Oh damn, still in this dream.

…This looks interesting. Even more interesting than Rebekah's "We are definitely in this together" text message to Cameron.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/15/gordon-brown-rupert-murdoch

I'll quote:

The Cabinet Office has released information casting doubt on Rupert Murdoch's claim that Gordon Brown used a call in the autumn of 2009 to pledge his intention to declare "war" on News Corporation.

It said there was only one record of a call between Brown and Murdoch in the year up to March 2010 and that the conversation took place on 10 November 2009, when the two men discussed Afghanistan.

This supports the statement made by Brown at the Leveson inquiry on Monday, when he said that the conversation described by Murdoch in his own evidence to the inquiry "never took place".

Now, somehow or other these sworn testimonies don't match: in fact they contradict each other. Oh well, there's always one law for us and another for the job-creators like Roops.

Now if Ol' Roops is as canny as I think he is, he'll consolidate on his "get-out-of-jail-free" card.

Let's see how visionary Ol' Roops actually is. The most out-there idea I can come up with is to initiate joint ventures between BSkyB/SKY networks worldwide and the BBC/PSB (but not too likely). I mean, if you can't get the police to get you what you want anymore, closer ties with the biggest-reach competitors  seems the way to rehabilitate the old image. A media Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact would also allow access into normally unreached markets: if not from without, then from within. A synthesis that appeals from its symmetry. Of course, courting the Beeb and the like will take some doing.

IRL best guess: simply not possible. But making Murdoch and the Beeb co-dependent in certain markets has appealed to my sense of the absurd. The clash of cultures would be such a pleasure to watch. 

As is, without there being actual evidence, the performance of all three (Murdoch Senior, Murdoch Junior, & Rebekah Brooks) before the committee has been good enough to pass for innocent-of-serious-wrongdoing. It was definitely and certainly someone else's fault, and those someones else are now in the frame.

But, because they were ultimately responsible, they are co-operating fully with all the forces of good (with their rights reserved, as is proper) in this investigation.

Can't fault them there: I'd do the same.

[Tips hat, ruefully, to the Old Man, the Young Pretender, and the Scarlett-Haired Woman.]
Very-well done: 9/10. If there are no loose ends it's all back to normal at the start-of-business next week: loose ends, of course, can change things.

I've been thinking of Rupert Murdoch's coming attempt to charge for news and his ongoing battle with the BBC.

Murdoch has stated that he will attempt to charge for online access to News Corp's various online titles like The Times, and The Sun, and Fox News sometime next year. Evidently this will be after the Conservative Party win the coming general election in the UK, and his tame puppets-in-government enact legislation to prevent the BBC from putting its news content online.

Now, for all my US chums, which news organisation would you rather read or watch online? Fox News? or The BBC? And even if you'd rather read or watch Fox, which organisation would you trust to give accurate facts?

I think the Tory Party have to distance themselves from Murdoch. The old model of newsgathering and journalism is dead, much like the old model of the Music Biz, or the old model of the retail book trade before Amazon. Recognising this fact, and also recognising the fact that this is the last election which an old-fashioned newspaper Baron will ever be able to influence, does David Cameron really want to emasculate the BBC just to pander to either Roops, or the anointed son James.

If he does I will not forget, nor will many other folk.

As is Roops appears to be batting on a losing wicket. Even if he manages to charge for news on the web, he won't be able to stop people from disseminating the information across the web. I await to see the stroke-of-genius (apart from, of course, suborning the Tory party) which will rescue the old-fashioned notion of journalism from the evils of the interweb.