Guido Fawked - Impress Attack BUSTED

Even with the efforts they are putting in to try and get their readers to “look over there” at allegations of sexual misconduct within the Labour Party, rather than at the Tories, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog can always find time to do the bidding of their masters in what they used to call the Dead Tree Press.

So it was no surprise when, in the midst of new allegations against male MPs in both the Red and Blue teams, the Fawkes massive declared “Press Freedom Under Attack From Mosley-Backing Lords”, the duty for this characteristically lame hatchet job handed to apprentice sandwich monitor, oops sorry, “senior reporter” Ross Kempsell.

“Press freedom is once again under attack from cop-thumper Max Mosley’s state-backed sham regulator Impress” they whine, even though Impress is not “state-backed” and is certainly not a sham, its procedures having been demonstrated to work as advertised. Moreover, when it comes to aggressive and threatening behaviour, Kempsell need look no further than his own boss (see video HERE for evidence).

But on it goes: “Readers will remember MediaGudio’s Impress File, which exposed anti-press bias at the heart of the group hell-bent on financially ruining Britain’s most popular papers. Now a group of peers are promoting Impress’s vendetta in the Lords”. Impress has no “anti-press bias” and certainly isn’t trying to ruin anyone. It does not run a vendetta (pot and kettle, O Great Guido). It is merely a press regulator.

The post then goes on to routinely smear two peers for tabling an amendment to the Data Protection Bill, before going after cross-bencher Lord Skidelsky, because he wants to add Impress to the groups able to claim Public Interest exemption under that Bill. The story was first run by the Murdoch Times, and this is what they have related.

“Lord Skidelsky wants to add Impress to a list of media regulators that would provide protection for journalists accessing personal information to expose wrongdoing … Under the current proposals for the Data Protection Bill, the public interest exemption would cover journalists only if their reporting abides by the Ofcom code, the BBC editorial guidelines or the Ipso Editors’ Code of Practice”. So what’s the problem?

What Lord Skidelsky is proposing is to create a level playing field between the IPSO and Impress codes. What’s the problem? The objection implied by the Times, and trowelled on by the Fawkes rabble, that the proposer is a friend of Max Mosley, is beyond lame.

And the real own goal here is that the Fawkes blog, which claims to have no truck with all this press regulation malarkey, is suddenly hot on the subject. They don’t subscribe to IPSO, or any other regulator, so why so much interest and energy devoted to the subject at a time when so much else is going on around Westminster?

Ah well. As any fule kno, The Great Guido is in hock to the press establishment: the days of being able to go after who they want, when they want, are long gone. This post is yet another example of their press masters commanding the Fawkes rabble to jump, and being asked in response “how high”? Another fine mess, once again.