Welcome To Zelo Street!

This is a blog of liberal stance and independent mind

Friday 15 April 2016

Daily Mail Byline Lies Busted

A lie, so the saying goes, is half way around the world before the truth has got its socks on. It’s an adage on which the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery at the Daily Mail are clearly relying, as they negotiate the fallout from revelations about Culture Secretary John Whittingdale the only way they know how - by smearing and lying. And among those smeared and lied about is Byline Media.
What d'you f***ing mean I took the oath, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

Yesterday, in a suitably righteous rant designed to give the impression that the Whittingdale story had been broken by the BBC and campaigning group Hacked Off (which had nothing at all to do with it), there was a footnote telling “The online magazine that triggered the Whittingdale political storm is connected to the campaign for state-approved regulation of the Press”. Who did they mean?

We soon found out: “Byline, which has received money from Hacked Off, is also seeking to be regulated by IMPRESS, the would-be Press regulator propped up by Max Mosley’s millions”.

Where to start? Byline has not, repeat has not, repeat HAS NOT received money from Hacked Off. Moreover, it isn’t “seeking” to be regulated by IMPRESS - it IS ALREADY regulated by IMPRESS. And IMPRESS isn’t a “would-be press regulator”, it ALREADY IS a press regulator. Well, if you’re going to lie, a few extras won’t come amiss, eh?

And there’s more: “Its article calls on Mr Whittingdale to sign a law which could force newspapers which are not members of a state-approved regulator to pay for both sides in a libel case, even if they win”. The Byline articles - there are two - make no such call. So the Dacre doggies have their trousers well alight.

Byline Media have requested a retraction, but then, the Mail doesn’t do retractions for the little people. Instead, the paper has doubled down on the defamation today in a grotesque hit piece designed to go after Byline, Hacked Off, IMPRESS, and anyone else in range of the Vagina Monologue’s blunderbuss.

How orgy-loving Max Mosley is using his millions to seek vengeance on the Press: Behind this week's plot to smear the Culture Secretary lies a tale of Left-wing zealots, a tinpot 'watchdog' (given £3m of YOUR cash) and a tycoon trying to muzzle those who exposed his sordid lifestylethunders the headline of Richard Pendlebury’s rant.

One sub-heading contains another flat-out lie: “smearing of Culture Secretary by Hacked Off”. Let’s go over this nice and slowly, shall we? Byline broke the Whittingdale story. Hacked Off was not involved, and did not even comment. Private Eye ran the story. Hacked Off and the Eye are, to put it mildly, not the best of friends. Then BBC Newsnight ran an item, and Brian Cathcart of Hacked Off was invited to comment.

Only after that did the mob descend on Hacked Off, making a number of highly creative and pejorative accusations against it, most of which will prove to be plain flat wrong.

But on goes the Mail, repeating its defamatory claim against Byline: “a website called Byline (partly funded by Hacked Off)”. The oldest tactic in the book: keep repeating the lie, knowing that even if the target takes them to the cleaners, the mud will have stuck.

That the lie has been inserted in articles on successive days suggests that this tactic enjoys at least the blessing of Paul Dacre, with the latest hit piece smearing not only Max Mosley, who has had the courage to stand up to the press bullying (instantly differentiating him from Dacre, who is nothing better than a bully, a hypocrite, and a rank coward), but also Jonathan Heawood of IMPRESS, who gets the full smear treatment.

In a routine bout of hypocrisy, the editor who sent his sons to Eton sneers at Heawood for having attended Cambridge University. Oh, the shame! And he’s related by marriage to someone who works at the Guardian! How can he live with himself? He once lived in a house that might be worth a lot of money, but doesn’t own it, and doesn't live there anymore. Er, hello, this is drivel. The lies are blatant and easily disprovable. And the smears are lame.

There is no plot to smear the Culture Secretary. Byline and Hacked Off are totally separate organisations. Hacked Off had no part in breaking the Whittingdale story. The only moderately newsworthy event is that the Daily Mail is living up to Alastair Campbell’s nickname for it - The Dacre Lie Machine. That is all.

6 comments:

mirandola said...

Whatever bollocks Dacre might be trying to sell to his readers, they aren't buying it.

Look at the most popular comments on yesterday's "article" on how it was all the fault of the Beeb, Hacked Off, Uncle Tom Watson et al:

Top comment with 2439 thumbs up reads:

"Newspapers have enormous power and having the Minister under their thumb just shows how this works."

Followed closely by:

"Whittingdale is just one of many, many government and judiciary figures that Murdoch and the Mail have the goods on. The DM is just hacked off that their stooge has been found out."

And so they go on down the page. Dacre is of course doubling down on his lies, but with ever-increasing disbelief among his readers.

mirandola said...

Sorry, here is the address of the article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3537386/BBC-Hacked-accused-rank-hypocrites-revealing-Culture-Secretary-John-Whittingdale-s-relationship-dominatrix-met-online-dating-site.html

Brian Higgy said...

Why don't Byline complain to the PCC - sorry IPSO. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. I'll get my coat.

Anonymous said...

Publicity for "...orgy-loving Max Mosley..."

But not, apparently, for orgy-loving John Whittingdale.

How many own goals do those daft Nazis at the Daily Heil want to score?

rob said...

Lord D'Acres of GrouseLands is not happy. Wonder why?
Not sure where the Byline stories are going to lead?
Or just not happy with a bit of competition which reports facts rather than distortions?
Or both?

Anonymous said...

The sad thing is - well it would be sad if it was not so apparent that Mr (in need of) Daycare is totally convinced of his invincibility - that the comment sections on all these "stand up for the freedom of the press" stories that he runs are actually pre-moderated, so they can and (if my experience is anything to go by) do filter out the comments that do not fit the party line. As Mirandola has pointed out, yesterday's intern charged with the task of that moderation was being quite lax - and has no doubt been called the "C" word many times by now. Today on the Moseley story they have been much more circumspect. Can't be seen to "fail" two days running, I suppose ........