[Update at end of post]
For those who have taken the Murdoch shilling, no chance to kick the likes of the Guardian and BBC can be allowed to go to waste. It needs only the flimsiest of excuses, the slightest pretext, for the boot to be put in, and you can forget any sensitivity - which is how one ultra-loyal Murdoch servant came to use the horrific mass shooting at San Bernardino, CA, as the means to put one over on the BBC.
(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014
The landlord of the property where two - now deceased - suspects lived invited a number of media representatives to view the property - but after the FBI had raided it. Most of the US news networks were there. The scene looked frankly bizarre to those used to the British approach: some countries do things differently. But the presence of the BBC was the trigger for (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch to venture over the top.
No knowledge of the laws involved was necessary - just the usual hectoring, obsessive, and accusatory tone. “It's extraordinary that the BBC were inside the house. What the actual? #CrimeScene” she ranted. It wasn’t a crime scene. So a change of tack: “and is the owner also the tenant? Belongings of family members shown on TV. With what legal right?” The BBC is there to rectify Ms Mensch’s ignorance?
On she ploughed: “How is filming the home of tenants inc people who are not suspects within the right of the landlord to grant BBC?” Maybe she should read up on California law. But instead, it was more demands: “I really want to know how @BBC think the owner of the house can give them the right to film a tenant family's apartment - more than killers”. So more hectoring of Laura Bicker and Jon Sopel, then.
“Footage of the apartment broadcast today clearly shows a child's bedroom. How did landlord have right to grant BBC access to kid's home?” Probably by the same right he or she exercised when CNN, MSNBC and Fox News were invited in. But she only carps about the Beeb: “and even if it is not a crime scene what right has the landlord to let BBC in? Kids there”. There were no kids there.
Then there was the opportunity to make things up on the fly: “No … children lived there, killer's mother too, neither are suspects, both are innocent. BBC trespassing”. Don’t think they were, if the landlord invited them in. How about inventing some more? Sure thing: “The BBC going into that family apartment b/c landlord let them in is like hideous scene from ‘Life on Mars’ Landlord has no rights!”. Think you’ll find they do have rights.
But nobody was really bothered, and so a little mock horror was injected into proceedings: “the child's bedroom has been filmed live! Showing a CHILD'S COT AND TEDDY. Why @BBC in this home? Why?”. The accompanying short video showing someone going through the child’s bedroom from … MSNBC. So she’s wrong. Again.
Louise Mensch’s obsessive pursuit of organisations like the BBC and Guardian is in accordance with Murdoch’s priorities. But it is so hilariously wrong-headed that all it does is to make her look yet more stupid. And remember, they allowed her to become an MP.
[UPDATE 1225 hours: what Ms Mensch has managed to miss, by complete coincidence you understand, is that the apartment was "opened up" not by the BBC, nor even by anyone from one of the US TV networks, but by another taker of the Murdoch shilling.
As can be seen by this series of screen grabs, the person taking screwdriver, crowbar, and ultimately drill to the property is none other than the Sunday Times' Toby Harnden.
Harnden was quite open about his part in the exercise. Yet, despite his candour, Ms Mensch has missed his presence and instead gone after the BBC.
Harnden also confirms that the Guardian's representative decided to remain outside the property, leaving Ms Mensch with only the Beeb to kick.
Will she now tear into the Sunday Times and its man on the scene? You jest. This is not about being right, but about being righteous. Louise Mensch's latest hate campaign against the BBC is already well and truly bust - but don't expect that to silence her]
9 comments:
The woman is as crazy as a box of weasels in a sack.
If she wasn't, she'd realise both the BBC and the Guardian have moved nearer to her ranting righty position than is healthy for our national culture. But that's how stupid she is.
Given her mentality, she's in the right place in New York.
What an utter, utter Murdochised loon.
If you want to see that coward in "action," check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsJwM1DnLu4
And remember this - she was on the Media and Culture Select Committee that assessed Murdoch's poisonous affect on media ownership.....before she went to work for him!
Beneath contempt doesn't even begin to describe her at-a-distance cowardice.
*Louise thu' the looking glass*
Is she for real pal?
Or just a fantasist?
Working for Murdoch
No room for realists
Open your eyes
The truth is easy to see
She's just a rich girl, no need for sympathy
Ill judged tweets easy come, easy go
Make it up, let it flow
Anyway that Murdoch blows doesn't really matter to me.
For the first time in her life, Mensch might just have a point. This isn't journalism, it's the worst sort of dumpster-diving Squidgy-broadcasting fuck'em all for the sake of a story. Ironically, the Merde-ocracy specialises in exactly that.
If the Beeb was also doing this (I haven't seen it yet) then all involved should be ashamed.
Mensch would have a point if she gave a damn, but she just got over-excited at the chance to attack the BBC - without thinking where it would end.
How about at Fox News?
http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/12/04/photos-video-inside-home-san-bernardino-california-terrorists
I look forward to her updating the list of bad guys - and then explaining it to Rupe.
To Mike Channel.
She might have a point if she wasn't herself guilty of even worse behaviour. Which is really what Tim's blog is about.
The 'invasion' of the house was an appalling error of judgement on the part of all who participated; I cant believe the police allowed it to happen. I look forward to Mensch's pillorying of the Murdoch employees who were involved.
Totally agree, AndyC and anon.
Mensch has form. The fact that she's right on this is complete luck, not judgement. I do disagree with the way Tim's piece opens in that just because it's legal doesn't make it right. Not for the Beeb (of whom I expect better), nor for Fox/CNBC/anyone else from the dumpster-diving crowd (of whom I never expect better).
Frankly, I expect nothing but bullshit from any of mainstream media front men and women. All of them are shit scared of being fired and, being London based, losing the ability to cough up for their mortgages. Honourable exceptions are as rare as hen's teeth. Dan Rather(!) got it right - they're just stenographers for the establishment and roundly detested because of it.
They still matter because of course they can still influence gullible fools. But for those with reasonable common sense, an inquiring mind and good will there are plenty of other reputable sources. As time and the internet wears on mainstream media propaganda will become less and less believable and more and more ludicrous, even on its own terms. Which is not to say establishment propaganda won't make adjustments.
Broadcast news is the worst of the lot. Murdoch's gang are simply a mob of neofascist boot boys and girls dressed in untalented graphics accompanied by marching music. ITN is almost stiff with fear. The Beeb sends its women to the Hyancinth Bucket School of Elocution and the Katie Price College of Deportment (and latterly both to the Mel Brooks Academy for Arm and Hand Waving and Twitching). None of them could work without being plugged into some knob head Winston Smith in the aptly named control room. Just a bunch of unprincipled cowards the lot of them.
The only value they have is of unintentional comedy.
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