Something I cover much less than Woke Waste, open-border charities and Quakers – but am very interested in – is the Leveson lobby.
By this, I mean celebrities and organisations (such as the ghastly Byline Times) that want serious press reform ('Leveson 2', as they call it) and tend to hate the guts of Rupert Murdoch (and anyone else related to News of the World).
To add, I’m not unsympathetic to their movement – many were treated appallingly by the press – but I find some of their lobbying methods rather strange (as well as complicated to keep track of).
Case in point: last week Hugh Grant, one of several celebrities behind Hacked Off (an organisation that campaigns for Leveson 2), announced a joint campaign with 38 Degrees, a radical activist group…
…marketing itself as a people-powered petition site:
And that’s not all: Hacked Off is apparently part of a coalition which includes Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and Climate Resistance…
…that’s according to the organisation Media Revolution, which claims: “The world’s media system – social media, corporate media and state media – has been hijacked by a handful of powerful interests – billionaire-owners, political operators and advertisers.”
To return to 38 Degrees…
Together, Hacked Off and 38 Degrees have released a joint petition for “fair regulation”, coinciding with the release of The Hack, a televised drama about the phone-hacking scandal, which Hacked Off has been regularly tweeting about:
My suspicion is that The Hack is a nudge-unit-style drama. I don’t
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I suppose it’s one way to advertise your ignorance of the basic laws of Physics and Chemistry, and Business sense.
Hugh Grant?? Didn’t there use to be an actor of that name oh, a decade or so ago?
Ha ha ha of course he has…they all do…..I hope they enjoy the huge amounts of snow this Winter.
I. Don’t. Care.
Not interested in the views of any celebrities, sports people, actors.
Never read articles about their political views.
The obsession with such never existed pre 1980s. A modern MSM invention to influence those who dont/can’t/won’t think for themselves.
Were I to be signed up with Twitter I would create a new hashtag #BeIndifferent. I am indifferent to celebrities’ views, religious wars, peoples’ sexuality or gender, and political grandstanding. I’m indifferent to most articles about ‘self help’ or confected health scares.
If Leveson 2 or legislation made it uneconomic to report on luvvies opinions the media would probably avoid all celebrity reporting. And then their outrage at the control of their free speech would soon follow.
So #BeIndifferent.
Not so sure about it being an ‘invention to influence those who . . .’ I reckon it’s actually attractive to the MSM because it’s cheap. Slebs are people who crave publicity, if they didn’t they wouldn’t be slebs. The MSM has a lot of space to fill. Publishing the vacuous opinions of Annie X or Billy Y fills column inches, and still more inches because said vacuous opinions can be accompanied by picture(s) of Wotsisname Z. The sad thing is that it gives at least some of them a phoney idea of their own profundity.
My take on celebs is that they want all the positive aspects of fame, but none of the negative ones.
They want the money that fame gives them and the public’s attention specifically when they want it, but otherwise want to be left alone. Because let’s face it, the money they get is partly the talent but mostly the fame. An unknown actor in a West End play gets paid a fraction of a celeb’s money, not because he has a fraction of the talent, or puts in a fraction of the work. It’s because nobody knows him and couldn’t care less who he is.
Celebs would like to be able to have a fame on/fame off switch, but I think that’s called having your cake and eating it.
One of those “fame on” moments is when it comes to championing their pet cause.
Indeed, and they like to have the “good” things they do reported on, but when they get up to mischief that embarrasses them, it’s intrusion.
They are quite well organised these privileged socialist types!
Everyone needs a hobby….
Especially Hugh Grant since he gave up seeing prostitutes.