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Still Buying The Sun? Why?
Where to begin? As the character of Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now says, ‘The bullshit piled up so quickly in Vietnam you needed wings to stay above it.’
Where to begin? As the character of Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now says, ‘The bullshit piled up so quickly in Vietnam you needed wings to stay above it.’
With the tsunami of defensive and evasive bullshit on tabloid behaviour coming out of the recent Commons Select Committee, we had to upgrade those lowly wings to jetpacks. Not only did we have to lift above the rising pool of effluence emitted by those called to testify (that is, when they could be bothered to even remember to bullshit us), but we had to try and outrun it as well. It didn’t just have depth, it had lateral spread. We needed sandbags to keep it from the doors.
Well, with the current Levenson Inquiry underway, there has been a pleasing blow-back for those who previously spouted their BS. And now, happily, we’re not the only ones needing a tide breaker. Because with the mounting evidence of the enquiry, a different kind of flood has broken.
So tabloid editors and hacks from over the years have been doing plenty of sandbagging recently too. And finally, after years of us thinking that the Murdochs and Brooks and Coulson were exactly what we thought they were and exactly what they appeared to be, it has now been irrevocably proved to be so. And so the tide of toxins laps even at their doors. Albeit doors that are hung on the kind of houses you can only buy with savage amounts of betrayal money.
But betrayal of what or whom? When Brooks left Appleton Hall County Grammar School as a young woman with thoughts of entering the Fourth Estate, she may have had plans to become a journalist and even had greater ambitions to become an editor; but it’s unlikely she would have been aiming to become the nationally loathed and shamed editor of tabloids that had exhibited some of the worse degenerations of ethics and journalistic code. What sane person would have that as an ambition? And how could you have phrased it to your careers advisor.
Only if Brooks left school with the desire not to wade waist deep through human excrement could we say that she has betrayed herself by doing so. And if she didn’t then we can only applaud her… resolve? Achievement?
And only if Brooks’s parents had had hopes that their daughter would not become the kind of person who could lay a consoling arm across the shoulders of two mothers whose children had been murdered – Sara Payne and Sally Dowler – while at the same time using the work of journalists who’d hacked the mothers’ phones… only then could we entertain the idea that Brooks may have betrayed her own parents’ expectations of her.
Hopefully their granddaughter, that is the daughter that Brooks is now pregnant with, will grow up in a country where the degenerate excesses of the staff employed on her watch have been expunged to the point where Brooks’s own daughter will never have to live though or be on the receiving end of behaviour of the depths inflicted on other people by her own mother. Albeit a protection for the child bought at the expense of said behaviour. (Even the precious gift of irony here seems near defeat…)
This is the defining thing about people who behave badly toward others: they are lacking in two needed but interconnected elements: imagination and empathy. Imagination is needed on some level, any level – actually, the ground level, because it is the footings of empathy (I feel; others feel). And the resultant empathy is needed to make that crucial leap between ourselves and others. The jumping spark that starts the engine, that ignites the light.
But if you lack the particular imaginative gene for that kind of connection then you might find it hard to see that your own children (even those yet unborn) and the children of others are more than less the same. Or at least deserving of equal rights. Even when they’re grown. And if you don’t see that than you will end up thinking that those other people – those Other People – are different. They don’t feel the same. They don’t feel at all.
Because, you see, these people, they were only Other People. People not like me. They didn’t have any feelings. So I felt no shame at hurting them.
Did Rupert Murdoch betray his own high journalistic standards in order to lower himself to preside over publications that sanctioned such behaviour? Not that we can see. He earned the nicknamed the Dirty Digger as far back as the early Seventies after he bought The Sun in 1969 and the New of the World in ‘68. So you could say he very quickly found his level and, to give him his due, stuck with it.
And, given that, you can see how we would really, really struggle to make a good case that James Murdoch has betrayed his father’s expectations that he might do better. It follows that he didn’t expect his son to do better because Dad thought that what he was doing was good enough. Murdoch junior might not wield a digger with quite as big a shovel as the old man’s but it appears to be just as caked in dirt. Daddy must be proud. Havard Business School less so.
And what standards Kelvin MacKenzie thought he was honouring when as editor of The Sun he libelled the dead of Hillsborough and then went on to even more shamefully lie to their relatives when he said he was sorry (after he was ordered to apologise and duly obeyed), we can only guess. I’d guess it was the standards founded by daddy bear Rupert two decades before.
Did any of these people, from Rupert Murdoch down (and it’s debatable how shallow the drop) to the photographers spitting at a young actresses to get her to react or, for the same reason, calling a woman a whore; or the never-more-appositely-named hacks who broke into the phone of a murdered child or lied their way into hospitals or staked out funerals; or the editors who knew about it and used it and even sanctioned it and then even lied in apology to the relatives of the dead they had libelled… did any of them picture their lives turning out this way, or that they would one day in the future behave like this without blushing?
Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson’s nadir may be having to bear the identification of themselves as liars and their description as ‘the scum of journalism’, and of Brooks as ‘criminal-in-chief’, by that upstanding rodent-like specimen, former News of the World deputy features editor, Paul McMullen, during his Leveson testimony. Never have pots and kettles called so black. And yet never so accurately. Venom doesn’t always cloud vision.
It’s a grimly fascinating spectacle to find out exactly what rats do when there is no accessible way off the sinking ship – and what they do is this: they employ the same fidelity and loyalty and morality and generosity and empathy that they did when they ran as a pack… and they do this by raping each other and killing each other and then feeding off the ones left dead.
As Husker Du once sang, ‘Feed the rats to the cats and then the cats to the rats and we’ll get the cat skins for nothing.’
And where do you stand in all this, dear reader? Still buying The Sun? Still handing over your thirty pee? Really.
Say the guy who lived next door was like a human embodiment of the Sun newspaper, and whenever you knocked on his door, he opened it wide with a cheery smile and even cheerier ’Wotcha, mate!’ And then proceeded to gave you updates on sport, celebrity news, lots of local gossip and (wait for it) on some days he’d even flash you a piccy of a topless young woman who lived round the corner. And for all this he only charged you 30p. Would you knock on his door and pay for it?
Maybe you would. Good guy, nice chap, bit of a laugh, saucy but no real harm. God love him. Bless.
But what if you came home one day and found him with his arm though your neighbour’s letterbox as he rummaged around for their mail to get information on them he could sell to you? Or worse, you found him with his arm through your letterbox trying to steal from you in order to sell it to them? Then you found out that the only reason he could tell you details about the murder of your other neighbour’s child was because he’d had his arm through their door too. And if he couldn’t steal the information, he’d just make it up anyway to get you to give him your money.
Would you still be knocking on his door the next day with your 30p in hand.
I’ve actually overheard grown human beings with brains and everything, moaning about the behaviour of the News of the World whilst flicking through a copy of The Sun. Of course, at that point I produced from out of a black canvas bag I was carrying a large black metal shovel and hit them viciously in the face. The shovel handle shuddered so hard my elbows cracked. Snot-like explosions of blood and brain violently spat and popped out from behind the shovel from the sudden pressure change in their wet, open heads. The shovel clang could be heard right down the street. It was so funny, I can’t even tell you. I really laughed. I even made money from writing about it and selling pictures of it.
Because, you see, these people, they were only Other People. People not like me. They didn’t have any feelings. So I felt no shame at hurting them.
No shame at all.
Sympathy For The Devil But Not The NOTW Staff
Justice Tonight / Don’t Buy The Sun: Bankrobber Live
The End Of The News Of The World Is A Beautiful Thing
If you like it, Pass it on
COMMENTS
Andy Southgate
11:12 am, 6-Dec-2011
Very well said, really enjoyed reading the article. There is an error in here "bare the identification" should read "bear the identification" I feel. Grauniad. Sorry to be a pedant.
Emmanuel
11:17 am, 6-Dec-2011
You spelt Guardian wrong Andy.
Barbara
12:01 pm, 6-Dec-2011
I will never forgive Jeremy Clarkson for joking about suicides the way he did recently. I lost a brother thanks to depression relating to work problems.
jetl76
12:48 pm, 6-Dec-2011
Interesting article once you 'wade through' the cropophiliac opening paragraphs. Paper copies of newspapers will be gone (or free) within ten years, then you can be your own editor. Not sure if that will increase good practice and strengthen moral fibre though. Like it or not, people always gravitate towards sensationalist articles, whatever paper it is and where there's demand..........
Jimmy James Jameson
1:38 pm, 6-Dec-2011
wouldnt wipe a stray dogs arse with the fucking rag and hope every last cunt associated with the Murdoch's spend eternity being arse fucked by Satan's fork.
GB
1:40 pm, 6-Dec-2011
@barbara Its sad that you lost a loved one but sorry, after everything Clarkson has said in his 51 years people are still offended by him?! If the PM made a tasteless joke, yes, bad PM, he should know better, he is the PM. However, if Clarkson, some twat KNOWN for making ridiculous exaggerated statements, makes one, no one should be shocked or upset, hes a presenter, not a policy maker. Its like complaining about 'offensive' comedians - at some point one has to accept they are a comedian telling jokes. In your case i'm pretty sure Clarkson didnt slag off your brother, or have a hand in his death, but Clarkson offends you. The kicker is that Clarkson actually voiced a real opinion of a lot of commuters, he said publicly what so many others have thought and said, so why is he being villified? This new thing of "oh noes! thats offensive!" has to stop, its tiring and you cant censor everything because *some* people might be offended.
Howard
2:30 pm, 6-Dec-2011
He's being villified because he is a cunt. Why is he a cunt? Because he drags down Britain with his sexist, homophobic, racist rants that are just "jokes". A bit like Bernard Manning used to. He sets out to offend, by offending he sells more books. What a way to make a living. Taking the piss out of Gordon Brown for having one eye - what a funny clever cunt. The minute, the SECOND, someone starts saying bad things about him, what does he do? Gets a super-injunction, so his family are not offended. I hate him and everything he stands for. Sorry he offended a few communters who could not get into whatever shit pointless jobs they were doing. Fuck off GB you patronising twat.
Howard
2:32 pm, 6-Dec-2011
*Sorry the strikes offended a few commuters
GB
3:01 pm, 6-Dec-2011
Ah yes, damn those commuters and their shit pointless jobs. How dare they be employed and try to make a living. Bernard Manning was a comedian telling jokes - you didnt like him so you didnt listen to him, that much is simple. He didnt preach hatred or incite violence - he was some twat comedian telling racist jokes. Doesnt matter if he wasnt funny, he was stil just telling jokes. any stand up show is just that, not a rally. As i said, Clarkson is KNOWN for these things, you know it, you cant keep being offended. Added to that, his opinions echo opinions of others in the UK, he doesnt invent them, who are you to tell them they are wrong and cant form their own opinions? Racists, homophobes, xenophobes, sexists exist and will always exist, no amount of your swearing will stop that - the thing is, we are free to think what we like and Clarkson types cant be THAT out of touch if they keep selling product, think about it. As far as being vilified for 'being a cunt' it just strikes me that here this dude is hoisted up "look, evil!" when there are way more people probably responsible for actual deaths or loss of livelihood or whatever that incur almost no ire because they might not be in the public eye or its not the flavour of the day. You hate everything he stands for? he doesnt stand for anything, thats the rub, the futility of your point, I'm sorry, but no matter how much people hate this character, he isnt hitler - hes just a presenter. As for dragging down Britain - no, sorry, feckless career benefit types, thieving rioters, yobs, those that throw away decent free educations, those that have countless kids and dont raise them properly, lying politicians and thieving bankers - THEY drag down Britain, not some grey haired car journalist. And oh no! he's a hypocrite! what shall we do? hardly anyone is a hypocrite! especially such esteemed leaders as Mr Clarkson! Lastly, it wasnt the strikes that offended commuters - he said the strikes were great because there was no traffic, he was then made to apologise for his comments. P.S. sod off you uptight, over simplistic, sweary orifice
Howard
3:25 pm, 6-Dec-2011
I was angry in my last post, I apologise for that and I apologise for calling you a patronising twat, but I didn't think you needed to labour your point to Barbara, given her loss. Recently Clarkson said that when he dimmed his TV then every presenter looked like "Lenny Henry in a cave". This is the country where we still can't get a conviction on the people who killed Steven Lawrence. There are worse people out there, true, but many of the people you mention (people on benefits etc) don't have access to the media or the ability to voice their opinion. Being a key figure in the media, in my opinion, comes with responsibility. Freedom of speech should mean you can't shout "FIRE" in a crowded theatre. Joking about Pakis and Wops and Niggers like Manning did dehumanised people and made it easier for attacks and for little girls and boys to come home from school in tears because they had been taunted all day. It legitimised it, like Clarkson legitimises jokes about killing cyclists, lazy spaniards, people with disabilities and now any other minority group. Your argument of Clarkson's popularity being legitimate brings to mind the Nuremberg Rallies "they can't be that out of touch, there are so many of them".
Sean
3:47 pm, 6-Dec-2011
Yeah still buying the sun thanks notice you just concentrating on news international as usual when virtually all papers ( even the posh ones!) we're at it. HOWARD - millions have been spent on the Lawrence case the reason for no conviction is called lack of evidence! Do you think it would have been p
Sam
3:47 pm, 6-Dec-2011
Clarkson's problem is that he isn't funny nor clever. He isn't lampooning 'PC gone mad'like he thinks he is, he is just being a dick. Anything is open to critique, but you must be clever about it. He wasn't, because he is a wanker. Also, his DVD sales are through the roof and he has a new book out. Go figure.
Andy Southgate
3:53 pm, 6-Dec-2011
@ Emmanuel. Sorry, no tone in your writing so not sure whether you are joking about the "Grauniad" reference - it's what Private Eye call the Guardian.
richard whitham
4:04 pm, 6-Dec-2011
if i bought a copy i'd want a free calender to make sure the date was right.
Andy
4:08 pm, 6-Dec-2011
Poorly written yawnathon. No original ideas whatsoever.
GB
4:15 pm, 6-Dec-2011
Originally, i was going to say to Barbara, what has Clarkson's comments got to do with anything esp this article? But my point was that with everything and everyone involved in a person dying, taking offense to some random shock journo has got to be low on the list. ie vultures of funeral arrangements are higher on my list than cancer jokes. By the way, as an ethnic minority, i've exerienced racism in the UK and abroad and most comments called racism by over sensitive types, just isnt. Believe me, you can tell when someone is being racist, or even has any actual problem with you from their tone, it matters not what the actual words are. ie older people still say 'coloured' its not offensive, they just cant keep up and its not worth the effort to be offended with someone who hasnt a clue what theyre saying. I've heard of Clarkson's comments for years, he's hardly Bernard Manning (being the worst of the lot)and he'll never be voted in as Prime Minister. Jim Davidson is hardly foreign secretary either. The plain fact is that these people are NOT people of authority no matter how hard the Guardian tells us this. When do people get their facts from Bernard Manning or Jim Davidson? And if they do, does anyone actually listen to them? As for dehumanisation, everone does it every day to all degrees and its laughable the double standards ie 'just a daily mail reader', 'the french', 'well you're still young', 'but you're old', 'bloody women', 'bloody men', 'what is it with you straight guys?' ad nauseaum, all things used to marginalise someone elses point of view or state of mind but the sooner we realise they arent serious the sooner we can get on with our lives. Overt racism is bad, yes, but forcing people to keep their notions behind closed doors is more dangerous, if people cant talk openly about their opinions or fears or prejudices, how can anyone change their minds, how can they be challenged? Anti-Clarkson sentiment marginalises 'normal' people who share some of his opinions "well, i cant say that" and people become two-faced and secretive - we'll end up with only one type of bland opinion when everyone is too scared to say what they think. what driver hasnt joked about hitting a cyclist? Its ot a precursor to action, and when caught "Jermery Clarkson said..." is not a defense
ginger prince
4:51 pm, 6-Dec-2011
More articles written with as much spleen and venom as this please. Very, very good. And the only option with Clarkson is to deprive him of the oxygen he craves so much (sadly this currently seems too difficult given his 'book' sales); send him back to his estate to live out his days ranting at the walls.
ad
6:10 pm, 6-Dec-2011
clarkson voiced a real opinion of a few selfish people who live in a bubble and would need to have their arse wiped for them if the batteries ever run out their fantasy-goggles. how can anyone, i.e. a few selfish commuters, not have any sort of perspective when surrounded by a city of many millions is beyond me ... either they are incapable of thinking beyond their own mind's churn of babble, or their head is actually up their arse/ in a tabloid and they havent looked out the window in years. because probably the real world scares them.
scooterslag
6:28 pm, 6-Dec-2011
Most of the people who work in that top-end print industry are a bunch of cunts, comes with the territory.
jim l
6:35 pm, 6-Dec-2011
brooks isn't pregnant a surrogate is. not sure why she needs "privacy at this time" as she is not pregnant.
Andy
6:41 pm, 6-Dec-2011
@Howard. Loved the line 'Taking the piss out of Gordon Brown for having one eye - what a funny clever cunt'. He has got one eye but I never thought of him as a funny, clever cunt - he was neither funny nor clever.
GB
11:33 pm, 6-Dec-2011
ad - dont pretend you live every minute of every day feeling for everyone else. Has it ever occured to you that the people scared of the real world are people such as yourself who refuse to accept the way real people actually are? Selfish bad people exist and are everywhere. People laugh at paedo jokes, some people are over privileged, opinions run the gamut. The utopia you want is a fantasy, it certainly isnt the UK right now. So you can spew your rage about city dwellers and commuters but i'd say you are the one with the goggles on and indeed a lack of perspective
GB
12:42 am, 7-Dec-2011
@Howard - I just have to go back to this because it interests me that you brought up this old chestnut 'Lenny Henry in a cave'? What part of that was (as it was called) 'racist'? What part *offended* you? saying Lenny Henry? or cave? When people say that babies look like Winston Churchill, who does that offend? What about black and asian babies? TV dims, people become dark, background becomes dark - looks like a dark person in a dark place - i still see nothing offensive. Left leaning sensilbilities automatically see racism when there is none. How about 'black people should live in caves' or 'Lenny Henry should be in a cave', or 'caves are where you find black people like Lenny Henry' or 'they look like n****rs in caves' that is what an over-sensitive person would hear, the type who's anus clenches when they try to think of other ways to describe the black guy or asian guy "y'know, the one with the hat... no the other one". My point is that one has to go out of ones way, to choose to be, offended by something unoffensive that isnt even directed at you in the first place
Johnny L
3:32 am, 7-Dec-2011
Pete?
Howard
8:26 am, 7-Dec-2011
GB. I can't be arsed arguing with you, you win. This is my last point. I was not offended by the cave comment, in my mind it was just a very good example of a long line of base, neanderthal comments by JC. One person who was offended by it was Johnson Berharry, Victoria Cross winner and more of a man Clarkson will ever be. Go have it out with him.
GB
10:03 am, 7-Dec-2011
I know the chap, and when i say i know him, i've met him; we're from the same country of origin and my cousin goes out with his sister. Next time i see him i'll ask him and maybe write an article. The thing is he may be very brave but he's not very smart (thats being polite) and this is the problem 2 + 2 does not equal racism. The problem with this country is not Clarkson and comments like 'Lenny Henry in a cave' or 'strikers hsould be shot' its people that jump to be first in line to be offended and even call racism where it isnt - even Ali G parodied the stupidity of it. Everyones so eager not to be Nazis they become facists to stop it. Tell you what, here's an easy exercise in being offended; if someone calls you a wanker, think back to if you've ever masturbated before then decide if its worth getting angry over that word
Howard
10:23 am, 7-Dec-2011
GB - PM me eskdale352@gmail.com the original article was about buying the Sun (who I suppose Clarkson writes for)but I don't want to keep boring people on here so we can carry on (sensibly and in the same spirit?) By your definition I am definitely a wanker by the way :)
www.thegreenwichbarber.com
2:16 pm, 8-Dec-2011
The Guardian/The Sun different faces of the same coin IMO. The reader of both takes out of them what they will for better or worse, truth or lie. A lot of people outraged by Clarkson's comments would happily wish death on Thatcher and see no problem in saying it.
Sheik Yamani
5:00 pm, 11-Dec-2011
I never remember a time when the Sun was a 'saucy, bit of a laugh'. It's always been a disgrace to journalism. A non-British 'paper' dictating to the morons who read it, who to vote for. Hateful, full of bullshit, claiming to be 'British', but the only people it represents are the ignorant cunts who drive whitevans/murder women. This piece of filth has corrupted our country and, moreover, our democracy. To the Tower with them all.
Sheik Yamani
5:03 pm, 11-Dec-2011
Greenwich barber. The Sun and The Guardian are two sides of the coin? Really? I mean are you serious?
hally
5:59 pm, 14-Dec-2011
Agreed, brilliant piece, why are not more people saying the things said here. I love it when SB has pieces like this. More righteous indignation please. (And, yes, the Sun never was 'a bit of a laugh' for those people who see straight through it and see it was what it is - institutionalised bullying.)
www.thegreenwichbarber.com
4:55 pm, 17-Dec-2011
Sheik Yamani - If you read a newspaper which one is it? For I'd love to hear of any newspaper which is pure as the driven snow with no agenda to push and whose entire journalistic staff is pure as the driven snow in terms of their integrity. And only prints the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And which could balance its views on a pinhead?
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