It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
You don't have to like the Sun to conclude that the BBC would be justified in dismissing Huw Edwards.
Well indeed - though that will depend on the terms of his contract. He's certainly let down the reputation of Welsh organists.
But the interesting thing about the story is not really the story itself, but what we think should be the news values of our media; what should be reported, and what shouldn't; how far the right to privacy now extends. That's still a highly contested area.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
The Sun claims tonight it "never alleged criminality" and blames other media for "reading too much" into its reporting. Like yesterday's Sun story (still on website) saying the BBC figure "could be charged by cops & face years in prison."
Surely that’s the newspaper reporting what someone else said?
Based on their reporting that a BBC reporter 'paid child for sex photos' as they've put it in quotation marks.
Had their reporting been genuine, it could indeed have been a criminal offence that could lead to prison.
Since the Police have investigated and found no crime was committed, that doesn't question what the expert says, it questions the reporting that Edwards allegedly "paid child for sex photos".
The version of the Sun report that I read ran together a statement about how much money was alleged to have been paid over the whole period (which allegedly began when the "child" was 17), with a statement about a particular alleged payment, which was specifically alleged to have been for images.
I have been presuming that people read these together and took away the notion that images had been involved from the time the "child" was 17. However, apparently the Sun "updated" the story at some point, and I'm not sure whether what I saw was the original.
See the screen grab above. "Star who paid child for sex pictures".
Note the repeated use of the word child in all of their articles. This has been investigated by the polis and found not to be true. The supposed victim told them it wasn't true before they published, and yet there we are "paid child for sex images". They tried to portray him as a paedophile. Knowing he wasn't.
A 17 year old is a child under the relevant law.
The issue isn't that they used the word child, the issue is it never happened at 17 apparently when they outright claimed that it did.
Unless the Tories win most seats in a hung parliament then Starmer won't need the SNP. Indeed even if Sunak closes the gap and gets a hung parliament Labour are still likely to win most seats, helped of course by gains from the SNP in Scotland forecast by polls as well as gains from the Tories in England
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
Yup. And the latitude to define "bringing the organisation into disrepute" is pretty broad, from what I have seen.
It's another event that should make people think of their own circumstances and their own legal protections.
Quite. I suspect some of the PBers who complained about such action by corporations are those who decry the very notion of joining a union. Which is worth it just for the legal backup, IMO.
Was it you who said that HR are there to enforce the employer's interests? One of us did. But there are many times when one's interest coincides with the employer. A friend was being givedn the runaround re short term employment - a valuable employee in a job she loved but being fobbed off with a succession of one year contracts. Come year three she was browbeaten by a research unit manager into signing another temp[orary contract at a poor salary. She hadn't even joined the union, despite my warnings. But she did take my advice and wentr to HR. The HR manager took one look and went white. Within days my friend was in possession of a permanent contract. The altdernative would have been constructive dismissal and a nasty tribunal case.
But - yopur point remains that if one signs a job contract one no longer has the freedom [edit] one had.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy and has made enough income to not need to work again
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
Where is the right wing making that demand?
You seem not to have updated your attack line to take account either of the point that it is Edwards, surely a right wing icon after he emceed the death of her late maj, or of the new allegations of hitting on colleagues which make misconduct charges much much easier.
He will in fact leave by mutual agreement for elf reasons.
ETA This rhymes to an alarming extent with the post next to it.
Mr. Boulay, I largely agree but would that women's football also has the problem all other sports in the UK and much of Europe face: men's football is the biggest game in town by a bloody mile. Achieving equal income/revenue/pay would be an astonishing feat.
I agree on the high on its own supply comment too, which is encouraged by the media giving it more coverage than support would suggest is reasonable on its own (I get why they start with men's football, then women's, then move to other sports, but women's football on its own is well behind many other sports).
I did watch the Euros when England won, but I have zero interest in the club game. I don’t see it ever being more than a minority concern.
The only club football I've seen live this century is women's. Several reasons: 1) It's much cheaper. I'd happily pay £5 to watch a women's game. I wouldn't pay £30 to watch a men's game - particularly not when you multiply it up by all tge family members you might want to take. 2) It's hard not to take an instant dislike to male footballers. Part of the enjoyment of watching sport for me is being pleased for those who have done well. Hard to do this with most men's footballers. 3) The game may not be at the same level - but to my untrained eye it is nicer to watch. Possibly because the game is less physical, the technical skill is easier to see and enjoy. 4) The crowd is also nicer. I don't think I'd take my daughters to a live men's football match. I don't mind partisan, but a sport where you have to keep supporters of opposing clubs separate, or they will fight, is ridiculous. Football fans often remark about how surprising it is to see opposing, say, rugby fans mingling - but it's football - specifically men's football - which is the outlier here. I don't want to be paying out £30 for a 90 minute hatefest. 5) Also, one of my daughters quite fancies being a professional footballer. Taking her to see players she can aspire to ape is a nice thing to do. 6) Ooh, also, I can park.
As against that, as, I think, Foxy has pointed out in the past, outside the top 3 or 4 teams there isn't much jeopardy in the WSL. It's a bit like the Scottish Premier League.
I'm not, though, calling for equal pay for women's football. That would take away most of what makes it good. It would no longer be cheap and accessible.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy
I don't think the political right have any real animus against Huw Edwards. Why would they?
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy
I don't think the political right have any real animus against Huw Edwards. Why would they?
BBC. Highly paid. Baaaad combination. Vide incessant moans on PB against the footy chap.
My week in Surrey has been lovely. I've been staying with my friend, who has never voted anything other than Conservative.
We didn't need to have any arguments because she had nothing good to say about them. For the first time in her life 'as things currently stand she would not vote Conservative.'
It's an anecdote, of course, and the polls tell us that the Party is still polling in the high 20's. But if they are losing people like her then this is going to be worse than 1997.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Quite. I knew because reddit was awash with it (more so than twitter), not from pointers in the story itself.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Not when the alleged victim had told them it was a pack of lies before they published.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Republicans like TSE confirm they want to return to the time of Oliver Cromwell and ban Bank Holiday Mondays and frivolity in May.
Of course the coronation was on a Saturday so the King could have been mean and refused a Bank Holiday and still had his special day. The article also says it boosted the arts and leisure industry too
My week in Surrey has been lovely. I've been staying with my friend, who has never voted anything other than Conservative.
We didn't need to have any arguments because she had nothing good to say about them. For the first time in her life 'as things currently stand she would not vote Conservative.'
It's an anecdote, of course, and the polls tell us that the Party is still polling in the high 20's. But if they are losing people like her then this is going to be worse than 1997.
I was visiting a lifelong Conservative (wealthy retired landowner) last week - friend of a friend - who said that the party indubitably needed a spell in opposition, but in his opinion Starmer would be even worse, so he would probably vote for his local LibDem MP (Layla Moran). I think a surprising number of traditional Conservatives will find ways to avoid supporting them even if they have doubts about Labour - some Labour anyway, some LibDem, some simply staying at home.
My father-in-law, ex-farmer, lifelong Conservative voter, has just returned his postal vote for Somerton & Frome. He hasn't told Mrs P. which way he's voted and she, quite rightly, hasn't asked. But neither of us are in any doubt he will have voted Tory, come what may.
He represents that proportion of customary Tory voters who are not enamoured with the current party (far from it) but look upon voting Tory as an act of duty, akin to standing up for the national anthem, bowing one's head when at prayer, etc. etc.
There will truly be a rock-bottom level of support the Tories cannot fall under.
In the big picture this is an essential part of society's foundations. Both major parties have something like 20% of the population who will vote for them come what may. Polling over decades gives evidence of this; as does the survival of Labour when threatened by the SDP; as does the survival of the Tory vote now, when the party has more or less no real public support.
If this didn't happen, and 100% of voters were floaters, there would be a complete lack of continuity and consistency plus an increased chance of an extremist takeover.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
Where is the right wing making that demand?
You seem not to have updated your attack line to take account either of the point that it is Edwards, surely a right wing icon after he emceed the death of her late maj, or of the new allegations of hitting on colleagues which make misconduct charges much much easier.
He will in fact leave by mutual agreement for elf reasons.
ETA This rhymes to an alarming extent with the post next to it.
I do have to chuckle at the "what hate mob" comments from you and others. We had days of lies in the S*n and sympathetic coverage from trash like GBeebies, who openly outed Edwards in silhouette form.
They want the BBC and non-right wing media damaged for political and commercial reasons.
Read it again, it was the extra bank holiday did the damage. Lazy buggers award themselves a day off at the drop of a hat, and the rest of us have to follow suit because who is going to launder our takings?
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
You don't have to like the Sun to conclude that the BBC would be justified in dismissing Huw Edwards.
I don't read the sun and I dont like the bbc and I have no idea who Huw Edwards is.
I see no reason for the bbc to be dismissing him over a private relationship with another consenting adult outside of work just because someone decided to bring that relationship out into the public eye (unless it turns out there was a criminal element to it). I am pretty sure most of us have done stuff outside work that we would not want work to know about. Being sacked over a non illegal, outside of work thing should not be encouraged else we all become vulnerable to revenge of the jilted.
If the misconduct allegations by colleagues are proved to be true however....very much a different story
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Agree with quite a lot of that - except that the way in which the Sun reported the story was extremely irresponsible. While it doesn't mean they shouldn't have run the story at all, it's pretty clear that they failed to check on basic facts before they splashed it on the front page.
I've been bemused by the Edwards saga. The BBC defence, from their supporters anyway, is that no laws were breached. Irrelevant, as we all know. It's his actions that are the problem for the BBC. Mental illness or not. "Celebrities" are put on a pedestal - nonsensical as it may be.
When they fall from grace, they fall totally. The BBC actions show them to be incompetent in many ways. Inaction at first, hoping it will blow over, then complaints about journalism despite them looking into a mirror. Journalists have no ethics.
I paid £159 for a TV license last month. For what? They have more adverts than any ITV channel - even if they're restricted to their own forthcoming programmes. When interviewed the other day, Tim Davie looked all at sea. I wouldn't trust him to sort out anything.
I thought the other channels went easy on the BBC. 'There but for fortune' and all that, I suppose.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
Where is the right wing making that demand?
You seem not to have updated your attack line to take account either of the point that it is Edwards, surely a right wing icon after he emceed the death of her late maj, or of the new allegations of hitting on colleagues which make misconduct charges much much easier.
He will in fact leave by mutual agreement for elf reasons.
ETA This rhymes to an alarming extent with the post next to it.
I do have to chuckle at the "what hate mob" comments from you and others. We had days of lies in the S*n and sympathetic coverage from trash like GBeebies, who openly outed Edwards in silhouette form.
They want the BBC and non-right wing media damaged for political and commercial reasons.
Host of new polls in Spain. Some variation but all showing moves towards the centre right and away from the left. Just 8 days of the campaign left now.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Not when the alleged victim had told them it was a pack of lies before they published.
If the alleged victim was a child at the time of the alleged crime then that's not relevant.
A crime is a crime if it involves a child whether the child cooperates or not. If there is a serious allegation with evidence then that can lead to a conviction even if the child denies it happened.
Revealing, isn't it, that dirty old man but millionaire Huw Edwards is always referred to with his sex ("gender"), as "he", but the youngster, presumed pauper, whose nude photos Edwards obtained is always referred to as if he were a table or a stone, without any ascription of sex ("gender").
Presumably we're supposed to think, or act as if we think, that the media bosses and the authorities in the country are ever so pink-proudily homophobia aware, and this is why they behave like that. Never mind that the youngster's sex ("gender") is probably important to him, to his identity and to his functioning in society - and it's a good guess it was important to the said dirty old man as well - just as it is for 99.99% of the population. But we mustn't assume that, because maybe he's non-binary or a transvestite, right? And thus the prole gets de-sexed. Because otherwise bricks might fly through gay men's windows. Really?
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
Yup. And the latitude to define "bringing the organisation into disrepute" is pretty broad, from what I have seen.
It's another event that should make people think of their own circumstances and their own legal protections.
Quite. I suspect some of the PBers who complained about such action by corporations are those who decry the very notion of joining a union. Which is worth it just for the legal backup, IMO.
Was it you who said that HR are there to enforce the employer's interests? One of us did. But there are many times when one's interest coincides with the employer. A friend was being givedn the runaround re short term employment - a valuable employee in a job she loved but being fobbed off with a succession of one year contracts. Come year three she was browbeaten by a research unit manager into signing another temp[orary contract at a poor salary. She hadn't even joined the union, despite my warnings. But she did take my advice and wentr to HR. The HR manager took one look and went white. Within days my friend was in possession of a permanent contract. The altdernative would have been constructive dismissal and a nasty tribunal case.
But - yopur point remains that if one signs a job contract one no longer has the freedom [edit] one had.
I once had my bosses' boss on a mission to clear out his team. My boss went onto garden leave (and later took a big payout for constructive dismissal). Big boss man then throws all of our team's responsibilities onto me (next in management line) and quickly proceeds to try and bounce me out.
I went to see the HR business partner with both written correspondence from big boss and with my performance review done a month before and a copy of their policy. HR guy also went white - "they can't do this to you". Big boss incandescent that I "went behind is back" to HR. To which I commented that I would be noting all of the conversation for our mutual protection.
Big boss fired shortly afterwards when he totted up too many "you're just a bullshit artist" points. That I had provided HR with so much evidence of his lies was quite satisfying.
HR processes are there to protect both parties. I have both been fired and been the manager firing someone. As long as it is done with due process we are all good. And when it doesn't follow due process and you are prepared to hold them to it, the payouts are lucrative. My best ever one had me not needing to work again for a year, and then stepping very quickly into something with more seniority.
My week in Surrey has been lovely. I've been staying with my friend, who has never voted anything other than Conservative.
We didn't need to have any arguments because she had nothing good to say about them. For the first time in her life 'as things currently stand she would not vote Conservative.'
It's an anecdote, of course, and the polls tell us that the Party is still polling in the high 20's. But if they are losing people like her then this is going to be worse than 1997.
I was visiting a lifelong Conservative (wealthy retired landowner) last week - friend of a friend - who said that the party indubitably needed a spell in opposition, but in his opinion Starmer would be even worse, so he would probably vote for his local LibDem MP (Layla Moran). I think a surprising number of traditional Conservatives will find ways to avoid supporting them even if they have doubts about Labour - some Labour anyway, some LibDem, some simply staying at home.
My father-in-law, ex-farmer, lifelong Conservative voter, has just returned his postal vote for Somerton & Frome. He hasn't told Mrs P. which way he's voted and she, quite rightly, hasn't asked. But neither of us are in any doubt he will have voted Tory, come what may.
He represents that proportion of customary Tory voters who are not enamoured with the current party (far from it) but look upon voting Tory as an act of duty, akin to standing up for the national anthem, bowing one's head when at prayer, etc. etc.
There will truly be a rock-bottom level of support the Tories cannot fall under.
In the big picture this is an essential part of society's foundations. Both major parties have something like 20% of the population who will vote for them come what may. Polling over decades gives evidence of this; as does the survival of Labour when threatened by the SDP; as does the survival of the Tory vote now, when the party has more or less no real public support.
If this didn't happen, and 100% of voters were floaters, there would be a complete lack of continuity and consistency plus an increased chance of an extremist takeover.
Yes, Labour fell to 21% in May 2009, Brown was widely ridiculed, the economy was in much worse shape than it is now, and the government was divided and sleazy. Councils that had been Labour from time out of mind had been lost. But, in the end, 30% voted Labour.
I hope that fully implementing Leveson is in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos.
Actually, I hope it isn't. Because there were many ideas in it that were really quite stupid, including some that have been enacted. Forcing all the media to sign up to what was a politically partisan regulator and if they refused, leave them liable to all costs in a defamation case even if they win was a very dumb idea.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
Where is the right wing making that demand?
You seem not to have updated your attack line to take account either of the point that it is Edwards, surely a right wing icon after he emceed the death of her late maj, or of the new allegations of hitting on colleagues which make misconduct charges much much easier.
He will in fact leave by mutual agreement for elf reasons.
ETA This rhymes to an alarming extent with the post next to it.
I do have to chuckle at the "what hate mob" comments from you and others. We had days of lies in the S*n and sympathetic coverage from trash like GBeebies, who openly outed Edwards in silhouette form.
They want the BBC and non-right wing media damaged for political and commercial reasons.
That's not the reason. Well OK it's commercial, but not in the sense of those companies pushing their own interests only. Read the WFH vs BBC judgment and you will see just how powerful WFH and the interests behind him are. Easy enough to guess the sector with high confidence and then take it from there. They sell a hell of a lot of units of mugs' attention.
The Sun claims tonight it "never alleged criminality" and blames other media for "reading too much" into its reporting. Like yesterday's Sun story (still on website) saying the BBC figure "could be charged by cops & face years in prison."
The key thing is that these words are typical journalistic avoidance. It all depends of the weight given to 'could', the use of inverted commas and the use of an 'expert(!) opinion.
Unravelled it merely says that if an allegation made about an unnamed person were true, then according to law that person could go to prison.
It belongs, IMHO, to the Sun's version of the typical Guardian headline of the "Last chance: Experts say temperature in Scottish summer could reach 19 degrees C while abandoned London could catch fire at 53 degrees C unless we all live in caves from today".
Revealing, isn't it, that dirty old man but millionaire Huw Edwards is always referred to with his sex ("gender"), as "he", but the youngster, presumed pauper, whose nude photos Edwards obtained is always referred to as if he were a table or a stone, without any ascription of sex ("gender").
Presumably we're supposed to think, or act as if we think, that the media bosses and the authorities in the country are ever so pink-proudily homophobia aware, and this is why they behave like that. Never mind that the youngster's sex ("gender") is probably important to him, to his identity and to his functioning in society - and it's a good guess it was important to the said dirty old man as well - just as it is for 99.99% of the population. But we mustn't assume that, because maybe he's non-binary or a transvestite, right? And thus the prole gets de-sexed. Because otherwise bricks might fly through gay men's windows. Really?
Not really. It's more to do with the point that the media are being quite careful not to identify the person - whereas with Edwards, they were quite keen to but feared the legal consequences.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Its true that I despise The S*n and all it stands for. But what they have done isn't specific to them. The phone hacking thing broke News of the World, but Piers Moron's Mirror was also waist deep in the same shit.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
Yup. And the latitude to define "bringing the organisation into disrepute" is pretty broad, from what I have seen.
It's another event that should make people think of their own circumstances and their own legal protections.
Quite. I suspect some of the PBers who complained about such action by corporations are those who decry the very notion of joining a union. Which is worth it just for the legal backup, IMO.
Was it you who said that HR are there to enforce the employer's interests? One of us did. But there are many times when one's interest coincides with the employer. A friend was being givedn the runaround re short term employment - a valuable employee in a job she loved but being fobbed off with a succession of one year contracts. Come year three she was browbeaten by a research unit manager into signing another temp[orary contract at a poor salary. She hadn't even joined the union, despite my warnings. But she did take my advice and wentr to HR. The HR manager took one look and went white. Within days my friend was in possession of a permanent contract. The altdernative would have been constructive dismissal and a nasty tribunal case.
But - yopur point remains that if one signs a job contract one no longer has the freedom [edit] one had.
The thing to ask is who pays them. Who fires *them*. HR are part of the company.
Another classic is the lawyer provided by your employer. Sounds nice….
HR ranges from good - knowing law and keeping to it - to WTAF.
One hilarious story about HR starts like this. I inherited a team of 5 devs. Due to a major effort by me and the previous boss, we’d actually found and employed two women. Which for hard tech was good going.
So meeting HR, to discuss the way forward. The American HR lady - “Your team isn’t women friendly.”
Me - “What’s the issue? We got to 40% women and it’s an ongoing thing.”
HR - “But the women in your team aren’t typical women.”
Me - ????
It turned out that she meant they were female nerds. Apparently she felt threatened/upset/something by the presence of women who didn't live for handbags or something.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy
I don't think the political right have any real animus against Huw Edwards. Why would they?
BBC. Highly paid. Baaaad combination. Vide incessant moans on PB against the footy chap.
Well also the left-wingery. That's also something the right tend not to like in someone nominally politically neutral being paid by the public. (Much more an issue for Lineker than Edwards.)
Revealing, isn't it, that dirty old man but millionaire Huw Edwards is always referred to with his sex ("gender"), as "he", but the youngster, presumed pauper, whose nude photos Edwards obtained is always referred to as if he were a table or a stone, without any ascription of sex ("gender").
Presumably we're supposed to think, or act as if we think, that the media bosses and the authorities in the country are ever so pink-proudily homophobia aware, and this is why they behave like that. Never mind that the youngster's sex ("gender") is probably important to him, to his identity and to his functioning in society - and it's a good guess it was important to the said dirty old man as well - just as it is for 99.99% of the population. But we mustn't assume that, because maybe he's non-binary or a transvestite, right? And thus the prole gets de-sexed. Because otherwise bricks might fly through gay men's windows. Really?
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy
I don't think the political right have any real animus against Huw Edwards. Why would they?
I'd suggest that one of the reasons that Edwards is so highly regarded as a front man is that, although he's been around a long time, nobody actually knows what his personal politics are - which makes him right for the BBC. I haven't got a clue what he really thinks. Whereas I do have a view on some of the likely replacements.
I've been bemused by the Edwards saga. The BBC defence, from their supporters anyway, is that no laws were breached. Irrelevant, as we all know. It's his actions that are the problem for the BBC. Mental illness or not. "Celebrities" are put on a pedestal - nonsensical as it may be.
When they fall from grace, they fall totally. The BBC actions show them to be incompetent in many ways. Inaction at first, hoping it will blow over, then complaints about journalism despite them looking into a mirror. Journalists have no ethics.
I paid £159 for a TV license last month. For what? They have more adverts than any ITV channel - even if they're restricted to their own forthcoming programmes. When interviewed the other day, Tim Davie looked all at sea. I wouldn't trust him to sort out anything.
I thought the other channels went easy on the BBC. 'There but for fortune' and all that, I suppose.
The Beeb were happy to dump on ITV over the Phillip Schofield issue, and he lost his job when he broke no laws. Unwise but not illegal.
ITV and other stations have gone to town over this story.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Sun has a history of knowingly printing lies, I guess it works for their bottom line or they don't care about the money. System doesn't seem to work that well it seems to me.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Its true that I despise The S*n and all it stands for. But what they have done isn't specific to them. The phone hacking thing broke News of the World, but Piers Moron's Mirror was also waist deep in the same shit.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
It took you a year in the media to learn that what the Scum prints that it doesn't get from other newspapers or receive from big businesses' press offices is almost exclusively lies that it makes up?
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Not when the alleged victim had told them it was a pack of lies before they published.
If the alleged victim was a child at the time of the alleged crime then that's not relevant.
A crime is a crime if it involves a child whether the child cooperates or not. If there is a serious allegation with evidence then that can lead to a conviction even if the child denies it happened.
If someone makes a complaint to the police along these lines then they have to investigate - it is too serious not to. Especially when a child is involved because very understandably they can be in denial of what occurred.
We know that. But this is different. The "child" was 17 when the crimes were alleged to take place. When we have estranged parents giving their story to a red top, and the supposed victim very clearly saying not only is it a lie but that he's estranged from his parents, the investigation is unlikely to take very long. And by the look of it the polis gave it a cursory look and said "no crime committed".
If you are the editor of The S*n or any other media outlet, you are not the police. You don't get to adjudicate on what may or may not be a crime. You can't choose to set aside the word of the alleged victim denying your story and print anyway because its juicy and suits your agenda.
Well you can. If you want to have your arse sued off.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Its true that I despise The S*n and all it stands for. But what they have done isn't specific to them. The phone hacking thing broke News of the World, but Piers Moron's Mirror was also waist deep in the same shit.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
Y0u seem to have taped a lightproof paper bag over your head on day 1 of this story. NOBODY is defending rhe Sun. Nobody has defended the Sun. The Sun are shitbags. People are just pointing out to you that your spartist template turns out not to fit. Celebs are celebs. People like stories about them. Especially in the silly season. The end.
I've been bemused by the Edwards saga. The BBC defence, from their supporters anyway, is that no laws were breached. Irrelevant, as we all know. It's his actions that are the problem for the BBC. Mental illness or not. "Celebrities" are put on a pedestal - nonsensical as it may be.
When they fall from grace, they fall totally. The BBC actions show them to be incompetent in many ways. Inaction at first, hoping it will blow over, then complaints about journalism despite them looking into a mirror. Journalists have no ethics.
I paid £159 for a TV license last month. For what? They have more adverts than any ITV channel - even if they're restricted to their own forthcoming programmes. When interviewed the other day, Tim Davie looked all at sea. I wouldn't trust him to sort out anything.
I thought the other channels went easy on the BBC. 'There but for fortune' and all that, I suppose.
The Beeb were happy to dump on ITV over the Phillip Schofield issue, and he lost his job when he broke no laws. Unwise but not illegal.
ITV and other stations have gone to town over this story.
What’s shocking me is how far the BBC are going to town on the story. It’s clear that the rest of the newsroom really didn’t like the guy. BBC World News were leading on it, with the NATO summit second!
My week in Surrey has been lovely. I've been staying with my friend, who has never voted anything other than Conservative.
We didn't need to have any arguments because she had nothing good to say about them. For the first time in her life 'as things currently stand she would not vote Conservative.'
It's an anecdote, of course, and the polls tell us that the Party is still polling in the high 20's. But if they are losing people like her then this is going to be worse than 1997.
I was visiting a lifelong Conservative (wealthy retired landowner) last week - friend of a friend - who said that the party indubitably needed a spell in opposition, but in his opinion Starmer would be even worse, so he would probably vote for his local LibDem MP (Layla Moran). I think a surprising number of traditional Conservatives will find ways to avoid supporting them even if they have doubts about Labour - some Labour anyway, some LibDem, some simply staying at home.
My father-in-law, ex-farmer, lifelong Conservative voter, has just returned his postal vote for Somerton & Frome. He hasn't told Mrs P. which way he's voted and she, quite rightly, hasn't asked. But neither of us are in any doubt he will have voted Tory, come what may.
He represents that proportion of customary Tory voters who are not enamoured with the current party (far from it) but look upon voting Tory as an act of duty, akin to standing up for the national anthem, bowing one's head when at prayer, etc. etc.
There will truly be a rock-bottom level of support the Tories cannot fall under.
In the big picture this is an essential part of society's foundations. Both major parties have something like 20% of the population who will vote for them come what may. Polling over decades gives evidence of this; as does the survival of Labour when threatened by the SDP; as does the survival of the Tory vote now, when the party has more or less no real public support.
If this didn't happen, and 100% of voters were floaters, there would be a complete lack of continuity and consistency plus an increased chance of an extremist takeover.
Yes, Labour fell to 21% in May 2009, Brown was widely ridiculed, the economy was in much worse shape than it is now, and the government was divided and sleazy. Councils that had been Labour from time out of mind had been lost. But, in the end, 30% voted Labour.
Yes. Currently I think that the GE 2024/5 result (Lab and Con) will be within 3 % points in any direction of the 1997 result (which was Lab 43, Tory 30). So, Lab 40-46, Tory 27-33.
(This over confident and too precise prediction embraces the possibility of absolute landslide and NOM. The margins are fine.)
However a week or so ago there was perhaps a 95+% chance that Huw Edwards would be doing election coverage on BBC at the next GE.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy
I don't think the political right have any real animus against Huw Edwards. Why would they?
I'd suggest that one of the reasons that Edwards is so highly regarded as a front man is that, although he's been around a long time, nobody actually knows what his personal politics are - which makes him right for the BBC. I haven't got a clue what he really thinks. Whereas I do have a view on some of the likely replacements.
He's fairly clearly Welsh nationalist in some form - and was adjudged biased in at least one program he made, on that basis.
...In September 2008, the BBC Trust ruled that a documentary presented by Edwards on the subject of Welsh politics had broken the organisation's editorial guidelines. The programme, entitled Wales: Power and the People – Back to the Future, addressed the topic of the Welsh Assembly, with Edwards stating, "to achieve its full potential it needs even greater support for the people of Wales than it's received so far ... the more people that take part, the stronger and healthier our democracy in Wales will be." Following a complaint, the governing body concluded that Edwards' words were not objective and even-handed on the subject, saying, "It is not the role of BBC presenters to encourage audiences to exercise their right to vote on particular occasions." It was also found that the documentary as a whole was biased against the Conservative Party...
But I agree that generally his distinguishing feature is blandness.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Agree with quite a lot of that - except that the way in which the Sun reported the story was extremely irresponsible. While it doesn't mean they shouldn't have run the story at all, it's pretty clear that they failed to check on basic facts before they splashed it on the front page.
Worse. They *did* check. The supposed victim told them it was a pack of lies and the nature of his relationship with his estranged parents who were spinning this. They chose to ignore him and print anyway.
"We didn't know the facts and made a mistake" is one thing. Not this. "We knew the facts but thought fuck it" is what happened.
I've been bemused by the Edwards saga. The BBC defence, from their supporters anyway, is that no laws were breached. Irrelevant, as we all know. It's his actions that are the problem for the BBC. Mental illness or not. "Celebrities" are put on a pedestal - nonsensical as it may be.
When they fall from grace, they fall totally. The BBC actions show them to be incompetent in many ways. Inaction at first, hoping it will blow over, then complaints about journalism despite them looking into a mirror. Journalists have no ethics.
I paid £159 for a TV license last month. For what? They have more adverts than any ITV channel - even if they're restricted to their own forthcoming programmes. When interviewed the other day, Tim Davie looked all at sea. I wouldn't trust him to sort out anything.
I thought the other channels went easy on the BBC. 'There but for fortune' and all that, I suppose.
The Beeb were happy to dump on ITV over the Phillip Schofield issue, and he lost his job when he broke no laws. Unwise but not illegal.
ITV and other stations have gone to town over this story.
What’s shocking me is how far the BBC are going to town on the story. It’s clear that the rest of the newsroom really didn’t like the guy. BBC World News were leading on it, with the NATO summit second!
Yes. The "fresh allegations of in-house misconduct" have been wheeled our with indecent haste.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy
I don't think the political right have any real animus against Huw Edwards. Why would they?
I'd suggest that one of the reasons that Edwards is so highly regarded as a front man is that, although he's been around a long time, nobody actually knows what his personal politics are - which makes him right for the BBC. I haven't got a clue what he really thinks. Whereas I do have a view on some of the likely replacements.
And that is why he is worth every penny of his enormous fee.
As the "how hard can it be?" news channels have shown, it's a lot harder than it looks.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Its true that I despise The S*n and all it stands for. But what they have done isn't specific to them. The phone hacking thing broke News of the World, but Piers Moron's Mirror was also waist deep in the same shit.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
Y0u seem to have taped a lightproof paper bag over your head on day 1 of this story. NOBODY is defending rhe Sun. Nobody has defended the Sun. The Sun are shitbags. People are just pointing out to you that your spartist template turns out not to fit. Celebs are celebs. People like stories about them. Especially in the silly season. The end.
There's been quite a lot of defence of both The S*n and the "BBC should still fire him" narrative on here. You can't say NOBODY because that patently isn't true. And out there in media land the pile on is still going on - the bottom feeding media still wants a bite even though the meal has been taken out of the water.
So lets take a few steps back from my alleged "Spartist template" (nice turn of phrase btw - have you considered journalism and go back to basics. The guy has been massively libelled and once he recovers himself from mental hospital should sue. The size of the damages will be higher because of the fact that he ended up in hospital.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy
I don't think the political right have any real animus against Huw Edwards. Why would they?
I'd suggest that one of the reasons that Edwards is so highly regarded as a front man is that, although he's been around a long time, nobody actually knows what his personal politics are - which makes him right for the BBC. I haven't got a clue what he really thinks. Whereas I do have a view on some of the likely replacements.
He's fairly clearly Welsh nationalist in some form - and was adjudged biased in at least one program he made, on that basis.
...In September 2008, the BBC Trust ruled that a documentary presented by Edwards on the subject of Welsh politics had broken the organisation's editorial guidelines. The programme, entitled Wales: Power and the People – Back to the Future, addressed the topic of the Welsh Assembly, with Edwards stating, "to achieve its full potential it needs even greater support for the people of Wales than it's received so far ... the more people that take part, the stronger and healthier our democracy in Wales will be." Following a complaint, the governing body concluded that Edwards' words were not objective and even-handed on the subject, saying, "It is not the role of BBC presenters to encourage audiences to exercise their right to vote on particular occasions." It was also found that the documentary as a whole was biased against the Conservative Party...
But I agree that generally his distinguishing feature is blandness.
Bizarre. All he was saying is that the more the turnout the better. AZbsolutely bog standard. Hell, the BBC used to run public interest announcements telling people to extradigitate and make sure they were on the register.
Women's football wibble: "On proposals to provide one source of funding from levelling FA Cup prize money across the men's and women's game, she added: "I'd hope there would not be a backlash.
"There are so many issues and women's sport has struggled for so long I'd hope there'd be an understanding but with anything there'll always be someone who will challenge it.
"I could have said equalise prize money right now but that would have taken down the pyramid of men's football. We should absolutely be going for equal prize money [in the future] from the FA Cup and the FA should be putting a timescale on that.""
Prize money is a consequence of revenue and income generated. It's not given to the men because they're men, but because men's football is a massive sport. And while women's football has grown a lot lately, it's nowhere near in the same league. When women can generate the same revenue, they'll deserve the same prize money. When they generate more than the men, they'll deserve more prize money than the men.
The sport where I found it most ridiculous that there was a great furore about equalising men's and women's prize money was tennis. The women's game in tennis is a sport that generates a lot of attention, but while equalising the payouts they didn't change the fact that men's grand slam tennis is best of 5 sets, while women's is best of 3 sets.
So each women's match in a grand slam can be over in about an hour, while a men's match can take 5 hours and often spill into a second day.
Women's grand slam tennis should be best of 5 sets IMHO.
Speaking of which, there's a real chance of a very politically charged final in the Wimbledon women's singles - Sabalenka, a Belarusian supporter of Lukashenko and somebody whose views on Ukraine have been to put it politely ambiguous, vs Svitolina.
Goodness only knows how that would work in the post match interviews...
Do they ever employ interpreters for post-match interviews or do they just assume every sportsperson can speak English? A questionable assumption, it seems to me, though it's a genre I tend to avoid.
There was a very funny clip that seems to have disappeared from Youtube where Romanian TV laid on an interpreter for their interview with Emma Raducanu who, of course, speaks Romanian, leaving the hapless interpreter trailing in her wake. OK, maybe you had to be there.
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Not when the alleged victim had told them it was a pack of lies before they published.
If the alleged victim was a child at the time of the alleged crime then that's not relevant.
A crime is a crime if it involves a child whether the child cooperates or not. If there is a serious allegation with evidence then that can lead to a conviction even if the child denies it happened.
If someone makes a complaint to the police along these lines then they have to investigate - it is too serious not to. Especially when a child is involved because very understandably they can be in denial of what occurred.
We know that. But this is different. The "child" was 17 when the crimes were alleged to take place. When we have estranged parents giving their story to a red top, and the supposed victim very clearly saying not only is it a lie but that he's estranged from his parents, the investigation is unlikely to take very long. And by the look of it the polis gave it a cursory look and said "no crime committed".
If you are the editor of The S*n or any other media outlet, you are not the police. You don't get to adjudicate on what may or may not be a crime. You can't choose to set aside the word of the alleged victim denying your story and print anyway because its juicy and suits your agenda.
Well you can. If you want to have your arse sued off.
If they have a credible source they can quote they absolutely can and should set aside the words of someone who was a child when the alleged is offence occurred.
Let's say hypothetically that a parent discovers their child has been abused and the abuser has been recording the abuse and the parent stumbled upon the evidence. Child continues to deny any abuse occurs even though there's video evidence that it did.
Should this be a non story because of the word of a child? Or should the word of the parents and the evidence they have be sufficient to proceed even though the child denies that which there is documentary evidence towards.
When it comes to children it's not only the victim who can complain - and for damned good reasons.
The issue here is the apparent lack of evidence to substantiate the story, not that the child concerned said it didn't happen.
I've been bemused by the Edwards saga. The BBC defence, from their supporters anyway, is that no laws were breached. Irrelevant, as we all know. It's his actions that are the problem for the BBC. Mental illness or not. "Celebrities" are put on a pedestal - nonsensical as it may be.
When they fall from grace, they fall totally. The BBC actions show them to be incompetent in many ways. Inaction at first, hoping it will blow over, then complaints about journalism despite them looking into a mirror. Journalists have no ethics.
I paid £159 for a TV license last month. For what? They have more adverts than any ITV channel - even if they're restricted to their own forthcoming programmes. When interviewed the other day, Tim Davie looked all at sea. I wouldn't trust him to sort out anything.
I thought the other channels went easy on the BBC. 'There but for fortune' and all that, I suppose.
The Beeb were happy to dump on ITV over the Phillip Schofield issue, and he lost his job when he broke no laws. Unwise but not illegal.
ITV and other stations have gone to town over this story.
What’s shocking me is how far the BBC are going to town on the story. It’s clear that the rest of the newsroom really didn’t like the guy. BBC World News were leading on it, with the NATO summit second!
Yes. The "fresh allegations of in-house misconduct" have been wheeled our with indecent haste.
Which suggests that they’re not particularly new, and were already known about in the newsroom.
Women's football wibble: "On proposals to provide one source of funding from levelling FA Cup prize money across the men's and women's game, she added: "I'd hope there would not be a backlash.
"There are so many issues and women's sport has struggled for so long I'd hope there'd be an understanding but with anything there'll always be someone who will challenge it.
"I could have said equalise prize money right now but that would have taken down the pyramid of men's football. We should absolutely be going for equal prize money [in the future] from the FA Cup and the FA should be putting a timescale on that.""
Prize money is a consequence of revenue and income generated. It's not given to the men because they're men, but because men's football is a massive sport. And while women's football has grown a lot lately, it's nowhere near in the same league. When women can generate the same revenue, they'll deserve the same prize money. When they generate more than the men, they'll deserve more prize money than the men.
The sport where I found it most ridiculous that there was a great furore about equalising men's and women's prize money was tennis. The women's game in tennis is a sport that generates a lot of attention, but while equalising the payouts they didn't change the fact that men's grand slam tennis is best of 5 sets, while women's is best of 3 sets.
So each women's match in a grand slam can be over in about an hour, while a men's match can take 5 hours and often spill into a second day.
Women's grand slam tennis should be best of 5 sets IMHO.
Speaking of which, there's a real chance of a very politically charged final in the Wimbledon women's singles - Sabalenka, a Belarusian supporter of Lukashenko and somebody whose views on Ukraine have been to put it politely ambiguous, vs Svitolina.
Goodness only knows how that would work in the post match interviews...
Do they ever employ interpreters for post-match interviews or do they just assume every sportsperson can speak English? A questionable assumption, it seems to me, though it's a genre I tend to avoid.
There was a very funny clip that seems to have disappeared from Youtube where Romanian TV laid on an interpreter for their interview with Emma Raducanu who, of course, speaks Romanian, leaving the hapless interpreter trailing in her wake. OK, maybe you had to be there.
Slight qualification, there's millions of Hungarian speakers in Romania with as much Romanian as the average Brit has French. But she is from Bucharest.
Women's football wibble: "On proposals to provide one source of funding from levelling FA Cup prize money across the men's and women's game, she added: "I'd hope there would not be a backlash.
"There are so many issues and women's sport has struggled for so long I'd hope there'd be an understanding but with anything there'll always be someone who will challenge it.
"I could have said equalise prize money right now but that would have taken down the pyramid of men's football. We should absolutely be going for equal prize money [in the future] from the FA Cup and the FA should be putting a timescale on that.""
Prize money is a consequence of revenue and income generated. It's not given to the men because they're men, but because men's football is a massive sport. And while women's football has grown a lot lately, it's nowhere near in the same league. When women can generate the same revenue, they'll deserve the same prize money. When they generate more than the men, they'll deserve more prize money than the men.
The sport where I found it most ridiculous that there was a great furore about equalising men's and women's prize money was tennis. The women's game in tennis is a sport that generates a lot of attention, but while equalising the payouts they didn't change the fact that men's grand slam tennis is best of 5 sets, while women's is best of 3 sets.
So each women's match in a grand slam can be over in about an hour, while a men's match can take 5 hours and often spill into a second day.
Women's grand slam tennis should be best of 5 sets IMHO.
Speaking of which, there's a real chance of a very politically charged final in the Wimbledon women's singles - Sabalenka, a Belarusian supporter of Lukashenko and somebody whose views on Ukraine have been to put it politely ambiguous, vs Svitolina.
Goodness only knows how that would work in the post match interviews...
Do they ever employ interpreters for post-match interviews or do they just assume every sportsperson can speak English? A questionable assumption, it seems to me, though it's a genre I tend to avoid.
They don't employ them at the French Open (which caused Murray some embarrassment in his one final appearance) so I would guess no. Bearing in mind even stars from the former Soviet Union tend to have trained in America.
Equally, I don't know that it's ever arisen. So it might be if they had somebody they knew didn't speak English they would have an interpreter handy.
Huw Edwards is fluent in French, as well as English and Welsh, so if he is looking for a new job...
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
The one thing that puzzles me is why involve an employer in what someone does in their private life. If I received intimate pictures of someone much younger than me, but no law was broken why would my employer be informed and why would my employer feel the need to take action? What I do legally in my private life has absolutely nothing to do with my employment.
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy
I don't think the political right have any real animus against Huw Edwards. Why would they?
I'd suggest that one of the reasons that Edwards is so highly regarded as a front man is that, although he's been around a long time, nobody actually knows what his personal politics are - which makes him right for the BBC. I haven't got a clue what he really thinks. Whereas I do have a view on some of the likely replacements.
He's fairly clearly Welsh nationalist in some form - and was adjudged biased in at least one program he made, on that basis.
...In September 2008, the BBC Trust ruled that a documentary presented by Edwards on the subject of Welsh politics had broken the organisation's editorial guidelines. The programme, entitled Wales: Power and the People – Back to the Future, addressed the topic of the Welsh Assembly, with Edwards stating, "to achieve its full potential it needs even greater support for the people of Wales than it's received so far ... the more people that take part, the stronger and healthier our democracy in Wales will be." Following a complaint, the governing body concluded that Edwards' words were not objective and even-handed on the subject, saying, "It is not the role of BBC presenters to encourage audiences to exercise their right to vote on particular occasions." It was also found that the documentary as a whole was biased against the Conservative Party...
But I agree that generally his distinguishing feature is blandness.
Bizarre. All he was saying is that the more the turnout the better. Absolutely bog standard. Hell, the BBC used to run public interest announcements telling people to extradigitate and make sure they were on the register.
I haven't seen the program, but you have to take into account: "it was also found that the documentary as a whole was biased against the Conservative Party". (As you know, I'm hardly a fan of the Tories.)
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Sun has a history of knowingly printing lies, I guess it works for their bottom line or they don't care about the money. System doesn't seem to work that well it seems to me.
Lets not be coy. So many of the tabloids - both print and now TV - have a history of that. It isn't just one single newspaper. Personal scandals like this one can be bad, but usually end up in court with big payouts, so there is a resolution. And when the editor costs the owner too much money, off they go.
Worse is the politicisation of stupidity and ignorance. The latter is not a crime or even a negative - we all have many things we are profoundly ignorant about. The bad bit is that some people are also not particularly bright, and when that is combined with ignorance it is easy to start manipulating opinions so that the sky is green not blue
One specific example to illustrate this. So many people genuinely believe that refugees MUST claim asylum in the first country they come to. Not because that is morally right, because its the law. That it is demonstrably false doesn't seem to matter, people keep saying it as something they genuinely believe to be true.
International laws and treaties on refugees is a subject where most of us are ignorant - we don't know and we don't need to know. So how have so many become so convinced that the sky is green here - because they have been lied to by the media and politicians.
This is a much bigger problem than newspaper A mistakenly outing celeb B.
Women's football wibble: "On proposals to provide one source of funding from levelling FA Cup prize money across the men's and women's game, she added: "I'd hope there would not be a backlash.
"There are so many issues and women's sport has struggled for so long I'd hope there'd be an understanding but with anything there'll always be someone who will challenge it.
"I could have said equalise prize money right now but that would have taken down the pyramid of men's football. We should absolutely be going for equal prize money [in the future] from the FA Cup and the FA should be putting a timescale on that.""
Prize money is a consequence of revenue and income generated. It's not given to the men because they're men, but because men's football is a massive sport. And while women's football has grown a lot lately, it's nowhere near in the same league. When women can generate the same revenue, they'll deserve the same prize money. When they generate more than the men, they'll deserve more prize money than the men.
The sport where I found it most ridiculous that there was a great furore about equalising men's and women's prize money was tennis. The women's game in tennis is a sport that generates a lot of attention, but while equalising the payouts they didn't change the fact that men's grand slam tennis is best of 5 sets, while women's is best of 3 sets.
So each women's match in a grand slam can be over in about an hour, while a men's match can take 5 hours and often spill into a second day.
Women's grand slam tennis should be best of 5 sets IMHO.
Speaking of which, there's a real chance of a very politically charged final in the Wimbledon women's singles - Sabalenka, a Belarusian supporter of Lukashenko and somebody whose views on Ukraine have been to put it politely ambiguous, vs Svitolina.
Goodness only knows how that would work in the post match interviews...
Do they ever employ interpreters for post-match interviews or do they just assume every sportsperson can speak English? A questionable assumption, it seems to me, though it's a genre I tend to avoid.
There was a very funny clip that seems to have disappeared from Youtube where Romanian TV laid on an interpreter for their interview with Emma Raducanu who, of course, speaks Romanian, leaving the hapless interpreter trailing in her wake. OK, maybe you had to be there.
Slight qualification, there's millions of Hungarian speakers in Romania with as much Romanian as the average Brit has French. But she is from Bucharest.
Raducanu's father is from Bucharest but Emma was born in Canada and raised in Britain. Last I heard, she'd been recuperating with Romanian granny after surgery and earning even more than Huw Edwards for not playing tennis.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Its true that I despise The S*n and all it stands for. But what they have done isn't specific to them. The phone hacking thing broke News of the World, but Piers Moron's Mirror was also waist deep in the same shit.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
Y0u seem to have taped a lightproof paper bag over your head on day 1 of this story. NOBODY is defending rhe Sun. Nobody has defended the Sun. The Sun are shitbags. People are just pointing out to you that your spartist template turns out not to fit. Celebs are celebs. People like stories about them. Especially in the silly season. The end.
There's been quite a lot of defence of both The S*n and the "BBC should still fire him" narrative on here. You can't say NOBODY because that patently isn't true. And out there in media land the pile on is still going on - the bottom feeding media still wants a bite even though the meal has been taken out of the water.
So lets take a few steps back from my alleged "Spartist template" (nice turn of phrase btw - have you considered journalism and go back to basics. The guy has been massively libelled and once he recovers himself from mental hospital should sue. The size of the damages will be higher because of the fact that he ended up in hospital.
Well I am not seeing it. I also don't buy your "with one bound he was free" narrative, even on the agreed facts he is someone I would go to great lengths to distance myself from, and who knows what is to come?
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
The one thing that puzzles me is why involve an employer in what someone does in their private life. If I received intimate pictures of someone much younger than me, but no law was broken why would my employer be informed and why would my employer feel the need to take action? What I do legally in my private life has absolutely nothing to do with my employment.
The police have now investigated this matter. Whatever the estranged parents have claimed is not true. I could understand an employer having issue with a high profile employee breaking that specific law. But he hasn't.
"BBC man pays for pornography" isn't really a story is it?
Mr. Pioneers, inclined to agree, given the police believe no criminality has occurred.
Dismissed for an act within the bounds of the law that has no direct impact on the workplace seems like an unhealthy precedent.
Bringing the company (corporation) into disrepute? Also, would Edwards really want to take on an Employment Tribunal case with all the publicity that would bring?
He won't have to- the BBC will not fire him as the right wing hate mob continue to demand.
I am right wing and don't particularly want to see Huw Edwards fired. He is still probably the best news frontman the BBC have even if his personal life is a bit dubious at present. However he is 61, if he made a mutual agreement with the BBC for early retirement I don't think that would be the worst outcome. He has plenty of other interests in Welsh culture etc to keep him busy
I don't think the political right have any real animus against Huw Edwards. Why would they?
I'd suggest that one of the reasons that Edwards is so highly regarded as a front man is that, although he's been around a long time, nobody actually knows what his personal politics are - which makes him right for the BBC. I haven't got a clue what he really thinks. Whereas I do have a view on some of the likely replacements.
He's fairly clearly Welsh nationalist in some form - and was adjudged biased in at least one program he made, on that basis.
...In September 2008, the BBC Trust ruled that a documentary presented by Edwards on the subject of Welsh politics had broken the organisation's editorial guidelines. The programme, entitled Wales: Power and the People – Back to the Future, addressed the topic of the Welsh Assembly, with Edwards stating, "to achieve its full potential it needs even greater support for the people of Wales than it's received so far ... the more people that take part, the stronger and healthier our democracy in Wales will be." Following a complaint, the governing body concluded that Edwards' words were not objective and even-handed on the subject, saying, "It is not the role of BBC presenters to encourage audiences to exercise their right to vote on particular occasions." It was also found that the documentary as a whole was biased against the Conservative Party...
But I agree that generally his distinguishing feature is blandness.
Bizarre. All he was saying is that the more the turnout the better. Absolutely bog standard. Hell, the BBC used to run public interest announcements telling people to extradigitate and make sure they were on the register.
I haven't seen the program, but you have to take into account: "it was also found that the documentary as a whole was biased against the Conservative Party". (As you know, I'm hardly a fan of the Tories.)
Sure, but the first point is so obviously invalid. And it leads one to suspect the second, simply because the Senedd is not a Tory-friendly zone. Senedd Good inevitably means Tories Bad. But, as you say, that questionjh remains open.
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
The one thing that puzzles me is why involve an employer in what someone does in their private life. If I received intimate pictures of someone much younger than me, but no law was broken why would my employer be informed and why would my employer feel the need to take action? What I do legally in my private life has absolutely nothing to do with my employment.
Good ole Reputation is the answer.
Essentially, you do *anything* that gets you or the employer in the news, your chair begins to wobble. And if it is more negative than “X, who works for Y, has raised Z for a charity helping especially cute kittens”….
Like the thing about arresting people for T-shirts or governments demanding the right to read your mail, this is how things have been for a long, long time. But people are just noticing it now.
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
The one thing that puzzles me is why involve an employer in what someone does in their private life. If I received intimate pictures of someone much younger than me, but no law was broken why would my employer be informed and why would my employer feel the need to take action? What I do legally in my private life has absolutely nothing to do with my employment.
It depends what your job is. Teachers are seemingly instantly dismissed if/when racy pictures emerge of them online.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Not when the alleged victim had told them it was a pack of lies before they published.
If the alleged victim was a child at the time of the alleged crime then that's not relevant.
A crime is a crime if it involves a child whether the child cooperates or not. If there is a serious allegation with evidence then that can lead to a conviction even if the child denies it happened.
If someone makes a complaint to the police along these lines then they have to investigate - it is too serious not to. Especially when a child is involved because very understandably they can be in denial of what occurred.
We know that. But this is different. The "child" was 17 when the crimes were alleged to take place. When we have estranged parents giving their story to a red top, and the supposed victim very clearly saying not only is it a lie but that he's estranged from his parents, the investigation is unlikely to take very long. And by the look of it the polis gave it a cursory look and said "no crime committed".
If you are the editor of The S*n or any other media outlet, you are not the police. You don't get to adjudicate on what may or may not be a crime. You can't choose to set aside the word of the alleged victim denying your story and print anyway because its juicy and suits your agenda.
Well you can. If you want to have your arse sued off.
If they have a credible source they can quote they absolutely can and should set aside the words of someone who was a child when the alleged is offence occurred.
Let's say hypothetically that a parent discovers their child has been abused and the abuser has been recording the abuse and the parent stumbled upon the evidence. Child continues to deny any abuse occurs even though there's video evidence that it did.
Should this be a non story because of the word of a child? Or should the word of the parents and the evidence they have be sufficient to proceed even though the child denies that which there is documentary evidence towards.
When it comes to children it's not only the victim who can complain - and for damned good reasons.
The issue here is the apparent lack of evidence to substantiate the story, not that the child concerned said it didn't happen.
In this case, the "child" is 20 years old and was 17 so perhaps a more credible witness than the much younger child you seem to be describing. You were taken in by the Sun's deliberately misleading language. So were other newspapers. But when in a hole, stop digging.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Its true that I despise The S*n and all it stands for. But what they have done isn't specific to them. The phone hacking thing broke News of the World, but Piers Moron's Mirror was also waist deep in the same shit.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
Y0u seem to have taped a lightproof paper bag over your head on day 1 of this story. NOBODY is defending rhe Sun. Nobody has defended the Sun. The Sun are shitbags. People are just pointing out to you that your spartist template turns out not to fit. Celebs are celebs. People like stories about them. Especially in the silly season. The end.
There's been quite a lot of defence of both The S*n and the "BBC should still fire him" narrative on here. You can't say NOBODY because that patently isn't true. And out there in media land the pile on is still going on - the bottom feeding media still wants a bite even though the meal has been taken out of the water.
So lets take a few steps back from my alleged "Spartist template" (nice turn of phrase btw - have you considered journalism and go back to basics. The guy has been massively libelled and once he recovers himself from mental hospital should sue. The size of the damages will be higher because of the fact that he ended up in hospital.
Well I am not seeing it. I also don't buy your "with one bound he was free" narrative, even on the agreed facts he is someone I would go to great lengths to distance myself from, and who knows what is to come?
I am not right wing.
The interesting part of this is the nature of man's relationship with pornography. I am not particularly interested in what turns you on. Or Huw Edwards. Or S*n journalists.
The reason why we have strict laws in this area is to protect people - both the creators of said porn to stop them being abused / exploited / trafficked etc. And the users of said porn to ensure that what they are viewing is legal.
We can have a moral debate about should a 60 year old man be whacking off to images of 18 year old men. And another one about whether him being married makes a difference to that debate.
What I don't think we should have is a morality police hit mob. Where what gets you or I off legally is a matter for public scrutiny and judgement. Because once we start overturning rocks looking for mud, all we will see is mud. Because almost everyone can be judged by morality police hate mobs of being deviant from the norm. Because there is no norm.
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
The one thing that puzzles me is why involve an employer in what someone does in their private life. If I received intimate pictures of someone much younger than me, but no law was broken why would my employer be informed and why would my employer feel the need to take action? What I do legally in my private life has absolutely nothing to do with my employment.
The police have now investigated this matter. Whatever the estranged parents have claimed is not true. I could understand an employer having issue with a high profile employee breaking that specific law. But he hasn't.
"BBC man pays for pornography" isn't really a story is it?
Would “BBC man cheats on his wife with teen sex worker” be a story?
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
I'm reminded of the question a wise manager once taught me for changing the tone of argumentative meetings:
"What do you want to happen?"
What did the parents want to happen? Their child not to be estranged and doing what they were doing, presumably.
What did they want the BBC to do about that, though? Sack Edwards? Tell him off? Put him under a curfew? Really?
Once the police had said there was nothing in law against what was going on, there wasn't much to be done that I can see.
The parents were in a horrible situation, one of the nightmares every parent fears. But sometimes nightmares happen and there's no authority that can fix them. And going to the press, especially to a red top, especially The Sun, probably makes things worse.
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
The one thing that puzzles me is why involve an employer in what someone does in their private life. If I received intimate pictures of someone much younger than me, but no law was broken why would my employer be informed and why would my employer feel the need to take action? What I do legally in my private life has absolutely nothing to do with my employment.
The police have now investigated this matter. Whatever the estranged parents have claimed is not true. I could understand an employer having issue with a high profile employee breaking that specific law. But he hasn't.
"BBC man pays for pornography" isn't really a story is it?
No. Probably less of a story than "Social media user doesn't pay for pornography", if the truth be known.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Sun has a history of knowingly printing lies, I guess it works for their bottom line or they don't care about the money. System doesn't seem to work that well it seems to me.
Lets not be coy. So many of the tabloids - both print and now TV - have a history of that. It isn't just one single newspaper. Personal scandals like this one can be bad, but usually end up in court with big payouts, so there is a resolution. And when the editor costs the owner too much money, off they go.
Worse is the politicisation of stupidity and ignorance. The latter is not a crime or even a negative - we all have many things we are profoundly ignorant about. The bad bit is that some people are also not particularly bright, and when that is combined with ignorance it is easy to start manipulating opinions so that the sky is green not blue
One specific example to illustrate this. So many people genuinely believe that refugees MUST claim asylum in the first country they come to. Not because that is morally right, because its the law. That it is demonstrably false doesn't seem to matter, people keep saying it as something they genuinely believe to be true.
International laws and treaties on refugees is a subject where most of us are ignorant - we don't know and we don't need to know. So how have so many become so convinced that the sky is green here - because they have been lied to by the media and politicians.
This is a much bigger problem than newspaper A mistakenly outing celeb B.
On the law of asylum, it seems to me that most people don't believe that people must legally claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in, as they are daily confronted with vast amounts of counter evidence but think this ought to be the case.
They would of course be wrong about this too. But as there is no possibility of a 'right' opinion about migration/refugee status etc, (suggestions on a postcard) we are all going to continue being different shades of wrong. The existence of a problem does not logically entail the existence of a solution.
As i said yesterday, i think trying to asses who was in the right and wrong is impossible.
The Sun claims they had even more stories of inappropriate behaviour, including from BBC employees. The verifacy and what they entail, we don't know. The BBC in past day or so have had 4 individuals come forward allegeding things ranging from threatening and abusive behaviour to sending unsolicited and inappropriate messages and feeling threatened by a different in power.
I think the best thing the BBC could do is ask for somebody from outside the corporation to investigate and allow people to come forward without fear or favour. BUT, it should be done without constant breathless reporting on every potential detail etc.
Then once all the claims have been thoroughly investigated, then reported on.
All we are now getting is lots of axe grinding from every talking head out there....its the Sun fault, its the BBC fault, etc etc etc...News UK have axe to grind with BBC, the BBC newsroom have axe to grind with management, the BBC don't like the Sun...then all sorts of political people taking their pop too.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Not when the alleged victim had told them it was a pack of lies before they published.
If the alleged victim was a child at the time of the alleged crime then that's not relevant.
A crime is a crime if it involves a child whether the child cooperates or not. If there is a serious allegation with evidence then that can lead to a conviction even if the child denies it happened.
If someone makes a complaint to the police along these lines then they have to investigate - it is too serious not to. Especially when a child is involved because very understandably they can be in denial of what occurred.
We know that. But this is different. The "child" was 17 when the crimes were alleged to take place. When we have estranged parents giving their story to a red top, and the supposed victim very clearly saying not only is it a lie but that he's estranged from his parents, the investigation is unlikely to take very long. And by the look of it the polis gave it a cursory look and said "no crime committed".
If you are the editor of The S*n or any other media outlet, you are not the police. You don't get to adjudicate on what may or may not be a crime. You can't choose to set aside the word of the alleged victim denying your story and print anyway because its juicy and suits your agenda.
Well you can. If you want to have your arse sued off.
If they have a credible source they can quote they absolutely can and should set aside the words of someone who was a child when the alleged is offence occurred.
Let's say hypothetically that a parent discovers their child has been abused and the abuser has been recording the abuse and the parent stumbled upon the evidence. Child continues to deny any abuse occurs even though there's video evidence that it did.
Should this be a non story because of the word of a child? Or should the word of the parents and the evidence they have be sufficient to proceed even though the child denies that which there is documentary evidence towards.
When it comes to children it's not only the victim who can complain - and for damned good reasons.
The issue here is the apparent lack of evidence to substantiate the story, not that the child concerned said it didn't happen.
In this case, the "child" is 20 years old and was 17 so perhaps a more credible witness than the much younger child you seem to be describing. You were taken in by the Sun's deliberately misleading language. So were other newspapers. But when in a hole, stop digging.
I wasn't taken in, I said from the start that I'm not making any judgment and its for the Police to investigate and we should not leap to either "a crime has been committed" or "no crime has been committed" until the investigation has closed.
Well, its closed now. So that's that. That the "child" was 17 at the time of the alleged offence makes them . . . "a child" in the eyes of the law.
Whether they're 7 or 17 is immaterial, the law is 18, so anything lower than 18 is a child, no ifs, no buts and equivocation.
And whether they're 20 now or not is immaterial too. The law is about the age of the child in question at the time the alleged offence happened, not what age they are now.
The issue here is that the Police have found apparently no evidence of criminal activity, not that the alleged victim denies it, had there been evidence it would be a different matter again regardless of what the alleged victim says, but if there's no evidence then that's that, case closed.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Its true that I despise The S*n and all it stands for. But what they have done isn't specific to them. The phone hacking thing broke News of the World, but Piers Moron's Mirror was also waist deep in the same shit.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
Y0u seem to have taped a lightproof paper bag over your head on day 1 of this story. NOBODY is defending rhe Sun. Nobody has defended the Sun. The Sun are shitbags. People are just pointing out to you that your spartist template turns out not to fit. Celebs are celebs. People like stories about them. Especially in the silly season. The end.
There's been quite a lot of defence of both The S*n and the "BBC should still fire him" narrative on here. You can't say NOBODY because that patently isn't true. And out there in media land the pile on is still going on - the bottom feeding media still wants a bite even though the meal has been taken out of the water.
So lets take a few steps back from my alleged "Spartist template" (nice turn of phrase btw - have you considered journalism and go back to basics. The guy has been massively libelled and once he recovers himself from mental hospital should sue. The size of the damages will be higher because of the fact that he ended up in hospital.
Well I am not seeing it. I also don't buy your "with one bound he was free" narrative, even on the agreed facts he is someone I would go to great lengths to distance myself from, and who knows what is to come?
I am not right wing.
The interesting part of this is the nature of man's relationship with pornography. I am not particularly interested in what turns you on. Or Huw Edwards. Or S*n journalists.
The reason why we have strict laws in this area is to protect people - both the creators of said porn to stop them being abused / exploited / trafficked etc. And the users of said porn to ensure that what they are viewing is legal.
We can have a moral debate about should a 60 year old man be whacking off to images of 18 year old men. And another one about whether him being married makes a difference to that debate.
What I don't think we should have is a morality police hit mob. Where what gets you or I off legally is a matter for public scrutiny and judgement. Because once we start overturning rocks looking for mud, all we will see is mud. Because almost everyone can be judged by morality police hate mobs of being deviant from the norm. Because there is no norm.
“morality police hit mob” - that’s what we’ve had for ages.
Just that, until the age of MeToo, the targets were… acceptable.
There isn't much of a left left now, but one weakness of what used to pass for the left in Britain and of the relics of it that still exist has been that while they commendably detested the Scum (credit where it's due!), they had little to say about the BBC.
The government department or propaganda ministry called the BBC is about as establishmentarian and, when it really comes down to it, as "one nation" TORY as it is possible to be.
The left has been unable to say this. (One exception I can think of is Craig Murray. I don't even know whether he'd call himself on the left, but he'd probably agree with the previous paragraph.)
Then you can look at say David Attenborough or Michael Wood and tell me they're not pushing white-boy globalist British neo-colonialism.
"The so-called Islamic State group", lol. Nobody on what passes for the left even rips into that kind of terminology. They haven't got the sense.
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
The one thing that puzzles me is why involve an employer in what someone does in their private life. If I received intimate pictures of someone much younger than me, but no law was broken why would my employer be informed and why would my employer feel the need to take action? What I do legally in my private life has absolutely nothing to do with my employment.
The police have now investigated this matter. Whatever the estranged parents have claimed is not true. I could understand an employer having issue with a high profile employee breaking that specific law. But he hasn't.
"BBC man pays for pornography" isn't really a story is it?
Would “BBC man cheats on his wife with teen sex worker” be a story?
There isn't much of a left left now, but one weakness of what used to pass for the left in Britain and of the relics of it that still exist has that been that while they commendably detested the Scum, they had little to say about the BBC.
The BBC is about as establishmentarian and, when it really comes down to it, as "one nation" TORY as it is possible to be.
The left has been unable to say this.
Then you can look at say David Attenborough or Michael Wood and tell me they're not pushing white-boy British neo-colonialism.
You seem not know anything about David Attenborough, for a start.
Unless you believe in the “all white men are neo-colonialist by genetic inheritance” horseshit.
There isn't much of a left left now, but one weakness of what used to pass for the left in Britain and of the relics of it that still exist has that been that while they commendably detested the Scum, they had little to say about the BBC.
The government department or propaganda ministry called the BBC is about as establishmentarian and, when it really comes down to it, as "one nation" TORY as it is possible to be.
The left has been unable to say this.
Then you can look at say David Attenborough or Michael Wood and tell me they're not pushing white-boy British neo-colonialism.
"The so-called Islamic State group", lol. Nobody on what passes for the left even rips into that kind of terminology. They haven't got the sense.
I thought you were supposed to start posting on Saturday mornings?
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Its true that I despise The S*n and all it stands for. But what they have done isn't specific to them. The phone hacking thing broke News of the World, but Piers Moron's Mirror was also waist deep in the same shit.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
Y0u seem to have taped a lightproof paper bag over your head on day 1 of this story. NOBODY is defending rhe Sun. Nobody has defended the Sun. The Sun are shitbags. People are just pointing out to you that your spartist template turns out not to fit. Celebs are celebs. People like stories about them. Especially in the silly season. The end.
There's been quite a lot of defence of both The S*n and the "BBC should still fire him" narrative on here. You can't say NOBODY because that patently isn't true. And out there in media land the pile on is still going on - the bottom feeding media still wants a bite even though the meal has been taken out of the water.
So lets take a few steps back from my alleged "Spartist template" (nice turn of phrase btw - have you considered journalism and go back to basics. The guy has been massively libelled and once he recovers himself from mental hospital should sue. The size of the damages will be higher because of the fact that he ended up in hospital.
Well I am not seeing it. I also don't buy your "with one bound he was free" narrative, even on the agreed facts he is someone I would go to great lengths to distance myself from, and who knows what is to come?
I am not right wing.
The interesting part of this is the nature of man's relationship with pornography. I am not particularly interested in what turns you on. Or Huw Edwards. Or S*n journalists.
The reason why we have strict laws in this area is to protect people - both the creators of said porn to stop them being abused / exploited / trafficked etc. And the users of said porn to ensure that what they are viewing is legal.
We can have a moral debate about should a 60 year old man be whacking off to images of 18 year old men. And another one about whether him being married makes a difference to that debate.
What I don't think we should have is a morality police hit mob. Where what gets you or I off legally is a matter for public scrutiny and judgement. Because once we start overturning rocks looking for mud, all we will see is mud. Because almost everyone can be judged by morality police hate mobs of being deviant from the norm. Because there is no norm.
It's more a question of commissioning porn than consuming it. If all he'd done was buy it then there would never have been a story.
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
The one thing that puzzles me is why involve an employer in what someone does in their private life. If I received intimate pictures of someone much younger than me, but no law was broken why would my employer be informed and why would my employer feel the need to take action? What I do legally in my private life has absolutely nothing to do with my employment.
The police have now investigated this matter. Whatever the estranged parents have claimed is not true. I could understand an employer having issue with a high profile employee breaking that specific law. But he hasn't.
"BBC man pays for pornography" isn't really a story is it?
No. Probably less of a story than "Social media user doesn't pay for pornography", if the truth be known.
Most won't, there's more free stuff out there than you could ever view in a lifetime.
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
I'm reminded of the question a wise manager once taught me for changing the tone of argumentative meetings:
"What do you want to happen?"
What did the parents want to happen? Their child not to be estranged and doing what they were doing, presumably.
What did they want the BBC to do about that, though? Sack Edwards? Tell him off? Put him under a curfew? Really?
Once the police had said there was nothing in law against what was going on, there wasn't much to be done that I can see.
The parents were in a horrible situation, one of the nightmares every parent fears. But sometimes nightmares happen and there's no authority that can fix them. And going to the press, especially to a red top, especially The Sun, probably makes things worse.
Your last sentence comes back to the BBC failing to satisfy very anxious parents about any action they would take over their complaint and their desperation about their perceived danger their child was in
I would suggest that it seems that little thought is being given, not only to the desperate parents, but also the other complainants who have not involved the Sun
As far as Hugh Edwards is concerned I have always considered him to be of the left but he did not, in my view, let that affect his journalism
Sadly he has been under treatment for mental health issue for 20 years and the family have a long road ahead
My week in Surrey has been lovely. I've been staying with my friend, who has never voted anything other than Conservative.
We didn't need to have any arguments because she had nothing good to say about them. For the first time in her life 'as things currently stand she would not vote Conservative.'
It's an anecdote, of course, and the polls tell us that the Party is still polling in the high 20's. But if they are losing people like her then this is going to be worse than 1997.
I tend to agree. I think a lot of Tory voters will simply sit on their hands. The Tories are tired, out of ideas, fighting amongst each other and wholly incapable of describing what the point of them is. Why vote Conservative? Until and unless they can answer that question in a straightforward credible fashion they have nothing to offer. The big problem for them is that, in a big defeat - which is what I expect - they will lose the next generation of politicians from whom that answer, one fit for the 2020's and 2030's will come.
There isn't much of a left left now, but one weakness of what used to pass for the left in Britain and of the relics of it that still exist has been that while they commendably detested the Scum (credit where it's due!), they had little to say about the BBC.
The government department or propaganda ministry called the BBC is about as establishmentarian and, when it really comes down to it, as "one nation" TORY as it is possible to be.
The left has been unable to say this. (One exception I can think of is Craig Murray. I don't even know whether he'd call himself on the left, but he'd probably agree with the previous paragraph.)
Then you can look at say David Attenborough or Michael Wood and tell me they're not pushing white-boy globalist British neo-colonialism.
"The so-called Islamic State group", lol. Nobody on what passes for the left even rips into that kind of terminology. They haven't got the sense.
Incidentally I think there was much more awareness about the BBC on the left almost a century ago, when the BBC made it damned clear which side they were on during the General Strike.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
Clearly you hate the Sun as do many. I think it will be a long time until the full story comes out and for now it’s basically a tragedy for Huw Edwards’ family, a tragedy for Huw Edwards even if his behaviour was truly less than ideal to individuals, his family, colleagues it’s still a tragedy.
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Its true that I despise The S*n and all it stands for. But what they have done isn't specific to them. The phone hacking thing broke News of the World, but Piers Moron's Mirror was also waist deep in the same shit.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
Y0u seem to have taped a lightproof paper bag over your head on day 1 of this story. NOBODY is defending rhe Sun. Nobody has defended the Sun. The Sun are shitbags. People are just pointing out to you that your spartist template turns out not to fit. Celebs are celebs. People like stories about them. Especially in the silly season. The end.
There's been quite a lot of defence of both The S*n and the "BBC should still fire him" narrative on here. You can't say NOBODY because that patently isn't true. And out there in media land the pile on is still going on - the bottom feeding media still wants a bite even though the meal has been taken out of the water.
So lets take a few steps back from my alleged "Spartist template" (nice turn of phrase btw - have you considered journalism and go back to basics. The guy has been massively libelled and once he recovers himself from mental hospital should sue. The size of the damages will be higher because of the fact that he ended up in hospital.
Well I am not seeing it. I also don't buy your "with one bound he was free" narrative, even on the agreed facts he is someone I would go to great lengths to distance myself from, and who knows what is to come?
I am not right wing.
The interesting part of this is the nature of man's relationship with pornography. I am not particularly interested in what turns you on. Or Huw Edwards. Or S*n journalists.
The reason why we have strict laws in this area is to protect people - both the creators of said porn to stop them being abused / exploited / trafficked etc. And the users of said porn to ensure that what they are viewing is legal.
We can have a moral debate about should a 60 year old man be whacking off to images of 18 year old men. And another one about whether him being married makes a difference to that debate.
What I don't think we should have is a morality police hit mob. Where what gets you or I off legally is a matter for public scrutiny and judgement. Because once we start overturning rocks looking for mud, all we will see is mud. Because almost everyone can be judged by morality police hate mobs of being deviant from the norm. Because there is no norm.
I don't classify this as pornography. Asking a random bloke one-on-one for custom-made snaps is a different thing from downloading preexisting images of King Dong in a state of arousal.
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
I'm reminded of the question a wise manager once taught me for changing the tone of argumentative meetings:
"What do you want to happen?"
What did the parents want to happen? Their child not to be estranged and doing what they were doing, presumably.
What did they want the BBC to do about that, though? Sack Edwards? Tell him off? Put him under a curfew? Really?
Once the police had said there was nothing in law against what was going on, there wasn't much to be done that I can see.
The parents were in a horrible situation, one of the nightmares every parent fears. But sometimes nightmares happen and there's no authority that can fix them. And going to the press, especially to a red top, especially The Sun, probably makes things worse.
It also opens up the young man at the centre of the original allegations to harassment or exploitation from the Sun or other tabloids.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Not when the alleged victim had told them it was a pack of lies before they published.
If the alleged victim was a child at the time of the alleged crime then that's not relevant.
A crime is a crime if it involves a child whether the child cooperates or not. If there is a serious allegation with evidence then that can lead to a conviction even if the child denies it happened.
If someone makes a complaint to the police along these lines then they have to investigate - it is too serious not to. Especially when a child is involved because very understandably they can be in denial of what occurred.
We know that. But this is different. The "child" was 17 when the crimes were alleged to take place. When we have estranged parents giving their story to a red top, and the supposed victim very clearly saying not only is it a lie but that he's estranged from his parents, the investigation is unlikely to take very long. And by the look of it the polis gave it a cursory look and said "no crime committed".
If you are the editor of The S*n or any other media outlet, you are not the police. You don't get to adjudicate on what may or may not be a crime. You can't choose to set aside the word of the alleged victim denying your story and print anyway because its juicy and suits your agenda.
Well you can. If you want to have your arse sued off.
If they have a credible source they can quote they absolutely can and should set aside the words of someone who was a child when the alleged is offence occurred.
Let's say hypothetically that a parent discovers their child has been abused and the abuser has been recording the abuse and the parent stumbled upon the evidence. Child continues to deny any abuse occurs even though there's video evidence that it did.
Should this be a non story because of the word of a child? Or should the word of the parents and the evidence they have be sufficient to proceed even though the child denies that which there is documentary evidence towards.
When it comes to children it's not only the victim who can complain - and for damned good reasons.
The issue here is the apparent lack of evidence to substantiate the story, not that the child concerned said it didn't happen.
In this case, the "child" is 20 years old and was 17 so perhaps a more credible witness than the much younger child you seem to be describing. You were taken in by the Sun's deliberately misleading language. So were other newspapers. But when in a hole, stop digging.
I wasn't taken in, I said from the start that I'm not making any judgment and its for the Police to investigate and we should not leap to either "a crime has been committed" or "no crime has been committed" until the investigation has closed.
Well, its closed now. So that's that. That the "child" was 17 at the time of the alleged offence makes them . . . "a child" in the eyes of the law.
Whether they're 7 or 17 is immaterial, the law is 18, so anything lower than 18 is a child, no ifs, no buts and equivocation.
And whether they're 20 now or not is immaterial too. The law is about the age of the child in question at the time the alleged offence happened, not what age they are now.
The issue here is that the Police have found apparently no evidence of criminal activity, not that the alleged victim denies it ...
For some unfathomable reason you seem to confuse the legal principle that the person wouldn't have been able to consent to something when he was 17 with the fact that s/he now says it never happened. Of course the first doesn't make the second irrelevant. You're perfectly free to suggest s/he's lying, but that's a quite different question.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Not when the alleged victim had told them it was a pack of lies before they published.
If the alleged victim was a child at the time of the alleged crime then that's not relevant.
A crime is a crime if it involves a child whether the child cooperates or not. If there is a serious allegation with evidence then that can lead to a conviction even if the child denies it happened.
If someone makes a complaint to the police along these lines then they have to investigate - it is too serious not to. Especially when a child is involved because very understandably they can be in denial of what occurred.
We know that. But this is different. The "child" was 17 when the crimes were alleged to take place. When we have estranged parents giving their story to a red top, and the supposed victim very clearly saying not only is it a lie but that he's estranged from his parents, the investigation is unlikely to take very long. And by the look of it the polis gave it a cursory look and said "no crime committed".
If you are the editor of The S*n or any other media outlet, you are not the police. You don't get to adjudicate on what may or may not be a crime. You can't choose to set aside the word of the alleged victim denying your story and print anyway because its juicy and suits your agenda.
Well you can. If you want to have your arse sued off.
If they have a credible source they can quote they absolutely can and should set aside the words of someone who was a child when the alleged is offence occurred.
Let's say hypothetically that a parent discovers their child has been abused and the abuser has been recording the abuse and the parent stumbled upon the evidence. Child continues to deny any abuse occurs even though there's video evidence that it did.
Should this be a non story because of the word of a child? Or should the word of the parents and the evidence they have be sufficient to proceed even though the child denies that which there is documentary evidence towards.
When it comes to children it's not only the victim who can complain - and for damned good reasons.
The issue here is the apparent lack of evidence to substantiate the story, not that the child concerned said it didn't happen.
In this case, the "child" is 20 years old and was 17 so perhaps a more credible witness than the much younger child you seem to be describing. You were taken in by the Sun's deliberately misleading language. So were other newspapers. But when in a hole, stop digging.
I wasn't taken in, I said from the start that I'm not making any judgment and its for the Police to investigate and we should not leap to either "a crime has been committed" or "no crime has been committed" until the investigation has closed.
Well, its closed now. So that's that. That the "child" was 17 at the time of the alleged offence makes them . . . "a child" in the eyes of the law.
Whether they're 7 or 17 is immaterial, the law is 18, so anything lower than 18 is a child, no ifs, no buts and equivocation.
And whether they're 20 now or not is immaterial too. The law is about the age of the child in question at the time the alleged offence happened, not what age they are now.
The issue here is that the Police have found apparently no evidence of criminal activity, not that the alleged victim denies it, had there been evidence it would be a different matter again regardless of what the alleged victim says, but if there's no evidence then that's that, case closed.
Stop digging. The law says naughty pictures of under-18s are verboten. That does not mean the law regards 20-year-olds or 17-year-olds the same as 5-year-olds or 12-year-olds when assessing their credibility as witnesses. The 20-year-old "child" has denied selling illegal pictures of himself as a 17-year-old "child". He might be lying but is unlikely to be mistaken.
And incidentally, often it very much does matter what the victim says. One of the main reasons for dropping rape and domestic violence cases is the victim withdraws charges.
Lozza Fox has waded into the debate, demonstrating his usual lack of empathy, claiming that if Huw Edwards was a "real man" he wouldn't take refuge in a mental hospital but face up to the consequences. Strangely, this point has been made by left-leaning academics I follow on twitter; albeit they put a class spin on it, claiming working class people have to face the law while middle -class people take refuge in mental hospitals.
I feel despair that there is still so much ignorance about mental health in this country. Like BigG, I have had a relative receive repeated hospital treatment for depression. The idea that you can check into a mental hospital as though it was a hotel makes me angry.
It does seem to be challenging to develop laws which can stop the Sun lying, but still enable Private Eye to do investigative journalism.
Two basic principles which make that doable now: 1. Basic journalism ethics - do not knowingly print lies. PE regularly digs into topics which leave it accused of lying, but I am very clear their team never actively print something they know is false. As the S*n just did 2. Basic defamation laws. If a media outlet libels you, sue them. I hope Edwards does so to the S*n and they go the way of News of the World. PE is regularly threatened with being sued - most recently by Ben Houchen International Airport and Simon Ding Dong Clarke for their ongoing expose into the Teesport scandal. And yet no litigation follows which suggests the gobshite twins know they would lose.
Auberon Waugh said that the Eye printed a story if it was funny, and worried afterwards, whether or not it was true. The Eye never had much in the way of assets to sue against.
Edwards would have to prove innuendo on the part of the Sun (ie people reading the story would guess that they were referring to Edwards.) The Sun might well have a public interest defence (if it were truly the case that an eminent man were paying an addict for sexual images); and Edwards might be in danger of being awarded only nominal damages, given his current reputation, even if he won his case.
"His current reputation" which has been trashed by the lies knowingly printed by The S*n? Any PI defence their lawyers want to try and hide behind was demolished when they chose not to publish the facts and instead embellished the story into a pack of lies.
As for them not printing his name, they printed enough so that we all knew days before the final big reveal yesterday. Well established in defamation law that you don't actually need to print a name if it is clear who the person is. Especially as they went back for another few days of P1 leads denouncing the BBC.
His name was being bandied about on social media, but then, so were others. If you simply read the story, would you think "that's Huw Edwards they're talking about?" Actually, he's one of the last people I would ever have suspected.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Not when the alleged victim had told them it was a pack of lies before they published.
If the alleged victim was a child at the time of the alleged crime then that's not relevant.
A crime is a crime if it involves a child whether the child cooperates or not. If there is a serious allegation with evidence then that can lead to a conviction even if the child denies it happened.
If someone makes a complaint to the police along these lines then they have to investigate - it is too serious not to. Especially when a child is involved because very understandably they can be in denial of what occurred.
We know that. But this is different. The "child" was 17 when the crimes were alleged to take place. When we have estranged parents giving their story to a red top, and the supposed victim very clearly saying not only is it a lie but that he's estranged from his parents, the investigation is unlikely to take very long. And by the look of it the polis gave it a cursory look and said "no crime committed".
If you are the editor of The S*n or any other media outlet, you are not the police. You don't get to adjudicate on what may or may not be a crime. You can't choose to set aside the word of the alleged victim denying your story and print anyway because its juicy and suits your agenda.
Well you can. If you want to have your arse sued off.
If they have a credible source they can quote they absolutely can and should set aside the words of someone who was a child when the alleged is offence occurred.
Let's say hypothetically that a parent discovers their child has been abused and the abuser has been recording the abuse and the parent stumbled upon the evidence. Child continues to deny any abuse occurs even though there's video evidence that it did.
Should this be a non story because of the word of a child? Or should the word of the parents and the evidence they have be sufficient to proceed even though the child denies that which there is documentary evidence towards.
When it comes to children it's not only the victim who can complain - and for damned good reasons.
The issue here is the apparent lack of evidence to substantiate the story, not that the child concerned said it didn't happen.
In this case, the "child" is 20 years old and was 17 so perhaps a more credible witness than the much younger child you seem to be describing. You were taken in by the Sun's deliberately misleading language. So were other newspapers. But when in a hole, stop digging.
I wasn't taken in, I said from the start that I'm not making any judgment and its for the Police to investigate and we should not leap to either "a crime has been committed" or "no crime has been committed" until the investigation has closed.
Well, its closed now. So that's that. That the "child" was 17 at the time of the alleged offence makes them . . . "a child" in the eyes of the law.
Whether they're 7 or 17 is immaterial, the law is 18, so anything lower than 18 is a child, no ifs, no buts and equivocation.
And whether they're 20 now or not is immaterial too. The law is about the age of the child in question at the time the alleged offence happened, not what age they are now.
The issue here is that the Police have found apparently no evidence of criminal activity, not that the alleged victim denies it ...
For some unfathomable reason you seem to confuse the legal principle that the person wouldn't have been able to consent to something when he was 17 with the fact that s/he now says it never happened. Of course the first doesn't make the second irrelevant. You're perfectly free to suggest s/he's lying, but that's a quite different question.
I've said all along they could be lying, yes. Its far from unprecedented for victims of child abuse, child trafficking, child exploitation etc to fall for their predators and to not want to either co-operate, or to even see themselves as victims, when that is what they are.
Quite rightly others can make complaints and have them taken seriously when it comes to the welfare and safeguarding of children.
That is not a principle I will row back on. Parents have a right to express safeguarding concerns about children, so do teachers* and others. Indeed if they have a concern, they don't just have a right to do so, they have an obligation to do so - whether the child wants them to or not.
* to the relevant and correct authorities of course, not the Sun.
Comments
He's certainly let down the reputation of Welsh organists.
But the interesting thing about the story is not really the story itself, but what we think should be the news values of our media; what should be reported, and what shouldn't; how far the right to privacy now extends.
That's still a highly contested area.
If their story were based upon statements given by the parents, I think a PI defence could be mounted.
And if other allegations about the man, which seem to be swirling about right now, were to prove well-founded, I don't think he'd be well-advised to go to court.
Blimey.
Was it you who said that HR are there to enforce the employer's interests? One of us did. But there are many times when one's interest coincides with the employer. A friend was being givedn the runaround re short term employment - a valuable employee in a job she loved but being fobbed off with a succession of one year contracts. Come year three she was browbeaten by a research unit manager into signing another temp[orary contract at a poor salary. She hadn't even joined the union, despite my warnings. But she did take my advice and wentr to HR. The HR manager took one look and went white. Within days my friend was in possession of a permanent contract. The altdernative would have been constructive dismissal and a nasty tribunal case.
But - yopur point remains that if one signs a job contract one no longer has the freedom [edit] one had.
You seem not to have updated your attack line to take account either of the point that it is Edwards, surely a right wing icon after he emceed the death of her late maj, or of the new allegations of hitting on colleagues which make misconduct charges much much easier.
He will in fact leave by mutual agreement for elf reasons.
ETA This rhymes to an alarming extent with the post next to it.
1) It's much cheaper. I'd happily pay £5 to watch a women's game. I wouldn't pay £30 to watch a men's game - particularly not when you multiply it up by all tge family members you might want to take.
2) It's hard not to take an instant dislike to male footballers. Part of the enjoyment of watching sport for me is being pleased for those who have done well. Hard to do this with most men's footballers.
3) The game may not be at the same level - but to my untrained eye it is nicer to watch. Possibly because the game is less physical, the technical skill is easier to see and enjoy.
4) The crowd is also nicer. I don't think I'd take my daughters to a live men's football match. I don't mind partisan, but a sport where you have to keep supporters of opposing clubs separate, or they will fight, is ridiculous. Football fans often remark about how surprising it is to see opposing, say, rugby fans mingling - but it's football - specifically men's football - which is the outlier here. I don't want to be paying out £30 for a 90 minute hatefest.
5) Also, one of my daughters quite fancies being a professional footballer. Taking her to see players she can aspire to ape is a nice thing to do.
6) Ooh, also, I can park.
As against that, as, I think, Foxy has pointed out in the past, outside the top 3 or 4 teams there isn't much jeopardy in the WSL. It's a bit like the Scottish Premier League.
I'm not, though, calling for equal pay for women's football. That would take away most of what makes it good. It would no longer be cheap and accessible.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1679299677831692290
https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1678426099716333570?s=20
The problem is that this is currently a “my team” v “the team I hate” argument.
I find it very hard to believe that if one of the following was happening then the same angst and anger would be displayed by one group and would be displayed by another.
If exactly the same accusations had been levelled in the Guardian at a senior Sun exec.
The NYT did the same to a senior Fox News presenter.
The Mirror did the same to a GB News presenter.
It’s very easy to attack the messenger because the messenger has been a bad actor in the past but if the messenger is delivering news that shines a light on bad deeds then it’s still shining a light on bad deeds despite the motivation you might feel is behind it.
The Daily Mail efforts re Stephen Lawrence doesn’t absolve them of the other shit they do but it doesn’t change they exposed the wrongs.
It could turn out that this story is purely about a man who has mental health issues who blew out a bit but nothing illegal (as it’s clear it’s not) and it would have been better if the Sun had not gone in all guns blazing but also the BBC should have listened earlier and stepped in to help.
It could turn out that there is more to come such as, and this is purely hypothetical, a public figure was being a bit of a monster to people which was also being reflected in how he treated junior colleagues which affected their wellbeing in the workplace and made them fear for their career if they pushed back. In this case then surely in this day and age we are all for people in positions of hierarchy abusing those positions and damaging the mental health of juniors being rooted out. This raises the question of whether the BBC, the national broadcaster, is carrying out its duty of care to staff which is of public interest and concern.
Shining a light on abuses in organisations and industries is a good thing even if the way it’s done is grim. We might not have had people like Epstein and Weinstein exposed if people were more concerned about the messenger than the message - if the political outlook of a paper who exposed them was against yours then you would I hope have been pleased that they exposed.
So to focus on the idea that this is all about the Sun kicking the BBC for ideological reasons is to distract from the seriousness or no of what has happened otherwise you go down the Trumpian route of saying that anything you disagree with is politically motivated and fake news.
Of course the coronation was on a Saturday so the King could have been mean and refused a Bank Holiday and still had his special day. The article also says it boosted the arts and leisure industry too
If this didn't happen, and 100% of voters were floaters, there would be a complete lack of continuity and consistency plus an increased chance of an extremist takeover.
They want the BBC and non-right wing media damaged for political and commercial reasons.
DEFUND THE BANKS
The economy is still not growing
https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1679370080931532801
Another teacher union has voted to strike
https://twitter.com/NASUWT/status/1679059650879143936
I see no reason for the bbc to be dismissing him over a private relationship with another consenting adult outside of work just because someone decided to bring that relationship out into the public eye (unless it turns out there was a criminal element to it). I am pretty sure most of us have done stuff outside work that we would not want work to know about. Being sacked over a non illegal, outside of work thing should not be encouraged else we all become vulnerable to revenge of the jilted.
If the misconduct allegations by colleagues are proved to be true however....very much a different story
While it doesn't mean they shouldn't have run the story at all, it's pretty clear that they failed to check on basic facts before they splashed it on the front page.
When they fall from grace, they fall totally. The BBC actions show them to be incompetent in many ways. Inaction at first, hoping it will blow over, then complaints about journalism despite them looking into a mirror. Journalists have no ethics.
I paid £159 for a TV license last month. For what? They have more adverts than any ITV channel - even if they're restricted to their own forthcoming programmes. When interviewed the other day, Tim Davie looked all at sea. I wouldn't trust him to sort out anything.
I thought the other channels went easy on the BBC. 'There but for fortune' and all that, I suppose.
Host of new polls in Spain. Some variation but all showing moves towards the centre right and away from the left. Just 8 days of the campaign left now.
A crime is a crime if it involves a child whether the child cooperates or not. If there is a serious allegation with evidence then that can lead to a conviction even if the child denies it happened.
Presumably we're supposed to think, or act as if we think, that the media bosses and the authorities in the country are ever so pink-proudily homophobia aware, and this is why they behave like that. Never mind that the youngster's sex ("gender") is probably important to him, to his identity and to his functioning in society - and it's a good guess it was important to the said dirty old man as well - just as it is for 99.99% of the population. But we mustn't assume that, because maybe he's non-binary or a transvestite, right? And thus the prole gets de-sexed. Because otherwise bricks might fly through gay men's windows. Really?
I went to see the HR business partner with both written correspondence from big boss and with my performance review done a month before and a copy of their policy. HR guy also went white - "they can't do this to you". Big boss incandescent that I "went behind is back" to HR. To which I commented that I would be noting all of the conversation for our mutual protection.
Big boss fired shortly afterwards when he totted up too many "you're just a bullshit artist" points. That I had provided HR with so much evidence of his lies was quite satisfying.
HR processes are there to protect both parties. I have both been fired and been the manager firing someone. As long as it is done with due process we are all good. And when it doesn't follow due process and you are prepared to hold them to it, the payouts are lucrative. My best ever one had me not needing to work again for a year, and then stepping very quickly into something with more seniority.
https://youtu.be/jG-1YQ1qC8w
🚨NEW Westminster Voting Intention
📈15pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 45 (-1)
🌳Con 30 (+2)
🔶LD 10 (-1)
➡️Reform 5 (+1)
🌍Green 3 (-1)
🎗️SNP 3 (=)
⬜️Other 4 (=)
https://twitter.com/Savanta_UK/status/1679400582363201537?s=20
Unravelled it merely says that if an allegation made about an unnamed person were true, then according to law that person could go to prison.
It belongs, IMHO, to the Sun's version of the typical Guardian headline of the "Last chance: Experts say temperature in Scottish summer could reach 19 degrees C while abandoned London could catch fire at 53 degrees C unless we all live in caves from today".
It's more to do with the point that the media are being quite careful not to identify the person - whereas with Edwards, they were quite keen to but feared the legal consequences.
I look at this kind of predator journalism and nod my head as justification for why I quit the industry after a year. There is a very basic principle - print the truth. I have no concern about columnists or even editorial pieces spinning the truth, that is fair game.
This wasn't spin. This wasn't knowing something to be a lie and printing it anyway. Repeatedly. That they have since tried to claim they alleged no criminality despite their claims of such still being all over their website just makes it worse.
Yes its Murdoch media at it again which makes it worse. But had the Daily Star done this I would be similarly appalled. As I suspect would many of the people here defending this newspaper because actually you do on some level support the "hack the legs out of the woke blob" strategy which is in play.
Another classic is the lawyer provided by your employer. Sounds nice….
HR ranges from good - knowing law and keeping to it - to WTAF.
One hilarious story about HR starts like this. I inherited a team of 5 devs. Due to a major effort by me and the previous boss, we’d actually found and employed two women. Which for hard tech was good going.
So meeting HR, to discuss the way forward. The American HR lady - “Your team isn’t women friendly.”
Me - “What’s the issue? We got to 40% women and it’s an ongoing thing.”
HR - “But the women in your team aren’t typical women.”
Me - ????
It turned out that she meant they were female nerds. Apparently she felt threatened/upset/something by the presence of women who didn't live for handbags or something.
Whereas I do have a view on some of the likely replacements.
ITV and other stations have gone to town over this story.
We know that. But this is different. The "child" was 17 when the crimes were alleged to take place. When we have estranged parents giving their story to a red top, and the supposed victim very clearly saying not only is it a lie but that he's estranged from his parents, the investigation is unlikely to take very long. And by the look of it the polis gave it a cursory look and said "no crime committed".
If you are the editor of The S*n or any other media outlet, you are not the police. You don't get to adjudicate on what may or may not be a crime. You can't choose to set aside the word of the alleged victim denying your story and print anyway because its juicy and suits your agenda.
Well you can. If you want to have your arse sued off.
(This over confident and too precise prediction embraces the possibility of absolute landslide and NOM. The margins are fine.)
However a week or so ago there was perhaps a 95+% chance that Huw Edwards would be doing election coverage on BBC at the next GE.
...In September 2008, the BBC Trust ruled that a documentary presented by Edwards on the subject of Welsh politics had broken the organisation's editorial guidelines. The programme, entitled Wales: Power and the People – Back to the Future, addressed the topic of the Welsh Assembly, with Edwards stating, "to achieve its full potential it needs even greater support for the people of Wales than it's received so far ... the more people that take part, the stronger and healthier our democracy in Wales will be." Following a complaint, the governing body concluded that Edwards' words were not objective and even-handed on the subject, saying, "It is not the role of BBC presenters to encourage audiences to exercise their right to vote on particular occasions." It was also found that the documentary as a whole was biased against the Conservative Party...
But I agree that generally his distinguishing feature is blandness.
"We didn't know the facts and made a mistake" is one thing. Not this. "We knew the facts but thought fuck it" is what happened.
As the "how hard can it be?" news channels have shown, it's a lot harder than it looks.
So lets take a few steps back from my alleged "Spartist template" (nice turn of phrase btw - have you considered journalism
Stuart Purvis, a former ITN Executive commented to Kay Burley this morning that the BBC simply failed to address this issue correctly from the the onset
Apparently the mother and step father of the young person involved were extremely stressed about the relationship their vulnerable youngster had with Huw Edwards and actually went direct to the BBC to discuss the matter and make a complaint
The BBC apparently failed to act and in their frustration the parents decided to make their concerns public and chose the Sun newspaper
The rest is history, and the role of the Sun is controversial, but let's not forget this started with very worried parents and has escalated to a point where there are now multiple complaints about Hugh Edward's behaviour, including those featured on the BBC Newsnight programme last night of staff within the BBC who allege unacceptable interactions with him
As someone who has experienced a very sick son with PTSD and anxiety, who is only slowly recovering after 3 years of intense phycological help there has to be sympathy for Hugh Edwards family, and especially the stress on his wife, but there are also complainants who have a right for their complaints to be listened to, reviewed, and if proven action taken
Let's say hypothetically that a parent discovers their child has been abused and the abuser has been recording the abuse and the parent stumbled upon the evidence. Child continues to deny any abuse occurs even though there's video evidence that it did.
Should this be a non story because of the word of a child? Or should the word of the parents and the evidence they have be sufficient to proceed even though the child denies that which there is documentary evidence towards.
When it comes to children it's not only the victim who can complain - and for damned good reasons.
The issue here is the apparent lack of evidence to substantiate the story, not that the child concerned said it didn't happen.
(As you know, I'm hardly a fan of the Tories.)
Worse is the politicisation of stupidity and ignorance. The latter is not a crime or even a negative - we all have many things we are profoundly ignorant about. The bad bit is that some people are also not particularly bright, and when that is combined with ignorance it is easy to start manipulating opinions so that the sky is green not blue
One specific example to illustrate this. So many people genuinely believe that refugees MUST claim asylum in the first country they come to. Not because that is morally right, because its the law. That it is demonstrably false doesn't seem to matter, people keep saying it as something they genuinely believe to be true.
International laws and treaties on refugees is a subject where most of us are ignorant - we don't know and we don't need to know. So how have so many become so convinced that the sky is green here - because they have been lied to by the media and politicians.
This is a much bigger problem than newspaper A mistakenly outing celeb B.
I am not right wing.
"BBC man pays for pornography" isn't really a story is it?
Essentially, you do *anything* that gets you or the employer in the news, your chair begins to wobble. And if it is more negative than “X, who works for Y, has raised Z for a charity helping especially cute kittens”….
Like the thing about arresting people for T-shirts or governments demanding the right to read your mail, this is how things have been for a long, long time. But people are just noticing it now.
The reason why we have strict laws in this area is to protect people - both the creators of said porn to stop them being abused / exploited / trafficked etc. And the users of said porn to ensure that what they are viewing is legal.
We can have a moral debate about should a 60 year old man be whacking off to images of 18 year old men. And another one about whether him being married makes a difference to that debate.
What I don't think we should have is a morality police hit mob. Where what gets you or I off legally is a matter for public scrutiny and judgement. Because once we start overturning rocks looking for mud, all we will see is mud. Because almost everyone can be judged by morality police hate mobs of being deviant from the norm. Because there is no norm.
"What do you want to happen?"
What did the parents want to happen? Their child not to be estranged and doing what they were doing, presumably.
What did they want the BBC to do about that, though? Sack Edwards? Tell him off? Put him under a curfew? Really?
Once the police had said there was nothing in law against what was going on, there wasn't much to be done that I can see.
The parents were in a horrible situation, one of the nightmares every parent fears. But sometimes nightmares happen and there's no authority that can fix them. And going to the press, especially to a red top, especially The Sun, probably makes things worse.
{computes………}
Question - how much crack?
They would of course be wrong about this too. But as there is no possibility of a 'right' opinion about migration/refugee status etc, (suggestions on a postcard) we are all going to continue being different shades of wrong. The existence of a problem does not logically entail the existence of a solution.
The Sun claims they had even more stories of inappropriate behaviour, including from BBC employees. The verifacy and what they entail, we don't know. The BBC in past day or so have had 4 individuals come forward allegeding things ranging from threatening and abusive behaviour to sending unsolicited and inappropriate messages and feeling threatened by a different in power.
I think the best thing the BBC could do is ask for somebody from outside the corporation to investigate and allow people to come forward without fear or favour. BUT, it should be done without constant breathless reporting on every potential detail etc.
Then once all the claims have been thoroughly investigated, then reported on.
All we are now getting is lots of axe grinding from every talking head out there....its the Sun fault, its the BBC fault, etc etc etc...News UK have axe to grind with BBC, the BBC newsroom have axe to grind with management, the BBC don't like the Sun...then all sorts of political people taking their pop too.
Well, its closed now. So that's that. That the "child" was 17 at the time of the alleged offence makes them . . . "a child" in the eyes of the law.
Whether they're 7 or 17 is immaterial, the law is 18, so anything lower than 18 is a child, no ifs, no buts and equivocation.
And whether they're 20 now or not is immaterial too. The law is about the age of the child in question at the time the alleged offence happened, not what age they are now.
The issue here is that the Police have found apparently no evidence of criminal activity, not that the alleged victim denies it, had there been evidence it would be a different matter again regardless of what the alleged victim says, but if there's no evidence then that's that, case closed.
Just that, until the age of MeToo, the targets were… acceptable.
Now they are everyone.
The government department or propaganda ministry called the BBC is about as establishmentarian and, when it really comes down to it, as "one nation" TORY as it is possible to be.
The left has been unable to say this. (One exception I can think of is Craig Murray. I don't even know whether he'd call himself on the left, but he'd probably agree with the previous paragraph.)
Then you can look at say David Attenborough or Michael Wood and tell me they're not pushing white-boy globalist British neo-colonialism.
"The so-called Islamic State group", lol. Nobody on what passes for the left even rips into that kind of terminology. They haven't got the sense.
For the rest of us? I don't see why it should be.
Unless you believe in the “all white men are neo-colonialist by genetic inheritance” horseshit.
I would suggest that it seems that little thought is being given, not only to the desperate parents, but also the other complainants who have not involved the Sun
As far as Hugh Edwards is concerned I have always considered him to be of the left but he did not, in my view, let that affect his journalism
Sadly he has been under treatment for mental health issue for 20 years and the family have a long road ahead
CON 25 (+3)
LAB 43 (-4)
LIB DEM 11 (+2)
REF UK 8 (-1)
GREEN 7 (=)
Fieldwork 10-11 July
https://twitter.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1679390449654460417
And incidentally, often it very much does matter what the victim says. One of the main reasons for dropping rape and domestic violence cases is the victim withdraws charges.
I feel despair that there is still so much ignorance about mental health in this country. Like BigG, I have had a relative receive repeated hospital treatment for depression. The idea that you can check into a mental hospital as though it was a hotel makes me angry.
Quite rightly others can make complaints and have them taken seriously when it comes to the welfare and safeguarding of children.
That is not a principle I will row back on. Parents have a right to express safeguarding concerns about children, so do teachers* and others. Indeed if they have a concern, they don't just have a right to do so, they have an obligation to do so - whether the child wants them to or not.
* to the relevant and correct authorities of course, not the Sun.