Friday
Aug192011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Not-so-white
Aug 19, 2011 Media The news that David Leigh had admitted to involvement in phone hacking left the Guardian's reputation looking a little less white than they might have hoped. Today the colour is more black than grey, as Guido reports:
... today a 51 year old police officer, working on the phone-hacking inquiry named Operation Weeting, was arrested and suspended for leaking to the Guardian. Given that David Leigh has already confessed to phone-hacking, the Guardian’s squeaky clean reputation is collapsing at a rapid speed. Was this blatant police corruption of integrity sanctioned?
Reader Comments (56)
Hengist, I think it's quite clear, based on the discussion in this thread, that this is a discussion of possibilities, largely in the absence of supporting facts. I simply do not accept that you are genuinely unclear on this. I submit that you are a malefactor; you are a troll.
Thanks Simon Hopkinson for your erudite analysis. I'm still itching to find out if Bishop Hill is going to support the concern he posits . Meantime I wonder what else on this blog is largely in the absence of supporting facts .
Dear old Hengist, at it again, complete with your usual painfully-crafted faux moral outrage which, as always, is totally devoid of goodwill, humour or good sense. You are utterly predictable and a total waste of everyone's time, Hengist. If you have no idea of the difference between 'hack' and 'leak' and the vastly differing moral implications of either, you need to get yourself up to speed.
And this thread is an examination of possibilities, not a court of law.
OK Let's examine possibilities. Either we establish the fact at issue or we don't. Establishing whether the Graun has been paying for leaked information, aka corruption means Bishop Hill producing a supporting report contemporaneous to his comment at 10:05 PM last night or withdrawing said comment .
The other possibility is that we don't establish the facts. I'm sure I'll find more to say about that later if we go down that route .
Carry on Grauniad Bashing.
@Simon Hopkinson
"THE CONCERN IS THAT the Graun have been paying for leaked information"
This is a point of discussion, not an assertion.
...
Is your incessant misrepresentation a pathological problem? Is English not your first language, perhaps?
THE CONCERN IS THAT climate skeptics are in the pay of the Big Oil. Discuss.
THE CONCERN IS THAT CRU leaker was bribed for the leak. Discuss.
THE CONCERN IS THAT aliens ate my lunch. Discuss.
THE CONCERN IS THAT you have to be a native English speaker for the right to do some rhetorical footwork. Discuss.
PeterJ got it right. The context matters. That police speak to journos off-the-record is no news. But police speaking to journos off-the-record about a major investigation that seeks to ascertain the level of off-the-record dialogs (some of which may involve bribery) that regularly takes between police and journos, now, that is news.
Let's face it. A lot of the criticism directed at the Guardian in the comments threads here stems from the fact that the Guardian has landed a knock-out blow on a very powerful and a very right wing media empire. An empire that was very useful in keeping right-wing governments in power in the UK.
That is the primary motivation for a lot of the criticism directed at the Guardian, not the concern is that the Guardian is bribing the police or is being hypocritical in its journalistic practices.
Those that defend the Guardian's ethics on this thread remind me strongly of an old piece of folk wisdom -' if one sups with the devil, one should use a very long spoon'.
My personal view of the matter is that ethics and morality have long departed the upper reaches of institutional and business life in the UK.