Tag Archives: media

Stephen Tall

In other news… Richard Kemp for Liverpool, Kennedy on the UK, defection in Cambridge, Hughes at Leveson

By Stephen Tall | Sun 4th March 2012 - 3:45 pm

Here’s a round-up of stories we haven’t had time to cover on the site this past week…

Richard Kemp to represent Liberal Democrats in Liverpool mayor election in May (Liverpool Echo)

‘He said: “I am standing because I believe that only the Liberal Democrats have the long term strategies which will place this city in a leading position able to create the jobs and investment which this city so badly needs. Liverpool needs an encompassing vision and direction that everyone in the city, residents, business and friends can buy into and support.”

You can read Richard’s own account of …

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Stephen Tall

LDVideo: Harris & Pugh on Murdoch’s new Sun on Sunday paper

By Stephen Tall | Tue 21st February 2012 - 3:05 pm

The News of the World is dead, long live the Sun on Sunday… starting from this Sunday. Here’s how two Lib Dems have responded to the announcement by News International…

Evan Harris: I’ll buy SoS ‘to see what it’s like’

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Nick T

LibLink: Mark Pack – Nick Clegg turns media weakness into media strength

By Nick T | Thu 26th January 2012 - 4:23 pm

Over on his work blog, The Voice’s Mark Pack has a post looking at the extremely successful media coverage of Nick Clegg’s speech on tax policy, with the party using the fact that much of the media is still surprised by the idiosyncracies of coalition to our advantage.

Here’s a sample:

In a country used to coalitions, having the leader of one of the parties in government talk about their tax priorities a few months ahead of a budget would not be remarkable. With the British media habits, it had made today’s speech from Nick Clegg to banner news – lead story

…

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Stephen Tall

Telegraph apologises for false slurs on Huhne and offensive Cristina Odone article

By Stephen Tall | Sat 21st January 2012 - 10:25 am

The Daily Telegraph has been forced into a humiliating climbdown after making what it now admits were false claims about Lib Dem cabinet minister Chris Huhne.

The paper had splashed on allegations that it was Huhne who had leaked the letter from Michael Gove suggesting taxpayers might make a gift of a new royal yacht to the Queen in order to embarrass the education secretary. It’s unclear what evidence the paper had, if any, because Huhne’s involvement was swiftly denied by the Guardian journalist responsible for exposing Mr Gove’s, erm, politically courageous proposal. Perhaps, perish the thought, they just …

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Lee Dargue

Opinion: Our party is a choir of many voices – Let’s not single out the sopranos

By Lee Dargue | Mon 9th January 2012 - 4:54 pm

Our party is becoming one of a few, select voices.

Many members, which I include myself alongside, are quickly cementing our position as liberal radicals – those that choose not to define ourselves in the centre, nor on the left, but merely as those who wish to seek to form policies that will aid many in society. We will let history decide which end of the political spectrum we allegedly sit on.

Along the way, we may be asked for more radio or TV appearances, or be asked to write articles for certain websites or newspapers. This is good for …

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Posted in Op-eds | 5 Comments
Laura Willoughby

Opinion: Will the Lib Dems stand up for creative industries?

By Laura Willoughby | Sun 18th September 2011 - 4:50 pm

A Labour friend of mine was smugly telling me about last week’s launch of the Labour Creative Industries Network. Much of this reminded me of their ‘Cool Britannia’ efforts circa 1997.

However, it also got me thinking about how the creative industries see us. We too have some nice words about creative businesses on our website – but do we really have a sense of how we want to support and promote this economically and culturally important sector? The DCMS is the only department where Lib Dems have no ministerial presence. There is a hair’s breadth in arts policy between …

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Adam Bell

Opinion: We need a general right of information

By Adam Bell | Mon 5th September 2011 - 10:53 am

The call made by Mark Pack, amongst others, for suggestions for media reform is both timely and important. For the majority of the country, the media represents the most important source of information we access on a daily basis. As a result, it cannot help but shape our opinions and inform our democratic decision-making; it is a key part of our national discourse and must be seen as such.

And yet the phone hacking scandal has demonstrated that we cannot rely wholly on journalists to hold themselves and their colleagues to account for their own ethical transgressions. A press …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 10 Comments
Stephen Tall

News International tried to bully the Lib Dems, says Observer. It didn’t work.

By Stephen Tall | Sun 24th July 2011 - 11:25 am

News International ‘bullied Liberal Democrats over BSkyB bid’ is the headline in today’s Observer, with the paper reporting:

Rupert Murdoch’s News International launched a campaign of bullying against senior Liberal Democrats in an attempt to force through the company’s bid for BSkyB, high-level sources have told the Observer.

Lib Dem insiders say NI officials took their lobbying campaign well beyond acceptable limits and even threatened, last autumn, to persecute the party if Vince Cable, the business secretary, did not advance its case.

According to one account from a senior party figure, a cabinet minister was told that, if the government did not

…

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Stephen Tall

News International’s William Lewis, BBC’s Robert Peston, and the alleged act of theft which aimed to bring down Vince Cable

By Stephen Tall | Sat 23rd July 2011 - 4:27 pm

Rewind to December 2010, and you will recall the furore which greeted the revelation by the BBC’s Robert Peston that Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable had been secretly taped by undercover Telegraph hacks “declaring war” on Rupert Murdoch and his bid for BSkyB.

Vince was almost forced to resign, responsibility for handling the bid was handed over to a Murdoch-friendly Tory, and the Telegraph was embarrassed by the implication that they had censored the story in order to avoid assisting media rival News International.

A report in today’s New York Times sheds a new and extraordinary light on that sequence of events, and suggests that:

  • The Telegraph was not sitting on the Cable/BSkyB scoop, but was all set to run it as a follow-up to the paper’s initial story focusing on Vince’s forthright views on the Coalition;
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Stephen Tall

In (partial) defence of Labour’s so-called ‘Lay Off Murdoch’ instruction to party’s MPs

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th July 2011 - 5:28 pm

‘Lay off Murdoch’ — that was the ever-so-quotable paraphrase that the New Statesman used to accompany this article by Dan Hodges, revealing how the Labour Party press team had issued a circular ‘to all shadow cabinet teams warns Labour spokespeople to avoid linking hacking with the BSkyB bid, to accept ministerial assurances that meetings with Rupert Murdoch are not influencing that process, and to ensure that complaints about tapping are made in a personal, not shadow ministerial, capacity.’

In reality, Labour’s communications chief Tom Baldwin — yes, himself a former Murdoch employee — did not use the phrase, ‘Lay off …

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Stephen Tall

The Lib Dems on ‘Hackgate’ and Murdoch: Ashdown, Huhne, Hughes, Farron, Oakeshott all join the fray

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th July 2011 - 4:25 pm

It’s been a frenzied week in British politics, with attention for once focused less on the mis-deeds of politicans than the criminality practised by many journalists, both at the News of the World and beyond. Here’s a brief round-up of what the Lib Dems have been saying…

BSkyB takeover: Lib Dems hint at backing Labour motion to delay deal (Guardian)

The Liberal Democrats have indicated they could back a Labour move in parliament to delay the Murdoch takeover of BSkyB until after the police investigations into phone hacking. …

Hughes told Sky News: “We have to be careful and I would

…

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Stephen Tall

‘Yates of the Yard’ should have listened to Huhne on ‘Hackgate’

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th July 2011 - 12:05 pm

Today’s Telegraph carries an interview with the Metropolitan Police’s Assistant Commissioner John Yates with a full mea culpa for his failure to get to grips with British journalism’s criminal free-for-all. As the paper notes:

Mr Yates had the opportunity to reopen the case in 2009 but chose not to do so after just eight hours’ consideration, including consultations with other senior detectives and Crown Prosecution lawyers. … In his interview, Mr Yates addresses last week’s revelation that Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working for the News of the World, had allegedly hacked into teenage murder victim Milly Dowler’s mobile phone

…

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Stephen Tall

Ed’s learning: he’s done a Dave over Murdoch

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th July 2011 - 9:15 am

Credit where it’s due, fair’s fair, and well-played.

As Paul Walter noted here on LDV on Wednesday, Labour leader Ed Miliband is having a good war, sticking up for clear and proper principles — a judge-led public inquiry, referring News International’s BSkyB bid to the Competition Commission, and the public call for the resignation of Rebekah Brooks — that resound well with the public.

By contrast, David Cameron is on the back-foot over the unravelling scandal at News International, compromised both by having hired former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his director of communciations (despite warnings), …

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Stephen Tall

LDVideo: Vince and Shirley’s war on Murdoch, while Nick savages PCC as “busted flush”

By Stephen Tall | Sat 9th July 2011 - 5:20 pm

There’s no doubt about the big story this week: Rupert Murdoch being forced to close the biggest-selling British newspaper in a brazen bid to ride out the illegal hacking story that threatens his media empire.

Vince Cable’s prophetic powers first came to prominence during the economic storm that came close to collapsing the banking system. Last December, he accidentally went on the record to make clear his wish to clip Rupert Murdoch’s wings. Ironically, it was the Telegraph’s widely condemned subterfuge which stopped Vince in his tracks, and prevented his ability to hold to account the company where illegal hacking was rife. Here’s what he inadvertently revealed to the Telegraph last year:

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Stephen Tall

In Praise of Nick Davies, the British Bernstein & Woodward to Murdoch’s Nixon

By Stephen Tall | Sat 9th July 2011 - 11:50 am

One man, above all, deserves to be singled-out for his single-minded pursuit of the lies, deceit and criminality that have stained British journalism: The Guardian’s special correspondent, Nick Davies.

His has been a lonely crusade. Despite the mounting evidence of corrupt practices, the tentacles of which have extended right into the very centre of the Establishment in this country — Parliament, media barons, senior police officers, Downing Street — Nick Davies has doggedly pursued a campaign which has resulted in the closure of this country’s most-read newspaper. That is some accolade.

But, as he would be the first to point out, it should never have got this far.

The closure of the News of the World would have been avoided if those who knew the truth, or at least had the power to uncover the truth, had done their jobs properly, had fulfilled their duty to the public. And that’s as true of Rebekah Brooks as it is of ‘Yates of the Yard’.

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Stephen Tall

Why Simon Kelner is wrong to defend Johann Hari

By Stephen Tall | Wed 29th June 2011 - 9:25 am

Johann Hari is used to provoking controversy – as the Independent’s most outspoken left/liberal columnist its his stock-in-trade – but yesterday found himself on the receiving end of criticism of his integrity.

The reason? His repeated borrowing of quotes from interviews published by other journalists which he then drops into his own interviews as if they had been made directly in conversation.

The accusation first surfaced last week on the DSG blog concerning an interview Mr Hari undertook with ‘Italian communist and every ultra-leftist’s favourite “psychopath”’, Toni Negri. And the accusation went mainstream after Yahoo editor Brian Whelan’s demolition …

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Stephen Tall

LDVideo: Jon Stewart takes aim at Fox News and media sensationalism

By Stephen Tall | Sun 26th June 2011 - 2:15 pm

To US liberals, he’s something of a hero; to conservatives he’d be a bête noire if they could stomach the use of a foreign label. Jon Stewart’s satirical The Daily Show has become a cultural institution in America (and something of a cult hit here) because of the host’s pin-sharp riffs against politicians and the media.

And what better, more deserving, target could there be than News International’s conservative polemical shock-jock channel, Fox News? Jon Stewart recently agreed to go toe-to-toe with Chris Wallace, one of its more intelligent interviewers.

The result is a vigorous and surprisingly nuanced 15-minute debate, which touches on issues just as relevant to the UK — especially the 24×7 news media’s destructive sensationalising of issues needing balance, regardless of whether their agenda is driven by liberals or conservatives. In the light of this week’s Milly Dowler case, or the recent character assasination of Christopher Jefferies, it’s more important than ever.

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Stephen Tall

Andrew Marr’s hypocrisy (not a trace of schadenfreude here, honest)

By Stephen Tall | Tue 26th April 2011 - 10:33 am

It’s been one of the worst-kept secrets in the media, and today Andrew Marr finally admitted he was one of the 30 people who’ve taken out a super-injunction to prevent reports of their private life being made public.

The BBC interviewer’s legal action dates back to 2008, and has been credited with popularising the use of super-injunctions, which not only prevent reporting of allegations, but also prevent the injunction being reported. Today’s Guardian reports:

Marr said he felt “uneasy” and “embarrassed” about the use of the high court injunction, which he won in 2008 to suppress reports of an extramarital affair.

…

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Tony Greaves

Tony Greaves writes: Coalition, Government and the Lords

By Tony Greaves | Tue 25th January 2011 - 10:43 am

We are in a new situation which started with the coalition being negotiated. Nobody in the political parties had thought it through. It had to be made up as they went along and it is still being made up, week by week, month by month. It has had a major effect on the resulting policies. It has also had an effect on the ongoing processes of government.

The coalition was put together in five days. An important lesson must be that future coalition-building in this country after an election really ought to take place at a slightly more measured pace, and …

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Posted in Op-eds and Parliament | Also tagged | 46 Comments
Stephen Tall

Farron triggers PCC probe into Telegraph’s Lib Dem MPs undercover sting

By Stephen Tall | Thu 13th January 2011 - 9:20 pm

The BBC reports:

The press watchdog is investigating the Daily Telegraph’s use of undercover reporters to record Lib Dem ministers’ thoughts on the coalition government. It reported comments made by Business Secretary Vince Cable in a meeting with people he thought were constituents.

Lib Dem President Tim Farron asked the Press Complaints Commission to investigate. The PCC said 200 people contacted them over the story. The Telegraph said it was satisfied it acted within the PCC’s rules. …

A PCC spokesman said: “We have now received a letter from the Liberal Democrats asking us formally to investigate. We will do so under

…

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Stephen Tall

Why a part of me is cheering on Rupert Murdoch

By Stephen Tall | Fri 5th November 2010 - 11:57 am

At face value, the figures released by News International this week showing that The Times and Sunday Times had registered some 105,000 customer sales since its paywall was erected in July sounded like good news. As analysts attempted to decipher the company’s ‘fuzzy numbers‘, doubts began to creep in.

Understanding those paywall figures

The reality appears to be that roughly 50,000 individual users have subscribed to gain access to the newspapers’ content, whether online or through the iPad app or the Kindle edition. The other c.50,000 customer sales are for single-use or pay-as-you-go access to the website, and will …

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Stephen Tall

Vince orders Ofcom investigation of News Corp’s bid for BSkyB

By Stephen Tall | Thu 4th November 2010 - 11:58 am

The last few months has seen a curious coalition emerge, uniting media foes of right and left and non-aligned, ranging from the Daily Mail to the Guardian, Trinity Mirror to the Telegraph, the BBC and Channel 4. What has brought them together? Opposition to the bid by News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, for full control of BSkyB (the company currently owns a minority 38% stake).

Well, today Vince Cable offered them some cheer — he has referred News Corp’s bid to the media regulator, Ofcom. The BBC reports:

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, has ordered Ofcom to investigate News

…

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Stephen Tall

Andrew Marr: a little bit of a hypocrite

By Stephen Tall | Mon 11th October 2010 - 6:52 pm

I’m intrigued by Andrew Marr’s recent attack on blogging. For those who’ve missed his comments, here’s what he told an audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, as reported in the Telegraph:

“Most citizen journalism strikes me as nothing to do with journalism at all. A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people. … Most of the blogging is too angry and too abusive. It is vituperative. Terrible things are said on line because they are anonymous. People say things

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

How the media loves mixed messages (when they suit their own message)

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th October 2010 - 1:25 pm

‘Conservative spending cuts are worse than Thatcher’s, says Alan Johnson’ shouts today’s Observer, reporting the paper’s interview with Labour’s incoming shadow chancellor.

If the election had turned out differently — if Labour had won, rather than suffering one of the worst defeats in its history — the headline could have read a little different… Imagine this headline:

    Alistair Darling: we will cut deeper than Margaret Thatcher

But wait, we don’t have to imagine that headline: it already exists, and was used by the Observer’s stablemate The Guardian back in March when reporting the then Labour chancellor’s realistic appraisal of the …

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Stephen Tall

Mail readers attack paper’s ‘Hypocrisy’ slurs on Nick Clegg

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th October 2010 - 11:35 am

Ah, the Daily Mail and its stable-mate the Mail on Sunday: bastions of enlightened reason and liberal decency. Or something. Today, the paper takes it upon itself to scream ‘Hypocrisy’ at Nick Clegg.

Not on grounds of policy, but because of the options Miriam and he are considering for their eldest child’s school, including a voluntary-aided Catholic school in London, the Oratory: as the Mail so subtly fulminates, ‘Nick Clegg is an atheist whose party doesn’t believe in school selection. So where does he want to send his sons… the same exclusive Catholic school as the Blairs’.

You can gauge the extent of the Mail’s self-righteous fury from the comparison of Nick Clegg to Tony Blair. The only thing missing from the usual Mail checklist-of-outrage is the accusation that Nick Clegg causes cancer. Next week, perhaps.

What do the Mail’s online readers make of the paper’s tirade? Here are the top three ‘best rated’ comments so far submitted:

Why is atheist Nick Clegg considering sending his son to an exclusive Catholic school?
erm – his wife is Catholic.
– Paul, Richmond, 9/10/2010 23:39

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Tom Paul

Opinion: Do the media now ‘get’ Liberal Democrat conference?

By Tom Paul | Wed 22nd September 2010 - 4:31 pm

Recent years have seen a consistent stream of conference reports on ‘splits’ within the party. With Coalition, and more interest in the party than ever before, has the media finally learned how to read our public disagreements? Do the media now ‘get’ conference?

Whilst Labour and Tory conferences are stage-managed affairs, with policy arguments taking place behind closed doors, the liberal approach is to discuss and debate in the open. The way Liberal Democrats make policy – and the power we members have to shape our movement – is reflective our commitment both to transparency and to democracy.

But public debates …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | 12 Comments
Stephen Tall

Why there were no Lib Dems on Sky News’s Sunday Live with Adam Boulton

By Stephen Tall | Sun 12th September 2010 - 11:25 am

An interesting posting yesterday evening from Katie Snape on the Boulton & Co blog:

It’s 7pm on Saturday, I’m late for a friend’s wedding and I’m still waiting to find out whether I can send a satellite truck to Wiltshire for an interview with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander. How hard can it be? His special adviser says he wants to do it but apparently I’m waiting for clearance from Downing Street. I’ve left a message for No 10’s Head of Broadcast, he texted back and two hours later, I’m still waiting.

I started the week bidding for

…

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Stephen Tall

What Lib Dems are saying (or not) about Andy Coulson

By Stephen Tall | Mon 6th September 2010 - 7:00 pm

The official Lib Dem line on Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s director of communications, could not have been clearer prior to the election: this Voice headline from July 2009 gives the flavour – Huhne on Coulson: “either complicit or incompetent”.

Yet the party leadership has been noticeably more reticent to comment on the most recent allegations, triggered by the New York Times’s typically thorough investigation.

(What does it say, by the way, about the quality of the British news media today that — with the honourable exception of The Guardian — it was left to a US newspaper to …

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Stephen Tall

Half a defence of Paul Staines (aka @guidofawkes)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 1st September 2010 - 8:50 pm

My Voice colleague Iain Roberts has already blogged about this afternoon’s big political news that William Hague’s special advisor Christopher Myers has quit his post following allegations — vehemently denied by both — that they might be having an affair.

Iain writes: “We at Lib Dem Voice wish both the Hagues and Christopher Myers well,” and I agree 100%. However, there are two further points I’d make.

The questions were fair enough…

Paul Staines blogged about the issue on 24th August, using the Freedom of Information Act to ask three questions inquiring as to the suitability of Mr Myers acting …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 34 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV survey: what party members think of the media reporting of Kennedy and the Coalition

By Stephen Tall | Sun 29th August 2010 - 7:45 am

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of a variety of key issues, and what you make of the Lib Dems’ and Government’s performance to date. Almost 600 party members have responded, and we’ll be publishing the full results of our survey in the next few days.

A week ago, the news media’s silly season alighted on a suggestion that Charles Kennedy was about to defect to Labour, and flogged the story for all it was worth.

LDV asked: The news media this past weekend was dominated by suggestions – …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged | 10 Comments
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