Tag Archives: News of the World

March 29, 2025 · 11:33

Retrospectively the media

That is what is happening, but how did it start? Around In 2007, News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were convicted of illegal interception of phone messages. According to the News of the World, this was an isolated incident, but The Guardian claimed that evidence existed that this practice extended beyond Goodman and Mulcaire. It started a whole mess which was shown to the world and as such the media was no longer any reliable source. Several cases hit the limelight, but for the largest setting, it was the media that was largely the problem. At some point (after Leveson) Hacked off was created with amongst them Hugh Grant Board member, actor (famous for comedies like Love Actually and Heretic) as well as one of the phone-hacking victims. I do not want to skip the Leveson enquiries. Yet that part is the larger issue, not the inquiry as much as the blatant support of the media by political players and basically the larger stage of a corrupt media. Hacked off gave us “In March 2013, the three main political parties supported the implementation of Leveson’s reforms, and so did the public. In fact more than 175,000 people signed our petition calling for immediate implementation. 10 years later however, this has still not happened. Press abuse continues and in the place of the PCC, the majority of newspapers in the UK are ‘regulated’ by another toothless complaints-handling body, IPSO.” Yet a week ago in ‘A letter from Hugh’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/03/20/a-letter-from-hugh/) I got a letter from Hugh Grant giving us all the option to write to our MP’s and today I received

Here we see that “Our records show that a staggering 97% of MPs have now received letters from the public calling for action on press reform.” Now, we get the larger view. You see, the media doesn’t want the Leveson papers implemented and the people do. So what will the politicians do? That is the larger setting because the Media will see its visibility crumble when this happens. So what will the politicians do? I have set this stage in my blog several times over the last few years. The media is no longer reliable to any level and the pro-Hamas stories from the BBC is showing too many that the media is basically done for. Consider the fact that the UK is characterised by a comparatively large national press with 11 national daily newspapers, and 10 Sunday sister titles (this is more than France, Germany and USA). Seven of these titles publish special editions for Scotland, and these compete with three Scottish dailies. National newspapers are typically divided into three sectors which relate to their physical size, as well as the quantity of news, values and quality of content: broadsheet (also known as quality), mid-market, and tabloid. They are (mostly) all vying for the attention of the 69 million people in the UK. The turnaround is with “Print newspapers are read by 1 in 4 adults over 15 every day (13.6 million daily) and reach larger audiences weekly (24.9 million) and monthly (30.8 million). Print Circulation has fallen approximately 40 percent between 2010 and 2018.” And all these newspapers have advertising and that is the larger issue. That is money for the publications and as that 40% is cutting deeper and deeper. The media will resort to larger non-news steps, mostly to gain digital dollars from their audience. And with 97% off the MPs are getting requests to act, there is not much to do and I reckon that action will follow. Perhaps we will see another episode from some editor in chief stating like a little cry bitch that they can be trusted, that they will give a tooth to IPSO, but the larger setting of people are over the stage of misbehaving. Oh, and before you all think I am exaggerating, on March 14th 2014 I gave you all ‘Bad Journalism’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/03/25/bad-journalism/) where we were shown “Flight MH370 ‘suicide mission’“, so where is the evidence? Was any evidence ever given to us? The media is done for and I see it as places like the Khaleej Times, the New Arab and Al Arabiya are now more reliable than the western press has been for over 10 years.

So now the wait starts for action from British political parties. I wonder how long they can sit on their hands before the people have had enough. I wonder how many editors will cry like the little bitches they have been for years. And IPSO? Well they are soon to be under a microscope too.

Have a great day.

A letter from Hugh

Yup, it happened to me, Hugh Grant send me a letter (a modern message in Email).

You know, the man who was made famous through the movie “Four startups and a Bankruptcy”. And behold, this morning there was a letter in my mailbox, stating:

Dear Lawrence,

For over ten years in opposition the Labour Party promised to implement the Leveson reforms. These reforms would raise standards in the media and protect the public from intrusions into grief, blatant falsehoods, and other abuses.

Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, talked a big game about ending corruption in politics and putting the public first.
Yet since his election as Prime Minister, Sir Keir has done nothing to keep his party’s promises and end the scandal of press abuse.

In his failure to act, he is protecting the status quo and putting newspaper owners ahead of the public.

We need to remind him: his Government is accountable to the British public, not newspaper owners. And his Party’s promises – to ordinary people affected by press abuse, and the wider public – must be kept.

And here is the link to write to your MP (at https://www.hackedoff.org/campaign-actions/britains-press-power-without-responsibility-demand-real-press-accountability-now?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Hugh follow-up&utm_medium=email&utm_id=38)

You will get to enter your UK Postcode and as I as a test enter a post code of Birmingham (as a test) The system replies with

Dear Shabana Mahmood,

Despite reaching over 70% of the public every month national newspapers are unregulated – allowing them to spread lies, disinformation, and to commit intrusions with impunity.

Every issue facing the country – from human trafficking to climate change to domestic violence – is affected by the ability of newspapers and their websites to cover them inaccurately and unethically.

The Government’s inaction on press regulation is holding Britain back from meeting these challenges – as well as leaving newspapers able to cause extraordinary damage to individuals’ lives through harassment and intrusion into grief.

You merely have to add your Name, Address and Email address details and the letter is ready. Easy, peasy, Chicken easy.

It will be a rough reminder for the Labour Party and his fellow minions to do something about the outstanding promise to set the Leveson papers in action. The media has become too much of a clear and present danger to the people, and many people in the UK have had enough. So this is a rather large remembrance page with the automation for the people to add their details and do something about it.

It gave me pause to think of hat the UK media is facing. It is already facing irrelevancy and a loss of readers on a global scale. No matter what our faith is, papers like New Arab, Arab News, Khaleej Times and several other newspapers are making string insides into the world population. And that is not all that is happening. In support we see that Dubai Media (the first recipient of my film script “How to assassinate a Politician”) is making rather larger visibility moves. Mostly in Bangladesh , Egypt and Indonesia, but it is a start). In this Al Saudiya (part of the SBA) is doing the same, but I am unaware how large their foot print is becoming. Mostly due to my lack of Arabic I cannot see the complete setting of the Saudi Broadcasting Authority. A Saudi TV group meant for 33 million is reaching out to a population of over half a billion (the Dubai Media group (UAE) as well). They are diminishing the channels that were until recently the targets of Reuters, AP News and the BBC. The people are through with these false prophets and are now giving these two a chance. After the track of the late eighties and 90’s that CNN had, they are given a green light by the people in many ways a similar setting.

Western people have had enough of the lies and innuendo that Western media gives us. As such the term sports-washing, meaning “Sportswashing is the use of sport to redirect public attention away from unethical conduct. The intended effect is to improve the reputation of the offending entity, by using the immense popularity of sport to ‘wash’ away poor publicity.” A term as I see it invented by the western media and nearly always used to describe Saudi involvement. But as I see it, the Western media should be using the same term (although not always involving sports) to strengthen their innuendo for digital dollars. They do, but to hide the actions of involved people like Sony (TPP policy 2016) and a few others. It was the first clear setting where I saw media ‘protecting’ big tech. I wrote (rather clumsily) about that in ‘Lessening the consumer?’ On April 27th 2016 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/04/27/lessening-the-consumer/) after that I saw the actions by Microsoft and others and the media was holding the hands over the heads of Big Tech (speculatively to score advertisement money) and that was how I started to keep my eyes of the media until now and see how the media today has less value than the average porn magazine, they might reflect on ‘Sex Sells’ but the value of their contribution has lost its value and then some. As media largely goes into the same direction, not giving us news, but referring to out as entertainment and as I see it, the ABC News Channel is the only news channel giving Australia actual news, the rest is flaccid entertainment. This is the same all over the western world hiding behind the term “A news and current affairs show”, where the emphasis is set to ‘current affairs show’ and the ‘insiders’ referring to that being the same. The world is waking up to the setting of being lulled asleep by the media and the Leveson papers was the first stage to getting the people awake. That was the first step for the media to wake up and that so far The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. The result were 4 documents giving us over 2000 pages of wake up medicine for the media regulations. So far it hasn’t happened, for reference the Lord Of the Rings is a novel a mere 1077 pages, so there is that too, one is fiction , the other is a rude awakening of what the media is up to. The News of the world owned by Rupert Murdoch shut down in 2011 when the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty, and public citizens. Murdoch faced police and government investigations into bribery and corruption by the British government and FBI investigations in the US. He got out when he was no longer able to hide the actions of some. But not all is lost, the Arabian versions of the news are now shown all over the world mainly the three I mentioned in the beginning. And now we see the growth of Saudi and UAE media and they now have solid systems that can reach the whole western world too. Now we might not get all the shows the 1st gives us, but that is merely one step away from coming. The fires in California have settles the people in optionally leaving California and the UAE and Saudi stations could give them a new beginning, many to Canada, but with the promise of decent incomes Saudi Arabia and the UAE could collect on the cream of American Script writers. I saw this option opening up and (even though magnificently unsuccessful) , I decided to attempt to sell my first script in the UAE (Dubai media). There is an inkling of faith that it was merely my lack of skills, and it was my first script, but I have three more on route. As such other (a lot more successful than me) could open the road to more scripts and that is what Hollywood fears, the drain of knowledge. They thought they were on top of the world with their setting, yet as Covid hit, followed by the strikes and the California fires, the Hollywood setting is to some degree now an empty shell and that leaves Canada, the UK, Saudi Arabia and the UAE open to wildly grown in all directions. The Guardian gives us “The entertainment industry is estimated to create $43bn in wages every year for the Californian economy and recent events have not only forced a pause in the short term but also raised concerns over long-term recovery.” These incomes have been impacted from 2020 onwards. We were given “Many blockbusters originally scheduled to be released by mid-March 2020 were postponed or canceled around the world, with film productions also being halted.” Then we got the strikes in 2023 which stopped it all again and the fires on January 7th 2025, the impact has roasted the core of Hollywood with burning down what was left. Consider the setting that the people in Hollywood were given $43 billion annually and that their incomes have been impeded with a near 80% lacking of a total of over $200 billion. The quality of life is setting the massive options for the other nations and as the Hollywood moguls are happy to pay the others as little as possible, they and up having no recourse for themselves.

And now we get yet again the Leveson inquiry hitting the UK shores. The mess is now near complete and the media will have to surrender market shares to the Arabian nations and see where they end up being, because the events in Saudi Arabia (2030) and the UAE will likely have all the Arabian journalists and very little other ones, especially with vloggers all over the place and YouTube (and TikTok) having the new fields all to themselves and their creators. That is what I see happening al up to late 2027 and that is long before Hollywood becomes a shadow of itself.

That is the reality of exploitation at some point the people give up and seek richer grounds, Hollywood is now becoming largely without cohesion to itself, so where do you go then? You all have a productive day.

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Tagged as Al Arabiya, Al Saudiya, Arab News, California fires, Canada, Covid, Dubai Media, hollywood, Hugh Grant, India, Keir Starmer, Khaleej Times, labour party, Leveson inquiry, Media, Middle East, New Arab, News, News Corporation, News of the World, PM Starmer, politics, Rupert Murdoch, SAGTRA strikes, Saudi Arabia, SBA, Script writers, Sony Corporation, TikTok, TPP policy, UAE, Youtube

May 21, 2021 · 01:36

Falling short into an abyss

Yes, today is all about the Bogus Blablabla Congregation (BBC). And even as they give us ‘Martin Bashir: BBC fell short over Diana interview, report finds’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57189371), the stage is much worse and much more rotten then ever expected. Yes, more than expected, because of all the news agencies until yesterday the BBC had one that is one of the highest on the planet. We saw the veneer chip with their settings of Gaza, but now with the protective levels towards Martin Bashir, we can safely say that the BBC should now be regarded as just another exploitative media channel and that view will not improve for years to come. You see, as I personally see it the view of “Mr Bashir apologised for mocking up the documents, but said they had no bearing on Diana’s decision to be interviewed. Princess Diana’s interview with Martin Bashir for Panorama was a huge scoop for the BBC – in it, the princess famously said: “There were three of us in this marriage.”” But the stage is already rotten, the element of deception and basically forgery, not ‘mocking up’ shows Martin Bashir to be a shitty little cockroach, just like other reporters from places like the Sun, Daily Mail, or News of the world. The scoop was a stage of forgery where the person interviewed was pushed into a stage of defensive protection of her family and the shitty little roach knows this. So when we get to “Mr Bashir had later lied when he told BBC managers he had not shown the fake documents to anyone, and described significant parts of Mr Bashir’s account of the events of 1995 as “incredible, unreliable, and in some cases dishonest”, it shows the rotten core of the BBC that is largely absent of checks and balances. So when we get to ““The BBC should have made greater effort to get to the bottom of what happened at the time and been more transparent about what it knew. While the BBC cannot turn back the clock after a quarter of a century, we can make a full and unconditional apology. The BBC offers that today.” The chairman of the corporation, Richard Sharp, also said the BBC “unreservedly accepted” the report’s findings that there were “unacceptable failures”. “We take no comfort from the fact that these are historic,” he said.” We get to see a stage where people like Richard Sharp is just as much a roach as the other roaches. I get it, they want to limit the damage, but the BBC is showing itself to be just like all the other Murdoch wannabe’s. In what Lord Dyson calls ‘woefully ineffective’ we see “In early 1996, the BBC carried out an internal inquiry that cleared Mr Bashir, Panorama and BBC News of wrongdoing” We get to see a setting where some at the BBC saw the issues in play and saw the shit storm that would hit if it got out and the only option was a delay and they were able to set a delay for a quarter of a century. So when we see “Last week he left the BBC, citing ongoing health issues. He had been the corporation’s religion correspondent and editor since 2016”, we see optionally one truth, because the British people are at present ready to Lynch his ass and hang him in a nice high tree overlooking some BBC building. An option that might actually happen, his deception will anger the people to no end, and the BBC is partly to blame. You see we see that part when we consider why a little journo roach like that would endure ‘Martin Bashir lost £ 125,000 when he hurriedly sold his London home to the boss of a lingerie company’, I personally believe that people in the BBC and other part of the UK government were eager to show him out any door possible and the anger of the British people would not have made that place a safe place to live. So as London News today (4 weeks ago) gave us “A BBC reporter moved in the midst of a ruckus over fraudulent tactics allegedly deceiving the princess. Two large removal vans appeared at his front door on Friday before the sale. It is not known that the two-story house is listed on the market, and neighbours seem to know little about the move, leading to speculation that it was a panic sale”, we see and accept a panic sale and that implies that someone gave him a tap on the shoulders, perhaps even Richard Sharp himself. A 25 year career based on a lie and he will most likely get away with it optionally crying that he is merely a victim of a media system. And the exploitation does not stop there, the BBC already has a way to bounce back with “A Panorama investigation into the interview delayed from last week” will most likely show Martin Bashir as the evil deceiver and the rest will be made to be naive and good of faith, or as I see it, a system without checks and balances, a shortcoming that was visible from the time when Guy Burgess was part of the BBC, as such how innocent is the BBC or Panorama? On a slightly different tone, if I put a .338 bullet in the head of Bill Gates, will that solve the issue of Bing hijacking 5 times an hour on my Google Chrome iPad? It is pissing me off and I am already vexed with the BBC as much as it is at present.

Personally I also have an issue with “Lord Tony Hall – the director of news who carried out the 1996 investigation – said he accepts it “fell well short of what was required” and he was “wrong to give Martin Bashir the benefit of the doubt”” If it is truly short of what was required, Lord Tony Hall should be seen as incompetent, but the other media players are unlikely to push for that side, are they? And that shows just how screwed up the media has become, they are in a stage of keeping each others heads above water so that they can all enjoy more revenue. Did anyone consider the stage that some roach relying on a career based on a lie could end up with a £1.9m London house? Consider that and the information “Editor salaries at BBC can range from $76,291-$114,619” the income and house do not match up, even as we saw late last year “Martin Bashir was one of the greatest journalists in the world right now. He worked for the major part of his life”, it is my speculative view that someone was protecting Martin Bashir, consider the facts and you might get to that same conclusion especially when you realise that his wife was not the expected cause of such an expensive house.

I personally reckon that looking into Lord Tony Hall will show a few more items in all this. The fact that it took me less than an hour to see certain matters, OK, merely AFTER some revelations were made might not matter. There are a few settings that were out in the open, the lack of checks and balances being one of them. I wonder who else thinks that the UK media is lacking a massive overhaul and in all this it merely shows that Lord Justice Leveson was more and more correct a decade ago, so how long until the people realise that the UK media (actually a global overhaul of media) is long overdue? Especially now that the BBC is shown to be coming out of some sewer reeking of shit and vile crap?

The press has another go

It is always fun to see a repeat of what has been there already. So I was not that surprised watching Sky News and getting another press approach for their regulations. They found another person to step in front of the camera. They made sure that this time there is an utter lack of arrogance. It turned into a casually moment of pointing blame on the politicians. In this case it was John Witherow from the Times. Well, the message is actually simple Mr Spokesperson we the people do not trust you at present!

All this is happening right when another editor of the Sun is being charged (Duncan Lacombe).

So we have the journalists in a corner for a change, oh goody! THEIR view of ‘the people have a right to know‘ has so far seemed to be nothing less than the option to overrule the people’s privacy at a moment’s notice.

It is of course an issue listening to Sky News for the simple reason that they are journalists themselves. Things seem to be pressed on one side and trivialised on the other. I still hang to the original idea that the Leveson report should completely be implemented with a (non-)political option of legislation.

Before you judge me to be against freedom of speech then you are wrong. I am all for freedom of the press, yet the Murdoch crowd (sorry for generalising this) has proven that their freedom to do whatever they like should not be an option even again. You see, one side we have the freedom of speech and on the other side we have the right to privacy, which too often is crushed by the press stating ‘the people have a right to know‘, whilst in reality it is just about making the quick visible exclusive visibility and their need of ego at the expense of anything else.

Issues that also surfaced (the Milly Dowler case) is yet another example. In that case not only was there no investigation, there is even more issues with a police force that as stated by sky news on April 25^th ‘has a case of collective amnesia‘.

Or as quoting a line by the Guardian of April 24th 2013 “while a former senior officer from Surrey police said the press was ‘untouchable and all powerful’“. So not only is the press doing whatever it likes, it is interfering with police investigations, like they are the flipping ‘Special Branch’ (since 2006 known as SO15). Perhaps Commander Richard Walton could confirm whether the press is currently on their pay roll, which would allow for some awesome cost cutting solutions. Mr David Cameron would be so pleased.

We might never know what happened in the case of Milly Dowler. It is not unlikely that the phone hacking resulted in a loss of messages. Lost voice mail messages that could have assisted the Surrey Police department in their investigation. It is interesting that I read in the Guardian “An NoW journalist (name redacted)” It is interesting how that Journalist was redacted. So, Mr Witherow, how about the option of name redaction to be removed as a right for Journalists? How about an open name and shame issue where those people who seemed to have harassing the Surrey Police to be openly known to all. By your own words: ‘the people have a right to know‘.

My bigger issue is with some of the points mentioned (I will be playing the devil’s advocate here).

1. A majority of independent members on all the bodies of the new regulator, with open and transparent appointments.
– My worry is that those appointments might not be as independent as we would like.

2. Public involvement in how the new Code of Practice will be framed.
– My worry is that this is one certain way to get loopholes placed and more of an issue is the delay that this public involvement brings. Delays the press would love to see going on and on and on.

I do agree that regulation should remain outside of the reach of politicians. Yet, adding regulations, even if it was a clear regulation to the conduct of the members of the press is needed. This is the part all media seem to be fighting, as they seem to prefer to remain footloose, fancy free and non-accountable. This is where I am no longer on their side (as the evidence over the last few has proved).

Yet, there is another side to journalism which I do not want to ignore. For every 500 half-baked phone mail chasers that call themselves ‘investigative jounalists’ there will be a real journalist like Paul Lewis or David Bergman (that group is larger than these two, but a lot smaller than most might realise). Here is the crux as they say. I would not want to hinder a journalist like David Bergman, or those hoping to step in his footsteps. Yet, the kind of ‘writers’ that many have been confronted with in the past, especially celebrities and victims of high profile cases there is one journalist that is there to dig into the shady sides of people, collecting specific information in whatever way they can to uncover the truth and the reality.

This reminds me of a scene in the West wing Season 2 episode ‘War Crimes’:
Will: “I don’t like being a stenographer. And I don’t like writing gossip. I read a column last week where a lady bemoaned the decade of scandals she’s had to cover, as if the news was to blame for the quality of journalism. I don’t know if there’s ever been a more important time to be good at what I do. Can you imagine how much I don’t give a damn about what Toby said to a staffer?“

It makes my point stronger then I could (it is Aaron Sorkin at his best). Too many Journalists are way too happy to cover gossip and get their stardom visibly shown in any way they can. The environment made them that way and it must change. I am still baffled by the issues, delays and opposition against the Leveson report. If anything, that report shows the weaknesses and also called for proper legislation and regulation to protect the privacy of people (without stopping the freedom of speech). Of course this is not what the press wants as they want to just do, post and publish whatever they like, especially when it is about ratings and circulation.

The only thing that is currently interesting is that at present politicians are trusted more than journalists are. Who would have ever thought that such a day would ever become a reality?