tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37969621335764844102024-03-13T22:07:26.667+00:00The Sun - Tabloid LiesAnalysing and exposing the many deceptions of The Sun newspaperTimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292436411579226284noreply@blogger.comBlogger342125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-47427631688892672362012-07-20T20:37:00.000+01:002012-07-20T20:37:15.933+01:00Batman casting is a riddle to the Sun<i>The Dark Knight Rises</i> opens in cinemas today.<br />
<br />
Some Sun readers may be slightly confused, however, by seeing Anne Hathaway playing Catwoman.<br />
<br />
Why? Because the Sun's <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2606745/Megan-Fox-has-signed-up-to-play-Catwoman-in-the-next-Batman-movie.html">Gordon Smart 'revealed' in January 2011</a> that Megan Fox had <i>'signed up to play Catwoman'</i>:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zWRcs8UFvzs/T_chjskvlUI/AAAAAAAADMg/l917t8Kkv54/s1600/Megan+Fox+has+signed+up+to+play+Catwoman+in+the+next+Batman+movie+-+The+Sun+-Showbiz-Bizarre.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zWRcs8UFvzs/T_chjskvlUI/AAAAAAAADMg/l917t8Kkv54/s400/Megan+Fox+has+signed+up+to+play+Catwoman+in+the+next+Batman+movie+-+The+Sun+-Showbiz-Bizarre.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Moreover, in a <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2048300/Beverly-Hills-Cop-star-Eddie-Murphy-has-been-signed-by-Christopher-Nolan-to-play-The-Riddler-in-new-Batman-movie-Gotham.html">'world exclusive' in December 2008</a> (in which they also noted Rachel Weisz was <i>'up for'</i> Catwoman), Smart and Jess Rogers also 'revealed':<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h49K_2qaGo0/T_cijbMkVrI/AAAAAAAADMo/n15GvwrEuhc/s1600/Beverly+Hills+Cop+star+Eddie+Murphy+has+been+signed+by+Christopher+Nolan+to+play+The+Riddler+in+new+Batman+movie+Gotham+-+The+Sun+-Showbiz-Bizarre.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h49K_2qaGo0/T_cijbMkVrI/AAAAAAAADMo/n15GvwrEuhc/s400/Beverly+Hills+Cop+star+Eddie+Murphy+has+been+signed+by+Christopher+Nolan+to+play+The+Riddler+in+new+Batman+movie+Gotham+-+The+Sun+-Showbiz-Bizarre.png" width="347" /></a></div>
<br />
The story says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>FUNNYMAN EDDIE MURPHY will play The Riddler in the next Batman movie, The Sun can reveal.<br /><br />The Beverly Hills Cop star, 47, has been signed up by British director CHRISTOPHER NOLAN...<br /><br />A film insider said...“Eddie’s a fantastic addition. Everyone’s excited to see what he does as the Riddler.” </i></blockquote>
<br />
'Everyone' will have to wait...MacGuffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16894506410560858668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-72589411196530623392012-05-28T23:58:00.002+01:002012-05-28T23:58:33.007+01:00'It's a lie'A Sun 'exclusive' by Ben Duffy reveals:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-E9xrPpTl-xc/T8JZzT21cFI/AAAAAAAACz8/f5xw9zSEdwY/s1600/davidbaddieldrugs.jpe" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="91" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-E9xrPpTl-xc/T8JZzT21cFI/AAAAAAAACz8/f5xw9zSEdwY/s400/davidbaddieldrugs.jpe" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/article4339333.ece">The article explains</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Comedian David Baddiel is to take Class A drugs live on telly as part of a scientific study for a new show. <br /><br />The Three Lions on a Shirt star will sample the substance MDMA, often known as “Mandy”, and then discuss how he is feeling.<br /><br />David,
47, and other celebs are taking part in the Channel 4 series Drug Live,
which aims to explore the effects MDMA has on the brain. </i></blockquote>
<br />
In response, <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/Baddiel/status/206332203020460032">Baddiel tweeted</a>:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NaNo2cs9k_w/T8JaQSuqUOI/AAAAAAAAC0E/RULqTo994rg/s1600/davidbaddieldrugstweet.jpe" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NaNo2cs9k_w/T8JaQSuqUOI/AAAAAAAAC0E/RULqTo994rg/s400/davidbaddieldrugstweet.jpe" width="400" /></a></div>MacGuffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16894506410560858668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-73471933580606952832012-02-13T09:14:00.004+00:002012-02-14T07:16:13.703+00:00Trevor Kavanagh cries 'police state' (with backing of the Culture Secretary)So after decades of implying if not assuming guilt on the basis of arrest if not suspicion alone (e.g. <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/2006/10/scum-watch-silence-is-deafening.html">Forest Gate</a>), The Sun have taken to defending... erm, themselves:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4124870/The-Suns-Trevor-Kavanagh-Witch-hunt-puts-us-behind-ex-Soviet-states-on-Press-freedom.html">'Witch-hunt has put us behind ex-Soviet states on Press freedom'; The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh on the biggest police operation in British criminal history</a><br /><br />And to prove his point, here's Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary of that supposed police state, playing lapdog for Murdoch (again) and pulling out all the stops to support this false prospectus, both <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4124941/Alert-over-threat-to-a-free-Press.html">in The Sun itself</a> and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/us-britain-newscorp-sun-idUSTRE81B0T420120213">in the wider media</a> that he claims is under a threat all of a sudden now his chums at the Downing Street Echo are subject to arrest.<br /><br />(Roll over. Play outraged. Good boy!)<br /><br />Earlier in the 'Hackgate' scandal, <a href="http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2011/07/page-3-police/">The Sun had their Page 3 girl deliver a special message to police</a>. Now it's Trevor Kavanagh's turn to be a massive tit for Murdoch. His <s>editorial</s> self-serving rant is repeated in full below. We post it here and invite comment because The Sun have decided to disallow comments on their version. For some reason.<br /><br /><blockquote><b><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4124870/The-Suns-Trevor-Kavanagh-Witch-hunt-puts-us-behind-ex-Soviet-states-on-Press-freedom.html">Witch-hunt has put us behind ex-Soviet states on Press freedom</a></b><br /><br /><b>The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh on the biggest police operation in British criminal history</b><br /><br />The Sun is not a "swamp" that needs draining.<br /><br />Nor are those other great News International titles, The Times and The Sunday Times.<br /><br />Yet in what would at any other time cause uproar in Parliament and among civil liberty and human rights campaigners, its journalists are being treated like members of an organised crime gang.<br /><br />They are subjects of the biggest police operation in British criminal history — bigger even than the Pan Am Lockerbie murder probe.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Major crime investigations are on hold as 171 police are drafted in to run three separate operations.</span><br /><br />In one raid, two officers revealed they had been pulled off an elite 11-man anti-terror squad trying to protect the Olympics from a mass suicide attack.<br /><br />Instead of being called in for questioning, 30 journalists have been needlessly dragged from their beds in dawn raids, arrested and held in police cells while their homes are ransacked.<br /><br /><p align="center"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Private</span></p><br /><br />Wives and children have been humiliated as up to 20 officers at a time rip up floorboards and sift through intimate possessions, love letters and entirely private documents.<br /><br />It is important that we do not jump to conclusions.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Nobody has been charged with any offence, still less tried or convicted.</span><br /><br />Yet all are now on open-ended police bail, their lives disrupted and their careers on hold and potentially ruined.<br /><br />Is it any surprise that Britain has dropped nine places to 28th, behind ex-Soviet bloc states Poland, Estonia and Slovakia, in the international Freedom of Speech league table?<br /><br />So when the police get matters so far out of proportion, we are entitled to ask: Who polices the police?<br /><br />Why should questions about police procedures be handled solely by the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is notoriously reluctant to rule against police?<br /><br />This inquiry has even begun to disturb those of our critics who have been at least partly responsible for what many see as a "witch-hunt".<br /><br />The Guardian has raised questions about freedom of the Press. Its media analyst, Steve Hewlett, says that when it comes to paying for stories, no newspaper — "tabloid or otherwise" — is exempt.<br /><br />Yet in a quite extraordinary assumption of power, police are able to impose conditions not unlike those applied to suspected terrorists.<br /><br />Under the draconian terms of police bail, many journalists are barred from speaking to each other. They are treated like threats to national security. And there is no end in sight to their ordeal.<br /><br />Their alleged crimes? To act as journalists have acted on all newspapers through the ages, unearthing stories that shape our lives, often obstructed by those who prefer to operate behind closed doors.<br /><br />These stories sometimes involve whistleblowers. Sometimes money changes hands. This has been standard procedure as long as newspapers have existed, here and abroad.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">There is nothing disreputable about it. And, as far as we know at this point, nothing illegal.</span><br /><br />Without good sources no newspaper could uncover scandals in the public interest.<br /><br />Certainly, the world would never have learned about the expenses scandal that landed so many politicians in jail.<br /><br />Which brings us to a sensitive domestic issue within the News International "family" which we cannot ignore.<br /><br /><p align="center"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Nabbed</span></p><br /><br />It is absolutely right the company co-operates with police on inquiries ranging from phone and computer hacking to illegal payments.<br /><br />We are right to hand over any evidence — emails, expense claims, memos — that might aid those inquiries.<br /><br />It is right that those inquiries are carried out separately from the journalists under investigation. Nobody on The Sun was aware in advance that ten colleagues were about to be nabbed.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">It is also important our parent company, News Corp, protects its reputation in the United States and the interests of its shareholders. But some of the greatest legends in Fleet Street have been held, at least on the basis of evidence so far revealed, for simply doing their jobs as journalists on behalf of the company.</span><br /><br />Meanwhile, a huge operation driven by politicians threatens the very foundations of a free Press.<br /><br />We have three separate police inquiries — Elveden, Weeting and Tuleta.<br /><br />There is a Parliamentary inquiry and of course the free-ranging Leveson Inquiry into newspaper practices.<br /><br />The field is open to almost anyone with a grievance to deliver their two cents' worth, even touching unrelated issues such as Page Three.<br /><br />The process, costing tens of millions of pounds, threatens to roll on for at least another year and probably two.<br /><br />Interestingly, nothing on this scale is envisaged for the banking industry which has brought the nation to the brink of bankruptcy.<br /><br />Before it is too late, should we not be asking where all this is likely to lead? Will we have a better Press?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Or a Press that has been bullied by politicians into delivering what they, not the readers, think fit?</span></blockquote><br /><br />-<br /><br />(Psst! In other news, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/07/sky-news-twitter-clampdown">that memo sent aorund by SKY News recently</a> looks almost prescient, doesn't it?)<br /><br />-<br /><br />UPDATE - Just a quick note about The Sun comparing their situation to the uncovering of the expenses scandal (to the point where some cynics might suspect they seek to associate themselves with same in the eyes of the weak/lazy-minded...<br /><br />The relevant source turned them down because they wanted to go soft on Cameron's Tories, and he did not think that appropriate. The Sun then acted in bad faith by publishing a story based on what was supposed to be a confidential authentication sample; they were clearly trying to cash in on the story before a real newspaper got to the evidence, and they did not care if their efforts derailed or undermined the publications of this evidence. With what little contact they did have with the expenses scandal, The Sun did not act in the public interest; they acted out of self-interest.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292436411579226284noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-86976366251882170022012-01-26T22:05:00.004+00:002012-01-27T00:48:21.765+00:00Louis Walsh and the "Walter Mitty" character.The Sun, like most of the rest of the press, <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4087198/6-months-for-Louis-Walsh-grope-lie.html">today notes the conviction of a certain Leonard Watters</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">A JOBLESS dance teacher has been sentenced to six months in jail for falsely accusing X Factor judge Louis Walsh of groping him in a nightclub.</span><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Leonard Watters, 24, admitted making two false reports to police that the music mogul sexually assaulted him in Dublin nightspot Krystle.</span><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Father-of-two Watters — described as a "Walter Mitty" character — has apologised to Walsh, 59.</span><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Lawyer Cahir O'Higgins told Dublin District Court Watters is now a laughing stock and has been treated as a pariah in his home town Navan, Co Meath.</span><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The court heard Watters is penniless after blowing £670,000 compensation he received for serious burns.</span><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">He was allowed bail pending an appeal against his sentence.</span></blockquote><br />Strangely, the Sun doesn't feel fit to mention that this "Walter Mitty" character, now being treated as a laughing stock and a pariah had his initial version of events most prominently promoted by... the Sun. Indeed, after the investigation against him was dropped, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/28/louis-walsh-sun-libel">Louis Walsh made clear that he was considering taking legal action</a> against the paper for splashing Watters' allegations all over the front page.<br /><br />His threat presumably resulted <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3665582/X-Factor-judge-Louis-Walsh-cleared-over-gay-sexual-assault-allegations.html">in this sort of clarification in the Sun the following day</a>. Gordon Smart took one for the team and wrote an award winning piece of arslikhan, making clear how Walsh is variously "one of the nicest blokes in showbiz", "one of the most friendly, decent and warm characters I have met in the music industry" and also that "he hasn't got a bad bone in his body — even after a big drink". Nonetheless, "[T]he Sun's duty is to report that news. It's our role to ask the difficult questions." <br /><br />This ought to have been something both Dominic Mohan and Smart could have been asked about at the Leveson inquiry, yet for some reason both were at best, <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/index.php?q=/2012/01/it-kept-it-on-front-page.html">very lightly grilled</a>. Still, plenty of time left for them to be recalled.septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-73841170220170998902011-10-31T21:11:00.002+00:002011-10-31T21:15:46.229+00:00A tabloid-friendly guide to the EU and ECHR<br />
While media watching, one thing you notice is a repeated confusion between the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union">European Union</a> (EU) and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Human_Rights">European Court of Human Rights</a> (ECtHR) (run by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe">Council of Europe</a>, CoE).<br />
<br />
This may be completely inadvertent, but the <a href="http://minority-thought.com/tags/euechr-confusion">Sun, Daily Mail and Express do make this mistake</a> on a regular basis, <a href="http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/search/label/europe">amongst other "errors"</a>.<br />
<br />
I thought I would help them out.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Supranational_European_Bodies">Wikipedia has</a> the following diagram showing how the jurisdiction of various European bodies overlaps*, as well as a few extra bits**:<br />
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Supranational_European_Bodies.png/640px-Supranational_European_Bodies.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Supranational_European_Bodies.png/640px-Supranational_European_Bodies.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
As you can see there is a clear overlap <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe#European_Union">between the EU and CoE/ECtHR</a> - in fact to join the EU you must be a member of the CoE/ECtHR - but it is clear that there is a significant difference between the two, even when simply looking at the members of each.<br />
<br />
The main difference is that one is more trade-related; one more co-operation related.<br />
<br />
The EU was set up in 1958 by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Six">various western European countries</a>, but not the UK (which created the European Free Trade Association in response), to help them trade with each other. In fact, the basic idea of the EU is to create an economic bloc between various countries via a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_European_Act">single internal market</a>.<br />
<br />
The CoE was set up in 1949 - by the UK among others - is more of an inter-governmental co-operation organisation, kind of like a Europe-only UN, with a specific focus on civil rights by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights">European Convention on Human Rights</a>, which the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Maxwell_Fyfe,_1st_Earl_of_Kilmuir">UK drafted</a>, and a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Pharmacopoeia">less obvious focus on pharmacology standards</a>.<br />
<br />
So while it can be seen that there are similarities between the two, there are obvious differences.<br />
<br />
Hopefully, the tabloids will read this and take note, especially as the <a href="http://euonym.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/the-european-court-of-human-rights-is-not-an-eu-institution/">EU has already attempted to point this out</a>, albeit without success.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">* There are a few bodies which aren't shown on the diagram, including the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_European_Free_Trade_Agreement">Central European Free Trade Agreement</a> (which will probably be swallowed up by the EU in the future given the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/countries/index_en.htm">EU's Candidates and Potential Candidates</a>), and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customs_Union_of_Belarus,_Kazakhstan_and_Russia">Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia</a> which is rarely mentioned in the UK.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">** The other items are the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Association">European Free Trade Association</a>; the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area">European Economic Area</a>; the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Customs_Union">EU Customs Zone</a>; and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area">Schengen Area</a>; as well as showing non-EU countries <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorran_euro_coins#Euro">countries</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monegasque_euro_coins">which have</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_euro_coins">agreements</a> to mint €s, but not those <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegro_and_the_euro">which decided</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_and_the_euro">to use it</a>, without reaching a formal agreement</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, due to historic reasons</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351343507770814926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-37897417724903186252011-10-10T11:00:00.002+01:002011-10-10T13:22:52.243+01:00The Second Annual Media-Watchery MeetupDo you fancy a pint?<br />
<br />
The gang behind <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com">The-Sun-Lies</a>, <a href="http://mailwatch.co.uk">Mailwatch</a>, <a href="http://expresswatch.co.uk">Expresswatch</a> and numerous other media watching blogs are having Their second annual Media Watch Meetup. The first one, held in August just gone was such a success they couldn't wait another twelve months so it's being held in a couple of weeks.<br />
<br />
Do come along for a drink or two and a chat about the papers, blogging or just to say hello. Best of all it's free (apart from the beer which you'll have to pay for yourself. We're not *that* nice). There's no entrance fee and you won't need to buy anyone a beer to gain access to any of our top bloggers and you can stay as long as you want or until the pub kicks us all out. You can just turn up or or go to the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=112063475569682">Facebook event page</a> and let us know to expect you.<br />
<br />
So, are you coming then?<br />
<br />
<blockquote>The <a href="http://www.monarchbar.com/" target="_blank">Monarch</a> pub, Chalk Farm Road, Camden (<a href="http://g.co/maps/9kux4" target="_blank">map</a>).<br />
Saturday 29th October<br />
3pm on</blockquote>Sim-Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05194980139358025245noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-89787298434987458622011-09-21T16:32:00.000+01:002011-09-21T16:32:16.157+01:00Sun corrects '£32 loaf of bread' story<a href="http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/2011/08/32-loaf-of-bread.html">On 19 and 20 July, several newspapers reported that the NHS was purchasing gluten-free bread for £32.27 per loaf.</a>
The Mail, Mirror, Express, Sun and Telegraph all carried the story. It
appeared that none of the journalists bothered to check the facts - if
they had, they would have found the cost for a single loaf was closer to
£2.82. <br />
<br />
To its credit, the Express ran its correction the day after it published the original.<br />
<br />
Yesterday - two months later - the Sun finally published its correction:<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<b><i>Price of coeliac loaf is £2.82</i></b><br />
<i>We reported on July 19 that the NHS paid £32.27 per loaf of
non-gluten bread, given on prescription to sufferers of coeliac disease.
In fact, the cost per loaf is around £2.82, £32 being for an average
prescription of several loaves. We are happy to make this clear. </i></blockquote>
<br />
At the time of writing, this does not appear on the Sun's website. The <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3702117/NHS-pays-3227-for-a-loaf-of-bread.html">original article</a> and the <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/3706857/The-Sun-Says.html">accompanying editorial</a>, are both still on there, however. Neither has had the correction added.<br />
<br />
The correction ran on page six of yesterday's paper whereas the original
article appeared on page nine. But compare the prominence of the
original:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-frhwszqXl_8/Tnn1oHcKuSI/AAAAAAAACPU/8mqAktKF4Fs/s1600/32breadoriginal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-frhwszqXl_8/Tnn1oHcKuSI/AAAAAAAACPU/8mqAktKF4Fs/s400/32breadoriginal.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
<br />
with the size of the correction:<br />
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Yes, it's the smallest headline and shortest article on that page. <br />
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Given that the story was proved to be wrong within a day of its
publication, it's not clear why it took the Sun two months to correct
it.<br />
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It's also unclear when the Mirror, Mail and Telegraph will correct their versions - all of which remain live.
MacGuffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16894506410560858668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-84214655618460474102011-09-09T13:45:00.004+01:002011-09-09T14:05:59.172+01:00What a difference 4 years makes...The Sun's editorial the day after the collapse of the court martial against six of the men accused of being involved in the abuse of Baha Mousa:<br /><br /><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></p><blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece">COMMON sense prevailed when two British soldiers were cleared of abusing Iraqi prisoners.</a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece">Major Michael Peebles and Warrant Officer Mark Davies served with courage and bravery in the most difficult conditions.</a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece">This ludicrous show trial, which has already seen four other soldiers cleared on the judge’s orders, has been a waste of time and money.</a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece">These men risked their lives in Iraq but were repaid by being hung out to dry.</a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece">Every aspect of investigating so-called crimes within the military needs to be re-examined.</a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece">Our servicemen and women</a><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article17113.ece"> deserve nothing less.</a></p></blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></p><br />Today's Sun editorial following <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/index.php?q=/2011/09/justice-at-long-last-for-baha-mousa.html">Sir William Gage's report into Baha Mousa's death</a>:<br /><br /><h2 class="padding-bottom-7" size="1.05em" style=" line-height: 1.05em;"> </h2><blockquote><h2 class="padding-bottom-7" style="font-size: 1.05em; line-height: 1.05em;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-style: italic;">NOTHING can excuse the savagery that led to the death of an innocent Iraqi prisoner at the hands of British squaddies. </span></a></h2><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> As David Cameron says, it was shocking and appalling. And it must never happen again. </a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> There are vital lessons for the Army over the scandal of hotel worker Baha Mousa, who died of 93 injuries inflicted by brutal captors in a detention centre. </a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> The Sun's security expert, Andy McNab, points out that squaddies on active service are pumped up and highly aggressive. In war, their lives depend on it. </a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> Responsibility for channelling that aggression, and enforcing rules on treating prisoners, falls to senior commanders and top brass at the Defence Ministry. </a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> Yesterday's public inquiry report condemned a shameful failure of leadership. It also hit out at the conspiracy of silence over the killing of Mr Mousa. </a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> Defence Secretary Liam Fox must act decisively with sackings — although he is right to insist that firm interrogation techniques remain an option. </a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> Most Service personnel are fine men and women doing a tough job. </a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> Yesterday the latest soldier to die in Afghanistan was brought home, a tragic reminder of the perils our brave troops face daily. </a></p><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span></a><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> A handful of bad apples must not be allowed to tarnish the whole Army.</a></p></blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </p><br />Whatever happened to common sense? And perhaps the Sun can also elaborate on whom outside the military contributed to the "conspiracy of silence" following the "savage" treatment meted out to Baha Mousa. After all, a handful of bad apples must not be allowed to tarnish the whole of the British media.septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-83143596471334523492011-08-05T12:08:00.001+01:002011-08-05T12:08:57.755+01:00Media Watch Meet-upA small group of liberal elitists behind <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/">The Sun: Tabloid Lies</a>, <a href="http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/">Mail Watch</a>, <a href="http://expresswatch.co.uk/">Express Watch</a> and other personal attacks on common sense and decency will be meeting for a London-centric Chardonnay-quaffing* session at The Monarch in Camden at 2:30pm on Saturday 6th August, 2011.<br /><br />Members of the public are invited to attend, provided they are not operating under the constraints of an imaginary legal device.<br /><br />Those attending may be exposed to furtive whispers about media standards as a spectacle, media-watching as a sport, and other aspects of the vast left wing conspiracy to impose accuracy and accountability on a self-regulated system that's doing just fine without our incessant meddling.<br /><br />[*There may be some drinking of popular colas and lager beer, purely for the sake of appearances, should a photo opportunity arise. PS - bring a camera.]<br /><br /><blockquote>Media Watch Meet-up<br /><br />2:30pm<br />Saturday<br />6th August 2011<br />The Monarch in Camden:<br />http://www.monarchbar.com/contact/<br /><br />Bags will be searched for pie.</blockquote>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292436411579226284noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-11086631809194949982011-06-09T23:59:00.000+01:002011-06-10T02:33:28.484+01:00The libelling of Sylvia Henry.For those of you who want to cast your minds back to the deeply depressing days of late 2008 and the furore following the conviction of the three individuals <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/index.php?q=/search/label/Baby%20P">found guilty of causing</a> <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/search/label/Baby%20P">the death of Peter Connelly</a>, you might remember that shortly afterwards the then Sun editor Rebekah Brooks <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/2009/01/night-to-dismember.html">gave the Hugh Cudlipp lecture</a>, in which she defended her paper's "campaign for justice". <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42927&c=1">She certainly had no regrets</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Campaigns provide a unique connection to the public especially when the subject matter is of a serious nature. For me, nothing can illustrate this connection better than our recent Baby P campaign.<br /><br />The public outcry was deafening. And we began our fight for justice with a determination to expose the lack of accountability and responsibility for Baby P’s brutal death.<br /><br />...<br /><br />We received many many thousands of letters at The Sun about our Baby P coverage.<br /><br />I’d like to read you one: ‘I have never been a huge fan of The Sun, however I thank you for the coverage of Baby P. I am so grateful for the campaign. This is not a modern day witch-hunt but a petition for justice. Please, please do not relent.'<br /><br />In contrast, I’d like to quote from an article in... The Guardian.<br /><br />“Full of fury and repellent hysteria, but isn’t that part of the game? This is less about the creation of public emotion and more about its manipulation."<br /><br />This knee-jerk tabloid kicking reaction is just dull.<br /><br />But total disregard and respect for public opinion never ceases to amaze me.<br /><br />They demanded accountability.<br /><br />And as a result of the campaign, some, just some, of those responsible were removed from office without compensation.<br /><br />Or as this Sun reader wrote: ‘The tabloid press, which the arty-farty press like to look down on so much, has shown that it prides morality over political correctness.’</span></span></blockquote><br />Brooks is now spending most of her time as chief executive of News International trying desperately to contain the ever growing phone-hacking scandal, having first claimed with a straight face <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/index.php?q=/2011/04/they-lied-and-lied-and-lied.html">that it was all lies</a> and that the Guardian had likely deliberately misled the British public. Even then though her approving quoting of a reader who described her campaign as "morality over political correctness" was questionable: she knew full well that her determination to target not those genuinely responsible for Peter Connelly's death, who couldn't at the time be named, but instead the social workers at the centre of the case <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2008/12/really-unpleasant-story.html">had led to two of them becoming suicidal</a>. Her paper's website had allowed <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/index.php?q=/2008/11/war-on-personal-freedom-baby-p-and.html">readers to leave comments encouraging Maria Ward to take their own life</a>, such was the hatred the paper was well aware it was helping to whip up.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/09/the-sun-social-worker-baby-p-story">Today in the High Court</a> the Sun had to admit that its targeting of Sylvia Henry, one of the Haringey social workers who had worked on Connelly's case, was based on completely inaccurate information. Henry was one of the five individuals the paper demanded be immediately sacked for having failed to prevent Connelly's death. The paper's campaign continued even after the <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/2008/11/fallout-in-baby-p-cases-continues.html">BBC's Panorama had disclosed</a> <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7732193.stm">that Henry had wanted Connelly</a> taken into care in 2006, following his admission to hospital with what she suspected was non-accidental injuries. She was overruled, and had no further role in Connelly's case after that point.<br /><br />The paper however was absolutely certain of her culpability. In around 80 separate pieces over four months she was described as "grossly negligent", "shameless", to "blame for his appalling abuse and death", "lazy" and that she had "generally shown an uncaring disregard for the safety of children, even in cases where they obviously required urgent protection". It really doesn't get any more potentially libellous but the paper couldn't have cared in the slightest, not only of the damage to Henry's reputation, but also of the potential danger their vituperative articles posed to her personally: <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2009/02/reality-of-hate-campaign.html">both Sharon Shoesmith and Maria Ward received death threats</a>, with Shoesmith advised to avoid tube stations in case someone recognised her and pushed her under a train.<br /><br />For once, <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3629756/Sylvia-Henry-An-apology.html">the paper's apology is about right</a>, both in length, its clarity and hopefully also in prominence, although it will be interesting to see where it appears in tomorrow's paper. She should never have had to pursue such a lengthy libel action though: if the Sun had bothered to investigate the case anything approaching properly in the first place they would have found, like Panorama, that she had worked conscientiously and with Connelly's best interests at heart throughout. Instead it was far too concerned with painting a picture of Haringey as a whole as out of touch and unaccountable. As the paper's leader had it at the time, <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2008/11/price-to-be-paid-for-his-little-life.html">"a price must be paid for his little life"</a>. That price could well have been paid in blood. Morality never even began to enter into it.septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-42089356270678524872011-05-12T01:54:00.001+01:002011-05-14T13:31:00.749+01:00Has there ever been a more pathetic newspaper than the Sun?Today's Sun editorial asks a rhetorical question (temporary link, leader in full follows at the end of the post*):<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>HAS there ever been a sleazier sporting organisation than FIFA?</blockquote></span></a><br />If there has, then the Sun couldn't have possibly been as conflicted about them as it has FIFA. This happening upon the iniquities of world football's laughably corrupt governing body suddenly came to the paper <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/?q=/2010/12/that-strange-feeling-of-deja-vu.html">the day after England's bid for 2018 World Cup was rejected</a>, the rattle being thrown out of the pram in a fit of petulance not even the stroppiest of teenagers would sink to. <a href="http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2010/Dec/Week1/15845514.jpg">FIFA BUNGS RUSSIA THE WORLD CUP</a> it screamed, deciding that it had to have been backhanders and not our dire campaign which resulted in the pitiful 2 votes we picked up.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mXhvuc2B3Mw/Tcs3cG2ViQI/AAAAAAAAAMM/WArmQh32ZCA/s1600/15843606.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 248px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mXhvuc2B3Mw/Tcs3cG2ViQI/AAAAAAAAAMM/WArmQh32ZCA/s320/15843606.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605635117207095554" border="0" /></a><br />It was oh so different only a couple of days earlier. <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2010/11/sun-misleads-over-bbc-panorama-and.html">First the paper attacked the BBC</a> for daring to broadcast a Panorama special on FIFA's easily bribed insiders, misrepresenting the documentary as not containing any new allegations of wrongdoing when the opposite was the case, the editorial being doubly hypocritical for referring to an investigation by its sister paper, the Sunday Times, which went over highly similar ground as a "legitimate inquiry". The following day it led with a truly pathetic "open letter", all but begging FIFA to ignore the BBC's traitorous outbursts and instead back England's bid. "Your brilliant tournament" it grovelled, tongue wedged firmly up Sepp Blatter's backside, Britain's supposedly most trenchant anti-establishment, irreverent and outspoken scandal sheet reduced to genuflecting before the sleaziest sporting organisation ever to have existed.<br /><br />As is traditional, the editorial finishes with a flourish:<br /><br /><p> </p><blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Who needs FIFA anyway? </span></p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Our Premier League is the world's greatest football competition. </p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> So long as FIFA is in charge, the World Cup will not be worth winning. </p></blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></p><br />The Sun will doubtless then put no pressure whatsoever on the England team come 2014, nor will it hype up our chances for months beforehand. Who knows, now that the daily paper of record has said it's not worth winning, we might just triumph.<br /><br />*<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">HAS there ever been a sleazier sporting organisation than FIFA? </span> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> If the World Cup can only be hosted through bribery and corruption, England are well out of it. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Ex-FA chairman Lord Triesman reveals the favours he says FIFA executive members demanded for backing England's 2018 bid. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> One wanted a knighthood. Another, vice president Jack Warner, allegedly sought £2.5million for a schools project - with the cash channelled through his own pockets. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> A third asked for lucrative TV rights, while a fourth demanded: What have you got for me? </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> MPs investigating why England's bid failed also have evidence another two chiefs took bungs for backing Qatar's successful 2022 bid. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Two more FIFA bosses have already been banned, meaning a third of FIFA's top team is implicated. Yet FIFA president Sepp Blatter sees no need to quit. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> As sport secretary Jeremy Hunt says, these allegations if proved should prompt a criminal investigation. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Who needs FIFA anyway? </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Our Premier League is the world's greatest football competition. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> So long as FIFA is in charge, the World Cup will not be worth winning. </p></blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></p>septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-56717033736496615032011-05-05T23:48:00.005+01:002023-06-07T17:29:41.573+01:00The Sun still thinks you're stupid.There's a piece in the Sun today <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3563875/New-Osama-urges-UK-terror-blitz-in-email-to-undercover-Sun-investigator.html">touchingly described as a "sting" on the Yemen-based associate of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_Al-Alwaki">Anwar al-Awlaki</a>. It's a strange sting, not only because there is no evidence whatsoever that Anwar al-Awlaki was involved with it, despite the Sun's claims, but also because it imagines the paper's own readers are stupid enough to confuse the group with Awlaki.<br /><br />As the Sun's "chief investigative reporter" Simon Hughes explains:<br /><br /><p style="font-weight: bold;"> <span style="font-style: italic;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">FIRST, we obtained an email address for Awlaki's Yemen-based "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" network hidden in material on an extremist website. </span></p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> THEN our investigator, posing as a UK-based fanatic named "Q. Khan," sent an email addressed personally to Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki. FINALLY, we received a reply from the terror chief - convinced he was in contact with the leader of a British cell eager to obey his commands. </p></blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></p><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-68uUvAON5mY/TcM4cIh0LvI/AAAAAAAAAME/5dfq-MH_UQw/s1600/alwaki.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 201px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-68uUvAON5mY/TcM4cIh0LvI/AAAAAAAAAME/5dfq-MH_UQw/s320/alwaki.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603384417355837170" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I too have managed to obtain the email address the Sun used, cunningly hidden as it was on the penultimate page of <a href="http://occident.blogspot.com/2011/03/inspire-issue-5-released-by-al-qaida-in.html">the latest edition of Inspire magazine</a>, a periodical published by the propaganda wing of AQAP, al-Malahem media. While the magazine does indeed print two articles by Awlaki, along with translations of communiques from other al-Qaida high-ups, the magazine itself claims to be edited by someone called Yahya Ibrahim; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspire_magazine">others have said</a> the magazine's actual editor is Samir Khan, a former blogger who moved to Yemen a few years back, and who also contributes a comment piece.<br /><br />Is it then even slightly realistic to imagine that by emailing an address in a jihadi publication you're likely to be straight in touch with someone as senior as al-Awlaki? Hardly. While Awlaki previously <a href="http://www.anwar-alawlaki.com/">managed to maintain a blog</a>, this was shut down shortly after the Fort Hood shootings. More recently, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39962939/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa">a judge in Yemen has called for him to be captured dead or alive</a>, and Barack Obama <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7564581/Barack-Obama-orders-killing-of-US-cleric-Anwar-al-Awlaki.html">has also authorised his targeted killing</a>. As was shown with the death of bin Laden at the weekend, when you're in such a position, having direct contact to the internet or even a phone line is potential suicide. <a href="http://www.jihadica.com/un-inspired/">jihadica.com has also been sceptical</a> <a href="http://www.jihadica.com/inspire-2/">about the magazine's actual links to AQAP</a>, even though it claims to be produced by their media arm.<br /><br />It's possible that those the Sun did contact may have asked al-Awlaki as to his response to their "sting", but if they did then they hardly make this clear: they simply signed their message as "your brothers at al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula". Their advice also was hardly specific, apart from how they should conduct their operation, and as they say, they shouldn't really contact them again as it might well result in their plot coming to the attention of the authorities. This isn't to play down the fact that the Sun has at least got in contact with someone connected with the Inspire magazine and that they've suggested what their next step could be in launching an attack: that's still a serious thing. That though isn't a good enough story, or worth clearing the front page for; it had to be al-Awlaki himself, even when it's instantly apparent they almost certainly weren't talking to him.<br /><br />And just in case you have your doubts, who should pop up at the end of the article than a former acquittance of ours:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Tory MP Patrick Mercer said of our probe: "I have no doubt the Home Office will want to investigate how simple it is to get in touch with Awlaki and his people. </span><p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> "He is a leading contender to fill the power vacuum left by Osama Bin Laden."</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span> </p><br />Yes, that would be the same Patrick Mercer who previously contributed to such investigative triumphs in the Sun as the <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2009/09/well-thats-that-then.html">"TERROR TARGET SUGAR" masterpiece</a>, and also told the paper that the <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2010/06/are-there-no-depths-to-which-these.html">Taliban were making "HIV bombs"</a>. The ISAF response when asked about these deadly devices was "no reports, no intel, nothing". Sums up the Sun and Mercer's critical faculties fairly well.septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-48544363495955638352011-02-28T23:31:00.006+00:002011-02-28T23:47:03.297+00:00Did "Labour double kids on the sick"?<a href="http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/02/dwp-war-on-benefit-claimants/">The Left Foot Forward blog</a> has performed a masterly take down on the Sun's incredibly misleading <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3436859/Labour-doubled-kids-on-the-sick.html">"Labour doubled kids on the sick"</a> article from today. It comments on the headline:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">A misleading conflation of Disability Living Allowance, which is not an out-of-work benefit, with Incapacity Benefit/Employment Support Allowance: less than half of young DLA claimants receive IB or ESA.</span></blockquote><br />And goes on to present the actual data so you can judge for yourself whether the rise in the numbers claiming since 1997 has been justified or not on the basis of the conditions those receiving the benefit have. It concludes with:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">There is a line between selective presentation of data which makes the case for a particular policy, which is legitimate, and suppressing details in order to encourage gross misinterpretation of the evidence, which isn’t. </span><strong style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Today’s Sun story is on the wrong side of that line.</strong></blockquote><br />The Sun also commented on the story in its leader, presented below in full as the paper's editorials are not archived:<br /><br /><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </p><blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">DID Britain's young people get sicker under Labour? </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </p><div style="font-style: italic;" class="float-right padding-left-10 width-300 padding-bottom-10 padding-top-10"> <div class="grey-ad-line width-300 position-relative"> <p class="small bg-fff text-center position-relative advertising">Advertisement</p> </div> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Of course not. But the number of 18 to 24-year-olds on Disability Living Allowance DID explode, from 61,000 in 1997 to 142,000 now. </span></div> <p></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Labour encouraged people to claim a handout for ailments as slight as an allergy. The bill is now an incredible £12billion a year - equal to Britain's entire transport budget. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> No wonder the Coalition wants urgent health assessments. This has to end. </p></blockquote>septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-77855921359061425022011-02-27T13:18:00.004+00:002011-02-27T13:47:29.823+00:00Olly Mann on Page 3What Olly Mann claims about Page 3 in <a href="http://answermethis.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/episode168/">this podcast</a> (starting 00:21:25) is pretty much what most informed people suspect, and the contempt for the 'girls' adds to the air of authenticity:<br /><br /><blockquote>"I've asked my source at <span style="font-style:italic;">News International</span> [with regard to the 'News in Briefs' editorials on Page 3 in <span style="font-style:italic;">The Sun</span>]... and my source says the deputy editor who's in charge of Page 3 decides the topic and then one of the subs writes it. The girls have nothing whatsoever to do with it, because apart from the one with a degree*, they're as daft they look." - Olly Mann (Source: <a href="http://answermethis.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/episode168/">Answer Me This podcast, Ep 168, February 24, 2011</a> - relevant audio starting 00:21:25)</blockquote><br /><br />The editorial staff at <span style="font-style:italic;">The Sun</span> have gone through long periods of pretending that <a href="http://www.bloggerheads.com/page-3/">editorials on Page 3</a> are a harmless joke, <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2011/02/hollie-22-and-topless-gives-her-view-on.html">but they cannot do this without dismissing their own politics as a joke</a>.<br /><br />If there must be editorial content on Page 3, <a href="http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2009/11/page_3_propaganda/">then it should be clearly labelled as opinion (not news) and it should always be the heartfelt, unprompted opinion of the model in question</a>.<br /><br />Anything less is a lie to readers that exploits these women in the worst possible way.<br /><br />If Page 3 is their platform, where is their voice?<br /><br />(*Psst! 'The one with a degree' is Sam Cooke, <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2009/11/sam-cooke-and-your-chance-to-discuss.html">and her editorials raise similar questions</a>. A 'models are dumb' argument on Page 3 is a needless detour ending in a shallow cul-de-sac.)Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292436411579226284noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-6488205870592336302011-02-23T11:34:00.006+00:002011-02-23T12:17:49.254+00:00The Case of the Disappearing News StoriesSimon at <a href="http://xrrf.blogspot.com/">No Rock and Roll Fun</a> has spotted <a href="http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2011/02/gordon-in-morning-not-o-kai.html">The Sun trying to cover their tracks</a> and avoid hypocrasy with regards to publishing photos of Kai Rooney in light of the attempted blackmail of Wayne and Colleen...<br /><br /><blockquote>The Sun is full of sympathy:<br /><br />Frantic Coleen called the venue from their home in Prestbury, Cheshire, but the camera could not be found. Someone tried to sell the photos to media outlets, who turned them down.<br />[...]<br />A Rooneys spokesman said: "Wayne and Coleen take their son's privacy very seriously."<br />The paper even takes care to pixelate the face of the small child in a photo used to illustrate the story.<br /><br />What do you mean, is there a whiff of hypocrisy here? Why, no, for The Sun has never run photos of the child unpixelated. Why, even if you thought they might have done, someone has quietly removed all the pages from the archive where, for example, they might have published a curiously-obtained photo of Kai visiting Father Christmas. Sure, the URL - http://cma.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3265032/Wayne-and-Coleen-Rooneys-son-Kai-visits-Santas-Grotto.html - still exists, but there's nothing on the page.<br /><br />Nobody can point a finger.</blockquote><br /><br />...unless you do a <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/search/searchAction.do?query=kai&view=internal&pubName=sol&submit=+Search+">search for 'kai'</a> that is.<br /><br />(If/when the items are removed from the Suns' search index, Simon has a screeshot at his post.)Sim-Ohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05194980139358025245noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-23915046514399517192011-02-09T07:50:00.008+00:002012-02-18T09:42:11.537+00:00Hollie, 22 and topless, gives 'her view' on human rights<span style="font-style:italic;">The Sun</span> have for the past year or more been going through an extended period of nonsensical self-mockery on Page 3, having the topless ladies quote poets, philosophers and what have you <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2011/02/olly-mann-on-page-3.html">as if the whole matter of Page 3 propaganda has been some harmless joke</a>.<br /><br />Sorry, but no. Here's what appeared on Monday.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_OzH66ezQ-VM/TVJKztaH8qI/AAAAAAAAALY/r4TPqYDLYAw/s1600/sun-human-rights.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_OzH66ezQ-VM/TVJKztaH8qI/AAAAAAAAALY/r4TPqYDLYAw/s400/sun-human-rights.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571597941233676962" /></a><br /><br />If we take <span style="font-style:italic;">The Sun</span> at their word when they say that Page 3 is about empowerment, then unless we are to accept that this tabloid's long-standing hostility against the Human Rights Act has been a harmless joke, we must conclude that this is the topless model's own opinion, and she has chosen to use her appearance on Page 3 to express it sincerely. So let's have her appear on <span style="font-style:italic;">Newsnight</span> to defend it.<br /><br />I bet she can't. I bet, at best, she'll walk in briefed by editors but unable to think on her feet, because these aren't her thoughts.<br /><br />If the women on Page 3 are to appear beside an editorial that's written in their name, <a href="http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2009/11/page_3_propaganda/">then it should be written by them and based on their own opinion</a>. Anything less is crass exploitation, even if they don't show their tits in the process.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292436411579226284noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-90889971857851477832011-01-20T22:15:00.003+00:002011-01-20T22:49:59.250+00:00Just imagine...There are some subjects on which the Murdoch press is on incredibly shaky ground. For some reason known only to Dominic Mohan, the Sun's editor, he's decided to dedicate an editorial to exactly one of those topics:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Taxing times</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">CONGRATULATIONS to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. They hope to recover up to £3billion from tax dodging accounts over the next five years. And that's JUST from tiny Liechtenstein.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Just imagine how much they would net if they managed to claw back ALL the money stashed in illegal accounts around the world.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">It would be enough to pay off a big part of the debt that is making life tough for almost everyone.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Yesterday's jobless figures, showing the total soaring 49,000 to 2.5million were causing "huge concern".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">So with bankers sticking two fingers up to the rest of us again over massive bonuses, it's hardly surprising that - for once - we are all cheering the taxman. </span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><br />Yes, just imagine! The leader does rather hedge its bets: it talks of both tax dodging accounts and illegal accounts. While outright tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance itself is not. Tax avoidance is something News Corporation, the Sun's parent company has in the past been incredibly proficient at: from around 1988 to 1999 Rupert Murdoch's main British holding company <a href="http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/08/tax-dodging-helps-murdoch-buy-the-journal/">paid no net corporation tax</a>, saving a total sum of around £350 million. Were Murdoch to be generous and magnanimous enough in this country's hour of need to turn over a similar amount, it would at the least ensure that some of the harshest cuts being made, such as the withdrawal of the education maintenance allowance, could be either curtailed or dropped entirely. After all, we are - for once - cheering the taxman!septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-7509592956392483872011-01-07T02:48:00.002+00:002011-01-07T02:52:24.111+00:00The appalling irresponsibility of EastEnders.You may well have to forgive me for thinking there's something ever so slightly redundant about complaining over the sensationalist and unrealistic nature of soap opera storylines (especially considering a good part of this blog is regularly given over to doing something similar when it comes to tabloid newspapers, and indeed as this post is also going to). It's rather like whining about quiz shows for containing questions, moaning that Noel Edmonds pretends there's something more than pure luck to Deal or No Deal or being surprised when Live at the Apollo isn't funny.<br /><br />It therefore doesn't really strike me as especially beyond the pale, insensitive or going too far for EastEnders to have a character's baby die of cot death and in a moment of grief stricken madness <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12126454">for her to swap it with a friend's perfectly healthy child</a>. If anything, it seems in remarkably good taste compared to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmerdale_plane_crash">Emmerdale's infamous plane crash storyline</a>, coming as it did close to the fifth anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing, and certainly no less plausible than Coronation Street marking its 50th anniversary with the the celebratory plot of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_Street:_50th_anniversary_live_episode">a gas explosion causing a tram crash</a>. This is to say nothing of Neighbours having characters <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Bishop#1996.E2.80.932009">apparently return from the grave</a>, or Crossroads finish its short-lived revival with the revelation that the entire series had been the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2943502.stm">dream of a supermarket checkout assistant</a>. It's true that EastEnders has unlike the other soaps somewhat tried in the past to deliver hard-hitting plotlines while giving over time to the social issues behind them, and tried to at least keep the notion of realism involved, <a href="http://mymarilyn.blogspot.com/2011/01/eastenders-cot-death-too-much-too-crass.html">even if not narrative realism as Claude argues</a>, and this latest development goes somewhat against that, yet it still doesn't seem any more outlandish or offensive <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/25/bbc.television1">than the burying alive of Max Branning</a>, which Ofcom decided was inappropriately shown before the watershed.<br /><br />Where it starts to get even more ridiculous is when newspapers use editorial space* to attack broadcasters as a whole for even considering using such "warped sensationalism" as "entertainment". Already in the past year we've seen the Sun condemn the BBC for the perceived <a href="http://uk.wrs.yahoo.com/_ylt=A1f4cfnifSZNbEgB7cpLBQx.;_ylu=X3oDMTByNGxmazk4BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2lyZAR2dGlkAw--/SIG=130143gg4/EXP=1294454626/**http%3a//www.septicisle.info/2010/03/scum-watch-anti-conservative-bias-of.html">anti-Conservative bias of Basil Brush</a>; now the paper has taken up the complaints of <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3331289/EastEnders-lost-plot-with-cot-death-baby-swap.html">Anne Diamond</a> and the apparently <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/06/mumsnet-eastenders-cot-death">permanently indignant whingers at Mumsnet</a> by calling the EastEnders storyline an "appalling misjudgement" when it could have tackled the subject "responsibly". Whether the paper was always going to strike out at the corporation over the subject regardless of being leaked the news that the actor <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/soaps/3333423/Samantha-Womack-quits-EastEnders-over-cot-death.html">portraying the character who lost her baby is leaving the show is impossible to know</a>, but it hardly helps the paper's credibility that despite claiming she was leaving as a direct result of the storyline, her agent has since made clear that in fact the decision had been made months ago. Not such a "huge embarrassment" to the corporation then as the paper's editorial had so confidently stated.<br /><br />The Sun taking almost any opportunity to criticise the BBC is hardly a new development. It does though really start to enter into the realms of abject hypocrisy when only last week the paper <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2010/12/apology-for-al-qaeda-corrie-threat-lie.html">had to apologise for claiming that there was a specific al-Qaida threat</a> against the filming of Coronation Street's live episode, despite Greater Manchester police making clear at the time that they were only involved in policing the perimeter of the set at the request of Granada, with the officers involved being paid by the production company for the time spent away from their normal duties. If anything smacks of warped sensationalism, such a ridiculous and potentially damaging story does; it hardly comes across as responsible either. While the paper had no problems finding the space to feature criticism of the BBC, it strangely didn't mention the controversy <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/index.php?q=/2010/12/frankie-boyle-and-channel-4-are.html">featured in other papers concerning Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights on Channel 4</a>, something which doubtless has absolutely nothing to do with the man himself penning a column for none other than Sun rather than the paper deciding that it was a non-story.<br /><br />Still, now that the storylines of fictional dramas are considered to be worthy of comment in the leader column of the paper's biggest selling newspaper, we can no doubt rely on the fact that the Sun will be giving the plots of the programmes on the new Sky Atlantic a similarly critical once over. It would certainly make a change to the company being plugged endlessly in every other section.<br /><br />*As the Sun's editorials are not properly archived on the paper's website, the leader column in full can be read below:<br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">COT death is a nightmare that haunts every parent of a new baby.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">So who at the BBC imagined sensationalising such a heartbreaking theme would make good "entertainment"?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">We are used to EastEnders being grim. It was no surprise that a particularly depressing episode was lined up for New Year's Eve.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">But this time, the level of outrage proves the show went too far.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Actress Samantha Womack did her best to play tragic mum Ronnie Branning with sensitivity as she switched her dead baby for the infant son of Kat and Alfie Moon.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">But, as The Sun reveals, Samantha was so distressed by the storyline she handed in her notice after seeing the script and will leave in May.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The actress made it clear she thought the plot was a mistake and would cause a backlash. But bosses ignored her.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Her resignation is a huge embarrassment to the BBC.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">As broadcaster Anne Diamond, who lost her baby son to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, said, not even cot death was dramatic enough for EastEnders. It had to go one better with the ludicrous baby swap.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Campaigners like Anne have helped reduce the cot death toll from 2,000 a year to 300.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">EastEnders could have helped that campaign by tackling the subject responsibly.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Reducing it to warped sensationalism was an appalling misjudgment. </span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span>septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-48701506339156864472010-12-30T11:25:00.009+00:002010-12-30T21:44:15.310+00:00Apology for 'Al-Qaeda Corrie threat' lieOn 9 December, the Sun claimed that a live episode of <span style="font-style: italic;">Coronation Street</span> to be broadcast later that day was subject to a threat from Al-Qaeda:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Jn-LeUC-BnU/TRxuOja4XmI/AAAAAAAABrQ/bScLLt2TrIE/s1600/101209sun.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 251px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Jn-LeUC-BnU/TRxuOja4XmI/AAAAAAAABrQ/bScLLt2TrIE/s320/101209sun.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556437236573560418" border="0" /></a>The paper said:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Cops are throwing a ring of steel around tonight's live episode of Coronation Street over fears it has been targeted by AL-QAEDA.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />They were tipped off that the ITV1 soap's historic 50th anniversary broadcast from Manchester could be hit by a terror strike. </span></blockquote><br />The article (an 'exclusive') went on to include several suspiciously vague quotes from suspiciously anonymous sources. It just didn't sound right. Nothing in the story convincingly backed up the 'Al-Qaeda threat' claim.<br /><br />And within hours of the paper hitting the shelves, Supt. Jim Liggett of Greater Manchester Police confirmed the story was complete rubbish:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">"I want to clarify that we have categorically not been made aware of any threat from Al-Qaeda or any other proscribed organisation.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"Quite simply, Granada approached GMP to inform us they were employing a private security firm to help ensure tonight's live programme went ahead without outside interference.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"As part of their operation they asked for police assistance and we agreed to deploy a very small number of officers and PCSOs to help patrol the set's perimeter fence.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"This small police operation will be paid for by Granada and will not cost taxpayers a extra penny.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"To reiterate there is no specific intelligence threat to Coronation Street or any such event. However, the UK threat level remains at severe and people are encouraged to be vigilant." </span></blockquote><br />Inevitably, the episode went by without being disrupted by Al-Qaeda or anyone else, as many hours of live television do every day.<br /><br />So it was unsurprising to see the <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3320002/Coronation-Street.html">Sun publish an apology</a> for the story on 28 December:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Further to our article about increased security at Coronation Street's studios for their live 50th anniversary episode (December 9), we would like to make clear that while cast and crew were subject to full body searches, there was no specific threat from Al-Qaeda as we reported. We apologise for the misunderstanding and are happy to set the record straight. </span></blockquote><br />Those two sentences appeared on page two. Given the prominence of the original, surely they should have appeared on the front page?<br /><br />(The above combines two posts from <a href="http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/">Tabloid Watch</a>)MacGuffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16894506410560858668noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-78790578224341319532010-12-21T23:04:00.003+00:002010-12-21T23:16:33.283+00:00Do Sun journalists tell lies?Does the left hand know what the right hand's doing at the Sun? You have to ask based on today's incredibly familiar editorial attacking the same old "Leftie union dinosaurs" it's been fulminating against for over 20 years:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </p><blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece">UNION brothers nibble mince pies at No10 with David Cameron. </a> </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </p><div style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" class="float-right padding-left-10 width-300 padding-bottom-10 padding-top-10"> <div class="grey-ad-line width-300 position-relative"> <p class="small bg-fff text-center position-relative advertising">Advertisement</p> </div> <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece">The PM wants to defuse tensions over spending cuts. Asking the TUC round was a friendly, constructive step. </a></div> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> But some union barons are hell bent on trouble. Rabid Leftie Len McCluskey, new boss of Unite, calls for war against the Government. </a></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> He orders union members to "prepare for battle" and praises "magnificent" student demonstrators who brought mayhem to London. </a></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> The Sun does not believe sensible Unite members want sickening violence and vandalism of the sort we have recently seen. </a></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"> Will Labour's Red Ed Miliband personally slap down Unite's Red Len McCluskey? </a></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece">Do turkeys vote for Christmas?</a> </p></blockquote><br />If the leader writer had bothered to read the paper's own article on the meeting, they would have already known the answer:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3311003/David-Camerons-mince-pies-with-unions.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Labour leader Ed Miliband has already distanced himself from Mr McCluskey's "battle" remarks. </span></a></blockquote><br />And if that doesn't count as "personally slapping down" McCluskey, then the actual statement from Miliband's spokesman should make clear that was exactly what he intends to do:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><a href="http://www.nextleft.org/2010/12/len-is-too-red-for-ed-fact-check.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ed warned about using overblown rhetoric about strikes in his conference speech and this is a case in point. The language and tone of Len McCluskey’s comments are wrong and unhelpful and Ed Miliband will be making that clear when he meets him in the near future.</span></a></blockquote><br />Still, why bother with small things like accurately representing the leader of the Labour party when portraying him as a cartoon character is so much more amusing?septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-71055129971526968622010-11-30T22:47:00.004+00:002010-12-01T00:39:39.538+00:00The Sun misleads over BBC, Panorama, and the World Cup.There's something almost wearingly inevitable about the Sun criticising the BBC for daring to broadcast <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wfl8t">last night's Panorama on corruption within Fifa</a>, coming as it did only 3 days before the body decides on the host of the 2018 World Cup. After all, this is the same paper that back in March <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2010/03/anti-conservative-bias-of-basil-brush.html">claimed Basil Brush was biased against the Conservatives</a>, in one of its most insane outbursts since the days of the attacks on the "loony left" in the 80s.<br /><br />As only a paper owned by an Australian-American can be, the Sun is nothing if not cynically patriotic. It doesn't then matter much if our bid never had much of a chance in the first place, the idea that even the possibility of "bringing football home" could be put in jeopardy by an outbreak of investigative journalism is wholly repugnant. At least, this would be the position the paper would take if it could; unfortunately, the Sun's sister <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/oct/17/fifa-officials-votes-2018-world-cup">the Sunday Times only 6 weeks</a> ago exposed two members of the committee that will decide on which country hosts the tournament as either agreeing to take money in return for a vote or asking for a payment which would influence it.<br /><br />Not even the Sun could be brazen enough to ignore entirely the actions of their fellow prisoners in Wapping, and so this puts the paper in a rather difficult position. How to criticise the BBC without coming across as completely and utterly hypocritical? Well, it's easy as it happens. Just misrepresent the programme broadcast entirely, <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3252062/Beeb-accused-of-Cup-sabotage.html">as the Sun's article does</a>. Both in the main body of the text and the "explainer" panel it claims that Panorama's accusations were either "re-hashed" or contained "few fresh allegations". While the programme did deal with previously aired <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA#Allegations_of_financial_and_other_irregularities">claims of corruption within Fifa</a>,<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/nov/29/panorama-fifa-world-cup-bribes"> Issa Hayatou's name had not been raised</a> before in connection with what is known as the International Sports and Leisure affair. Likewise, while Jack Warner previously donated $1 million to charity after Panorama showed he had sold 2006 World Cup tickets to touts, the claim that he tried to do exactly the same thing again this year, only for the deal to fall through, was new. Both Hayatou and Warner will be among the 23-strong committee voting on the various bids. Worth noting is that through portraying Panorama in such a way, the paper is taking exactly the same line on the programme as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/nov/30/panorama-fifa-dated-case-closed">Fifa themselves</a>.<br /><br />The paper's leader doesn't even bother to suggest that Panorama's allegations were a unnecessary dredging up of the past, or even that as the claims don't involve specific accusations of vote buying that they're irrelevant to the bidding process. Instead it just concentrates on the timing (<a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece">temporary link</a>, leader is quoted in full below):<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">WELL, that should do our chances of hosting the 2018 World Cup a power of good.<br /><br />The BBC chose last night of all nights to accuse FIFA members of corruption - as they gathered in Zurich for Thursday's vote.<br /><br />Don't the Beeb want England to win?<br /><br />The timing of last night's Panorama TV investigation, targeting the very officials deciding England's fate, seemed calculated to inflict maximum damage on our bid.<br /><br />Legitimate inquiries earlier by The Sunday Times, a sister paper of The Sun, have already revealed dodgy dealings involving FIFA members, for which two were suspended.<br /><br />The BBC could have shown its film any time. Why pick the worst possible moment for English football?<br /><br />Dismayed England bid chiefs fear our prospects could be wrecked.<br /><br />Is this what we pay our licence fee for? </span></span></blockquote><br />The reason for the timing is simple, as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/11/fifa_football_panorama.html">Tom Giles explains over on the BBC Editors blo</a>g. The key information behind the new allegations was only obtained in the last month. As for the argument the Sun appears to be making without actually setting it out, that the BBC should have delayed it until after the vote, if we ignore the risible claim that the corporation has deliberately set out to sabotage the English bid, isn't this exactly the time that such revelations should be made? It might not be exactly earth-shattering to learn that individuals within Fifa may well be corrupt, yet the very fact that those on the body which decides whom to award the tournament to have been alleged to have either taken back-handers or tried to sell tickets on the black market should cast into doubt their ability to make a decision based on the merits of the respective bids. Also of note is how the host country <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/20/world-cup-2010-fans-marketing-justice-fifa">has to enact special legislation for the duration of the tournament</a>, protecting the chosen sponsors, who also have to be given tax exempt status along with Fifa. Then again, seeing as Rupert Murdoch has in the past tried to avoid <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/e-cyclopedia/302366.stm">paying his fair share of tax in this country</a> it's not surprising that his papers make nary a peep about such demands. The public, as the likes of the Sun would normally doubtless protest, have a right to know such details ahead of the decision being made, rather than after it.<br /><br />In any case, the idea that the Sunday Times investigation, denounced by Fifa's "ethics committee" <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guardian.co.uk%2Ffootball%2F2010%2Fnov%2F18%2Ffifa-sunday-times-adamu-temarii&rct=j&q=Claudio%20Sulser%2BSunday%20Times&ei=rZj1TICGD8SAhAfmyYz6BQ&usg=AFQjCNFvtckbj6UTL9iYDNrFlm-EtR-9SA&cad=rja">for sensationalism and twisting the facts</a> has been forgotten because it happened more than 3 days before the bid is made is nonsense. Also worth remembering is the Mail on Sunday's <a href="http://www.septicisle.info/index.php?q=/2010/05/return-of-entrapment.html">truly unnecessary publication of an indiscreet conversation</a> the then FA chairman had, which involved unprovable claims that the Russians had been bribing referees for the Spanish, who in return would vote for their bid for the 2018 cup. The Mail, strangely, came in for very little actual criticism from its rivals who instead focused on "rescuing" the bid. Dog doesn't always not eat dog in what used to be known as Fleet Street, but what is clear is that the right-wing press always bites the BBC, regardless of how it would never allow such concerns expressed in the Sun's editorial, even patriotic ones, to influence when and what they decide to publish.septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-50346580098705756832010-11-25T23:46:00.001+00:002010-11-25T23:47:49.632+00:00Re: The release of Learco Chindamo.I was, in hindsight, rather setting myself up for this:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><blockquote><a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2010/07/release-of-learco-chindamo.html">All the signs are however that Chindamo is that rare thing - a truly reformed character. Giving a convicted killer the benefit of the doubt is always going to be difficult, even when Frances Lawrence has herself apparently now forgiven him and magnanimously hopes for the best. Chindamo has to live up to what is expected of him, but to do that others have to take him into their confidence as well. The Sun, the rest of the media, and the public should now give him the opportunity and the space to do just that.</a><br /></blockquote></span><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/24/philip-lawrence-learco-chindamo">Oh</a>. Obviously, we aren't aware of the full facts, it could turn out that it's been a case of mistaken identity, a malicious complaint or otherwise and so we should reserve proper judgement. Nonetheless, if he is subsequently convicted of an offence, the people he has let down most are not that those that saw the best in him and believed in his sincerity, but those who find themselves in a similar position, having committed a heinous crime and now desperately trying to convince the authorities that they are safe to be released back into the community. It's they that may well feel the chilling effects the return of such a notorious criminal to prison will almost certainly have on parole boards.septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-66185142894863667352010-11-09T22:18:00.004+00:002010-11-09T22:36:35.771+00:00"Lying Labour rat Phil Woolas".Today's Sun editorial couldn't be much clearer in its views on the now ex-MP Phil Woolas (temporary link):<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article244723.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">SO voters in Oldham East and Saddleworth must wait to find a decent MP to replace lying Labour rat Phil Woolas.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Speaker John Bercow rules a by-election must be delayed to let Woolas have a judicial hearing.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">At least Mr Bercow's Labour-supporting wife Sally will be pleased. That was what she asked him to do.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">It's good that judges have seen off Woolas.</span></a></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><br />Could the paper possibly be covering for something? <a href="http://www.mpacuk.org/sites/default/files/PW%20Pg%204%20+Pg5.jpg">Like being quoted approvingly by Woolas in his now notorious 8 page newspaper-esque missive</a>? Surely not. Here in full is just how impressed the paper was by "lying Labour rat Phil Woolas" less than two short years ago:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/article2018806.ece"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">IN one interview, Phil Woolas speaks more sense on immigration than every minister combined in 11 years of this Government.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Such good common sense, in fact, that he'll need to watch his back.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Not just because it'll rile so many left-wingers. But because it so harshly exposes the abysmal failure of previous Labour immigration policies.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Woolas leaves no stone unturned.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">He'll wipe away the scandal of immigrants handed a golden life of benefits and council homes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">He'll make them spend five years earning a passport and up to five more earning the right to welfare.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">He'll ensure they don't take vacant jobs from Brits in the recession.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">He'll prevent our population from topping 70 million - and attacks his own Government for failing to check numbers in and out and making it too easy for illegals to stay.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">He even savages Labour's beloved multiculturalism that allowed insular immigrant communities to fester dangerously on our soil.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">We can only hope the Woolas revolution, in a Bill next month, gives us the fairer society he wants.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Meanwhile we can applaud both his vision and his bottle.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Silenced already once by the Home Secretary, he knows he is walking a tightrope, but it doesn't faze him: "If I lose my job, I lose my job."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Let's hope not. </span></a></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><br />Maybe we should give the Sun the benefit of the doubt: it might just be subtly hinting he should have kept to his previous promise.septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-63971080237328871092010-10-28T22:54:00.007+01:002010-10-29T01:03:10.535+01:00How to take advantage of a parliamentary misunderstanding.We all know how dearly the Sun loves <a href="http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/search/label/%22Our%20Boys%22">"Our Boys"</a>, even if the feeling is not necessarily mutual. It's therefore hardly surprising that it's instantly leapt to their defence, having apparently been accused by Labour MP Paul Flynn of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people". The problem is that almost every single thing about the report by Tom Newton Dunn in which the claim is made, and the leader comment which accompanies it, is wrong.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/3199984/Wikileaks-giave-propaganda-gift-to-enemy.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">WIKILEAKS and a Labour MP were accused of giving the Taliban "a propaganda gift" yesterday by spreading wild smears about Our Boys.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Foreign Secretary William Hague mounted a passionate defence of troops in southern Afghanistan after reports were leaked to the website saying British soldiers had shot at civilians 21 times in four years. </span></a></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><br />Despite what the Sun says, there has been no new leak to Wikileaks concerning British troops and their presence in Afghanistan. The reports it refers to have in fact been released by, err, the Ministry of Defence themselves, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/26/afghanistan-civilians-ministry-defence-wikileaks">after a Guardian Freedom of Information request</a> based on the incidents first detailed in the US war logs leaked to Wikileaks. Far from being wild smears, these are the MoD's version of what happened; surely the army's own account is more believable and reliable <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/british-troops-afghan-civilian-shootings">than the second hand one which the US recorded</a>?<br /><br /><p> </p><blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The MoD said on each occasion the troops were under grave threat of suicide attack or vehicles being driven at them had failed to stop. </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Despite this, anti-war Labour MP Paul Flynn jumped on the statistic to brand the incidents "atrocities". </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Mr Hague hit back: "I condemn the unauthorised release of information which can endanger our forces and give one-sided propaganda - a propaganda gift, for insurgents." </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> He also hailed British troops, saying: "They are the finest any nation could hope to have." </p></blockquote><br />Flynn, as you might have guessed, has done nothing of the sort. The Sun has taken only a half quote and turned on its head, as the Guardian didn't provide a full one in the first place. Here's how it reported his remarks:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The Labour MP Paul Flynn called for an inquiry into the conduct of the units in what he said could be "atrocities in the name of the British people". "Truth has a cleansing function," he added.</span></blockquote><br />Not perhaps the most cautious of statements to make, but also clearly not one where he was directly accusing troops of committing atrocities.<br /><br />It's pretty apparent then that the statement the Sun has William Hague as making had nothing whatsoever to do with the information released by the MoD. Here's where the misunderstanding seems to have originated from. Hague's comments were made in response to a question from Tory MP Stephen Mosley after his quarterly statement to parliament on the "progress" in Afghanistan, who seems to have confused the Iraq war log release at the weekend with the FoI release reported in yesterday's Guardian:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">What is the </span><a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Secretary">Foreign Secretary</a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">'s assessment of last weekend's </span><a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks">WikiLeaks</a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> reports, which made reference to 21 incidents in Afghanistan involving British troops?</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2010-10-27a.340.2">Hague's answer</a> was then a general condemnation and a just as inaccurate one, as he talks of the treatment of detainees, none of which applies to the 21 incidents in Afghanistan. He doesn't correct Stephen Mosley, but his stock condemnation of the release of unauthorised information suggests that he realised his mistake, even if he didn't mention Iraq. Hague's praise for British troops which the Sun quotes <a href="http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2010-10-27a.326.1">comes from the statement</a>, and so has been taken entirely out of context.<br /><br />Paul Flynn is not referred to anywhere in Hague's statement to the House or the debate that followed. It's clear then that Newton Dunn or someone else, despite obviously reading the report in the Guardian still failed to realise that Stephen Mosley had got the wrong end of the stick. Or did they? After all, the story's nowhere near as good if the information, rather than being leaked, came from the Ministry of Defence themselves. Why not then go along with what was said in parliament, while disingenuously attacking Flynn? This seems to be what the paper's done.<br /><br />Here's the paper's leader:<br /><br /><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </p><blockquote><p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">AS if facing death from the Taliban wasn't enough, our Forces have to face snipers back home. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Labour MP Paul Flynn accuses Our Boys of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people". </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> His basis for this slur? Irresponsible and unsubstantiated internet leaks claiming British troops fired on Afghan civilians. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> The Defence Ministry insists this would only ever have happened in self-defence when our soldiers came under threat of suicide attack. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Our troops have spent nine years doing their best for Afghan civilians, laying down their lives for them. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> As Foreign Secretary William Hague says, these smears are a Taliban propaganda gift. </p> <p style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> Ed Miliband should order Flynn to apologise. </p></blockquote><br />The leader then simply takes the same (deliberate) inaccuracies and magnifies them again, further misquoting and taking out of context Flynn's quote, gets the source of the new information completely wrong for good measure, and then finally uses Hague's own mistake to attack the hapless Labour MP further. The only people apologising should be the Sun for conniving in a misunderstanding in parliament in order to attack an MP for quite rightly wanting a proper inquiry into what happened.<br /><br />P.S. The Sun also does its usual bang up job of promoting the witterings of the friends of Anjem Choudary, this time reporting in depth <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3201032/Terror-fanatic-freed-from-jail.html">Abu Izzadeen's remarks</a> on being released from prison. It's this sentence and claim though that catches the eye:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">His every word was cheered by a flock including sidekick Anjem Choudary and jailed hate cleric Abu Hamza. </span></blockquote><br />Would the Sun care to explain how Abu Hamza was there cheering him on when he's currently being held at Belmarsh prison awaiting deportation to the United States, or was he allowed out for the day in able to attend? This extra detail is missing from the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1324681/Hero-hatemonger-One-maimed-soldier-launched-Poppy-Appeal-The-Islamic-fanatic-freed-London-jail-day.html">Daily Mail's report of Izzadeen's release</a>, unsurprisingly.septicislehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03369157723084834549noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3796962133576484410.post-37680243798449348582010-10-28T22:14:00.000+01:002010-10-28T22:14:40.654+01:00Whoops! Our bad!Today's Sun <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3200253/Bob-Crow.html">has the following apology</a>:<br />
<blockquote>An article on 15 September reported RMT General Secretary Bob Crow had a union-subsidised home and luxury car.<br />
<br />
In fact, Mr Crow's home has never been subsidised by the union and he does not own a car, union or otherwise, and champions public transport.<br />
<br />
We are happy to set the record straight and apologise to Mr Crow.</blockquote>The article in question no longer seems to be on the Sun's website. However, t<span style="font-size: small;">here still is an <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3138485/Union-boss-Bob-Crow-tells-OAPs-Old-up-traffic-on-M25.html">article of the same date referring to Crow</a>, but it makes no mention of what the Sun originally claimed.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351343507770814926noreply@blogger.com0