@Hugh Grant & The BBC

Hugh Grant: "Any new system of regulation has to satisfy not politicians and their chums in the media, but ordinary victims of these crimes." Via the BBC.

Hugh Grant

So Mr Grant decides that he is an ordinary person. Mr Grant is not an ordinary person but a public figure. Ok granted he's not a politician, however in the same sense Mr Grant should be held to account. In no way am I defending the heinous hackers at News Corp. What I am defending is this beautiful abundance of free speech in the media. Mr Grant has urged the E.U. to crack down on the media, he's urged prime minister David Cameron and here he is on the BBC. 

Both the movie and music industry have more dark corners than the British free press and less accountability. Perhaps the "ordinary" people would like to see this reformed. Would Hugh Grant endorse an independent auditor for these too?

Vladimir Bukovsky

Hugh talk to Tony Blair he would love to help you in your quest of regulation. The press should remain a free and open encounter, so that the "ordinary" person can hold "politicians and their chums in the media" to account, was it not because we have a free press that this is just what happened - hacking was exposed or was it exposed because of an unidentified quango? The hacking itself was a criminal matter and should be dealt with accordingly. 

Mr Grant like most celebrities court the media when it suits them. In Soviet Russia the Samizdat was a movement that avoided censorship, much like my little blog. This would earn you a visit from the KGB, Vladimir Bukovsky was a leading dissident in communist Russia. He defined the Samizdat as follows "I myself create it, edit it, censor it, publish it, distribute it, and...get imprisoned for it." 

Mr Bukovsky currently resides in the UK, he received the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in 2001. A medal awarded by the Victims of Communism foundation. Mr Bukovsky was one of the first in Russia to expose psychiatric imprisonment having spent a upto 12 years  in Soviet prisons, labour camps and forced-treatment psychiatric "hospitals". Mr Bukovsky is the real deal.  Perhaps Hugh Grant should talk with Mr Bukovsky about regulation of the press and where that leads to.  

"If the goal is to restrain the power of the 'press' and stop corruption, other kinds of division are also essential. Rules are most likely to be fair and honest if their design is separated from their administration. This allows diverse interests to be involved in making the rules but reduces the incentives for rulemakers to design rules that favour them. " Good and Bad Power.

The free press is like the internet, it's either free or it isn't.

I would like to add this correspondence from Mr Bukovsky to the TV Licensing Agency  (BBC);

"Finally, the fact that I have not watched television since 2001 does not necessarily prove that I have no intention to watch it in the future. Moreover, people's intentions tend to change with time. I cannot rule out that, at a  certain point, I would be obliged to turn on my TV set, for example, in order to verify that the BBC is still biased in its coverage of news and current affairs and, therefore, we are justified in continuing our campaign against it."  

Yours respectfully

Vladimir Bukovsky

See my first article below
://dot2dotnews.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/freedom-of-press-and-citizen-journalism.html


Or 
http://dot2dotnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/murdochs-vs-scientology.html

Or these from the Daily Mail; 
FiX Factor:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2214466/X-Factor-2012-Fix-What-producer-whispering-Louis-Walsh-judge-CHANGED-mind.html
Leveson Luvvies beware:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2214352/Leveson-luvvies-millions-using-media-beware-wish-for.html

And this from The Telegraph;
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/jamesrhodes/100066768/at-last-the-classic-brit-awards-exposed-as-a-sickening-crime-against-classical-music/