This is a great story, isn't it?

Is this the end of the Murdochs? Thank god if it is. STOP THE BILL

Can't believe The NOTW is the bestselling newspaper. I find it depressing to think there are that many people choosing to read salacious gossip instead of news.

I work in a media office, i hear the gossip, meet the journos. Don't believe the ones from The Guardian or The Spectator or Mail are any better. This Johann Hari who is being accused of penning articles lifted directly from others, well one middlebrow/highbrow hack seized it as an opportunity for payback for a critical review Hari gave him of a book he'd written.

I have never read daily papers in my life and see no reason to do so. Ironic that I've ended up servicing the industry though... "A,B&E", "Not In My Name" and "52FF" (flash fiction anthology) all available on Amazon Kindle

"How a psychopath makes sweet love. I can get you ringside. Royal box even."

Stated as bald fact, would you care to back it up with a smidgen of argument? There's is only 1 lazy advocate here and that's someone who can't be ars*d to offer anything. But hey, I'll bite cos I'm an obedient little puppy.

If we're being sold it then we are allowing it to be sold to us at best, or gleefully lapping it up at worst. es it me be a self-reinforcing vicious circle, of the media hammering in the message that this is what we really want to read & know about, but then we fail to exercise any critical faculties in challenging this. We opt to be blindsided, not the media is so fiendishly skillful that we have no idea they are even doing it to us.

There, I used the royal we, satisfied? Like I said, I have never taken a daily paper, cos I didn't want my news from someone with an agenda, be it Right, Liberal, soft Left or The Morning Star. Yeah I probably get suckered in whatever way I take my news and current affairs, since it is all still produced according to market agendas if nothing else.

Ashamed? Only of the British Press, which we deserve because we demand nothing better. Maybe this will be a watershed and shake the industry up in some way, but probably not and everyone will return to the same as before, even if under new names. Like Italian politics really, which only served to deliver up Berlusconi for decades of rule.
"A,B&E", "Not In My Name" and "52FF" (flash fiction anthology) all available on Amazon Kindle

"How a psychopath makes sweet love. I can get you ringside. Royal box even."

I like the Telegraph crossword but don't like their politics.

It is true that this kind of celebrity gossip is shoved down our throats though, isn't it? Even if you never read magazines, you can't stand in a queue at Boots without being confronted by pictures of grinning celebs next to lurid headlines.Every time you check your email on yahoo, some scandalous story about someone I've never heard of pops up.

As for television - don't get me started! There's so little choice, despite the number of channels, that I hardly watch any more. People who have no choice, like my mum, who can't get about or read any more, end up watching crap because that's all there is.

Murdoch controls so much, probably even more than we fear. I just hope this scandal lessens that power, although I doubt it will.

Gosh! I must be getting old - and crotchety.Grrrrr!!!