Estate agents: You are merely parasites feeding on the bottom of the rapidly capsizing ocean liner that is modern capitalism. Your lives are grey deserts of mediocrity, coloured only by spatterings of sick from your last Friday night out. Your parents weep at night when they think of how little you’ve achieved and how ashamed they are when their friends ask what you do. Were there a god you would have a special place in hell – which you’d probably describe as a “warm and vibrant neighbourhood”
James Murdoch offered position at News International
Murdoch - You're hired
The board of News Corporation today put further pressure on James Murdoch regarding his position in the company, after a number of revelations from Tuesday’s Culture Media and Sport select committee hearing. Continue reading
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The livestream of Rebekah Brooks, Rupert and James Murdoch’s select committee grilling
Roll up, roll up for the show of the century. Media Bastard points you all towards Rebekah Brooks and the Murdochs receiving a grilling from the Culture Media and Sport Select committee, livestreamed here from 2:3opm on Tuesday July 19: http://www.facebook.com/ITN
Whether those (ex) News International tykes get a proper seeing to is up for grabs, however, seeing as Brooks has a Facebook buddy in the committee’s chairman…
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Rebekah Brooks, the inconceivable Princess Bride
So Rebekah Brooks has come out fighting over the Milly Dowler debacle, as Media Bastard expected. The flame-haired Cerberus at the gates of Wapping has never exactly been one for quietly backing down.
Earlier today Brooks sent an email to staff down at News International assuring them of her innocence.
Plenty of media commentators more astute than Media Bastard will chew this topic over, so we’ll leave the analysis to Mr Greenslade and friends. But I draw your attention to the following, much repeated, quote from Brooks’ email:
I hope that you all realise it is inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations.
Inconceivable? MB couldn’t help noticing some similarities between Mrs Brooks’ forthright claim and the protestations of a certain character from 1987 fairy tale classic The Princess Bride.
To paraphrase Inigo Montoya: “Mrs Brooks, you keep using that word… I don’t think it means what you think it means.” See below:
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Peta Buscombe gets a pasting from Andrew Neil
Buscombe: Egg on her face
You know when public figures have an absolute nightmare during an interview and end up looking like a 16-year-old schoolboy caught masturbating by his granny?
That hideous, ball-clenching shame on their faces as they realise what a mess they’ve made? (I’ll stop that metaphor now).
It’s awful, isn’t it? You feel a mixture of schadenfreude-fuelled delight and pity, with a sprinkling of vicarious squirm.
Well, Peta Buscombe, Chair of the PCC, knows that feeling well. I give you exhibit A, from today’s Daily Politics:
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Johann Hari: An intern’s story
Johann: Can't see the words for the trees
Media Bastard wasn’t surprised to learn of Johann Hari’s little run-in over accusations of plagiarism. Indeed one of the contributors to this blog claims to have been complicit in the very copying and pasting of which Mr Hari is accused.
MB’s source, a bitter, failed journalist now eking out their existence on the fringes of Fleet Street, says that Hari’s rapacious appetite for quotable material became apparent to him while on a work experience placement.
Apparently, the poor hack-wannabe was assigned to Mr Hari’s personal chores list for the day, chief of which was the printing out of an interminable list of sources that he required for his next column.
Having telephoned the great man to check that the epic list was correct, our young whippersnapper set about the job in earnest. It was only when he spotted half the newsroom crowded around the Indy’s one working printer that the lad sensed something was amiss.
The intern scurried over to apologise, red-facedly explaining that he hadn’t realised his printing would take so long – at this stage running past 15 minutes.
“What the hell are you doing printing out so much stuff!” cried a man who may or may not have been Roger Alton.
“I’m so sorry, Johann Hari asked me to do it” whimpered the terrified boy.
Cue much gnashing of teeth and general muttering from the assembled crowd, apparently no strangers to the scenario. One woman in particular, who shall remain nameless, is alleged to have turned the air blue with ever more inventive permutations of the words “fuck” and “Johann”.
But the best was yet to come. Apparently Mr Hari, not content with destroying a veritable rainforest’s worth in paper, required still further sacrifice at the altar of the environment.
On informing his new master that his bidding was complete, the intern was summarily told that the pages were to be shipped – by car and not bicycle – to Hari’s East London home. The distance of said return journey? No more than an hour by tube, with a few of Hari’s beloved trees presumably saved in the process.
MB’s source doesn’t remember exactly what the attendant at the courier desk said, but he’s certain that it’s a quote that even Johann wouldn’t dare repeat.
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David Cameron – coming to a News Interntional conference near you!
Would you like me to dance for you, sir?
So it turns out that Rupert Murdoch’s favourite Prime Minister * took a trip down to Wapping yesterday to have a chinwag with his old pals at The Times.
Billed as a “senior cabinet minister” – DC has never liked the limelight, much like Mr Murdoch in light of his preference to enter Downing Street by the back door – Mr Cameron appeared and gave a keynote speech.
He is then said to have disappeared, wraith-like, into the shadows of the East London night. A resurgence of unsolved prostitute murders in the area, bearing the hallmarks of well-publicised cases dating back to 1888, is not thought to be connected. Unlike impending takeover deals that require governmental approval.
Media Bastard readers will be delighted to hear, however, that in the interests of political balance – and News International titles are if nothing else paragons of political equilibrium – Ed Miliband was asked to speak the following day in an “early-morning speech” to News International staff.
The security detail down at NI would like to pass on their heartfelt thanks to Mr Miliband for such an enlightening and interesting end to their night shift.
*See Prime Ministers passim for all previous favourite Prime Ministers
