Channel 4 News video: Alastair Campbell slams 'putrid press.
Correspondent Andy Davies reports on what the former Tony Blair press guru said on Wednesday to Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry on media hacking and ethics.
He also reports on complaints about lax action by the official media watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office's (ICO) by a former high-ranking official there, Alec Owens, even when there was clear evidence of wrong-doing.
How England and Miami are alike: Whilst "good journalists remain in the majority" elements of the press have become "putrid."
Except here in South Florida, as I've pointed out here to a fair-thee-well, and as I and many of my friends and fellow bloggers know from personal experience, they're actually in the minority, and are often too lazy to show-up at actual news events without being handed the pre-digested facts on a silver platter by a PIO before showing-up.
That is, IF they show up at all.
Unfortunately for residents like me who want to know more about what's going on here in the country's fourth-largest state -and in-depth- the truth is, South Florida is the the exact opposite of the hot-house competitive reporting atmosphere in England that brings out lots of important news stories that would otherwise never see the light of day.
Channel 4's webpage of archived stories on the multiple phone hacking scandals:
On Monday, a media-savvy friend in England who's been following this matter a lot more carefully than yours truly, sent me an interesting email, which, for reasons of shorthand here on the blog, I'll simply call The Curious Case of Charlotte Church.
Serendipitously, in my YouTube Channel mailbox later in the day was the ITN Showbiz 411 video below, which tells you everything you need to know about her part in a strange tale.
Yes, some pretty odd and forthright stuff coming from the Welsh songbird.
ITN Show Biz 411 video: Charlotte Church 'offered £100k to sing for Rupert Murdoch -or favorable "press"'; her testimony from the Leveson Inquiry
I last wrote about Charlotte on the blog back on October 27th, 2010 in a post I titled,
The Klaxons -Twin Flames (featuring Charlotte Church) from Richard Bacon's new afternoon program on BBC Radio 5 live
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My favorite Charlotte comment from her website above?
Easy, it's from February 11th, Storm in a Tea Cup, featuring the cutting closing remark about the news media: "Still, it's always a shame to spoil a good story with the truth isn't it?"
Beautiful!
