[Edited:'dead' image removed] The story that sunk a newspaper. Now, Who will say sorry to Rupert? writes Kelvin MacKenzie in the Spectator. I agree; many won't sympathise with the billionaire media mogul (informal caveat: of course there are many phone-hacking victims and scandals that the NOTW was guilty of, along with [edit Wed 14th] other newspapers - by far the worst culprit is the Mirror [click on image for info obtained from the British Information Commissioner's 'Operation Motorman' investigation by Guido], along with the Daily Mail, The Guardian etc.) but it was the Milly Dowler "news" that became the straw that broke the camel's back and the final reason that the Leveson inquiry was set up! Rupert Murdoch was clearly shaken with events and deserves an apology - if not vast compensation - from The Guardian (and Nick Davies and Alan Rusbridger in particular).
"So what price has Nick Davies paid since he tried to slip his deliberately unintelligible apology into Page 10 of The Guardian on Saturday? None at all. Not suspended. Not sacked. What price has , the paper’s ho-hum £500,000-a-year Editor paid? None at all. Not suspended. Not sacked. Not a peep out of the management. You might think they’d call an emergency Board meeting, and sling him out for a mistake of this magnitude."P.S. No the irony isn't lost on me! I know an ex Sun hack (oh, shouldn't use that word should I!) who worked under KM.
2 comments:
I agree with what you and others have said. Two things occur to me however, firstly I think the Leveson Inquiry is right, regardless of how it started. The other thing is that if you go back to when James Murdoch announced the closure of NOTW he said it was because of two things, firstly because of 'alleged wrongdoings' and secondly because the fear of a backlash from advertisers. Now ignore the second part but why didn't NOTW put those accused on garden leave and conduct its own investigation rather than panic and close down?
p.s - I liked your concise contribution to the Spectator article.
I tend to agree. It sometimes intrigues me how badly some of these super rich are so badly advised. JM probably thought it would blow over but the closure just made those sensing blood more hungry. I see JM also is accused (again!) of having seen at least some emails but bearing in mind what he probably sees in any given day - and bearing in mind also that the hacking seems so widespread amongst tabloids and others - probably no warning flags were thrown up.
RE my comment - yes, is my annoyance/frustration apparent? :-)
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