News International announced last week that it planned to close its afternoon freesheet, the London Paper having lost £12.9m in year to end of June 2008. The last edition will likely be printed on September 18th 2009.
The announcement signals an end to the London freesheet wars, which began almost exactly three years ago in August 2006. Continue reading
(Laugh? I nearly cried!!…)
James Murdoch, The Chairman and Chief Executive for Europe and Asia of News Corporation and son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, speaking last week at the Edinburgh International Television Festival attacked the BBC and its online expansion claiming it is a threat to “independent journalism”, and called for an “overhaul of regulation”.
Mr Murdoch also said in his lecture that the BBC is “dominant” and that its “income is guaranteed and growing.”…
August 4, 2009
John Pilger
I MET Eddie Spearritt in the Philharmonic pub overlooking Liverpool. It was a few years after 96 Liverpool football fans had been crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, on April 15, 1989. Eddie’s son, Adam, aged 14, died in his arms. The “main reason for the disaster,” Lord Justice Taylor subsequently reported, was the “failure” of the police, who had herded fans into a lethal pen.
“As I lay in my hospital bed,” Eddie said, “the hospital staff kept the Sun away from me. It’s bad enough when you lose your 14-year-old son because you’re treating him to a football match. Nothing can be worse than that. But since then I’ve had to defend him against all the rubbish printed by the Sun about everyone there being a hooligan and drinking. There was no hooliganism. During 31 days of Lord Justice Taylor’s inquiry, no blame was attributed because of alcohol. Adam never touched it in his life.”
Three days after the disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie, Rupert Murdoch’s “favorite editor,” sat down and designed the Sun front page, scribbling “THE TRUTH” in huge letters. Beneath it, he wrote three subsidiary headlines: “Some fans picked pockets of victims”…”Some fans urinated on the brave cops”…”Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life.” All of it was false; MacKenzie was banking on anti-Liverpool prejudice.
When sales of the Sun fell by almost 40 percent on Merseyside, Murdoch ordered his favorite editor to feign penitence. BBC Radio 4 was chosen as his platform. The “sarf London” accent that was integral to MacKenzie’s fake persona as an “ordinary punter” was now a contrite, middle-class voice that fitted Radio 4. “I made a rather serious error,” said MacKenzie, who has since been back on Radio 4 in a very different mood, aggressively claiming that the Sun’s treatment of Hillsborough was merely a “vehicle for others.”
When we met, Eddie Spearritt mentioned MacKenzie and Murdoch with a dignified anger. So did Joan Traynor, who lost two sons, Christopher and Kevin, whose funeral was invaded by MacKenzie’s photographers even though Joan had asked for her family’s privacy to be respected. The picture of her sons’ coffins on the front page of a paper that had lied about the circumstances of their death so deeply upset her that for years she could barely speak about it.
Such relentless inhumanity forms the iceberg beneath the Guardian’s current exposé of Murdoch’s alleged payment of $1.7 million hush money to those whose phones his News of the World reporters have criminally invaded. “A cultural Chernobyl,” is how the German investigative journalist Reiner Luyken, based in London, described Murdoch’s effect on British life. Continue reading
Step 1. Cancel your SKY subscription. 700 channels of absolute crap. You know as well as I do that you never watch the films or much else for that matter. 9 times out of ten you end up watching the terrestrial channels anyway. Time to revert to freeview and think about the money you are saving. See how to cancel your SKY contract
Step 2. Make sure you have a good internet connection and a pc at home. Anything less than broadband will make it very difficult for you to enjoy watching the live streams of the games that are available. If you dont have an internet connection at home dont worry, you can get online broadband for as little as £4 a month now days. For best deals see http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-broadband
Step 3. Here we go! Time to get all your favourite footie games for free live on your pc. Using the following links on match days you should be able to get the footie games you are looking for, all for the price of your internet connection with your internet service provider. Basically peanuts!
Think about the money you will save and the joy that you will get from watching Saturday afternoon matches live and for FREE!
Recommended Free Footie Links:
These are not the only websites out there that are providing free streams of the football matches but are a few that can be used to enjoy access on match days. If anyone out there has any other good links that they could recommend please post below under comments. All links provided will help to make this a valuable source for footie fans looking for their favourite match ups on the weekend.
Not only that but these websites can also help you to bypass the ridiculously priced box office pay per view sky promotions where they basically take advantage again of the punters at home. You can also access PPV boxing, tennis and all other sports if you know where to look.
Happy surfing and remember to leave feedback and new sites for others to enjoy in comments. Beat the system and boycott Murdoch’s media monopoly.
Best wishes
Tio
Cancelling Sky is not easy. Sky themselves are very careful *not* to include such information on their website (or at least no obvious, easy information and procedure.) Here is some useful info to make your cancellation quick and easy.
How to Cancel Your Sky Contract
Cancel Online
Sky should confirm quickly that you account is cancelled – by email or phone or both. If you don’t get confirmation by the date expected, get on the phone or write or complete the online form again.
Bala Fria 