The Rambles of Neil Monnery

This blog post with not look at the specific allegations but just at how the media are reacting and what priorities they are showing.

I shall state this at the very beginning. Lord Rennard has serious allegations to face about his behaviour. The Liberal Democrats as an organisation also have serious questions to answer about how they dealt with allegations from the women against Lord Rennard. However as it stands Nick Clegg does not face any serious questions despite the weight of media that states that he does. In fact the Telegraph report today actually backs up Nick Clegg’s claim that, ‘my office only received concerns indirectly and anonymously.’

The Telegraph has published a letter that it sent to Jonathan Oates in April of 2010. At this time Mr Oates replied and told him that Nick Clegg was not aware of any allegations against Lord Rennard on the same day. In fact the reply was quite terse. The Telegraph put forward several allegations that they believed Lord Rennard had acted inappropriately towards several women. These women at the time had not gone on the record. It is not clear if these are the same women who have since gone on the record.

The narrative of this story is not about the actual allegations themselves. The media do not give a crap if women were victims of a sex pest. They couldn’t give a monkey’s and that pisses me off greatly. The only thing the media care about is whether Nick Clegg knew and if he did then why didn’t he do anything about it? That is the only story because it holds political weight.

Well let me tell you this Fleet Street (channel four didn’t seem to focus on this in what was a reasonably fair and clearly well researched story) but fleet street need to understand what is important here. Nick Clegg’s knowledge – or lack of – is not the story – the story is whether several women were victims of inappropriate behaviour at the hands of a Lib Dem peer.

The thing is the media can smell blood. They have a story that can take down Nick Clegg. It has the power to crush him and finish his political career. The only problem is they don’t have the evidence to back up their hypothesis and they are desperate to find the smoking gun. They aren’t desperate to find the truth but the smoking gun. There is a distinct difference.

So far they have published a letter from Mr Oates actually stating that Nick Clegg did not know of specific incidents. They claim this proves Nick Clegg was lying when he said he hadn’t heard of any specific complaints regarding Lord Rennard but had heard indirectly and anonymously. Well The Telegraph says that because they sent a letter to someone that wasn’t Clegg with allegations that proves Clegg lied.

Now let us look at this with a clear head. The letter – which can be found on this article gives four encounters where allegations have been made against Lord Rennard. The only problem is they are anonymous and cannot be investigated because quite simply they are anonymous. How are they meant to investigate an incident that happened ‘in 2003 or 2004′ with someone they couldn’t even speak to for example?

You can make allegations against anyone and the moment you do then there will be whispers surrounding that person. No doubt Nick Clegg heard on the grapevine that Lord Rennard had questions to answer but unless someone makes a complaint then how can it be properly investigated?

Now of course the problem is that seemingly people did make complaints and they were not properly investigated and that is where the Liberal Democrats have to look internally at what exactly happened but at this juncture we still have no credible sources that Nick Clegg actively knew of any specific incident involving Lord Rennard and inappropriate behaviour against women. What we have is a letter that states he didn’t know know anything, an anonymous comment in a personal Facebook chat from 2009 of a victim saying she believed Nick Clegg knew and another anonymous official who said the following in 2009 and apparently stands by his comments today:

“I was at an event with Nick Clegg and said, ‘Nick, you need to know that we have print journalists, which I believe were, I think the Telegraph were chasing it, the Mail was chasing it and the News of the World was chasing it.’

“As the party leader he knew exactly what I meant when I said it to him. He said, ‘Thank you very much, I will go and deal with it.’ And again nothing happened.”

Those quotes are from this story in The Telegraph.

Now I’m trying to see where in these quotes Nick Clegg said that he knew of specific allegations against Lord Rennard. Could it just be more gossip that he had heard? The quotes – as the Italian pizza maker Luigi in The Simpsons would say – they prove nothing.

So far all we have are anonymous people stating that they thought Nick Clegg knew. That is it. However the media – and specifically the right-wing media have decided that anonymous sources – single anonymous sources – without any evidence and just on their beliefs and feelings are actually credible enough to write a story and state it as fact. Some might question the timing – certainly considering they have been sitting on it for years – but I don’t.

What I’d like to see is an investigation to find out what happened between Lord Rennard and these women. That is the most important thing. What I’d like to see is for one of these women to go to the police with complaints to initiate a police investigation. However sadly the media’s fixation with the possibility of taking down a senior politican – certainly one they don’t like – will always overshadow the real issue that potentially there was a sexual predator working from a position of power high within the Liberal Democrats.

That is the biggest story and not whether Nick Clegg knew or not. So I throw down the gauntlet to fleet street (as if they read nor care about me) but if they have any courage of their convictions they’ll get busy getting to the bottom of the allegations and speaking to the women who have made these claims and try and get them to go to the police. That would be progress and that would be a worthwhile use of time.

Remember at the moment they are only allegations as well – people should remember that. I would say the media should remember that but they don’t care and Lord Rennard’s name is only ever said in passing to set up why Nick Clegg is all sorts of evil and a liar. It is a sad state of affairs that these allegations are now just the back story – certainly when the story now front and centre has nothing going for it (as yet) but heck that is how the media works – sexual predators are not the story when you can get a bigger fish to fry who is accused of knowing about allegations and not stopping the predator.

I saw it with the Jerry Sandusky case. The fact he was an evil monster who sexual molested boys for at least over a decade was merely the last line in the story. The fact that Joe Paterno may have known and not found a way to put a stop to it. Now that is a story that kept the American press busy for weeks and months.

The fact that the monster basically got a pass in the media really got to me. In this case the fact that Nick Clegg’s reputation is being tarnished in the media every day with flimsy facts in an attempt to prove their hypothesis whilst the actual alleged monster is merely an afterthought really really hacks me off as well.

Hi All,

Well I suppose later today as it is now Paddy returns with the next season of the dating show Take Me Out. Apologies that it has taken me a while to get the photos uploaded and live on the blog but I’ve actually, shockingly had a life this week. It is lucky I’m sitting down when typing that I know. Luckily it’s only the first week of 2013 and I’m positive my social life will dissipate over the coming days and weeks (although I’m already busy tomorrow, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and next Saturday) crazy – it’s like I’m a normal regular person who actually does things and doesn’t just sit in on his own like a pathetic loser. Yeah…as if…*whistles*

Anyway you aren’t here to read about my life. The fact I was in a politics AGM for two and a half hours tonight means little to you. Nor does the fact that I’m commentating on Southend v Brentford tomorrow. You want photos of girls who are appearing on Take Me Out Season Five that starts this Saturday night on ITV1 at the late time of 8:45 compared to its pre-Christmas 7PM slot before The X Factor.

Personally just from looks my early favourites are (in alphabetical order) Daisy, Jodie, Lolly, Lucy-May, Naomi and Naz but as always personalities will shine through as they always do. I have noticed the press photos seem to show two different sets but I assume ITV aren’t yanking our chain with the press photos they’ve sent out. Hopefully you all enjoy the show. Most of the girls are on twitter so if you want to interact with them they’ll do so. I’ve found in the past couple of years they’ve in general been pretty approachable as long as you aren’t being totally weird.

If you want to leave your comments and views on the girls then please feel free. It is always good to see what others think of the show and certainly who are everybody’s favourites and this year you can comment on each girl individually under the photograph if you click on it as it’ll open up a new page but it is time to stop with the waffling and you know what that means…take it away Paddy…

Bring on the Girls…

Alanna

Alanna

Cherry

Cherry

Chloe

Chloe

Chloe W

Chloe W

Daisy

Daisy

Daniella

Daniella Gabriella

Dannii

Dannii

Emma

Emma

Gemma G

Gemma G

Gemma

Gemma

Jacqui

Jacqui

Jo

Jo

Jodie

Jodie

Keli

Keli

Kim

Kim

Lauren

Lauren

Lily

Lily

Lolly

Lolly

Lucy-May

Lucy-May

Lynsey

Lynsey

Megan

Megan

Miki

Miki

Naomi

Naomi

Natasha

Natasha

Naz

Naz

Nikita

Nikita

Pinky

Pinky

Robyn

Robyn

Tasha

Tasha

Thuy

Thuy

As always all the photos are Copyright Thames TV and ITV

We’ve all seen the news. We’ve all seen the clip and we all saw Phillip Schofield decide that the internet was a legitimate source for ITV1′s This Morning and a legitimate enough source for him to decide to potentially throw away his career. How insane?

Look Phillip Schofield is about as inoffensive as you can get. Reminds me a bit of Will McAvoy from The Newsroom before his meltdown at Northwestern. Someone who doesn’t rock the boat who people trust. However that all changed today when he decided to show the Prime Minister a list of names that he had found on the internet that are linked to a paedophile ring within government over the past three decades. Firstly just doing this is dumb and secondly he flashed it to the camera so that everyone could actually read the names. Yes the names are out there but it should also be pointed out that these names (bar one) have not faced any accusation from an accuser. They are just people saying they are ‘in the know’ and anyone can be ‘in the know’ on the internet.

I’m old school and don’t like witch hunts. If any of these people are accused of a crime then the police will investigate and they will be tried within the legal system. That is the way we work. We don’t try people in the court of public opinion as the court of public opinion would prefer to kill an innocent man on the off chance that they might have touched kids. Yes I’m more than happy to write that sentence. A large proportion of this country would happily take an anonymous accusation as fact and act as such.

This is why we have a legal system. We don’t have act without evidence. At this moment in time only one man has been accused of any crime and all the other names that Phillip Schofield showed on national television are not accused of any crime but now people think they are paedophiles. Mud sticks folks and you can’t take back what you do or say. These people are now smeared and that will never leave them and people will always think worse of them even if it comes out that the internet rumours were completely made up.

Lets look at what actually happened though as this wasn’t done on the spur of the moment. His producer will have known what he was planning to do and had clearly ok’ed it instead of telling Schofield that if he dared he’d be fired the moment the show went off air. It was a planned attempt to corner the Prime Minister and a planned attempt to take the moral high ground as being the man who had the balls to get the names out there and see how the PM reacted. He (and his producer) knew that would play out well amongst the public and would give the show a huge boost as it would make head line news.

The only drawback though is of course this behaviour is kinda not on. Malicious gossip is what they call it. Accusing people of crimes with no evidence in an attempt to smear them. He has of course since apologised – not for doing it but for doing it in such a way that the viewers could see the names. So he has no problem confronting the PM on gossip but he is apologetic that everyone else saw the name. No doubt he’ll be more apologetic if any of those people named decide to sue the network and/or him personally. I have always found being sorry is not an adequate defence in either a criminal or in this case a civil court.

I hate to call for someone to be fired for a mistake but as this excellent piece in The Telegraph says – it is a very legitimate argument to make. Schofield and his producer and seriously erred and a simple apology really isn’t good enough. ‘We’re sorry we have defamed several people. We have no evidence to back up the internets claims that they are linked to a paedophile ring but we decided to run it anyway on national TV because we thought (as this current juncture) baseless rumours were in the public interest.’

It doesn’t really fly does it> I suspect he’ll keep his job but he’ll get a serious bollocking and never do something so stupid again but if they want to fire him for that one mistake then I couldn’t argue too much with it. It was such an egregious error that it would be justified.

We shall see how it plays out…

The English Premier League has long been the number one football league in the world according to TV figures but the move from NBC to buy the rights in the American market has stunned pretty much everyone who keeps a keen eye on these things.

When FOX and ESPN signed the last contract for the rights it was for $23million per year but the new NBC deal is for more than triple that and includes the shocking news that every single game will be broadcast. Yes every single game will be broadcast via one of NBC’s platforms (180 games solely online with 200 on TV). Up to 20 games will be broadcast over terrestrial TV live on NBC and these are expected to be the biggest games of the season. NBC Sports Network will be the primary home for the league but they are planning on having a regular set up for time slots so fans know where they’ll find games.

The EPL was first broadcast on terrestrial TV live last season when FOX used the Chelsea v Manchester United game as a lead-in to their Superbowl coverage and it performed way above expectations. Football in the States is slowly becoming more of a TV sport and last season’s final days slate of games saw FOX (and ESPN) show all ten games on Survival Sunday live over their collection of channels for a 72% increase on the previous season. Clearly eyeballs are being drawn to the EPL and the fact it now makes the home pages of SI, FOX and ESPN shows that the league (along with the Champions League and El Clasico) make enough waves to get written about amongst the big four sports.

What this means for UK viewers is not a lot apart from the fact Ian Darke now doesn’t have an EPL contract for next season. The Pompey fan and voice of the sport in the States is contracted through 2014 to ESPN in the States and will head up their coverage of the 2014 World Cup. He’s also slated to work on US Men’s National Team games as they attempt to quality for Brazil 2014. Now does ESPN allow him to go to NBC for EPL coverage? They might but another possibility is ESPN allowing Darke to be the voice of the new BT Sport channel which signed the rights to 38 live games from next season here in the UK.

After snapping up Jake Humphrey last month, the next thing BT Sport had to do was decide on who’ll be the voice of the channel. The obvious choice was always going to be Jon Champion but if Ian Darke is available then does he have interest? Would moving to BT Sport also end his boxing association with Sky Sports that has continued despite his ESPN football duties in the States. Does Darke return to the Sky Sports stable? Many questions but the possibility has arisen that Ian Darke could return to the UK screens for EPL coverage and would certainly be our gain. I’ll certainly be keeping a keen on on the developments on this front…

14 years ago the BBC lost cricket coverage to Channel 4 in a move that stunned everyone and in all honesty heralded the end of the BBC being the natural home for many of our top sporting events. The decision to switch coverage away from the BBC caught many off-guard and in the end it did spell the end of cricket as a Free To Air sport. However the move itself was not a bad one as Channel Four showed that when they really want something then they can really go for it.

As a long standing cricket fan this change didn’t mean a lot to me as heck I was only 15 years old. Looking back though I can see how Channel Four really developed the sport for the armchair viewer. The early magazine show was clearly aimed at the younger generation and it was extremely successful. The BBC had covered the sport but had never tried to engage with the next generation of fans. They never tried to keep up with technological advances. They had their core audience and had no desire to grow it. Channel Four saw it differently.

They brought about the snickometer which showed us viewers at home whether a batsman had nicked the ball to the slips. They also brought about the red zone to show if a ball pitched in line on LBW appeals and hawk eye technology to show where a ball would have gone after an LBW appeal. This was all pretty exciting and futuristic stuff compared to what we were used to as fans and I think we can safely say it heightened our enjoyment of the game.

Desktop Richie was also a favourite allowing cricket fans to keep u to date on the scores from the PCs. Basically in the space of a handful of years cricket had gone from a sport that hadn’t moved on technologically at all for what 15 years and having two cameras at either end so you always saw the batter face on to being arguably one of the most modern sports for the TV audience in the world. Quite something when you come to think of the traditions of cricket.

When the deal was announcers Aggers said, “The quality of coverage that everyone in the world, I think, has aspired to as far as the BBC’s cricket coverage is concerned has come to an end at a stroke.” You can safely say he wasn’t a fan but I think it is very clear that Channel Four took the sport to heights that the BBC could only dream of.

Channel Four of course lucked out with the 2005 Ashes and their coverage was not only award winning it was just sensational. An amazing line-up of commentators (which to be fair Sky Sports have pretty much equalled but not bettered) by the end of their coverage saw the likes of Richie Benaud, Geoffrey Boycott, Michael Atherton, Barry Richards, Michael Slater, Ian Smith, Tony Greig, Mark Nicholas and Simon Hughes they had enough distinguished voices to really hit home and have that gravitas.

Sadly by this point they knew – as we all did – that the sport was disappearing to Sky permanently. A new Head of Sport was in place at Channel Four and he was no huge cricket fan unlike his predecessor. Sky spent the big money to bring the sport in full to them knowing it was the largest potential subscriber base behind football. Sky paid over the odds for it knowing that they would pretty much lose money on most of the deal except for the Ashes.

Sky have kicked on with their coverage and some of their features are extremely good. You won’t find me knocking Sky’s coverage (bar Nick Knight – he’s terrible) but there has been no quantum leap in coverage compared to when Channel Four took over the rights.

Since those days Channel Four stole the World Athletics Championships from the BBC and stunk up the joint so bad that the IAAF quickly gave the Beeb back the rights to the 2015 and 2017 events. However Channel Four got universal praise for their Paralympics coverage and have recently taken all the domestic Horse Racing coverage. They had worked hard on Horse Racing for the best part of a quarter of a century and most people will think their coverage is just as good as the Beeb’s and Clare Balding is even fronting it.

That decision though by the ECB 14 years ago today didn’t just change what channel we watched cricket on but it also signalled the end of the BBC being able to sit firmly on their hands in the belief that they would always get all the live sport they wanted. I know they lost Formula One to ITV two years before but the BBC never really cared about the sport. The cricket was the first time it had truly been stunned for live sport and ever since it has had to work far harder to keep what it has and develop not only the coverage but the sport itself and for that we should be incredibly thankful to Channel Four for.

I could be a TV star. I’m terribly excited. When you get an e-mail entitled ‘BBC America’ it will grab my attention. When the e-mail is about being part of a new TV show then you think ‘yeah I could do that’ but then some details become clear and the TV show opportunity that has excitedly presented itself is a chance to be more manly. Yes folks I’ve been offered the chance to try-out for a new TV show called ‘Man Camp’ which is designed to make single guys like me who can’t get a girlfriend well you know…be manly and get a girlfriend. Rock on.

The thing is though is I have zero interest in taking part in a TV show like this. I don’t want to be more macho. I fixed my boiler once and that is enough for me. Just because I don’t go to bars and try to pick-up women it doesn’t mean that I want to be able to do that. Lord no I’d hate to be that type of guy. They are the types of guys I don’t look at with envy I look at with pity that whilst they are busy at bars having a good time playing the dating game I am at home in my underwear watching Match of the Day eating takeaway food. I know which situation I’d prefer to be in and it doesn’t involve booze and chat-up lines.

Here is the e-mail I received just now:

Dear Neil,

[redacted]

This is the attachment text he sent through:

Do you need to Man up?

To apply please fill out this form and return it with a photo, your CV and if possible a 60second video clip (you can use your phone) of you telling us why you are right for this show, to [redacted]

If you want to e-mail the guy then I’ll pass on his details if you contact me.

Do I need to man up? Well it depends on what you mean by man up. Some may say yes but who wants to be overly macho anyway? I live on my own and look after myself easily enough. I’m certainly not metrosexual. I have friends (but few chat up skills) and I’m really not camp. I am in touch with my feminine side but there is nothing wrong with that but I love my sport but hate going out on the lash.

So all in all I really don’t fit in with this show and I’ll respond telling him that I am not really what he is looking for. However I absolutely loved getting the e-mail out of the blue and thought it was hilarious. These TV people are trawling the interwebs trying to find people for all these types of shows. It shows in this day and age we could all have our fifteen minutes but I’m waiting for a better opportunity.

Seriously imagine me trying to be manly and/or more macho. Oh the hilarity. Actually I think the real losers here will be the public not getting to be me try and shoot a gun or whatever. Watching me try to chat up a woman. Oh boy that would be cringeworthingly awesome TV. It is so bad in my mind’s eye that I even made up a word for it but people of the world I will not be appearing on ‘Man Camp’ for the BBC any time soon…

There had been some speculation around the interwebs for a while as to who would BT bring in to be the face of their new sport channel ever since they grabbed live EPL games from the start of next season. The general thought was that Gary Lineker was the man for the job as his contract was up with the BBC and his contract is rather large so the Beeb would probably want it off their books but BT have gone in another direction and caught most of us off guard with today’s announcement.

BT today announced that Jake Humphrey had signed on to be the face of their new channel. The 33 year-old had won universal praise for his anchoring of Formula 1 when it returned to the BBC after an absence of 13 years and has quickly risen the pole at the corporation as one of their biggest stars. He came all the way through the BBC from CBBC to be in position to be courted by a rival network and no doubt offered an extremely tasty contract.

Humphrey wrote terrific insightful blogs for BBC Sport and without a doubt one of the most interesting was his one showing an unedited version of his open talkback system showing what he hears in his ears because a broadcast. I can’t embed the video as it’s a BBC Sport one but it is extremely interesting and a good lesson for all those who think presenting a live television show is easy. I’ve not presented live television outside a studio at university but open talkback is really disconcerting and takes ages to get used to but you do.

As for what the BBC will do their F1 coverage whilst not in shambles has some real issues now. They decided to get out of their contract with Bernie Ecclestone which led to Martin Brundle, Ted Kravitz and Natalie Pinkham jumping ship to Sky’s coverage of the sport. Now Jake has left and David Coulthard is out of contract and is widely believed to be of interest to Sky for next season. Does Eddie Jordan really want to carry on doing it without his buddies? Lee McKensie will surely step up to present the coverage and there is no dramatic drop-off there but this is a blow to the BBC of that there is little doubt.

As for BT they get one of the rising talents of live sports presenting in the country. Live top-level football will now be presented by Adrian Chiles, Ed Chamberlain, David Jones and Jake Humphrey across the channels (not including Gary Lineker as it isn’t confirmed he’ll still be around in 2014 at the Beeb) whereas in the recent past it had been Gary Lineker, Des Lynam, Steve Rider and Richard Keys. All of whom had long broadcasting careers behind them (although Gary and Richard’s careers were mostly just in the jobs that they became known for).

This shows both a change in philosophy for broadcasters as they have moved away from the same faces who were mostly of the older generation. Sky’s decision to replace Richard Keys with the two-headed presentation team of David Jones (Saturday’s and midweeks) and Ed Chamberlain (Sunday’s and Monday’s) showed they wanted to keep it in house. The BBC now only have live football at the tournaments and don’t have Lineker signed up as yet although it now seems likely they’ll keep him as going into the 2014 World Cup with Colin Murray as the face of the tournament is rather scary. ESPN had Ray Stubbs who was solid enough but he’ll continue with darts and other presenting duties you’d suspect with them.

This leaves the BT Sport venture as the new challenger to the dominant Sky. BT’s huge victory was getting a share of first pick games over the course of the next football contract. They paid top dollar for them and know it’ll not be easy to make it pay but they are already getting other sports rights to compliment their EPL coverage as last week they got domestic Rugby Union rights. I have no idea if BT will be successful but it’s certainly an interesting opportunity and now is the time to jump ship as London 2012 is over and Jake got to be one of the faces of the BBC’s coverage of that spectacular summer.

In jumping ship he is giving up World Cup presenting duties (as well as possibly fronting the coverage) but that major football tournaments happen once every two years and in this gig he’ll get a live football match most weeks throughout the football season. I’ll probably get BT’s new sport channel when it comes out because I like to watch all the games. Thanks to the EU for making sure I have to pay even more money than I should for this privilege but that is a rant for another day.

This is a good move for Jake I think and a blow to the BBC. It should be pointed out that Jake is set to become a father next spring so leaving the F1 travelling circus and staying in the UK must be a very attractive proposition. The BBC haven’t got anyone what you’d call ready to step up to his all-around role in the sports department. Colin Murray is not a live sport presenter and as it stands he’ll have a significant role to play in Brazil in 2014 and that does worry me. F1 will survive and do fine if DC and EJ stay to backup Lee McKensie but if they leave too then BBC’s award winning coverage will have none of that on air talent either still with the corporation or in the same role and that is quite a dramatic fall from grace in under two years.

Time as they say will tell…

In the past few days some momentum (well I say some momentum – a few people have blogged on it but actually at the point of writing only 8,772 have signed the petition despite featuring in national newspapers) but lets ignore that and pretend the momentum is gathering.

I have strong feelings on Page 3. I don’t like it but I don’t feel that it should be banned. This petition though isn’t about banning it. It is about getting the editor of The Sun to decide that it is time to move on and ditch this aspect of his newspaper. Sounds good in practice but one of the posts talking about it entitled ‘For what it’s worth‘ sums up exactly why the petition has very little chance of succeeding:

The campaign isn’t trying to censor The Sun, either; no one is seeking to “ban” Page 3, but merely wishes to implore Dominic Mohan, the editor of the paper, to do away with it. It is not good enough to merely cease to buy the paper, or skip the page; firstly, because many of the supporters of the campaign probably do not read the paper in the first place, but also because ignoring a problem does not fix it.

So as the author says herself the petition isn’t exactly aimed at the people who buy the newspaper so why would the editor of a national newspaper give a damn what people who don’t buy his newspaper think? I mean seriously? If I was the editor of a newspaper and was told that a lot of people who didn’t buy the newspaper anyway were pissed off with a part of my publication then would I give a damn? Of course I wouldn’t and more importantly nor would anyone else.

The problem with this petition (and all of the Page debates) is that The Sun will not stop until they are either banned from doing it or it is not worth it financially. That is it. That is the list. Now I have no doubt that News International do extensive research on this issue and I fully expect they know that if they ditched it but it wasn’t banned then one of their tabloid rivals would straight away go with it and pick-up a significant percentage of their circulation.

If they knew (or believed) that by ditching the Page 3 girl they would increase their circulation as all the people who don’t buy The Sun would suddenly buy it then they would. However they know that the people who don’t buy the newspaper don’t do so primarily because of the tits on show. They lost half a million off their circulation in the past year but that wasn’t because of tits it was because of phone hacking. They’ll also very closely monitor the circulation figures after the Hillsborough report finding what it did. So the newspaper may well see a drop in sales again over the next few months.

Page 3 to The Sun is nothing to do with their thoughts of sexual objectification. It is all about money (like most businesses) and financially it obviously is worth it to them otherwise they wouldn’t do it. The people who don’t like it don’t buy it anyway so why would they care what these people think? Isn’t that a very bizarre way to run a business? Would you run a business where the people who make you money like what you do but those who don’t make you money are complaining and you listen to the latter and not the former?

Look if you want to sign the petition then go for it and good luck to you. I would like to see it succeed as I don’t like Page 3. The link is here but in the real world the likelihood of this petition making waves in the boardroom of News International or even at the editorial level at The Sun is extremely extremely low. You can debate whether that is right or wrong until your heart is content but that is a fact.

The Sun is not going to change its philosophy on Page 3 out of the goodness of their heart. They just won’t. Even if they hit the million signatures that they are aiming for, if they see no drop in their circulation figures then they won’t do anything.

Sometimes we see the world from our own point of view and not from the point of view of others. Page 3 sells newspapers. I don’t like it. You probably don’t like it but it is a fact and until it doesn’t then why would they stop? The Sun as we all know isn’t the bastion of moral fortitude and it doesn’t pretend to be. It is a newspaper that serves as the news of the lowest common denominator. I don’t think that is an unfair statement and the people that buy it are not those who care about tits on Page 3.

If we want to change the perceptions of women and get Page 3 consigned to the history books then this isn’t the way forward. Attitudes need to change within the people that buy the newspaper and not the other way around. A newspaper is not going to take the lead when money is at stake. So it needs other avenues to succeed. What they are I don’t know but I sure as hell know that this won’t change a thing.

Sexism is still prevalent in our society and whilst it is slowly changing (it is slowly changing) there are still many problems. Would killing Page 3 make any difference? Maybe but killing Page 3 is unlikely when there is a willing audience both to buy it and star in it. Change has to happen from the bottom up and a media outlet with shareholders to answer to will not lead the way unless they believe it is financially worthwhile. Like it or not that is the bottom line and that is where the buck will stop.

If you are an NFL fan in the UK then until the past few weeks you have been looking forward to the new season with very few flies in the ointments. However slowly it has dawned on people that there was no TV deal in place in the UK and in fact NFL coverage could all but dry up but happily with the opening game less than 36 hours away those worries have been erased with the announcement today that Sky Sports will once again be showing comprehensive coverage of the sport in the UK.

Now other coverage had slowly been drip-fed out over the past couple of weeks as NFLUK confirmed that Channel 4 would once again be showing NBC Sunday Night Football with Nat Coombs replacing Danny Kelly alongside everyone’s favourite pundit Mike Carlson. The Sunday Night game is often the best game of the week and will be shown in HD and be available on 4oD for the first time this season.

The BBC also renewed their rights. They will show the Superbowl live and have highlights of the International Series game as well as playoffs which will be available on BBC Sport online. They also have radio rights for the forthcoming season.

However most people were worried that the big rights had still not been given out. Were Sky playing hardball? Did the NFL want to ditch Sky and get everyone to buy Gamepass? Was the size of the Thanksgiving Turkey to blame for the delay? Was Cecil Martin too cool for Sky Sports? You should read the NFL on TV thread on NFLUK if you want to see NFL fans in meltdown. Many thought no deal would ever be done. Some thought Premier Sports would be involved. Some even wanted no deal so there would be no blackouts on Gamepass.

The fact is though once the NFL announced that the Jacksonville Jaguars were to play for four years at Wembley Stadium then that assured us that the NFL were extremely keen on the UK market and that they would be broadcasting their league in the UK – and not just one game a week. The NFL genuinely has interest in placing a franchise in London so they know they have to grow the game. Taking it away from Sky and lumping it on Premier Sports or Gamepass only was never an option. ITV4 was the only other options for the NFL and that didn’t come about once they made it clear that Sky were their preferred broadcast partners a deal was imminent. All that needed to be sorted was NFL programming and red button options.

In a surprise move the BBC were given rights to Monday Night Football but will only be broadcasting it behind the red button and on the BBC website. Not like the BBC has much else to broadcast at 1AM on Tuesday morning’s but ho hum.

So there we have it. The full statement that had been embargoed until 5PM this afternoon is behind this link but here is a run-down of all the NFL TV rights in the UK:

Sky:

Two live Sunday Games – 6PM and 9:15 PM
The Red Zone on the Red Button
Thanksgiving and all TNF Games
All Playoffs and Superbowl
NFL Total Access plus more NFL programming tbc.

BBC TV:

Superbowl – Live
Monday Night Football – Live (Red Button/Online only)
Playoffs – Highlights
International Series – Highlights

Channel 4:

Sunday Night Football – Live

Unsurprisingly I was truly disgusted at The Sun for their decision to publish the Prince Harry photos. Not a few hours earlier had I been praising the UK media for their handling of the situation and not showing photos of him naked. It was a clear invasion of privacy and even though it was out there the UK media had no need to go down the same path. Then of course a certain newspaper broke ranks and decided that they had to do so because it was in the public interest. Public interest trumps privacy but was this really in the public interest?

The newspaper say that they published the photos so that everyone could be informed about them and then we can have a proper debate about them. Well they are the words that came out of their mouth but all I heard was, ‘we knew people would buy our newspaper if we had a naked photo of Prince Harry on the front so we decided we didn’t give a shit and just wanted to enhance our circulation figures.’

Some believe that even in private Prince Harry has to do things in a certain way. Look at Paul Walter from his post on the subject:

Of course we have a right to see publicly available evidence of his behaviour. Of course he has to uphold certain standards even in private. And, of course we should be able judge for ourselves as to whether that behaviour is compatible with his position as 3rd in line to be head of state and as a commissioned officer in the British Army.

Someone who is the third in line to the throne, holding an officer’s rank in the army, should not strip naked with random girls.

As far as I’m aware no-one was stopping anyone viewing these photos online. Everyone has to uphold certain standards even in private but these are mostly ‘don’t break the law’ as who cares what people do in private as long as it isn’t against the law. You know what? Playing strip billiards is as far as I’m aware not against the law either in the UK or in Nevada. So a guy gets naked in his own hotel room. Who gives a crap. Just because he is third in line to the throne does that mean he can’t play strip billiards? Is it ok if I played strip billiards? Does anyone want to play strip billiards with me? I don’t have a billiards table though so does anyone want to play strip putting the dishes in the dishwasher with me? Sounds like a fun game, no?

I couldn’t disagree with Paul more about that final sentence. Who cares if a guy strips naked with some random girls. I mean seriously. If David Cameron wants to get down and give Tory HQ a pole dance behind closed doors I wouldn’t give a stuff (although I would be bizarrely interested to see how it went down) but I’d have no rights to view any evidence.

That is where the difference is. The public interest is very different to ‘would interest the public.’ Most things that go on in private would interest the public. However privacy is something we all deserve as long as we aren’t breaking the law of the land. A Tory MP Damian Collins tweeted, ‘Harry is a senior royal so there’s clear public interest in the Vegas pics. If this had been another public figure there would be no debate.‘. He gets the public interest and would interest the public thing muddled up. If Mr Collins MP partied at a private party at his home then would he think the photos would be in the public interest if any of them turned out to show him in a less than stellar fashion?

Talk of MPs we move on to another Tory MP – well is she an MP? She quit but she won’t leave and we are talking Louise Mensch. She told the Today programme that she chilled that the Palace had asked the media not to publish the photo and that she hoped the press would stand up for their rights. Basically she’s down with invasion of privacy. It is all good as long as she gets a good look at Harry’s todger.

Teachers and parents used to always say things like ‘just because Tom is doing such and such doesn’t mean that you should’ and this is the point here. Just because the American media and other worldwide publications think that they can make a bit of money by invading someone’s privacy it doesn’t mean that you should. The Sun broke ranks and showed that they were happy to get in the gutter as long as they had plenty of company they could use to justify their decision to jump right in.

They have showed their true colours but deep down we all knew what they were like. Prince Harry has done nothing either illegal or immoral and yet he is being dragged through the mud. The Sun have tried to legitimise their decision but deep down it was all about money and exposure (excuse the pun) and heck it sold them a few more newspapers than usual and got them high on all the news bulletins for 24 hours. I hope that it was worth it as selling your soul and decency to me is a rather heavy price to pay…