The ties that bind.
Tom Watson, whom in hindsight I was more than a little harsh on last year, has called on Rebekah Brooks to do the decent thing and resign as chief executive of News International. The appointment of Brooks a couple of years back wasn't a surprise, as it had long been rumoured that she was being groomed for a management role, yet it's only now that Brooks' unwillingness to take any responsibility for her actions has come back to haunt Murdoch. It's more than pathetic for the editor of the biggest selling newspaper in the country to repeatedly refuse to defend her decisions in front of the cameras, instead leaving it to her underlings, the same people incidentally that she once berated for failing to get an interview with err, Pete Doherty. Then again, when Brooks' two main forays into the limelight involved a night in the cells and the unfortunate admission that journalists had formerly paid the police for information, it was clear that when confronted and put under pressure she wasn't exactly Kelvin MacKenzie.
Which makes it all the more mysterious why Brooks was allowed to put out such mendacious nonsense as the press release discussed on Friday and the statement to the parliamentary media committee which went with it, claiming that the Guardian had "substantially and likely deliberately misled the British public", until you realise that this was precisely what James Murdoch had also authorised when he signed off the compensation payment to Gordon Taylor. This wasn't just the hubris of being certain that through brazening it out the entire affair would be forgotten, as News International continued to hope; Brooks was being full supported by another Murdoch given to ranting and raving about the injustice of a world when everything had been handed to him on a plate. If Brooks must go, then so should junior. Completely unconnected, last week the heir apparent was promoted, just as Brooks and the Screws were preparing to come clean. Blood, as it goes, is thicker than water.
Which makes it all the more mysterious why Brooks was allowed to put out such mendacious nonsense as the press release discussed on Friday and the statement to the parliamentary media committee which went with it, claiming that the Guardian had "substantially and likely deliberately misled the British public", until you realise that this was precisely what James Murdoch had also authorised when he signed off the compensation payment to Gordon Taylor. This wasn't just the hubris of being certain that through brazening it out the entire affair would be forgotten, as News International continued to hope; Brooks was being full supported by another Murdoch given to ranting and raving about the injustice of a world when everything had been handed to him on a plate. If Brooks must go, then so should junior. Completely unconnected, last week the heir apparent was promoted, just as Brooks and the Screws were preparing to come clean. Blood, as it goes, is thicker than water.
Labels: abuses by tabloids, dark arts, James Murdoch, News International, News of the World, phone hacking, politics, Rebekah Wade, Tom Watson
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since the press pwns the politicians, i can't see much changing and murdoch will get his monopoly because our glorious 'democratically elected' representatives will do as they are told.
..plus ca change etc...
Posted by
mary |
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 1:08:00 pm
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