to learn how to run a business properly and take responsibility as boss.

(ouch, controversial!)

MILF. She does know how to run a business successfully though. Ignore the people on a witch-hunt who are trying to make political gains out of this.

Successfully maybe, ethically no. And if you see this as simply a political witch hunt, I can only suspect that you yourself are wearing politically-biased blinkers.

Absolutely anyone I talk to about what happened at NotW is disgusted at what went on on Rebekah's watch. And few believe she didn't know all about it.

The only programme I want to see Rebekah in is Girls Behind Bars.

Hear hear!

MILF? She looks like a man imo. And there is no evidence whatsoever that she ran a 'successful' business - the actions on her hands-on watch have ended a paper that has been running for 165 years. If you think that's success I hope you don't go into business!

Can't believe Rebecca Brooks has kept her job and Murdoch is standing right behind her, despite the fact she was editor at the time of these hacking claims. Yet, hundreds of perfectly innoncent Journalists get sacked!

Rebekah said she would only come to TA on condition that Lord Sugar's, Nick's and Karren's mobile numbers are made known to her beforehand......

Why? She must have them already.

Behind her?


Hundreds? No. A few dozen... who may or may not possibly - and, if so, by a massive and complete coincidence - soon be working for a paper that may or may not perhaps be introduced and possibly maybe perhaps titled something like the Sun on Sunday within days... possibly?

Be careful, she knows your mobile number.

Rebekah Brooks?

This has been exercising my mind for the past few days as well, and I've come to the conclusion that Rebekah must be Rupert's daughter.

Secretary: Lord Sugar says you can go through now...

RB: I know, I heard the call.

I bet Brooks is not the only editor to employ people who hacked phones. There has been a circulation war between the tabloids for a long time and I bet more will be revealed about all this hacking.

By this, I meant Murdoch is sticking up/backing her. You're wrong there with your facts. You really do need to take a look at some other sources such as The Guardian or the BBC.

Your comments sound like they're coming from someone that reads the Murdoch press, maybe The Times. It was hundreds!

Immediately made me think of the classic Blackadder exchange;


General Melchett: The healthy humor of the honest tommy. Don't worry my boy, if you should falter, remember that Captain Darling and I are behind you.

Captain Blackadder: About thirty-five miles behind you.


I'd say Murdoch is even further back.

In fact, you completely missed the (admittedly rather subtle) point of my post. Which didn't contain any 'facts' anyway.


I don't have a clue what you're talking about there, but the bottom line is that you're way out of touch. Newspapers haven't employed 'hundreds' of journalists for years. The days of huge newsrooms are long gone, these days it's a comparatively small core staff and a lot of freelancers who, by their nature, also have other streams of income. At least the smart ones do.

Of course the NOTW is going to 'big up' the impact of the closure and about how many job losses there will be. By the way you're claiming 'hundreds' of 'innocent' (I had to laugh at that) journalists are losing their jobs, you sound like the Murdoch press devotee, not me. For the record I have never read any of Murdoch's rags, and I never will. Nor the Grauniad or any of the other pieces of poisonous cat litter.

But you're evidently the expert...

I understood that she was planning to revive "Drop the dead donkey" - tastefully, of course!


I don't read the tabloids, so explain what I may have missed - have there been any splashes in NotW about important people porking her? (besides a hard-man soap star - ex husband, I recall) - is that the undercurrent of why she thinks she's made of Teflon?

Rubbish. The journalism industry at a national scale is not a COTTAGE INDUSTRY. How much bigger is the Journalism industry than say the film industry which is where this might apply. Freelancers don't get anywhere if we're being honest because they don't have the financial/commercial backing.

They do it out of the pleasure and it isn't profitable on most occasions. The NOTW will be the last people that will big up the job losses considering they're supposed to be the ones behind the phone hacking scandal. It is only a few as well, Glenn Mulcaire for instance. What rags have you read to find your information out? Btw, I'm a Journalism student.

MILF? She was pretty enough ten years ago but now she looks like a potential winner of a Mick Hucknall lookalike contest.

As for knowing how to run a successful business, actions on her watch have ended a business that was going on for its bicentenary.

Political gains? Who? The evidence is mounting that they've been hacking and backstabbing people from all the major parties.


Rebekah is a family friend of the Murdoch's (through Rupert's daughter). There could be an element of loyalty as a result but they don't strike me as the most loyal bunch. More likely she knows more than they'd like her to as a result of her closeness to the family and fear she may blab about exactly how much certain people knew if they show her the door.


With your beliefs about the industry, I would suggest that you change course.

Still, as you said, you're a student. Your glasses will soon lose their rose tint.

On a TV programme last week responding to the question why illegal hacking and bribing of the police was rife and not tackled by politicians, Harriet Harman QC said all politicians were running scared of newspapers, in particular of tabloids. You only need to say one bad word about them, and they would send a whole team of investigators to watch your house, your daily routine, and any skeletons in your personal life. Newspapers have enough power to terminate the careers of persons in the public eye. All this harassment was done claiming to serve "the public interest".

Such illegal hacking and snooping was not that differently from that practised by the secret police of eastern Europe before the iron curtain was lifted. Our so-called guardians of free speech came to repress free speech, not by violence but by intimidation.

The nearest parallel which comes to mind was Watergate in USA. At that time the hacking and snooping of citizens was justified on grounds that those who opposed continuing the Vietnam war needed to be watched so that they did not undermine the government line and alleged national interest from within. Just as Watergate skullduggery was brought to light by two journalists, in the present case it was exposed by a persistent Guardian newspaper despite the police trying to keep a lid on it.

Ah, that explains it. You're a journalism student, therefore you know everything and anyone else who might actually have some real life experience in the industry knows jack all. Given that I've been a professional writer for the past 20 years, I will make sure I seek your advice on everything from the correct use of semi-colons to how to justify text in QuarkXPress, commissioning photographers and copyright law...:yawn:


Really? You definitely are an expert. Funny how many of the people I deal with on a daily basis have managed...


You're right in that writing is not a particularly lucrative career, largely down to the fact that - like photography - everyone and their dog thinks that they can do it and the wider perception is that it's not a 'proper' job. There is, however, a huge gulf between being able to write and being able to write to a professional standard. As I'm sure you'll discover when you leave school...


Um, I think you should see what happens in the long-term before making declarations like that.


... who wasn't a journalist, anyway. What was that you said about facts?


You insist on trying to patronise me and all you're doing is making yourself look foolish. OK, you're a teenager and therefore you know everything, but still. It's quite embarrassing.

Where are you a student, anyway? Please tell me it's not Falmouth - I would hate for the standard of its journalism students to have evidently fallen so far since I was there all those years ago

PS I graduated with first class honours, no rags required, Something for you to work towards.

I didn't know you worked in the Journalism industry, obviously I now respect the views of someone with a lot more experience than me. My age doesn't mean I don't have a valid opinion though. As a student, I'm learning all the time and I will make mistakes along the way.

Anyone can do Journalism if they want, be it citizen Journalism catching footage on phones of the 9/11 tower attacks or blogging. Some of these people that don't even have degrees go on to find themselves a job from it.

I'm a 19 year old student at Chester University mate, just passed my first year in fact yesterday. Where do you and have you worked as a Journalist? Please PM me because I would hugely respect your opinions or advise. Sorry if I come across as a bit of a dick, I'm not.

I find the bits I've bolded interesting and amusing at the same time.

Does that mean that the opinions of those of us who are not journalists are not worthy of your respect?

Your age doesn't mean you don't have a valid opinion but it does mean that others with more experience to draw on, whatever their chosen path in life, may have opinions that are based on events and facts that you may not even be aware of.

The absurdity euphemistically tagged "citizen journalism" has a lot to answer for.

Even people who don't have degrees are able to find jobs? What an obvious sign of your age (and I'm only 27 myself). Degrees have become a virtual rite of passage only in the last decade or so (the problem in this being that anything that becomes almost the norm is devalued).

I suspect she may be staying somewhere courtesy of HM prison services by then.