do it baffling.

Both Mosely and Coogan have made the same point.
That being that they took the press on because they were able to and because others are not so lucky, Sounds a very sound and ethical stance to me.

Prior to this story breaking, what ethical grounds did NoTW readers have to make them reconsider their purchase?

The "fake Sheikh" stuff one could argue was primarily public interest - corruption in sport, people using their positions to sell access to others etc. Sure there were also plenty of kiss and tell stories, but no reason to suspect that these were being offered up on anything other than a voluntary basis by those seeking to profit from them.

Outside of those in the trade, could any of the purchasers of NoTW have had even the vaguest inkling of the subterfuge being undertaken by its employees and consultants?

The invasion of someone else's private life for their amusement.



I also remember 'ordinary' people having their stories splashed across the pages of the rags. And then stories like Mosley's, for which there was no public interest justification.

Are you really suggesting that, because stories in the public interest have been published, the titillation and the invasions of privacy (which, I suggest, far outweigh the former) is acceptable – or even that you cannot have one without the other?



Forget that. There is the invasion of someone else's private life for the amusement of the buyer – irrespective of the means used to gather the information. If you want to be slightly more philosophically complex, there's the commoditisation of private life. Are you suggesting that all [iNOTW[/i readers were too thick to consider such things?

This morning was good again – a 21-year-old woman chased down streets at night by a pack of 10 men with cameras. Legal. And nice.

I think the most damning thing about Sienna Miller's testimony is the point she made about the effect it had with her and those closest to her, with her accusing them of selling stories. Never mind the picture out of context, but the effect that the actions of the paparazzi have reaches far beyond the subject of the stories/scoops/bullshst to completely innocent people whose only mistake is to be close to someone.

Indeed.

And on the same theme, Max Mosely is certainly convinced that the actions of the [iNOTW[/i (and subsequent media orgy) were contributory factors in the subsequent death of his son. Indeed, when he attended his son's funeral, he was mobbed by the gutter press.

Well it seems the Pap's and the papers who buy their trashy pictures really are thick.
Just as she left the Leveson inquiry JK Rowling is chased down the street by camera wielding nutjobs.
Irony as a concept really is beyond these scumbags isn't it.

You really couldn't make it up.