Up in front of the Leveson Inquiry today the Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace showed a fundamental lack of understanding about how the web worked by suggesting that if Guido signed up to some sort of kite-mark code our traffic would increase. He went on to refer to “out and out cowboys” of the blogosphere who the Inquiry has “had some problems with already“. Guido didn’t break the law publishing Campbell’s testimony, unlike Richard Wallace during his showbiz editor career period…

Leveson has already heard that as Piers Morgan’s showbiz editor, Wallace was up to his neck in phone-hacking. He’s been at the newspaper for twenty years, at a time when they have published mocked-up torture photos and the Trinity Mirror Group used the services of Steve Wittamore more than any other media organisation. During Wallace’s evidence giving Counsel for the Inquiry pointed to 681 invoices from Whittamore to the Mirror, hundreds of those illegal invoices would have been approved by Wallace himself. He admitted today that he has not sacked anyone for illegal activity, like aiding, abetting or procuring illegally blagged information, despite the Information Commissioner making the names available. He clearly doesn’t want another former employee speaking their mind… 

Our story about how the Daily Mirror came to have the Ulrika/Sven story – which was undoubtedly phone hacked – has just been referred to at the Inquiry during Wallace’s evidence (covered here). It was, as he himself admits, Wallace himself who presented it to the then editor Piers Morgan. He has just admitted to the Inquiry counsel that if, as he now claims, he “can’t remember the circumstances” of how the story was obtained, he can’t therefore rule out it was hacked. Even those who quibble about the provenance of the story merely quibble about from whom it was hacked.

More recently the Daily Mirror, under Wallace’s seemingly spotless editorial lead, destroyed the life of Chris Jefferies and paid a heavy financial price in doing so. Without any foundation whatsoever they painted an innocent neighbour of a murder victim out to be the perpetrator. They were also fined £50,000 for contempt of court over their atrociously slapdash reporting of the Joanna Yeates murder case.

Who is the real cowboy Mr Wallace?

Though he’s doing his best to avoid addressing the issue, it’s not just what Miliband would describe as the “right-wing press” that is gunning for him. If anything the lefties are even more vicious. The Indy’s cartoon has him relaunching in a coffin, while their report doesn’t hold back: “For all the good that his ‘relaunch’ will do him, Miliband might as well have spoken in Klingon… If politics is like sex, Ed will never find the national G-spot.”

After a week of gaffes, criticism of Ed’s leadership style has morphed into open mockery, even from those who should be allies. The Mail’s Quentin Letts points out:

“Miss Reeves, whose voice owes something to a Dogger Bank foghorn, said that ‘Ed has got the steely determination’ to succeed. This ignited chortles from certain Left-leaning broadsheet reporters”

It’s not just the Guardian editorials that will make Ed’s spinners wince, even the crossword setter is after him: “Miliband upset in cut vacillation (10).” – Indecision.

Despite Chris Blackhurst admitting that the paper’s reputation had suffered great damage at the hands of Johann Hari, the Indy editor also confirmed to Leveson, taking a sip of water and looking directly into the camera,  that the disgraced fraudster will be “returning as a columnist” in the next four or five weeks. He’s banned from conducting interviews though…

Apparently the fact Hari produced a doctor’s note saying he was mental was enough to satisfy the internal investigation, and subsequently the fearless inquiry into press ethics. No mention of late night racist, incest fantasy stories though..

Given that the system is already at breaking point, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing that the number of university applications is falling, but nearly all the papers this week have agreed that it is happening:

Mirror: “University applications fall 25,000″

Mail: “University applications down by 23,000″

Indy: “University applications down despite late surge”

Times: “Fewer British and European students apply to universities despite surge before deadline”

Telegraph: “University demand falls by 8%”

Guardian: “University applications slip by 8% as fees triple”

Only the FT bucked the trend with: “Students undeterred by higher University fees”

Guess which one of those pieces was written by a former adviser to David Willetts, the Minister responsible for universities?

Take a bow, spinner turned Education Correspondent and blog favourite, Chris Cook of the FT…

Only the most hysterical of haters are denying the role that the Mail played in the guilty verdict yesterday for Stephen Lawrence’s murderers. The role Paul Dacre and his journalists played is explained here, and even the Guardian have this morning described their 1997 front page as “without question, the Mail’s finest hour.” Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland goes on to give a powerful defence, all be it while wearing a plague doctor’s mask, of the tabloids:

“Tabloid editors don’t deny that they are in the business of entertaining as well as informing: broadsheet editors, if they are honest, will admit they do the same, albeit by different means (though sport and sex feature regularly in the Guardian’s “most viewed” stories online). But one senior executive told me he also believes it is his job to educate his readers, to explain the world in plain, accessible language. Even if that goal is rarely achieved, it is a noble one, one that any true democrat or egalitarian should support. For a true democracy cannot leave knowledge in the hands of the elite few; it has to be spread widely. So, yes, it has made the most gruesome mistakes and, yes, those will require severe remedy – but Britain needs its popular press, now more than ever.”

Given how the Guardian went about their campaign in the last year, many will feel this is either too little too late, or salt in a wound. You have to wonder how popular Freedland will be over at York Way this morning. The elephant in the article is a specific mention to the one tabloid that used to be the most effective of them all at informing, entertaining and holding those elites to account…

Loyal festive readers will recall that we ran a story just before Christmas about former Screws Chief Reporter Neville Thurlbeck. He was looking to rent out an apartment and was offering wedding chauffeur services. Given that the online adverts had his email address and mobile number in, we knew they were real. Mr Thurlbeck disputes some of the specifics on his new blog though, so, with due prominence:

“The “luxury Harrow-on-the-Hill apartment”, to which he refers, is not my home. It is a penthouse apartment and is one of 14 rental properties I own. The Mercedes S500 is not for sale. It is for hire as a wedding car and will be chauffeur driven by a retired taxi driver. The car for sale was actually a pristine Mercedes SL280 roadster but has been taken off the market as I quite like it. As for “Ned”, this is my nickname among very close friends and has been for 35 years… Thanks again and call me if you get married or need a roof over your head. I may even wear a peaked cap and drive you to church myself. “

No burying this one on Page 10 à la Rusbridger… 

Yesterday the Guardian published an article by former burlesque dancer Laurie Penny which claimed that

“Charlotte Church was 15 years old when Britain’s best-read daily newspaper began a public countdown to the day on which she could be legally f****d.”

The claim is totally false.

It was corrected after the Heresy Corner blog pointed out the false claim. This takes the number of corrections to stories published by the Guardian about News International tabloids to 38. All sense of proportion and indeed sense has gone out the window. The allegation was designed to deliberately characterise The Sun in the worst possible light.

UPDATE: They have managed in Grauniad style to cock-up the correction.

Today is the last trading day of the year on the New York Stock Exchange, barring any dramatic surprises shares in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation will end the day near the year’s highs. If you are lucky enough to own NewsCorp shares you will have benefited from a rise in value of over 10% this year, well outperforming a stockmarket that has flatlined.

Not that you would realise it if you only listened to the BBC or read the New York Times and The Guardian. The latter in particular always slants financial stories about NewsCorp as if there was widespread shareholder unrest with the Murdochs. Story after story on the media and finance pages of The Guardian quotes shareholders and financial advisers with doom laden sentiments about the Murdochs. Most of those quoted turn out to be activists with political rather than financial priorities…

The fact is that Rupert Murdoch owns the number one daily newspaper in America, The Wall Street Journal. NewsCorp also owns the number one news channel, the incredibly successful and profitable Fox Network. Sky franchises in the UK, Italy, Germany and Star TV in Asia are the pay-TV leaders generating phenomenal subscription revenues. Murdoch also owns the content via television production companies and movie studios. This year Super Bowl on FOX was the most watched TV show in America ever. Even after selling MySpace at a loss, he has dared to launch a new online-only news business, The Daily. Hit movies like Avatar and Black Swan generate colossal ticket sales, American Idol still brings in the ratings, globally Murdoch owned newspapers are still a cash-cow despite him closing the News of the World. In 2011 revenue rose to $33.4 billion, while adjusted operating income increased 12% to $4.98 billion. Cashflow which the owners of the loss making New York Times and Guardian can only dream…

Guardian Media Group is losing a £1 million a week, Mirror Group shares have halved in value this year and the firm has introduced a pay freeze for all workers. Based on the NewsCorp share price alone, the Murdochs finish the year a few billion richer than they started it. Despite what you may read in The Guardian or hear on the BBC, the Murdochs are very far from being against the wall and the left hates that.

No one ever got rich betting against Rupert Murdoch….

What does the former Chief Reporter of a defunct newspaper do for cash? Well if the online ad service Gumtree is anything to go by, becoming a chauffeur is the way forward…

Neville Thurlbeck, currently on bail after being arrested by Operation Weeting, is offering a “stylish, immaculate chauffeur driven Mercedes S500 available for weddings in Surrey/South West London. £125-£150.” He’s also trying to sell the “lovingly maintained” car and rent out his luxury Harrow-on-the-Hill apartment.

He’s going under the name “Ned” these days…

There are 22 articles currently listed on Google News regarding this morning’s Education Select Committee. They all mention the appearance of Rod Bristow, president of Pearson UK. The publishers own the exam board Edexcel, as well as the Financial Times.

While the Telegraph, Times, Guardian, BBC and PA are running with the grilling that Bristow got, there is absolute silence, once again, from the FT’s Education Correspondent Christopher Cook.  It’s not as if he hasn’t been filing copy, a piece by him about other matters went on the website at 3:51 pm. Plenty of time until deadline though…