Daily Heil: servile lackeys for the powerful and world laughing stock

Daily Heil shoots foot 

As the follow up to Leveson rumbles on, it is mind-boggling to hear senior journos at the Heil banging on about ‘press freedom’. Their definition of ‘freedom’ seems to be based on printing whatever their owner or their loony editor tells them to. Enough has been made of the Rothermere family history in this respect to know that this can mean sucking up to tyranny. For them to have a go at a paper which has exposed the all-pervasive nature of surveillance in our lives is absurd. The Torygraph for years has been considered the house journal for the spooks and its recent behaviour confirms that judgement. Then there are the Murdoch rags who once ran one of the great investigative papers in the modern era - the Sunday Times under Harold Evans - and who now operate under very different values.

It is no wonder then that the Snowden leaks have received such poor coverage across our media with such craven lickspittle hypocrites willing to do the establishment’s bidding. Yesterday however, the Heil went one step further with a stinging editorial and a table-chewing column from Stephen Glover about leftie jounalists. They even managed to shoehorn an attack on the Beeb into their rants. The Guardian sent their execrable offerings around the world. Here are some responses. The emphases are mine.

“No secret service likes it when its methods are being discussed openly, which is understandable as long as a secret service focuses on its core duties, such as the surveillance of terror suspects. Once a secret service starts behaving like an octopus, though, with its tentacles reaching all across everyone's life and putting whole societies under collective suspicion with everyone falling victim to total surveillance, then the societal contract has been broken. There is no justification for such violation. Yet it is fully justifies that journalists reveal such unlawful state action. This is what the Guardian has done. Nothing else.

To claim that the Guardian had shown "deadly irresponsibility" or that it was "helping the enemies" of the UK has no foundation and is appalling. To publish such claims means to slander those who consistently and carefully fulfill their journalistic duty to society.”
Wolfgang Krach, deputy editor in chief, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany

“When a newspaper prints a story, or a series of stories, such as the Snowden case, the first attacks are always aimed at its editors and publishers. State or homeland security reasons are always claimed.

It happened when The New York Times and The Washington Post printed the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War in 1973, and it happened with WikiLeaks. Now, the object of criticism is the Guardian for having printed Edward Snowden's revelations. What is sad, baffling and dangerous is that the attacks now come not only from governments but from other newspapers too. In doing so, they are ignoring their first and utmost obligation. The press must serve the citizens and comply with their right to have access to truthful and relevant informations when it comes to public affairs. Newspapers have many duties. Having to protect governments and the powerful from embarrasing situations is not among them. 

The Guardian's work in the Snowden case is an example of great journalism, the kind that changes history and the kind that citizens need more every day, in a world where the powerful are increasingly trying to hide information from their societies. The real danger is not in the so-called "aid to the enemy" denounced by the hypocrites, but in the actions of governments and state agencies that citizens cannot control. To fight it we need newspapers willing to do their job, rather than those ready to cheer on the self-interested deceptions of the powerful.”
Javier Moreno, director, El País, Spain

“The Daily Mail apparently has absolute faith in the integrity and competence of its government on national security matters, despite the ample lessons of history. The Mail has a right to be the government's toady. We'll look elsewhere for actual journalism, which we still need”
Dan Gillmor, director, Knight centre for digital media

“I am not surprised by the attacks, considering the level of importance, the magnitude, and the ongoing nature of the leaks. But for journalists to suggest that editors of newspapers, not being experts on security matters, are unfit to make decisions on publishing confidential material and must leave the whole field of surveillance and security to the state to handle as it thinks fit, under an impenetrable veil of secrecy, sounds to me like the worst kind of intellectual philistinism.”
N. Ram, former editor-in-chief, the Hindu

“It is with abhorrence that we have read today's editorial in the Daily Mail attacking the Guardian's coverage of Edward Snowden's revelations and accusing its competitor of "aiding Britain's enemies". It effectively amounts to the accusation of treason.

We fully support the Guardian's relentless disclosures of secret services' abuses of power and widespread spying on citizens, domestically as well as abroad. For many months now, the Guardian has been subject to unprecedented pressure by the British government, in order to discourage its reporters and editors from pursuing such stories. We are convinced that, in this case, the national security argument is largely overused; since the revealed massive surveillance of people cannot be justified by the war on terror.”
Piotr Stasinski, deputy editor-in-chief, Gazeta Wyborcza

Hang your head in shame Dacre.