The Sun on Sunday, which is of course the News of the World with a different hat on, lied about me last week.

In the general scheme of things, the crumbling economy, the savaged environment, the treacherous, inept, deceitful politicians that govern us, the corrupt corporations that exploit us, it might not seem like a big deal. That's because it isn't to anyone, except me or my girlfriend. The pain, disruption and distress, that the Sun inflicted by falsely claiming that I cheated on my girlfriend, in the context of such awesome corruption, is a pale liver-spot on the back of Murdoch's glabrous claw. Still though, it's a tiny part of the demon's dermatology and as such, connected to all the other pestilence. Here's how.

Storytelling is important, whether it's a ruddy and robust town crier or Homer (I mean the Greek one but the other one counts too). The manner in which we receive information can affect us as much as the information itself. There is a certain duty that comes with being the anointed purveyor of truth. Can we trust that our media is fulfilling that duty? Who do they really serve? Everyone knows papers like the Daily Mail and the Sun can't be trusted, we've come to accept their duplicity as part of their charm, and their defence, that it's only really celebrities and people that deserve intrusion who are affected, while superficially true in this case, is actually the biggest lie of them all.

We all remember the worst lies, the ones where the red tops are caught red-handed, like Hillsborough, where the Sun enthusiastically heaped more pain on the grieving people of Liverpool by claiming that innocent fans had pissed on police and rifled through the possessions of their dead fellows under the front-page headline "The Truth". We remember the disgust we shared on learning that the News of the World hacked into the voicemail of a missing child who turned out to have been murdered. We all know too that they were said to have hacked the phones of dead British soldiers, victims of 7/7 and murdered Sarah Payne's mum. These people are not celebrities, they are only known through grave misfortune and then through calculated desecration.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/29/russell-brand-rages-sun-rupert-murdoch

From Peter Wicks at Independent Australia

....

Whilst it is unfortunate that we are not allowed to make the recording public, something that I find odd given the court is open to the public, I am now able to provide a transcript of what was actually said by the Magistrate on the matter.

As it turns out, Ean Higgins and Pia Ackerman were not referred for contempt of court, so I have corrected the record on that post now to bring it into line.

I was informed by a source who was in court for that mention that this was indeed the case, however they were mistaken, and for my part in reporting that error I sincerely apologise.

In the interests of setting the record straight, below is a transcript of what Magistrate Rozencwajg said taken directly from the recording of the court mention supplied by the court [IA emphasis].

“Before we commence, at the outset, I feel it is necessary to state that the article on the front page of The Australian last Tuesday reporting on the mention held on the 2nd September was factually incorrect in several significant respects.

"The court certainly made no determination, as declared in the blaring headline — in fact, I made no determination whatsoever.

"I have requested the Court Strategic Communications Advisor to take this issue up with the editor of The Australian newspaper and if necessary the Australian Press Council.”

In fact, in the recording of the hearing that lasts just 15 minutes, The Australian article is mentioned many times, with the magistrate repeatedly pointing out that there were “many factual errors” that were “throughout the article” and were“not limited to the headline”.

Pia Ackerman who was in the court that day. When I approached her for comment, she claimed that the magistrates' issue was only with the headline. The recording shows that this is clearly not the case.

I have sent an email to the Courts' Strategic Communications Advisor requesting details of The Australian editor's response and also details of the Australian Press Council's response, if it was reported to them.

I will let readers know when a response is received.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/jacksonville-64-craig-thomsons-trial-by-media,5943

An interesting admission was made by the prosecution today in the Craig Thomson trial — but those jaw-dropping mainstream media journalists didn’t bother sticking around in court long enough to hear it.

Lesley Taylor, SC, appearing for the Crown, conceded that those movies Mr Thomson is alleged to have charged to his HSU credit card while staying in hotels

“… may not have been pornographic.”

She conceded that any of these videos

“… could have been The Sound Of Music.”

Read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/craig-thomson-on-trial-day-one,5946

Eagle-eyed readers of last weekend's newspaper may have spotted an unusual assemblage of letters in Harry the Dog's regular word puzzle.

The puzzle, on page 79, had an “animals of Indonesia” theme, with readers asked to spot words such as “dolphin”, “civet”, and “cassowary”.

But on line three are the letters: LIVESIHCODRUM, or, written backwards, MURDOCHISEVIL.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/insult-about-rupert-murdoch-buried-in-sunday-telegraph-puzzle-20131210-2z33z.html#ixzz2n3e52L7D

Behind its flimsy paywall yesterday, The Australian newspaper, through senior reporter Ean Higgins, launched an absurdly comical attack on Independent Australia. Peter Wicks dissects this piece and corrects the record.

YESTERDAY, hidden behind a paywall that is about as effective as many of its journalists and columnists, was an article in The Australian in which I was mentioned.

The article was by someone whose journalistic integrity I will allow you to judge by your own standards — or maybe even his own.

The journalist I am referring to is News Ltd’s Ean Higgins and, in his article, which I will dissect today, he decides to take a couple of cheap pot shots at myself and David Donovan, the editor of Independent Australia.

The background to this article is that Ean Higgins has not liked the way both myself and IA have been publishing articles that correct the factual errors in The Australian’s coverage of the Craig Thomson case, coverage that has been primarily written by Higgins and Pia Akerman, the daughter of conservative commentator Piers Akerman.

An article I wrote on 12 September, which exposed some of the many wild distortions and fabrications the writers – Akerman and Higgins – described as fact, appeared to be particularly distressing for Higgins.

In one part of the original article, I took the word of someone who was in attendance in court that morning, who asserted that the authors of the article had been referred by the magistrate for possible contempt of court charges.

Unfortunately, it turned out my source ‒ a former judge, as it happens ‒ was partially incorrect — the matter had indeed been referred by the magistrate, who had scathing reprimanded The Australian over the numerous errors of fact included in their piece about the previous court mention in the Craig Thomson case, though he had not referred it for contempt of court. So, I (and IA) corrected the record and apologised, as we feel that is always the appropriate response on the odd occasion we make a mistake.

The reader should keep in his mind that the reason I wrote the article, originally, was due to the magistrate’s condemnation of The Australian’s coverage. HadThe Australian not printed so many highly prejudicial factual errors, which seemed designed to distort the truth about the case, I would have had no need to publish my article correcting the record.

Indeed, I felt the need to correct the record as The Australian seems to have an intense aversion to doing so — the repeated false claims in articles by Akerman and Higgins have yet to be corrected and, at time of writing, Thomson has yet to receive any apology for the misreporting of his case the magistrate so emphatically identified.

...

Higgins then goes on to talk about an email he sent myself and David and that he has selectively quoted from. Ean Higgins also asked that his abrasive, condescending and supremely arrogant email not to be published by us — a request we have honoured.

Higgins puts it like this in his article:

While Donovan and Wicks chose not to check the facts, I did, and then sent emails to Donovan and Wicks. My email to Donovan read in part:

1/ Neither Pia nor I, nor the editor, has been informed of any possible referral regarding contempt of court.

2/ Pia, who was in the courtroom, did not hear a mention from the magistrate about contempt of court.

3/ A spokeswoman for the magistrate has said in writing that your allegation is not correct.

4/ The source to whom you attribute this false allegation, Greg James QC, has not backed it up.

What I did in fact do was to check facts, as I always do.

Again, the reason for my post was Higgins and Akerman's article about the Thomson court mention was full of factual errors — as confirmed by no lesser authority than the magistrate hearing the case himself.

Higgins’ assertion that he checked his facts might lead someone to get the impression that he must have deliberately set out to publish falsehoods, given there were so many errors in his article. If Higgins had checked his facts, the claims he made in his article wouldn't have been there. So why did this‘professional’  leave them there?

It should be noted that Independent Australia sought the court recording in order to get an accurate portrayal of what had occurred. It should also be noted that Higgins has relied on the word of one person in the courtroom — the exact same thing he criticises us about. Even worse, the person upon whom he was relying was Pia Akerman, whose shoddy reporting of what had occurred in court had led to the magistrate delivering her a well-deserved slapdown whilst she apparently sat in court recording his words. It was the reason I wrote the article correcting the record in the first place.

In regards to the points he numbers in his email above, number one is accepted with the correction and apology made, and number two we have just covered off.

Number three and four, however, I have not addressed as yet, but will now.

A court media spokeswoman, not a spokeswoman for the magistrate, said she was unaware of the referral and suggested a recording was the way to be certain — so we ordered the recording as was appropriate. The media spokesman didnot, as Higgins alleges, say in writing our claims were not correct.

And, of course, Greg James, QC, did, in fact, back up his incorrect observation on more than one occasion, thus making Higgins’ final statement utterly false.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/objectivity-and-the-australian-falling-down-off-the-paywall,5973

To be mentioned openly by the hacks at The Australian is a badge of honour...

It actually recognises that Independent Australia exists and scores many a fair goals while the merde-och press only get to the ball by dirty tricks, by punching and sledging — all with the help the grand referee of slanted "potshotism"news-crap, namely Uncle Rupe who decides who hangs and who does not...