A sudden and strange silence prevails as at 17th May.
From a torrent of news, revelations, "fitness to govern" bol;d announcements by Ms Levitt of CPS and second wife of Baron Carlile - nothing.
As was always going to be the case, suddenly the rich and powerful way beyond a newspaper group are maybe getting the Press as a whole silenced?
That won't work someone will have the guts to open the can
Wikileaks?

Mainstream media toeing the line? Not surprised.

The BBC did mention Hugh Grant's scoop: Have I Got News For You, yesterday evening

OOPS! BBC4 as in the radio channel one meant. BBC4 on the telly is brill, the best thing they have ever done.

A pub landlord gossips with a celebrity customer. He says things that are contradictory, boastful, wrong and daft. He's not on the record. In fact, he's checked that he's not being taped. Or thinks he has.

To even a casual observer he seems highly unreliable and untrustworthy. And you wonder why a mainstream news organisation with a reputation to guard doesn't cover what you call this "story", which touches on areas likely to be sub judice sometime soon.

I don't think you're thinking straight.

The BBC is not scared of Murdoch. They are birds of a feather.

PJW - so why didnt the night editor call back to refuse the offer, even out of courtesy?

BBC news is so full of middle class rubbish and that's only the talking heads

mike c - Many possible reasons. Maybe the night editor didn't like commitments to call back being made on their behalf. Maybe they intended to, but stuff like work got in the way. Maybe the decision went to lawyers and just got lost track of. Maybe the night editor still had hopes and didn't want to close the door entirely.

If Jason Cowley has never uttered the words, "sorry I didn't get back to you...", he's the first journalist I've come across who hasn't. I'd guess for many it'd be high on the list of answers to the question, what phrases do you overuse?

It's a good piece and all great fun. But being po-faced about Today's response seems misplaced and not really very ingenuous of Mr Cowley.

It's just not confined to the BBC. Here in Australia, the ABC has taken an undeniable and noticeably conservative tone to most of its politcal journalism. They are actually quite similar in their reportage amplifying the talking points of News Limited various media outlets, of which Murdoch and his minions own 70% of the newspaper market in Australia. It's an absolute farce which resulted in such sniping and slander last year that the conservatives caused mass hypnosis in the powers that be that they ended the tenure of a perfectly fine Prime Minister, Mr. Rudd.

The BBC is so full of hand wringing appologists now that they are afraid to offend anyone or anything.
Sad reflection on a once world class media service.

I had the following posting on the BBC "Have your say website" refused on the grounds that it was defamatory ????

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Subject:
News International says sorry for phone hacking

Posting:
As the head of News international Murdoch should take ultimate responsibility, after all he hired the editor and has a duty to see that his staff and his company comply with the law. So really the person who should be going to jail for this is Murdoch.
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Thank you for contributing to a BBC blog. Unfortunately we've had to remove your comment below.

Comments on the BBC blogs will be removed if they contain material that is potentially defamatory.
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How on earth is my comment defamatory ???.
So in answer to the question is the BBC scared of Murdoch, I would say yes.

watch John Pilger's film about the media bias and lack of reporting on the build up to the Iraq war and the BBC were shown in a bad light. The head of news at the time could not explain why the BBC only took the government line on everything and never once questioned the dodgy dossier taking everything at face value.

You may recall Kay Burley’s hectoring questioning of Chris Bryant over phone hacking, culminating in the Rhondda MP describing the Sky News presenter as “a bit dim”. So why is it the BBC had on Kay Burley on "This Week" twisting it into a sexist comment when infact the "dim" comment was more polite than she deserved. The BBC presenters knew it was going on, so were they defending phone hacking by supporting her? Andrew Neil is no idiot. But how could he smile and listen to Kay Burley rant when she said its people fault for not changing passwords on their phones. The BBC must be more than scared. They must be connected in this.

First, the BBC has gone corporate. Which means yes they are scared of Murdoch.

But what's worse than that? New Statesman management sinking down to Charlie Sheen tabloid level. If a non-celeb did this, would you have gotten 1% of the billions and billions (an old Carl Sagan joke)of hits on this site? No.

The Phone Hacking has been going on a lot longer than people think. News stories are showing that it goes back before 2003 however I know that the phone hacking started in 1998 when i went to news International in wapping and met with Paul Crosbie who was then the Consumer Affiars correspondent and i showed him how to tap into mobile phone voicemail. I showed Paul this because i'd already shown the Daily Mirror how to do it 12 days prior to showing him and he couldn't believe that they hadn't published the story as promised as it was a massive security issue. However, Paul Crosbie from The Sun newspaper did not publish the story, instead they decided to with-hold the secret information and hack into phones themselves for their own use, so it seems. This was evident that this was happening because whilst BOTH tabloids were promising to unleash the news onto the public, they decided against it, proving to me that they thought it was best to keep it for themselves to gain more news stories and what a great way to do so. I remember the Daily Mirror telling me that they had all of their journalists onto the story and were very busy contacting/hacking into voicemail to guage a reaction from the mobile owner.....the reaction seemed as though it was never asked from the mobile owner and they more than likely thought...What a great way to get free information. By the way, i showed the tabloids how to do this because I was fronting a public awareness camapign trying to get it changed so that it could not be done. I was constantly trying to get Vodafone to change their security methods even having them on Radio 5 live at the BBC with their public relations representative. I soent months telling everyone who should be told ie The Metrolpolitan Police, The department for Trade and Industry, MI6 etc.....I was just trying to get the story out so that the public whether or not celebs or not knew that there was a big security issue. My name is Steven Nott and I live in South Wales in the UK. one day the truth will eventually out and with all of the media attention these days perhaps the public will really get to find out who started it, who kept it for themselves and the fact the officials beind the Police and Government didn't do anything to prevent it from happening....and we're talking 1998 !.

This stinks - As someone said recently if we were talking about the Brown Government doing this sort of thing all the papers would be all over it and there would have been resignations galore. The government would probably have to resign. As it is Murdoch it is only thanks to the Guardian this has come out at all well done Hugh Grant for getting this scoop Jeremy Hunt allow the takeover at your peril.

'We have a reasonably fair society and a not particularly corrupt or criminal prime minister, whereas other countries have Gaddafi' - so Cameron, Brown and Blair are/have been slightly corrupt and slightly criminal! - we want to hear more, Paul McMullen.....

The above is the most important part of the story - McMullen knows somethings about corruption and criminality at Number 10 - that is what everyone is scared of.... NS - follow this one up!.....