Parties, Novels and Clarkson: How the Tabloids Reported the Continued NOTW Demise by Nick Bryans

Snog, Marry, Avoid?

Ever since opinion columns became the basis of tabloids, papers have effectively had ‘gimmicks’. Daily Mail has its class obsession, The Express gives away pointless free stuff then moans and The Sun is chewing gum for the eyes. In that sense, newspapers effectively replicate early 90s professional wrestling. When each wrestler had to have a gimmick. You had ‘The Model’ Rick Martell, who was a, well, model. You had ‘IRS’ Irwin R Schyster, who was a taxman. And even Isaac Yankem DDS, who played a dentist. A wrestling dentist.  So clearly if gimmicks are good enough for sports entertainment, it’s good enough for the British national press. Fantastic.

The coverage of the NOTW fall-out has been mixed. Papers have focussed on the stories that tend to reflect their remit, rather than a common thread on the actual news. Initially they were apprehensive towards the story due to most tabloids being the wrong side of dodgy, only lucky enough not to get caught.

The Mail were very slow to pick it up, and on the first Sunday in 168 years without a News of the World, they run with the piece:

Chipping Norton Set’s final hurrah: How Elisabeth Murdoch threw decadent priory party with Mandelson, Cameron’s cronies and BBC’s Robert Peston hours before Dowler scandal broke.

Yes, that’s right. Whatever the news story is, the first thing the Mail think is ‘How can we segue celebrities and houses into it?’. As the Mail continues its descent into OK! Magazine written by bitter bastards, the ONLY STORY they can extrapolate from this week’s revelations concerns how his daughter had a piss up with famous people. So that’s his daughter. Not involved with the News of the World. Great scoop, Mail.

Now I don’t want to play Devil’s Advocate here, but this was before the story broke, before people knew about the scandal, and for someone not directly associated with News Corp for the past 10 years (left to set up Shine productions in 2001, was purchased by BskyB this year). What I’m trying to get at is that this shindig was hardly tea with Scaramanga. Clash of interests? Arguably. Proof that certain MPs and journalists are unfit for their job? Hardly.

But again, as we’ve stated, The Mail doesn’t really care that much about investigative journalism. They want pictures of outfits. They want estimated house prices. They want social circles that you lot aren’t posh enough to move in.

Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth and her PR tycoon husband Matthew Freud threw a party of decadent opulence and excess that saw the political and media elite flock to their 22-bedroom Cotswolds mansion Burford Priory yet again.

Property.

As a jazz band played in the landscaped gardens of the £6  million property, Mr Freud, who was wearing leather trousers, greeted guests.

Property prices AND outfit update,

The consequences could be just as far-reaching for the Chipping Norton Set…The group has been dubbed the Chipping Norton Set because its key members, including Prime Minister David Cameron, all own homes within a few miles of the Oxfordshire town.

Socialising.

Guests could wander into two opulent marquees laid on by entrepreneur Nick Jones, who had created two miniature versions of his London restaurants, Pizza East and Cecconi’s. Mr Jones’s fashionable Soho House chain of clubs and restaurants is promoted by his host’s PR company, Freud  Communications.

Irrelevant information of no interest to anyone.

And that’s how it reads; he owns this, she did this, he threw this, the house had this in the garden, etc. Then every few paragraphs they’ll tag on some fact about how the NOTW were naughty people who are in big trouble for phone hacking. But enough of that boring shit, guess who ELSE was at the inconsequential party thrown by someone not directly connected with the newspaper before anyone knew about the scandal?

DAT HOUSE

The Daily Express is known for one thing; hyperbole. Dramatizing and sensationalising the most pointless titbit. Whether it’s about parking tickets or terrorism, this paper can make you shit-scared of it. As if Wes Craven himself edited the paper. Only a far less intelligent paper than that scenario would result in, of course.

They talk about Murdoch facing a parliamentary enquiry concerning phone hacking, under the title:

PHONE HACKING SCANDAL: RUPERT MURDOCH WILL FACE WRATH OF MPS WHO HIS PAPERS RIPPED TO SHREDS

Wow, they were RIPPED. To SHREDS! Like in those Saw films, right? Top tip, if you do try and murder MPs in elaborate and contrived ways, don’t try and put Eric Pickles in an Iron Maiden. You’ll be there all day.

What starts as a story about the enquiry swiftly descends into a Dan Brown-esque editorial filled with tension, drama and revenge. It’s so far away from ‘reporting’ that you’d expect it to be the plot for a piss-poor provincial drama recital.

It will be an event to match anything on Sky Sports. For that is when the world’s most famous media tycoon, 80-year-old Rupert Murdoch, will walk in flanked by his son James and the redhead he views as a daughter, Rebekah Brooks.

Better than Sky Sports? Better than……football!? OMFG, count me in!

Facing them will be 10 MPs, 10 Grand Inquisitors, who know this is their moment in the spotlight. John Whittingdale, the ever-polite Tory chairman, will thank them for coming. Then the gloves will come off.

Who will play John Whittingdale in the film adaptation of this? I’m thinking Michael Gambon. Regal, erudite, imposing: perfect.

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold and for Labour’s Tom Watson, it will certainly be that…….He is likely to be the smiling assassin when he steps into his grilling stride, having amassed a vault of evidence over the affair.

When did The Express employ Tom Clancy in their current affairs department?

Leaked pictures from the enquiry.

It continues like a ‘who’s who’ of slightly pointless MPs, including chick-lit author Louise Bagshawe, “Rebellious Tory MP” Phillip Davies and Labour MP Paul Farrelly (most famous for wrestling a newspaper salesman), and how they’re queuing up to stick the boot in. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it was death by firing squad, shot in black & white and directed by Federico Fellini, mind. The Express could simply report the judicial inquiry, but that would be boring. And who wants to be bored? If you have five minutes to read the news, go to express.co.uk, where you can learn about the NOTW fallout through the eyes of Bravo to Zero author Andy Mcnabb, then watch Kelly Brook eat an ice-cream. What more do you need?

Then there’s The Sun, whose gimmick seems to be, “let’s hire complete tools to write for us”. The Sun is just utterly, utterly celebrity obsessed, to such an extent that if the news story doesn’t involve a celebrity, then it probably didn’t happen. So the caveat seems to be that people will definitely believe what a celebrity columnist said, as everyone is obsessed with famous people ……right?

Now Jeremy Clarkson is the perfect example of a Sun columnist. COMPLETE tool. Doesn’t need ‘evidence’ and ‘facts’ to back up his arguments, hates everything remotely left wing, is a blokey bloke who does blokey things in blokey cars. This man is the personification of Sun ideals. If you disagree with what he’s saying, then your clearly a simpering, vegetarian, trade unionist, bike-riding, wet loonly lefty toe-rag who doesn’t deserve freedom of speech, so what’s the point of big JC conversing with you anyway?

In his column, Clarkson defends Rebekah Brooks. Now, was he put up to it? Who knows. What I will say is that if he wasn’t defending Brooks, he’d be writing some bollocks about a country that speaks ‘foreign’ and the associated stereotypes under the guise of ‘comedy’. So thank fuck he’s defending her, so I don’t have to sit through some diatribe about how the only thing Germans do is sit in their Volkswagens all day eating bratwurst.

Rebekah is one of my closest friends and I’m sorry but I cannot accept that she sanctioned the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone.

Well that’s all I need to hear. Case dismissed.

I’d sooner believe that my mother spends her evenings working as a rent boy.

This is the equivalent of a 14 year olds targeting the slightly effeminate boy in class and saying to him, ‘swear on your mum’s life you’re not gay!’. Though that involves that tacit implication that Jezza Clarky writes with all the guile and composure of a 14 year old, which quite honestly is a rather searing insult to 14 year olds nationwide.

Did they hack into Nixon’s phone? No. Would they have done so if it had been possible? You betcha. And would that have been justified? I think so.

So first he claims that Wade would NEVER authorise phone hacking, then the next minute he says that it’s a fine practice that can actually lead to lots of cool things happening. Jeremy, step away from the keyboard…

Anyway, there you have it – The Mail talk about a pricey garden party, The Express stage a court-room drama and The Sun get a rent-a-gob to spout some incoherent and inconsistent rubbish about how his mate didn’t know about phone hacking, but even if she did, it’s actually quite cool. Sometimes.

Join us next time when the tabloids cover the start of the football season, with The Mail stating how living near a football ground affects your house price, The Express rewrite the plot to The Dammed United, whilst The Sun get Jane Moore to talk about how funny players look in those long socks! I just can’t wait!

So this 'Africa' business. Is that up to me to sort aswell?

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