Sunday 27 November 2011

Sunday Times: 'Shame of the tabloid abattoir'


Two Sunday Times journalists reviewing the Leveson Inquiry today can't be accused of being soft on the News of the World or the tabloids.

Tim Rayment says evidence given to Leveson last week shows why the News of the World, owned like the Sunday Times by News International, had to close.

And columnist Dominic Lawson feels the Leveson Inquiry is showing the public inside "the journalistic abattoir".

Rayment in the Sunday Times' News Review writes: "There are times when a reporter feels ashamed of his industry. The News of the World is the very newspaper that published Kate McCann’s diaries without asking her and abused and bullied the McCanns — there are no other words for it — into an interview. As time passes, it is more and more clear why James Murdoch, the chairman of News International, abruptly closed the paper in July."

Lawson in his Sunday Times column says: "It is frequently said that if you like sausages your stomach will not thank you for discovering how they are made. The tabloids will fear that the Leveson inquiry might have a similar effect on those who avidly consume stories about people’s personal lives. Brian Leveson’s forensic approach is taking the public into the journalistic abattoir to see how the front-page snap of a dazed-looking actress is achieved."

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