Monday 8 November 2010

The true motive behind the Andy Coulson story

The Guardian are reporting that Andy Coulson is under pressure over allegations of phone-hacking at the News of the World while he was editor.

As far as I can see there are three groups of people interested in this story:

1. The Labour Party. Their motive is purely political; scaremongering of the lowest kind to undermine the Government. They are trying to create the narrative that Andy Coulson is some kind of shadowy Rasputin figure pulling the strings of the Prime Minister. Labour Party spinners want us to think he is like Alastair Campbell - funny that.

2. The Guardian/New York Times. These newspapers want to see a reduction in the power of Rupert Murdoch and his global media empire, News Corporation. The New York Times, owned by the Sulzberger family, has been at war with the Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp, for a while. The Guardian hates Murdoch's British newspaper titles. Both papers are collaborating on stories and have had success when they jointly broke the Wikileaks story. For The Guardian it is much more of a story if they report on allegations made in an American newspaper.

3. The BBC. They think News International is too close to Number 10 and want this to change. One way they can try and achieve this is through helping along the hacking allegations and reporting on every story printed in The Guardian. This is illustrated perfectly by the pictures used in every package on this story; showing Andy Coulson talking to Rebekah Brooks (formerly Wade) when they both worked on The Sun together. Mrs Brooks is now Chief Executive of News International.

It is always worth taking a step back on the reporting of any story and questioning the motives of the media title reporting it. Or do you think I'm being a bit cynical?   

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