*Not* about Max Mosley (58)

NO. One person has said that they were proud to shake his hand; the episode was not presented as a religious action. You exaggerate in order to belittle the gentleman that made the post.

I do think that his contribution has been key and that he deserves recognition as the first person to stand up to Rupert Murdoch and say 'Yeah, so I'm kinky, what's it to you? I want damages', and then to go on and help other people (as Tanos pointed out) that have had their privacy invaded by phone hacking.

This has been a first; previously if a well-known figure was exposed by the press in some act or other of depravity, they hung their heads and slunk away. Admittedly Max is rich, but if he were not he would never have been able to bring the action, but now he has caused a precedent to be made in law, and the law applies to us all. And it has certainly been made clear to me, that if another such case occurs, he will back the exposed party. I do not hero worship anybody, and I strongly resent the implication that I do as an insulting slur

I am very concerned about the behaviour of the press in this country; they have used kinky people as one of their scapegoats for at least thirty years and I think we have to try to change that, but as you demonstrated on the previous thread, you won't allow that discussion to take place, rather you jump in and start going on about Mr Mosley's politics.

Fair enough, we won't talk about Max Mosley.

Can we now talk about the current state of play against the tabloids?

If you want to join in this discussion could you start by telling us, please, what you have to contribute by way of positive actions or ideas?

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Edited Wed 19 Oct 11, 2:00 PM by Ishmael

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In a couple of years or so, at most, we'll be looking back on the era of tabloid rule as a particularly unpleasant episode in British history, but it's entered endgame now.

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

Edited 19 Oct 11, 1:02 PM by Doghouse_Reilly

The question is who or what is going to bring it to the top of the news again. The Grauniad? Or one of the other so-called quality papers? Unless there are big new revelations or prosecutions the story isn't going to gain traction.

The whole of the newspaper market is in decline (not 100% sure about this) because their revenue streams are suffering. Unless they are bankrolled by proprietors for reasons of power and vanity they may well not survive. Murdoch (turn 3 times and throw salt over shoulder for merely mentioning the name) has plenty of money, lust for power and vanity. He knows how to play a long game too, look how long it took satellite TV to come good financially. The saving grace is that he's old and might be off to his version of hell soon. The new generation running NI is likely to be less determined and/or able.

Yes,you are right that the phone hacking activities have damaged the tabloids ability to make money for the owners of such papers. Note the tabloids that have been hit have been the red tops. Which leaves the question. Could the mail and the express become a similar problem as the NOTW and could they both end up with a similar scandal?

http://empressm7.uboot.com/ http://www.socialkink.com/empressmartine Vampire, pro/lifestyle ts dom/switch.Ageplay mummy/aunty/AB,medical play,domestic,energy, outdoor specialist."Welcome to Downturn Abbey.You will not be staying long. James will show you to the servant'

The MM case had some impact, but I think the Rio Ferdinand case undid some of that. WIITWD is still able to sell newspapers and I suspect they will find more ingenious ways to defend prying into and exposing the private sex lives of any individual who has any "public interest" aspect of the rest of their lives such as teachers, social workers etc. I'm not trying to justify it, I just think they will. I think we have to face the act that kinky sex still sells papers because the public are still interested.

I think the change in attitudes to homosexual men and women may give some clues to what we might need to do. It used to be that being named as gay was also to be shamed. It isn't any longer (always?) but there is still a slightly prurient interest in whether a "celebrity" is gay. That may be the next stage we can hope for, that being named is not also being shamed. Quite how we get there, I don't know. It will need people to be prepared to come out or if outed to say clearly that it is nobody's else's concern and that they aren't ashamed. Not an easy thing to do, not at all. But we can hope; no one would think of sacking a teacher or social worker because they are gay these days whereas once it would likely have happened.

In the end, the tabloids print what will sell to their audience (as does the Guardian who harped on a female politician having had a facelift recently...) and the internet and recession are putting them under pressure. So we can expect them to resurrect the BDSM pursuit in the short term and only to give up when being into BDSM is seen as a curiosity rather than a perversion. I think the MM case moved us a bit towards that but there is still a way to go.

http://empressm7.uboot.com/ http://www.socialkink.com/empressmartine Vampire, pro/lifestyle ts dom/switch.Ageplay mummy/aunty/AB,medical play,domestic,energy, outdoor specialist."Welcome to Downturn Abbey.You will not be staying long. James will show you to the servant'

It won't ever be on top of the news for as long as the media groups being scrutinised are in a position to keep it down. That's a given. You can't expect newspapers to report on their own criminality any more than you can expect the PM to stand on the steps of Downing Street and announce to everybody that he hates poor people.

It doesn't need traction is the thing, not now. It needed it when it first broke around 2008, but it didn't get it, then when it broke again more recently, then it got traction. Now there's a lot of people involved, a lot of scrutiny.

But past that newspapers are in fatal decline. Hell even television is in fatal decline. It just has further to fall. Murdoch is going to die soon and his empire will either go with him or be unrecognisable after he departs because, much as he has tried to play the very long game and line his kids up to take over, that's not going to wash in the US with the big shareholders.

The future for the gutter press is bleak because, let's face it, people don't really care. The vacuum of pointless gossip that the tabloids used to fill is being replaced with online chatter.

Without really intending it, the greed of the gutter press has accidentally safeguarded a democratic free press. By pushing the system that they controlled so hard they broke it and allowed anybody who can operate blog software a piece of the pie.

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

There's also the fact that the revelations of his activities were greeted by a giant 'Who Cares?' from the world in general. Outside of his immediate family nobody gave a shit. That's the pivotal point. People cared about MP expenses, people cared that the News of the World hacked a dead girl's phone. Nobody cared that some old guy liked a spanking.

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

When in the last thread I said Max Mosley is now god or such I was being SARCASTIC. I am in no way out to start some peculiar MM cult.

Since when has the Guardian been a quality newspaper? LOL.