This is a long read on the pressures the modern press has to confront and deal with. It is well worth reading it all if you are interested in freedom of the press: Yes, Peter Oborne, ads hurt press freedom. But the alternative is worse  Simon Jenkins A searing indictment of the Telegraph’s HSBC reporting underlines the critical balance between holding readers’ faith and staying in business  A Reporters Sans Fontières poster. ‘The only champion of a free press is not some regulator or commission or charter board. It is the free press itself. Plurality, rivalry, disclosure, exposure and sometimes fury are the best guardians.’ Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters Wednesday 18 February 2015 19.22 GMT Last modified on Thursday 19 February 2015 02.11 GMT Newspapers are institutionalised hypocrisy. They excoriate yet they cringe. They speak truth to power and then sup at its table. They stick their moral noses in the air while their bottoms rest on festering heaps of deals, perks, bribes and ads, without which they would not exist. The most amazing thing is that this murky edifice has delivered Britain a remarkably robust and free-spirited press. A commentator on the Daily Telegraph, Peter Oborne, broke cover this week with a searing indictment of his paper’s evident reluctance to cover the HSBC tax evasion saga.(See Below) Newspapers tend to downplay the scoops of others, as many did the Guardian’s WikiLeaks and Snowden revelations of 2011 and 2013. But a big story trumps such rivalry, as the Telegraph found to its advantage with its MPs’ expenses exposé in 2009. Oborne’s charge – denied by the Telegraph – is that the newspaper was soft on the story not out of rivalry, nor even to its owners’ residency in a Channel Island tax haven, but from a fear of losing advertising revenue.  Telegraph's Peter Oborne resigns, saying HSBC coverage a 'fraud on readers' Read more HSBC had stopped advertising in the Telegraph in 2012 over a similar story to the Guardian’s, about tax evasion in Jersey, and the management was frantic to see revenues restored. In other words, HSBC was not just illegal and unethical but also a bully. The Guardian also recently had its HSBC ads “paused”, but declined to yield. That HSBC was chaired by an Anglican priest who took the government shilling as an ennobled minister merely illustrates the many-splendoured architecture of the British establishment. An American newspaper is said to have carried the ironic motto “As independent as resources permit”. Any student of the press knows what this means. A business page protocol ordains gentle treatment of proprietorial interests. Fashion pages would not exist without kickbacks, or travel pages without “contra” deals on hospitality and mentions. I remember perfume firms threatening to withdraw ads after stories on animal cruelty. There is no question standards are slipping. Page layouts are “bastardised” by wraparounds. Ill-shapen ads jut into editorial space, a once unthinkable concession to ad managers. I cringe when I see “sponsored content” supplements full of “advertorial”. I gather some titles now actively seek corporate sponsorship for columnists. Rupert Murdoch was robust in backing investigative reporting at Times Newspapers, especially on the Sunday Times. He did so to a fault in the case of the phone-hacking News of the World. But his Times undoubtedly restrained its China coverage when he was struggling for a media deal with Beijing. Even the Guardian cannot be regarded as immune from such pressures. In March 2007 Labour’s short-lived Pathfinder scheme, involving dire housing demolitions in the north, was inexplicably eulogised in a Guardian supplement in return for an undisclosed payment from the government. Today its “branded content partner zone” is occupied by Unilever, “whose sources of revenue allow us to explore, in more depth than editorial budgets would otherwise allow, topics that we hope are of interest”. Hence this week’s frothy promotion, under the Guardian masthead, of a “green sex sustainable” condom – though it’s also fair to point out that the Guardian columnist George Monbiot launched a withering attack on the partnership in these pages. Any loss-making journal is at the mercy of its paymasters, be they the state, commerce, philanthropy or individuals I have never come across anything as serious as Oborne’s accusations against the Telegraph and its “creative advertising solutions”. But financial necessity has become the mother of ethical invention, or at least corner-cutting. Any loss-making journal is at the mercy of its paymasters, be they the state, commerce, philanthropy or individuals. The worst newspapers are run by governments, be they the organs of authoritarian regimes or the limp newssheets issued by local councils following the collapse of a local press (aided by the BBC’s local radio). But if state ownership is journalistically barren, private ownership is a mess. It is a market dominated less by money than by power, influence and glamour. Most serious publications have for half a century depended on subsidy, which leaves them at the mercy of their boards and benefactors. The Independent struggles under the generosity of an oligarch. The Times depends on some rich man craving its ownership. The Telegraph survives through staff cuts and deals with advertisers. The Guardian’s security has been bought at the expense of years of closures and job losses at its media subsidiaries. The best guarantor of editorial integrity remains an organisation stable enough to protect its staff and their work from the tempests of the marketplace – including advertisers. Many such organisations exist. I don’t share the media commentator Clay Shirky’s forecast of an industry “going bankrupt gradually then suddenly”. Nor do I see the digital media, as does Andrew Keen, as a hell of virals, angries, trolls, click farms and “abrasive young men with personality defects … in which trust is the greatest casualty”. Newspapers and broadcasters still have the resources and skills to digest, process and transmit masses of information in such a way as to hold the faith of readers. That is a vital democratic construct. Peter Oborne may be a maverick but his Telegraph revelations are dynamite Roy Greenslade  Read more Oborne is a maverick. His works embrace such themes as The Rise of Political Lying, the Collapse of Public Standards and the achievements of Alastair Campbell. His veins run with the blood of scepticism. As such he is a corrective to any complacency on the part of what he derides as today’s “client journalists”. They are reporters who play safe, averting their eyes from such establishment outrages as the sale of peerages, corruption of politics by lobbyists, and appeasement of non-doms and tax evaders. Oborne has extended his charge sheet to venal advertisers. There is no question that the private sector is an insecure way of financing a free press that does not make money. But all other ways are worse. There are still as many daily newspapers published in Britain (nine) as there were 50 years ago, a continuous diversity available to no other western country. Online has not wiped out print. It has enhanced the penetration and prominence of both. In which case, we can only thank goodness for expediency. The only champion of a free press is not some regulator or commission or charter board. It is the free press itself. Plurality, rivalry, disclosure, exposure and sometimes fury are the best guardians. That is what we saw this week. One Oborne is worth 10 Levesons. • Press freedom • Newspapers • Newspapers & magazines • Telegraph Media Group • National newspapers • HSBC • *********************************** •  • openDemocracy • OurKingdom ◦ About ◦ Donate ◦ Debates ◦ OurNHS ◦ LocalismWatch ◦ OurBeeb ◦ Shine a light ◦ There is an Alternative • oDR • oD 50.50 • openSecurity • Transformation • More • Why I have resigned from the Telegraph • Peter Oborne 17 February 2015 • The coverage of HSBC in Britain's Telegraph is a fraud on its readers. If major newspapers allow corporations to influence their content for fear of losing advertising revenue, democracy itself is in peril. •  • Five years ago I was invited to become the chief political commentator of the Telegraph. It was a job I was very proud to accept. The Telegraph has long been the most important conservative-leaning newspaper in Britain, admired as much for its integrity as for its superb news coverage. When I joined the Telegraph had just broken the MPs’ expenses scandal, the most important political scoop of the 21st century. • I was very conscious that I was joining a formidable tradition of political commentary. I spent my summer holiday before taking up my duties as columnist reading the essays of the great Peter Utley, edited by Charles Moore and Simon Heffer, two other masters of the art. • No one has ever expressed quite as well as Utley the quiet decency and pragmatism of British conservatism. The Mail is raucous and populist, while the Times is proud to swing with the wind as the voice of the official class. The Telegraph stood in a different tradition. It is read by the nation as a whole, not just by the City and Westminster. It is confident of its own values. It has long been famous for the accuracy of its news reporting. I imagine its readers to be country solicitors, struggling small businessmen, harassed second secretaries in foreign embassies, schoolteachers, military folk, farmers—decent people with a stake in the country. • My grandfather, Lt Col Tom Oborne DSO, had been a Telegraph reader. He was also a churchwarden and played a role in the Petersfield Conservative Association. He had a special rack on the breakfast table and would read the paper carefully over his bacon and eggs, devoting special attention to the leaders. I often thought about my grandfather when I wrote my Telegraph columns. • ‘You don’t know what you are fucking talking about’ • Circulation was falling fast when I joined the paper in September 2010, and I suspect this panicked the owners. Waves of sackings started, and the management made it plain that it believed the future of the British press to be digital. Murdoch MacLennan, the chief executive, invited me to lunch at the Goring Hotel near Buckingham Palace, where Telegraph executives like to do their business. I urged him not to take the newspaper itself for granted, pointing out that it still had a very healthy circulation of more than half a million. I added that our readers were loyal, that the paper was still very profitable and that the owners had no right to destroy it. • The sackings continued. A little while later I met Mr MacLennan by chance in the queue of mourners outside Margaret Thatcher’s funeral and once again urged him not to take Telegraph readers for granted. He replied: “You don’t know what you are fucking talking about.” • Events at the Telegraph became more and more dismaying. In January 2014 the editor, Tony Gallagher, was fired. He had been an excellent editor, well respected by staff. Mr Gallagher was replaced by an American called Jason Seiken, who took up a position called ‘Head of Content.’ In the 81 years between 1923 and 2004 the Telegraph had six editors, all of them towering figures: Arthur Watson, Colin Coote, Maurice Green, Bill Deedes, Max Hastings and Charles Moore. Since the Barclay Brothers purchased the paper 11 years ago there have been roughly six more, though it is hard to be certain since with the arrival of Mr Seiken the title of editor was abolished, then replaced by a Head of Content (Monday to Friday). There were three editors (or Heads of Content) in 2014 alone. • For the last 12 months matters have got much, much worse. The foreign desk—magnificent under the leadership of David Munk and David Wastell—has been decimated. As all reporters are aware, no newspaper can operate without skilled sub-editors. Half of these have been sacked, and the chief sub, Richard Oliver, has left. • Solecisms, unthinkable until very recently, are now commonplace. Recently readers were introduced to someone called the Duke of Wessex. Prince Edward is the Earl of Wessex. There was a front page story about deer-hunting. It was actually about deer-stalking, a completely different activity. Obviously the management don’t care about nice distinctions like this. But the readers do, and the Telegraph took great care to get these things right until very recently. • The arrival of Mr Seiken coincided with the arrival of the click culture. Stories seemed no longer judged by their importance, accuracy or appeal to those who actually bought the paper. The more important measure appeared to be the number of online visits. On 22 September Telegraph online ran a story about a woman with three breasts. One despairing executive told me that it was known this was false even before the story was published. I have no doubt it was published in order to generate online traffic, at which it may have succeeded. I am not saying that online traffic is unimportant, but over the long term, however, such episodes inflict incalculable damage on the reputation of the paper. • Open for business? • With the collapse in standards has come a most sinister development. It has long been axiomatic in quality British journalism that the advertising department and editorial should be kept rigorously apart. There is a great deal of evidence that, at the Telegraph, this distinction has collapsed. • Late last year I set to work on a story about the international banking giant HSBC. Well-known British Muslims had received letters out of the blue from HSBC informing them that their accounts had been closed. No reason was given, and it was made plain that there was no possibility of appeal. "It’s like having your water cut off," one victim told me. • When I submitted it for publication on the Telegraph website, I was at first told there would be no problem. When it was not published I made enquiries. I was fobbed off with excuses, then told there was a legal problem. When I asked the legal department, the lawyers were unaware of any difficulty. When I pushed the point, an executive took me aside and said that "there is a bit of an issue" with HSBC. Eventually I gave up in despair and offered the article to openDemocracy. It can be read here. • I researched the newspaper’s coverage of HSBC. I learnt that Harry Wilson, the admirable banking correspondent of the Telegraph, had published an online story about HSBC based on a report from a Hong Kong analyst who had claimed there was a ‘black hole’ in the HSBC accounts. This story was swiftly removed from the Telegraph website, even though there were no legal problems. When I asked HSBC whether the bank had complained about Wilson's article, or played any role in the decision to remove it, the bank declined to comment. Mr Wilson’s contemporaneous tweets referring to the story can be found here. The story itself, however, is no longer available on the website, as anybody trying to follow through the link can discover. Mr Wilson rather bravely raised this issue publicly at the ‘town hall meeting’ when Jason Seiken introduced himself to staff. He has since left the paper. • Then, on 4 November 2014, a number of papers reported a blow to HSBC profits as the bank set aside more than £1 billion for customer compensation and an investigation into the rigging of currency markets. This story was the city splash in the Times, Guardian and Mail, making a page lead in the Independent. I inspected the Telegraph coverage. It generated five paragraphs in total on page 5 of the business section. • The reporting of HSBC is part of a wider problem. On 10 May last year the Telegraph ran a long feature on Cunard’s Queen Mary II liner on the news review page. This episode looked to many like a plug for an advertiser on a page normally dedicated to serious news analysis. I again checked and certainly Telegraph competitors did not view Cunard’s liner as a major news story. Cunard is an important Telegraph advertiser. • The paper’s comment on last year’s protests in Hong Kong was bizarre. One would have expected theTelegraph of all papers to have taken a keen interest and adopted a robust position. Yet (in sharp contrast to competitors like the Times)I could not find a single leader on the subject. • At the start of December the Financial Times, the Times and the Guardian all wrote powerful leaders on the refusal by the Chinese government to allow a committee of British MPs into Hong Kong. The Telegraph remained silent. I can think of few subjects which anger and concern Telegraph readers more. • On 15 September the Telegraph published a commentary by the Chinese ambassador, just before the lucrative China Watch supplement. The headline of the ambassador’s article was beyond parody: ‘Let’s not allow Hong Kong to come between us’. On 17 September there was a four-page fashion pull-out in the middle of the news run, granted more coverage than the Scottish referendum. The Tesco false accounting story on 23 September was covered only in the business section. By contrast it was the splash, inside spread and leader in the Mail. Not that the Telegraph is short of Tesco coverage. Tesco pledging £10m to fight cancer, an inside peak at Tesco’s £35m jet and ‘Meet the cat that has lived in Tesco for 4 years’ were all deemed newsworthy. • There are other very troubling cases, many of them set out in Private Eye, which has been a major source of information for Telegraph journalists wanting to understand what is happening on their paper. There was no avoiding the impression that something had gone awry with the Telegraph’s news judgment. At this point I wrote a long letter to Murdoch MacLennan setting out all my concerns about the newspaper, and handing in my notice. I copied this letter to the Telegraph chairman, Aidan Barclay. • I received a cursory response from Mr Barclay. He wrote that he hoped I could resolve my differences with Murdoch MacLennan. I duly went to see the chief executive in mid-December. He was civil, served me tea and asked me to take off my jacket. He said that I was a valued writer, and said that he wanted me to stay. • I expressed all of my concerns about the direction of the paper. I told him that I was not leaving to join another paper. I was resigning as a matter of conscience. Mr MacLennan agreed that advertising was allowed to affect editorial, but was unapologetic, saying that “it was not as bad as all that” and adding that there was a long history of this sort of thing at the Telegraph. • I have since consulted Charles Moore, the last editor of the Telegraph before the Barclays bought the paper in 2004. Mr Moore confessed that the published accounts of Hollinger Inc, then the holding company for the Telegraph, did not receive the scrutiny they deserved. But no newspaper in history has ever given an unfavourable gloss on its owner’s accounts. Beyond that, Mr Moore told me, there had been no advertising influence on the paper’s news coverage.   • After my meeting with Mr MacLennan I received a letter from the Telegraph saying that the paper had accepted my letter of resignation, but welcomed my offer to work out my six-month notice period. However in mid January I was asked to meet a Telegraph executive, this time over tea at the Goring Hotel. He told me that my weekly column would be discontinued and there had been a "parting of the ways". • He stressed, however, that the Telegraph would continue to honour my contract until it ran out in May. For my part I said that I would leave quietly. I had no desire to damage the newspaper. For all its problems it continues to employ a large number of very fine writers. They have mortgages and families. They are doing a fine job in very trying circumstances. I prepared myself mentally for the alluring prospect of several months paid gardening leave. • Story, what story? • That was how matters stood when, on Monday of last week, BBC Panorama ran its story about HSBC and its Swiss banking arm, alleging a wide-scale tax evasion scheme, while the Guardian and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published their 'HSBC files'. All newspapers realised at once that this was a major event. The FT splashed on it for two days in a row, while the Times and the Mail gave it solid coverage spread over several pages. • You needed a microscope to find the Telegraph coverage: nothing on Monday, six slim paragraphs at the bottom left of page two on Tuesday, seven paragraphs deep in the business pages on Wednesday. The Telegraph’s reporting only looked up when the story turned into claims that there might be questions about the tax affairs of people connected to the Labour party. • After a lot of agony I have come to the conclusion that I have a duty to make all this public. There are two powerful reasons. The first concerns the future of the Telegraph under the Barclay Brothers. It might sound a pompous thing to say, but I believe the newspaper is a significant part of Britain’s civic architecture. It is the most important public voice of civilised, sceptical conservatism. • Telegraph readers are intelligent, sensible, well-informed people. They buy the newspaper because they feel that they can trust it. If advertising priorities are allowed to determine editorial judgments, how can readers continue to feel this trust? The Telegraph’s recent coverage of HSBC amounts to a form of fraud on its readers. It has been placing what it perceives to be the interests of a major international bank above its duty to bring the news to Telegraph readers. There is only one word to describe this situation: terrible. Imagine if the BBC—so often the object of Telegraph attack—had conducted itself in this way. The Telegraph would have been contemptuous. It would have insisted that heads should roll, and rightly so. • This brings me to a second and even more important point that bears not just on the fate of one newspaper but on public life as a whole. A free press is essential to a healthy democracy. There is a purpose to journalism, and it is not just to entertain. It is not to pander to political power, big corporations and rich men. Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth. • It is not only the Telegraph that is at fault here. The past few years have seen the rise of shadowy executives who determine what truths can and what truths can’t be conveyed across the mainstream media. The criminality of News International newspapers during the phone hacking years was a particularly grotesque example of this wholly malign phenomenon. All the newspaper groups, bar the magnificent exception of the Guardian, maintained a culture of omerta around phone-hacking, even if (like the Telegraph) they had not themselves been involved. One of the consequences of this conspiracy of silence was the appointment of Andy Coulson, who has since been jailed and now faces further charges of perjury, as director of communications in 10 Downing Street. • Urgent questions to answer • Last week I made another discovery. Three years ago the Telegraph investigations team—the same lot who carried out the superb MPs’ expenses investigation—received a tip off about accounts held with HSBC in Jersey. Essentially this investigation was similar to the Panorama investigation into the Swiss banking arm of HSBC. After three months research the Telegraph resolved to publish. Six articles on this subject can now be found online, between 8 and 15 November 2012, although three are not available to view. • Thereafter no fresh reports appeared. Reporters were ordered to destroy all emails, reports and documents related to the HSBC investigation. I have now learnt, in a remarkable departure from normal practice, that at this stage lawyers for the Barclay brothers became closely involved. When I asked the Telegraph why the Barclay brothers were involved, it declined to comment. • This was the pivotal moment. From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph. Its account, I have been told by an extremely well informed insider, was extremely valuable. HSBC, as one former Telegraph executive told me, is “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”. HSBC today refused to comment when I asked whether the bank's decision to stop advertising with the Telegraph was connected in any way with the paper's investigation into the Jersey accounts.  • Winning back the HSBC advertising account became an urgent priority. It was eventually restored after approximately 12 months. Executives say that Murdoch MacLennan was determined not to allow any criticism of the international bank. “He would express concern about headlines even on minor stories,” says one former Telegraph journalist. “Anything that mentioned money-laundering was just banned, even though the bank was on a final warning from the US authorities. This interference was happening on an industrial scale. • “An editorial operation that is clearly influenced by advertising is classic appeasement. Once a very powerful body know they can exert influence they know they can come back and threaten you. It totally changes the relationship you have with them. You know that even if you are robust you won’t be supported and will be undermined.” • When I sent detailed questions to the Telegraph this afternoon about its connections with advertisers, the paper gave the following response. "Your questions are full of inaccuracies, and we do not therefore intend to respond to them. More generally, like any other business, we never comment on individual commercial relationships, but our policy is absolutely clear. We aim to provide all our commercial partners with a range of advertising solutions, but the distinction between advertising and our award-winning editorial operation has always been fundamental to our business. We utterly refute any allegation to the contrary." • The evidence suggests otherwise, and the consequences of the Telegraph’s recent soft coverage of HSBC may have been profound. Would Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs have been much more energetic in its own recent investigations into wide-scale tax avoidance, had the Telegraph continued to hold HSBC to account after its 2012 investigation? There are great issues here. They go to the heart of our democracy, and can no longer be ignored. • • OskarMatzerath • 2 days ago • Wow. A hearty 'well done' to you, sir. • • 
 
pretty_polly OskarMatzerath • a day ago 
Surely this is just massive hypocrisy by PO because he sweeps under the carpet anything he dislikes.......
Immigration related subjects in particular.

 
Mike Donnellan pretty_polly • a day ago 
I know what you mean and he does have his ups and downs but surely you can concede it takes a lot of courage to do what he's done? I see from the Guardian site that HSBC has put its advertising with them 'on pause', presumably in way of discouraging them from taking on Oborne like they have his former - and very waffly - colleague Matt D'Ancona so he's now effectively blacklisted himself.
I'm no great fan but I do hope he can find a highly visible home on another journal where his loyalty to his craft as a journalist means he can continue to 'out' these normally hidden, evil influences.

 
drgrumpy Mike Donnellan • a day ago 
I trust the grawn will go tell the corrupt and corrupting hsbc to go **** off.
 


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Mike Donnellan drgrumpy • a day ago 
I most certainly hope so!
Edit: and credit where credit's due, the Guardian was on HSBC's case as well. Though it sticks in my throat to say it, I might have to start perusing their rag as well :)
 
 
W.S.Becket Mike Donnellan • a day ago 
I think they are in a state worse than the Telegraph.

 
Seriously Spain W.S.Becket • a day ago 
LOL, No, they're not, Their online readership is through the roof. So much so, they've been expanding for the last couple of years.
 
 
Theraveda Seriously Spain • a day ago 
The Guardian is only kept afloat by revenues from Exchange & Mart,

 
Hemedal Theraveda • 16 hours ago 
The Guardian Media Group does not own E&M.
 
 
W.S.Becket Seriously Spain • a day ago 
So why have they just had to ask readers to stump of £500 (or was it £850) to keep the thing going. On-line readership counts for very little.
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Christopher Mooney W.S.Becket • a day ago 
Guardian makes tons from online traffic. Like the Daily Mail.
They'd both go out of business, on their print-only revenue
 


Rojo1972 Christopher Mooney • a day ago 
Are you mad? Have you actually seen the figures? The Guardian is bleeding money and the Mail online only makes a minute fraction of the profits of the print operation.
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Ben Good Rojo1972 • 18 hours ago 
What? "The Mail online only makes a minute fraction of the profits of the print operation" you are joking right? The Mail Online is one of the top WORLDWIDE websites in traffic and advertising revenue. The paper is just a bit of dust in the corner. *rolls eyes*
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James Eyre Rojo1972 • 12 hours ago 
Where are these figures?
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William Ashbless Christopher Mooney • 21 hours ago 
The Guardian used to have a reputation for journalism. It's now trash. They often print reports they know to be untrue.

 
John William Ashbless • 21 hours ago 
Such as?
 
 
Hemedal William Ashbless • 16 hours ago 
Which Guardian reports can you cite which a) were untrue and b) you can show the Guardian knew to be untrue?

 
Max Hodges Hemedal • 3 hours ago 
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
Instead, the 52-year-old resident of Changwon city ended up being the victim of what many believe is a peek into a dystopian future in which supposedly benign robots turn against their human masters.
Justin surely knows that not "many" believe that.
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marqueemoons William Ashbless • 4 hours ago 
Still better than the Telegraph, then.
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abbadabbadoo Christopher Mooney • 17 hours ago 
Hay, I noted my mobile ad space is so stupid these days. They used to pick up on things I typed in otro outlets' silos and offer me coupons on Sheeba just for keystroking "MEOW!" Now the ad space seems more tuned to the topic of the story, not my latest shoe gallery. Who is that? GCHQ standing down or Google stepping up? Still sucks, TalkTalk.
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abbadabbadoo abbadabbadoo • 17 hours ago 
Seriously, admobsters, can you be more transparent? Need parental controls so you can claim you never intended to shame our nations by stealing peeks at our clicks? Verizon is claiming to increase road security...right. And now everyone wants to offer encryption services, Sorry, Two Lips, I keep mine shut. Go sell that racket to cheese land.
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abbadabbadoo Seriously Spain • 18 hours ago 
Been with them since the 2009 hacking scandal; they are starting to suck trying to pander to the digital market. Spinning on it is not my kind of advancement. Their media section, once an example to which I often pointed, looks and sounds much like the rest, now. Roy needs a rest.
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Christopher Mooney W.S.Becket • a day ago 
Oh behave
Guardian are so open, they publish Conservative leaning articles! Have you never read "comment is free"?
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chaswarnertoo Christopher Mooney • a day ago 
Aka comment macht frei. I'm proud to have been banned.
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chaswarnertoo Mike Donnellan • a day ago 
It's ok to peruse, just don't accept/ believe.😉
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abbadabbadoo Mike Donnellan • 18 hours ago 
Just when Roy's moral compass has lost its needle. He's still covering for the UK covering for Murdoch's violation of the FCPA which would have got the bum DEPORTED like Lucky Luciano, and thus without a US citizenship, Murdoch could not own FOX Broadcasting. He'd have to sell the network.
TheFisherman, he's one serious gladiator. Roy has gone to seed. He farms for Murdoch's cow because ALL telephony media outlets have bribed foreign governments and he thinks that's just ginchy, the grinch. Corruption, the essential ingredient to most media and banking these days.
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Hemedal Mike Donnellan • 16 hours ago 
"As well"? They broke the story.
 

 
Jingleballix drgrumpy • a day ago 
The Graun - doesn't need HSBC advertising because its own ad revenues are also corrupted.....
..........ever wonder why the BBC only advertise in Guardian? What about all the local and national governmental jobs? New Labour gave them a virtual monopoly. Want a teaching job? Buy the Guardian.
Guardian is receiving millions of public money - with a virtual monopoly on BBC and public sector job adverts.
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drgrumpy Jingleballix • a day ago 
The Grawn receives so much public sector spend because ... it delivers a sizeable public sector readership [and media readership] to those who wish to reach it. It's hard business on both sides. Whether or not there is also a concomitant signal of "political" alliance in the decision making process [about where to advertise jobs] I don't know.
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Ben Skipp Jingleballix • a day ago 
Actually the main source of teaching jobs isThe Times Educational Supplement and had been for decades 


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Robert Ireland Mike Donnellan • a day ago 
buahahahahaha hidden influences? try well over 40,000 years the same bloodlines running and owning all of us. Want to rot out the evil of this world, find them, exterminate them, before they exterminate US ALL.This man is principled in the education system which is only a brainwashing system to teach us what to think, with the real truth in writing hidden from us. Very, very few are even capable of seeing outside the Matrix. Fools. All of you bloody fools. Watch Television, film, listen to music, read the books they allow and you are completely theirs. The cord is not plugged into the back of our skulls, it's our own two eyes and two ears, since before we're even born. Good luck everyone thinking this man did any of us real service. He only stopped doing them theirs. roflol Every single reaction I have seen to this story is completely in keeping inside the box. Every single one. Pathetic.
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Mike Donnellan Robert Ireland • a day ago 
Out on day release from Broadmore? Your minder wants a bollocking for letting you get near a computer.
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Robert Ireland Mike Donnellan • a day ago 
too moronic to even comprehend that your emotional outburst is a direct consequence of your entire life being brainwashed into> YOU actually believing that was just your own thought. roflmao smh
 
 
Robert Ireland Robert Ireland • a day ago 
pathetic!
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oliraison Robert Ireland • a day ago 
Love the fact that you've just responded to your own comment with the word pathetic.
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Robert Ireland oliraison • a day ago 
love the fact you made my case for me and so far 23 others with you, roflol. 

 
silentstan Robert Ireland • a day ago 
indeed you are
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eric hardcastle Mike Donnellan • a day ago 
it's just another example of how Care in The Community has failed.
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Mignonette eric hardcastle • a day ago 
Please.....as a former MH professional, this kind of racist shit has little to do with mental illness and makes the lives of those with such problems even harder. I know people find it funny but could you consider not drawing such close parallels between the two in future?
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sungeipatani Mignonette • 20 hours ago 
Racist?
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Frankly Speaking Mignonette • 17 hours ago 
How is his comment racist?
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Robert Ireland eric hardcastle • a day ago 
funny thing happens when you turn off the Boob Tube, shred the paper into toilet sheets and read and research 8 or more hours daily instead of sitting in front of a box being told what you want and need. roflol You awaken to see yourself surrounded by literally millions of brainwashed people. Here's a prime example for you all. I will bet bottom dollar most of you still believe cannabis is 1. a narcotic and 2. kills brain cells. Fact, delta-9 Tetrahyrdocannibinol that so called dangerous narcotic has been found in several scientific studies to produce undifferentiated glial stem cells which are then turned into 3 different types of brain cells. YEAH, I bet this rag of a paper kept you well informed about that one and the fact it is the living Biblical Tree of Life. That it extends life in near perfect health. Taken through the food chain people are living well into their 90s with virtually zero disease factors throughout life and their communities, micro-communities. In one particular community, where they consume only the seeds directly, the community's members live well into their 110s and even into their 120s with, again, virtually zero disease factors throughout their lives. Never mind, it is now showing to cure most of our worst nightmare diseases and was already know by Queen Victoria's doctor to cure both gonorrhea and rabies, not just menstrual cramps. yeah, so much for your informing media. That acre for acre it produces over 1800 gallons of fuel grade oil which burns no carbon. while alive it absorbs over 4 times more CO2 ans SO2, while releasing over 4 times more O2 than a forest the same size. It produces a superior quality fiber than cotton, a composite 12 times stronger and lighter than steel. It effectively means to end of big oil, forestry, pharma, medicine and more. Yeah call me crazy, but you are all still brianwashed and pathetic. In another five years each and every detractor here will be eating their own words. I will still be laughing and waiting for you morons to catch up with real facts, which thus far not one single detractor has bothered to present on contra-pose. Instead relying on ad hominems. What form. Each and every social and environmental issue being debated today has its roots in a trail of money, leading to the bloody retarded and psychopathic rich and you do their bidding for them, earning not one red cent for the effort while they work YOU to death and laugh all the way to the banks they own and through which they own every single one of you, lock stock and barrel, mind, body and soul. want to know who is crazy? Look up. Look up into your own sky and see the trails for which over 53 contracts were negotiated to spray down on us. look at your food that is 1/2 as nutritious as it was in 1950, before they sold everyone on petrochemical and radioactive farming. look at your schools and the idiots it created in you. Does any of you know what happens with the now being pushed Omega Fats? Omega 3 is the precursor of anandamide, the endocannabinoid which d-9 THC mimimics and is active on every one of the thus far 15 cannabinoid specific receptors discovered on the 210 cell types each of our bodies have. You fools haven't a clue you are even being lied to on such a massive scale it is incredulous once you see it and will take you literally years, if not your entire lives to undo. smh Your insults all only lend credence to my message. Moronic and pathetic slaves. oh, the racist comment, really? You might have want of a dictionary. No one spoke of race, save yourself. every continent has on average a 200 mile submerged ancient coast line, the very place earlier civilizations are being found, as well as pyramids on every continent, most numbering far in excess of what is found in Egypt. Dating alone in Bosnia proves many of the structures were built over 30,000 years ago, at least 22,000 years before their first claimed civilizations. Seemingly the earlier the build, the larger and more exotic the materials. Not one mummy has been found inside them and tunnels connecting them all, indicating they were being used for something we have not either discovered or is also not being told. yeah, keep believing the news services and keep believing your government schools. roflol Pathetic. Has any of you read Dr. Julian Jayne's dissertation titled, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind? I highly doubt most of you could sit through it. Stupid always points at intelligence as crazy. Always. Enlightened ones always intimidate the minds that are weak. I am used to this behavior as I am at their eating crow with months to a few years and looks like you are all next as notches on my bed post, roflmao I can give you a list of well over 500 diseases and disorders whole plant cannabis oil extract (decarboxylated) can already cure. Has this rag informed you of that? NO. It is coming and you will remember it was said by a man you chose to insult. Here for you is a prophecy given me. It was written there were 4 and after the flood only 3 remained. It is here, waiting to be found, you only need seek it and it will be discovered, soon. In it is longevity of 1,000 years. 1,000 years in near perfect health. Prove me wrong. In cannabis are over 400 more compounds already in certain scientific communities being hailed as essential nutrients, 10 times more than you have been told and still get diseased for want of. Nutrients in at least two distinctly new classes and vitamins A, C (a terpene), D2, E and K1 and K2, all now being reclassified as cannabinoids themselves. Yeah, this informative truthful rag is just another government operation. now taken over by american operatives. Prove me wrong on any of this, on the merits or just stfu and go home and accept you are completely brainwashed until brain dead. roflmao DUH.
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ebsln Robert Ireland • 19 hours ago 
"That acre for acre it produces over 1800 gallons of fuel grade oil which burns no carbon. while alive it absorbs over 4 times more CO2 ans SO2, while releasing over 4 times more O2 than a forest the same size." I don't understand how a plant that absorbs carbon dioxide (as of course they all do) would not release that carbon when burned.
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Rhys ebsln • 18 hours ago 
"I don't understand how a plant that absorbs carbon dioxide (as of course they all do) would not release that carbon when burned."
Plants have a 'net zero carbon footprint' (or are carbon neutral) when burned as the only carbon dioxide they release is carbon dioxide they've already absorbed. Fossil fuels just produce more carbon when burned and add to the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.
Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
GCSE Science
Rob's a raving loony, but he's right on that one.
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Robert Ireland Rhys • 16 hours ago 
even after proving me right, you STILL went to the emotion you were taught to connect it to. I discovered this quite by happenstance one day at a friends when their son was watching old reruns of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series. The dialog was so rife with adult language and themes, from violence to sexual assault, literally, when Boris tied Natasha to the rail tracks stating what he wanted to do to her. We watched these as children, unknowningly learning emotional reactions to real life situations at the most innocent time of our lives. This language meant nothing to the child, it didn't understand the double meanings. I froze in place when I realized many of the exact phrases I would use in a similar situation were learned from that show when I was 2, 3 and 4 years old. Back then we were only allowed about 3 hours of television, if we had one at all, Today it is non-stop. Then I decided to look at more cartoons, looney toons predominantly, and again the very same things. I was floored. Immediately comprehending what I was seeing happening.
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trentender Robert Ireland • 10 hours ago 
anyone else not at all surprised that the guy who wrote the essay about the benefits of cannabis (on a thread related to HSBC and the Telegraph?!?!) is apparently suffering from the advanced stages of weed psychosis?
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CaptDMO Rhys • 14 hours ago 
Gosh, where did the carbon in those fossil fuels come from? 
Same "net zero", it's just an exponential time lag over 
plants harvested yesterday.
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Frankly Speaking Robert Ireland • 17 hours ago 
Can you calm down a bit and explain in layman's terms your comment, and it's implication that -
"Does any of you know what happens with the now being pushed Omega Fats? Omega 3 is the precursor of anandamide, the endocannabinoid which d-9 THC mimimics and is active on every one of the thus far 15 cannabinoid 
specific receptors discovered on the 210 cell types each of our bodies have"
Thank you.
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Templar Robert Ireland • 15 hours ago 
I like weed too.
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MC73 Mike Donnellan • a day ago 
Better a computer than something pointy though, eh?