Police boats search fjord around Utøya island as man charged for allegedly selling chemicals used in Oslo bomb Investigators are still searching for bodies the fjord surrounding the island where Anders Behring Breivik killed 68 out of his 76 victims last week. Police have so far released the names of 13 people who died in the twin atrocities. Sharidyn Svebakk-Bohn celebrated her 14th birthday five days before she was killed at the Labour party youth convention on Utøya, and is the youngest. The teenager was well known in her town of Drammen in east Norway: aged 12 she featured in the local newspaper when she wrote a letter to the mayor demanding a children’s summer camp not be shut. Another 14-year-old is still listed as missing. Johannes Buo was a football and judo enthusiast from Mandal, a fishing town on the south coast. As investigators continued their inquiry, a Pole was charged with “crimes against public safety” for allegedly selling the chemicals which Breivik used to make the bomb he planted in Oslo’s government district, killing eight people. Police sources suggest that by Wednesday afternoon only one person remained unaccounted for, though a full list would only be released once all identities had been confirmed and their families informed. Two boats and a miniature submarine searched the water surrounding Utøya through the day. The island remained cordoned off as a search continued in the woods and along the shoreline. The police commander in charge of the operation to evacuate the island following the attack described how Breivik surrendered with his hands in the air and his guns on the ground when armed counter terrorism officers surrounded him on Friday. They had been directed towards the south side by terrified teenagers who had evaded his 90 minutes of gunfire. “When we got 350 metres away, we used our voices to call to him. The terrain was very difficult and it was hard to get clear visibility,” said Havard Gasbakk. “Suddenly the gunman was in front of us with his hands above his head.” After police apprehended Breivik “in the usual way”, Gasbakk’s task was to see if there were other gunmen on the island. “I had to see if there was anybody else shooting,” he said at a press conference. Having established Breivik was acting alone, Gasbakk co-ordinated the rescue operation, which saw hundreds of young people from Utøya brought safely to shore. Some were fished out of the water with the help of holidaymakers from the campsite opposite who used their own boats; others were coaxed out of their hiding places on the island. Many did not believe the police officers were genuine because Breivik had been wearing what appeared a police uniform. Then the first aid effort began. “The victims just came like on a conveyor belt,” said Gasbakk. The injuries were so severe that rescuers had to change their surgical gloves “very fast”, he added. Aware of the criticism levelled at police and emergency services for taking an hour and a half to reach the island, Gasbakk said he was “proud and humbled” at how his team had responded; he himself had been on his day off when the alarm came. But Sissel Hammer, chief of police of Nordre Buskerud district, where Utøya is located, said there would be an inquiry into how her officers had dealt with the incident. The prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, announced an independent investigation into the two attacks, which would report directly to him. Called the July 22 Commission, it will examine whether more could have been done both to prevent the attacks and respond to them, he said. He also announced that the government would pay for the funerals of all victims, as well as legal bills incurred by any survivors. At a press conference at his Oslo residence, Stoltenberg underlined his commitment to openness, defending freedom of thought, even if includes extremist views such as those held by the 32-year-old who confessed to Friday’s bomb blast and to the shooting massacre. “We have to be very clear to distinguish between extreme views, opinions that are completely legal, legitimate to have, [and] what is not legitimate is to try to implement those extreme views by using violence,” he said. “I think what we have seen is that there is going to be one Norway before and one Norway after 22 July,” he said. “But I hope and also believe that the Norway we will see after will be more open, a more tolerant society than what we had before.” He said the Labour party, including survivors of the massacre, were determined to reopen Utøya as a retreat in the future. He himself had visited the island every summer since 1974, he said. Hadia Tajik, 28-year-old Muslim Labour party MP, said: “We want to reclaim the island. It is associated with sadness, but we want it to become a paradise again.” Norway Anders Behring Breivik Europe Helen Pidd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Piers Morgan has been ardently defending Rupert Murdoch as the whole ugly Rupertgate scandal has unfolded, calling him the innocent victim of a witch hunt. It seems maybe there’s a reason for that : Former tabloid editor Piers Morgan accused media and bloggers of being “lying smearers” Wednesday after a 2009 interview surfaced in which he appeared to admit that hacking phones for reporting purposes was tolerated on his watch. Morgan, who edited Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World in the mid-1990s and went on to edit rival The Daily Mirror, was asked by the BBC’s Kirsty Young how he felt about “dealing with people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people’s phones, people who take secret photographs.” Morgan, who replaced interviewer Larry King on CNN this past January, began his answer by saying that “not a lot of that went on,” but then acknowledged that newspapers he worked for used information obtained by these methods. “A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That’s not to defend it because obviously you were running the results of their work,” he said in an excerpt of the 2009 interview posted on the BBC’s website on Wednesday. “I’m quite happy to be parked in the corner of the tabloid beast and to have to sit here defending all these things I used to get up to. I make no pretense about the stuff we used to do,” he said. My, what a tangled web we weave.
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Piers Morgan has been ardently defending Rupert Murdoch as the whole ugly Rupertgate scandal has unfolded, calling him the innocent victim of a witch hunt. It seems maybe there’s a reason for that : Former tabloid editor Piers Morgan accused media and bloggers of being “lying smearers” Wednesday after a 2009 interview surfaced in which he appeared to admit that hacking phones for reporting purposes was tolerated on his watch. Morgan, who edited Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World in the mid-1990s and went on to edit rival The Daily Mirror, was asked by the BBC’s Kirsty Young how he felt about “dealing with people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people’s phones, people who take secret photographs.” Morgan, who replaced interviewer Larry King on CNN this past January, began his answer by saying that “not a lot of that went on,” but then acknowledged that newspapers he worked for used information obtained by these methods. “A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That’s not to defend it because obviously you were running the results of their work,” he said in an excerpt of the 2009 interview posted on the BBC’s website on Wednesday. “I’m quite happy to be parked in the corner of the tabloid beast and to have to sit here defending all these things I used to get up to. I make no pretense about the stuff we used to do,” he said. My, what a tangled web we weave.
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Top law official agrees to discuss progress of FBI investigation into allegations against journalists working for News Corp Relatives of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York are to meet with America’s top law enforcement official to discuss allegations that journalists working for News Corporation tried to gain access to the phone records of the dead. The US attorney general Eric Holder has agreed to see a group of family members and their legal representative to discuss the progress of an FBI investigation. A date for the meeting has yet to be set, but the agreement to hold it is a sign of how seriously the inquiry is being taken. Norman Siegel, a New York-based lawyer who represents 20 families who lost loved ones on 11 September 2001, confirmed the meeting and said he intended to take as many of the relatives as possible to see Holder in Washington. “We are hoping the allegations of hacking prove to be untrue but we want a thorough investigation to determine what happened,” he said. The allegation that News of the World reporters attempted to gain unauthorised access to victims’ voicemails was made in an article in the Mirror earlier this month. The paper said the journalists had approached a former New York police officer working as a private detective and asked him to do the hacking, which he declined to do. So far no evidence has emerged to corroborate the Mirror’s story but, should the allegations firm up, News Corp could face a rash of civil litigation from family members. Lawyers have begun preliminary discussions with relatives pointing out their legal options. “If there is something to the story, then there are a number of different claims that people could file,” said Mark Vlasic, a Washington-based lawyer and professor at Georgetown University. Vlasic said one possible legal recourse open to families would be to sue under the electronic communications and privacy act. Title 18 USC section 2701, which carries a minimum fine of $1,000 (£612) for every event proved, makes it unlawful to obtain unauthorised access to stored communications, including voicemail. Title 18 USC section 1030, barring unauthorised access to protected computers, could also be invoked in relation to the mainframe computers on which the phone companies store voicemails. Siegel said that he had pointed out to the families he represents that civil legal action could be open to them. Any attempt by News of the World reporters to gain access to voicemails, even if such an attempt were unsuccessful, could be liable to penalties. But Siegel said that the priority at this stage was to find out whether the allegations were true. “Family members are painfully going back to the period of 9/11 and trying to recall whether there were articles about their loved ones that could only have been written on the basis of hacking of calls or computers.” Sally Regenhard, who lost her firefighter son Christian at the World Trade Centre, said families were adopting a wait-and-see policy: “We just want to know what’s happening with the investigation.” Another victim’s relative, who asked not to be named, said she had been talking to a lawyer about a possible lawsuit. “Between Osama bin Laden’s death and the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in September, this is a very stressful time for us. If the phone-hacking allegations turn out to be true it would be very upsetting for us – it would be such a violation.” During his testimony to the UK parliament earlier this month Rupert Murdoch referred to the 9/11 phone-hacking claim and said “we have seen no evidence at all and as far as we know the FBI haven’t either”. But he added that he did not know whether News of the World employees or the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire could have taken it upon themselves to do the hacking. On Wednesday Piers Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror, denied for the second time in a week that he printed stories obtained through phone hacking. CNN, which employs him as a chatshow host, issued the latest denial over comments Morgan made when he was on Radio 4′s Desert Island Discs. FBI United States Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers News of the World News Corporation Media business Daily Mirror Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
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( The Kennedy Tax Cut Proposal – Sweeping Changes – not everybody was happy ) Click here to view this media Note: This is a repost from last year on this day. Seems the story just doesn’t change. In what became the most sweeping set of changes to Tax Cut legislation, House Bill HR-8368 passed by a vote of 271-175. It represented a radical change in the economic structure of the country by basing its operations on the theory of deficit financing . President Kennedy: “No more important legislation will come before the Congress this year than the bill before the House to reduce Federal Taxes. In fact, no more important domestic economic legislation has come before the Congress in some fifteen years.” A little too radical for some. Most Republicans voted against it as did the bloc of Dixiecrats who warned it would mean fiscal ruin for the U.S. It didn’t and the bill passed the Senate in February 1964 created the largest tax cut in history and it’s still argued about today , as no doubt this post will provoke. History is very often the gift that keeps on giving.
Continue reading …This is Your Brain After Listening to Too Many Right Wing Talking Points on the Debt Ceiling
July 27, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media I try to monitor C-SPAN’s morning call-in show Washington Journal when I get a chance just to see what viewers of that network and the public are saying about the topics of the day and this one jumped out at me this morning as being from someone who’s been watching too much Fox News or for that matter possibly a lot of the rest of our corporate media with the right wing talking points this woman rattled off when weighing in on this debt ceiling kabuki theater. How someone comes off thinking that President Obama sounds like a partisan when he has, to the dismay of liberals, bent over backwards to make concessions to Republicans, or says he’s playing the “class warfare card” is beyond me, but obviously this person has no idea what “class warfare” even means, or that they’re probably losing that war. She also was informed enough to realize that there was a deficit commission put together that went nowhere and in her defense, the one thing she said here that I agreed with completely is that doing that again may very well be a colossal waste of time, but then she lost me with saying she really didn’t understand this whole concept of the debt ceiling at all, and even though she admitted she was clueless on what they’re debating about, claimed the whole thing is just some scare tactic by both sides. It goes without saying that since she does not understand what the debt ceiling is and thought it was about future spending, she obviously has no clue that this is about approving raising the debt ceiling for spending that the Congress has already approved, and not what they might spend in the future. It also seems pretty obvious she did not listen to the president’s speech at all this week or she would already know that. It pains me to hear just how misinformed our citizens are in the United States and this is just one example coming from someone who actually knows just enough to know that a deficit commission existed but not a whole lot else on the specifics of what’s going on in this debate. This is your brain on Fox or after hearing too much right wing propaganda from somewhere else. There is class warfare going on. Unfortunately too many people don’t even understand what that means or who is waging it. Rough transcript below the fold. BRAWNER: Martha, a Republican in Kalamazoo, Michigan. MARTHA: Hi, I watched the debate last night and I was kind of hoping to hear something from Obama that would encourage the discussion. Instead it felt like it was very partisan. And I felt that he really played the class warfare card. I was expecting something a little more presidential that would help the debate. Instead, I left feeling very… I don’t know, upset with the country, for both Republicans and Democrats because I felt Obama really lacked the leadership. BRAWNER: So, Martha, on this issue of the two proposals put up by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one thing they have in common is this idea of a super committee, that they would put together a bipartisan panel of lawmakers to recommend further cuts than the House and the Senate would have to vote up or down on. What do you make of that and to your point about leadership, do you think that that’s something that the two sides, the two parties should get behind? MARTHA: Well, I thought there was a similar committee that was meeting a year ago that came up with the way to reduce the deficit. Am I incorrect on that? BRAWNER: Yeah, the bipartisan deficit commission that the president put together. MARTHA: But nothing really came of that. I don’t understand why that did not go forward and why that doesn’t work. Yeah, I agree. I mean, we have to go back to a time when people would just talk and communicate and compromise. I totally agree with the Republicans that we cannot continue to spend. I don’t understand the whole debt limit thing. It seems like there’s a lot of scare tactics going on here, probably on both sides. But I don’t understand this scare tactic game that everyone is falling for. But what bothers me most is seeing the class warfare and seeing one group of citizens against another and playing one as the bad guy and one as the good guy. There are no bad guys or good guys. Everybody cares about the United States. Why can’t they just come to some way of working together? Karoli adds : After I read this post I started looking through my DVR recordings for some of the talking points Heather mentioned. This was today’s meme o’ the day from Fox & Friends. Point 1: President Obama’s speech was all partisan. Point 2: It was a campaign speech, not a leadership speech. Point 3: He used the term “balanced approach” SEVEN times. SEVEN. Can you remember the number SEVEN, kids? If you can remember that he said that SEVEN times, you might forget everything else he said. Or what it is he said seven times. These people probably employ CIA brainwashing operatives to write their copy. Heavy sigh. Click here to view this media
Continue reading …‘Oldest bird’ Archaeopteryx knocked off its perch in controversial new study
July 27, 2011 No Comment
The fossil Archaeopteryx may not have been one of the earliest birds but just another feathered dinosaur, claim scientists Archaeopteryx, the famous icon of evolution and supposedly the oldest, most primitive bird on Earth, might not have been a bird after all, scientists say. The controversial claim, if confirmed, is something of a bombshell for researchers, who have viewed the evolution of birds and feathered flight through the lens of the species since it was discovered 150 years ago. The finding leaves palaeontologists in the awkward position of having to identify another creature as the oldest and original avian on which to base the story of birdlife. Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1861, just two years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. The spectacular fossils of an animal with the feathered wings of a bird, but the teeth and tail of a dinosaur, caused an immediate sensation in Victorian England where society was wrestling with the consequences of evolution through natural selection. Though descriptions of Archaeopteryx as a “missing link” are widely frowned upon by scientists, the creature became renowned as the most primitive bird on the planet. That view has now been challenged by researchers in China, who have tried to knock the feathered fossil off its perch in a reassessment of the bird-dinosaur family tree. Xing Xu at Linyi University and colleagues ran the fresh analysis after studying a new Archaeopteryx-like fossil bought from a dealer by the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature, the world’s largest dinosaur museum . The fossil was likely excavated from the 155 million-year-old Tiaojishan Formation in eastern China. The chicken-sized creature, named Xiaotingia zhengi in honour of the scientist who established the museum as a repository for vertebrate fossils, shared several features with Archaeopteryx, including long, sturdy forelimbs that presumably allowed it to fly. But when Xu’s team reconstructed family trees to include Xiaotingia , they found the creature belonged not in the lineage of birds, but to a group of dinosaurs called deinonychosaurs. More strikingly, Archaeopteryx appeared in the same group, according to the study in Nature . Deinonychosaurs, such as the velociraptor, walked on two legs, ate meat and had viscious, retractable claws. The finding is tentative, but builds on doubts that have emerged over the special status of Archaeopteryx following the discovery of other bird-like dinosaurs and dinosaur-like birds over the past decade or so. In an accompanying article, Lawrence Witmer at Ohio University wrote: “There has been growing unease about the avian status of Archaeopteryx as, one by one, its ‘avian’ attributes (feathers, wishbone, three-fingered hand) started showing up in non-avian dinosaurs. Perhaps the time has come to finally accept that Archaeopteryx was just another small, feathered, bird-like theropod fluttering around in the Jurassic.” If Archaeopteryx was a dinosaur, this means flight evolved at least four times in vertebrates: in reptiles, birds, dinosaurs, and most recently in bats. Witmer adds that with Archaeopteryx dethroned, more recently discovered fossils, including Epidexipteryx , Jeholornis and Sapeornis , become candidates for the world’s oldest bird. On a cautionary note, he adds that the next feathered fossil unearthed in China could easily restore the premier status of Archaeopteryx. Paul Barrett, a dinosaur researcher at the Natural History Museum in London , said: “The overall picture of birds being descended from meat-eating dinosaurs is now very firmly established. This is an argument over a relatively small rearrangement of some of the twigs on the evolutionary tree close to the origin of birds. It doesn’t affect much of our big picture view of how birds came from dinosaurs, but some of the minutiae: the small changes that are important to the biology of the animals. “This part of the evolutionary tree is very sensitive to small changes in how we interpret the anatomy and the combination of anatomical features we see in these animals as they are discovered. As a result, the structure of that evolutionary tree is very unstable and can flip around. Maybe Archaeopteryx wasn’t on the direct ancestral line to birds, but was part of an early experimentation in how to build a bird-like body.” Dinosaurs Fossils Evolution Zoology Controversies in science Birds Animals China Ian Sample guardian.co.uk
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China’s premier promises train crash report in response to dissent over propaganda directives to journalists Propaganda authorities in China have failed to stem the torrent of public outrage over last Saturday’s high-speed rail crash amid continuing aggressive media reporting and angry online posts. Amid the rancour, China’s premier, Wen Jiabao, ordered a “swift, open and transparent” investigation, adding that its results should be made public. He promised to take resolute steps to strengthen safety, the Xinhua state news agency reported. At least 39 people died and more than 190 were injured in the crash near Wenzhou in Zhejiang province. Six carriages derailed and four plunged from a viaduct after one train smashed into the back of a stationary train. Directives leaked this week ordered journalists to avoid analysing the causes and focus on uplifting stories of the rescue but several outlets continued to attack the handling of the collision and raise awkward questions – such as the whereabouts of the surviving train driver and whether the safety systems had failed. It was also reported that the “miracle” rescue of a toddler happened only because the officer who found her defied orders to halt the search. “Knowing how the railway’s Great Leap was achieved, who can say that the high speed network is safe? … unofficial opinions have been blocked and silence was imposed on dissenting experts. That is why tragedies are unavoidable,” warned an editorial in the Economic Observer. Meanwhile, users posted millions of messages on Sina’s Twitter-like Weibo service and some microbloggers referred to the railways ministry as “iron hooligans”. One created a fake movie poster, spoofing recent propaganda films. Titled The Panicked Train Crew, and featuring images of railway officials, it proclaims: “After the Founding of a Republic and The Beginning of the Great Revival, another epic film to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist party!” Although critical reporting and online attacks on authorities are often seen after disasters, it is rare for them to continue for so long – particularly in the face of explicit orders. It is especially unusual given that high speed rail is regarded as a matter of national prestige. New media professor Hu Yong said: “The difference this time is how widely it has spread, how sharp the criticism is and how much the various tiers of society are influenced.” He said microblogging had played a major role in spreading information and reaction, but added: “It is still questionable whether this will affect policy-making and the final outcome.” David Bandurski, of the China Media Project at Hong Kong University, predicted that authorities would soon clamp down. He said the sensitivity of the political situation – with jockeying for position ahead of next year’s power transition – had made the issue “too hot to handle”. Others have suggested that leaders may be keen to clip the wings of the overly powerful ministry. Bandurski also suggested journalists might be seeking to push back after a recent media clampdown: “When they do crack down on the story, everyone is going to know what they are not reading. The political blowback is going to be huge,” he added. Propaganda directives are issued by numerous bodies, which might help to explain variations in coverage, although at least one of the orders appeared to be at national level. Southern Metropolitan Daily warned: “Without independent investigation of the truth, the living will not agree and the dead will not rest.” The Beijing Times said many “puzzles” remained unsolved.The state-run Global Times also attacked officials for failing to answer reasonable questions. “Chinese society is changing and public democracy is booming in the internet era, but the arrogance of certain authorities has stagnated … public opinion in China cannot stand this anymore,” said an editorial. He Weifang, a prominent scholar at Peking University Law School, used his microblog account to call for an independent special commission to investigate the crash and the future development of high speed rail. He pointed out that the ministry of railways was affiliated to the state council, which has set up the current inquiry, adding: “If they investigate, it is hard to demonstrate justice and fairness.” Additional research by Han Cheng China Rail transport Press freedom Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
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Police pass file to prosecutors after reviewing a tape recording in which the energy minister and his then wife discussed the matter Police have handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service following an investigation into allegations that the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, avoided speeding points to escape a driving ban. The Liberal Democrat minister faces claims that he persuaded Vicky Pryce, his then wife, to accept a three-point penalty on his behalf in March 2003 to avoid a driving ban. He denies the allegation. Huhne and Pryce were interviewed again last week after police obtained a court order to take possession of a tape recording in which the former couple apparently discuss the case. A CPS spokesperson said: “We have received a file of evidence from Essex police in relation to allegations involving Christopher Huhne and Vicky Pryce. This file will be reviewed under the code for crown prosecutors and a decision on whether to charge will be made in due course.” The development came on a day that the Lib Dem minister was cleared of wrongdoing over his expenses for last year’s general election following an investigation by the electoral watchdog. The investigation was prompted by complaints that Huhne had under-reported the amount spent on his campaign. The Electoral Commission said it was taking no action against the Eastleigh MP, after finding only minor discrepancies in his election expense returns. Under election law, candidates’ spending is limited for both the “short campaign period” immediately before the vote and the “long campaign period” before it. Mr Huhne reported spending of £18,608.56 for the long campaign against a limit of £28,874.80 and £10,911.05 for the short campaign against a limit of £11,024.80. The Electoral Commission investigation found that the cost of his campaign website was £45.15, rather than the £35 reported, but noted that this still left him well within spending limits. It found that the decision to allocate spending totalling around £5,400 to the national Liberal Democrat campaign, rather than to Huhne’s personal campaign for the Eastleigh seat, was “reasonable and in line with Electoral Commission guidance”. The watchdog wrote to the party asking it to review its procedures, after it emerged that the cash attributed to the national campaign by Huhne’s team was not declared in the national expense returns. The commission also wrote to Huhne asking him to take more care with future campaign literature, after finding that some letters did not accurately carry the name of their printer, as they are required to. In a statement, the commission said: “On the basis of the evidence considered, the commission do not believe that further action is required. Huhne said: “The Electoral Commission is very clear that the campaign was properly within the legal limits, as I always maintained, and I am delighted that we have such a clear conclusion to this investigation. This is the second review caused by misinformed and politically motivated complaints, and it now means that all the complaints concerning my campaign have been rejected.” Chris Huhne Liberal Democrats Liberal-Conservative coalition Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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James Harding says some readers cancelled subscriptions in wake of revelations about News of the World’s alleged activities The editor of the Times, James Harding, has admitted that News International’s handling of the phone-hacking crisis was “catastrophic” and that it impacted on the paper’s sales. Harding said readers had cancelled subscriptions to the Times and to digital versions of the paper in the immediate aftermath of the revelations about Millie Dowler’s phone allegedly being hacked by News International sister title the News of the World. Asked whether News International would recover and if he still felt the way the company had reacted had been “catastrophic”, as described by one of his paper’s leader columns, he said: “Yes, I think that would be a pretty descriptive word for what it happened and the struggle they had in getting to grips with it.” But Harding, who has pursued a fiercely independent line on the scandal since the Dowler story broke in early July, said he believed Rupert Murdoch was now back in charge after accepting the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, dropping the bid for BSkyB and apologising to the Dowler family. “You have to own your mistakes, otherwise your mistakes own you,” Harding told Steve Hewlett , presenter of Radio 4′s The Media Show. The Times lost more than 20,000 sales on some days following the Dowler revelation, according to industry sources. “In the first couple of weeks after the Milly Dowler story broke we were acutely concerned about it and with good reason. There were some people who were not just disgusted by the News of the World but wanted to express that anger in any way they could,” Harding said. He was then asked if the Times saw evidence of this in losing its own readers. “Yes we absolutely did,” Harding replied. “We saw small numbers of people cancelling their digital subscriptions or cancelling their print subscriptions – happily those have largely come back.” He said he knew he was in for a “very testing” time when the Dowler story broke more than three weeks ago and that the scrutiny of press behaviour on all newspapers would be a “watershed” moment for British journalism. But he added it would be lamentable if the ambitions of journalists to hold the powerful and privileged to account were in any way stymied. “I think it’s an unpopular position at the moment. But we need to make sure we don’t get into a circular firing squad in Fleet Street, we don’t spend our time in a process of self-flagellation, we believe in a free press,” Harding said. “I was very concerned for the reputation of journalism generally the moment I woke. We are now three and a half weeks, the better part of a month on,” he added. “I think if you went round the country today and you said ‘Do you still think that’s it’s important in a free society that the press hold the powerful and the privileged to account?’ I think they would say yes. If you said ‘Do you think it would be a good idea for David Cameron and Ed Miliband to set the terms of the way in which newspapers work?’, most people would say no.” •
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