Peter Huys, Vodacom’s top spin doctor announced his resignement a few days ago.
Funny how most of the old generation’s folks are biting the dust those days.
Where are my role models gone…
Once again it shows that the good old times of erratic and scornful communication are over.
Take a look at this article.
I’ve never been that much into British politics, but I’m starting to loving it. A brand new example of it in yesterday’s Guardian:
John Prescott last night called on David Cameron, the Tory leader, to axe his party’s director of communications Andy Coulson after the Guardian revealed fresh details about phone-hacking by the News of the World, the tabloid paper the spin doctor used to edit.
Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, said he had no idea his phone was targeted in the spring of 2006, and demanded an explanation from police about why no action appeared to have been taken.
“The timing is interesting. Spring, 2006, that was when there was this bloody business of an affair,” he said, referring to his relationship with his secretary Tracey Temple. “All the women in my office were phoned by the press, and they all had their private mobile numbers. My office was absolutely shocked as to how the press got every one of their private numbers. They were all being asked questions about me. It was all connected to that. The whole thing is deplorable.”
He added: “I must say after all the fuss about [Damian] McBride, I think Mr Cameron should be thinking of getting rid of Coulson. McBride was bad enough as it was, now really, just ask Mr Cameron whether he’s got the courage to get rid of Coulson, or, certainly to make sure if he was to come in to No 10 he didn’t have access to privileged information. To my mind, it is unacceptable that this man goes into the Tory party office. The Murdoch press called for the sacking of McBride, and I actually agreed with it. But I wonder if we will hear them demand Cameron get rid of Coulson.”
Prescott said he would ask the police if they were “aware that I’d been phone hacked, and why did they not take action? And why was I not informed so that I knew what was going on. So I shall be writing to the police and asking if is this true, and what actions did you take?
“I am bound to say, they didn’t take any action over McBride, or any action over the … material given to the Telegraph. They are very political over who they chose to take action over”.
Former Cabinet minister Geoff Hoon, also weighed in on the issue, concurring with Prescott’s views.
“It is hard to see how in these circumstances Andy Coulson can continue as David Cameron’s communications chief while such a cloud hangs over his reputation.
“David Cameron must make clear what action he intends to take on this matter.”
A spokeswoman for David Cameron said last night that the Tory leader was “very relaxed about the story”.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne also drew parallels with the Damian McBride case.
“At the very least Andy Coulson was responsible for a newspaper that was out of control and at worst he was personally implicated,” he said.
“Either way, a future prime minister cannot have someone who is involved in these sort of underhand tactics. The exact parallel is with Damian McBride.
“If it is more than a thousand (phone taps) it seems most unlikely to me to have been just one journalist. There needs to be a full investigation.”
Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem energy spokesman whose mobile phone messages were hacked into in 2006, said yesterday the court settlement by News Group Newspapers was proof the illegal practice is “always corporate responsibility as well as individual responsibility”.
He said he had been left feeling “angry and frustrated” by the intrusion into his personal affairs which came shortly after he had outed himself as a homosexual. “The settlement suggests the company clearly accepts, informally, responsibility for the actions,” he said.
Hughes said he planned to consult his lawyer over what action he may take. He also warned the £400,000 damages settlement to Gordon Taylor could leave News Group open to more civil actions by individuals who may have become victims of intrusions into their personal data.
“There is a question as to whether this newspaper group or any other newspaper group is liable to other actions,” he said. “The lesson is that they shouldn’t presume that this is something that will only be dealt with in criminal courts, but it will also be dealt with in civil courts.”
He also said the Metropolitan police could face requests from other people who believe their personal data was obtained by the newspaper group and its agents. Hughes said parliament is likely to scrutinise the payouts and consider whether UK privacy law is sufficient in “the new data centred age”.
“It is very easy for individuals to break into, buy their way into, data on the rest of us, ordinary citizens, well-known and not well-known, and it is very difficult for the ordinary citizen to get any come back. If you are rich and you take legal action and be willing to risk the costs of legal action, that is one thing, but it doesn’t apply to most of the people in this country.”
Just the other day I read an article in the Serbian newspaper Borba on Khodorkovsky and his famous lawyer Robert Amsterdam.
It reminded me of some of the comments I got after my post on the Yukos case.
The article explained that Khodorkovsky’s trial was as much his own fault than that of the so-called “Putin clan”. While not really taking a hard position, the article presented both side of the argument.
Never would such an article be written in the Western press, in which Khodorkovsky is always painted as just a nice liberal businessman that Putin hates.
Please. Check out the facts for yourself. And before saying the Russian press is muzzled and the Western press is a beacon for the rest of the world, remember that the greatest prejudice is the one you don’t even notice.
The Western media and politicians are increasingly complaining of Russia’s lack of freedom. Yet I cannot help but think of two words to describe such attacks: opportunism and hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy because too often the West claims that its own political and economic system– which includes the “fourth estate”, the media – is a model beyond reproach.The current financial crisis, imported straight from the Western-designed form of economic and political organisation, clearly shows that this model is far from perfect.
Everyone sees this now. What most don’t see, don’t appreciate, or don’t want to see, however, is that the Western press is far from being as free as people out there think!
This is more visible than ever now that so many newspapers will be forced either to shut down or sell themselves to “oligarchs” (say, Rupert Murdoch).
In fact, the entire “fourth estate” is so closed in on itself that it forgets there is another world out there. Try to find a pro-Russian article in the Western press these days. Just try. Why aren’t there any?
Could it really be that Russia is pure evil? No. In reality, journalists don’t even do their homework anymore, they only recycle their own opinions among themselves. The result is stale and incestuous.
Opportunism because Russia has increasingly emancipated itself from the West and it overall perception – stemming from its “victory” of the Cold War – that the world had reached “the end of history” to use a phrase now disowned by its author, Francis Fukiyama.
In other words, as the “Washington consensus” has crumbled, Russia has felt vindicated (ask any Russian how he feels about the 1990s and you will always get the same response: humiliation) and the West has felt prickly.
Painting Russia as an authoritarian “rogue” nation is an easy and quick way to deflect blame, and dismiss Russia’s increased independance on the international stage.
People tend to forget that in the late 1990’s people like Khodorkovsky or Berezovsky litterally controlled the country, the economy and the rouble had collapsed and supermarket shelves were empty.
In reality, Russian politics is far more subtle and complicated than a simple caricatured dichotomy (dove/hawk, siloviki/liberal) can capture.
The best example is with the so-called “Putin system”, renewed “authoritarianism” (please, thouse who equate Putin with Stalin do not deserve to be read– I’m looking at you, Edward Lucas, even if you are not alone by far) or freedom of expression.
Nothing but the spin... 