From the KHOODEELAAR! Organiser Muhammad Haque's diagnostic communication sent to Malcolm Starbrook, ‘editor of the ‘East London Idiotiser’ on 12 February 2008:
We are running in April 2009 the KHOODEELAAR! diagnosis of the ‘East London Idiotiser’ as made in February 2008, because, as we had accurately diagnosed then, the Idiotiser was a persistently faking, lying organ that was operating a fake outfit .. which was more aligned to the Crossrail hole scam-inviting cabal on the Tower Hamlets Council than all the Idiotiser’s accumulated statements of denial would suggest. The statements of denial meaning that the Idiotiser was somewhat opposed to the Council’s conduct.
[To be continued]
“
Khoodeelaar! Complaints [latest] against the “ELA” -
Part 1 of the substantive response to Mr Starbrook – 1
as at 1035 Hrs GMT Monday 11 February 2008
This is being sent despite our previous emails saying
that a longer amount of time would be needed for our
reply to your e-mail in view of the large number of
documentary materials that we have had to create and
obtain concerning the conduct of the ‘ELA’.
1. The attached e-mail was sent to your reporter [and
or ‘deputy editor’ and or ‘news editor,’ and or foc
and or ‘chief reporter’] Mr Ted Jeory dated 12
December 2007, and is self-explanatory. It was sent in
good faith and in direct response to Mr Ted Jeory’s
invitation to us to the effect that a right of reply
was available to us as an option.
2. The ‘right of reply’ was not allowed to us in
print. That was typical conduct.
3. In the actual presentation of the campaign demands
and position to the ‘full council’ on 28 November
2007, I covered a wide range of key issues. Those are
far more important than the word ‘disruption’ denotes.
4. Did that presentation occur in ‘big’ sentences too?
Or did I use an alien language there as well?
5. This is a reference to racist bias prejudice and
ignorance. If it is not racist bias then I want to
know what it is.
6. Given that Mr Ted Jeory sat literally within inches
from the spot occupied by six other Khoodeeaar!
Campaign members who were near me as I spoke, what
could have been the explanation for reducing all of
that to a simple concept of disruption?
7. The work created by Khoodeelaar! over the past 4
years plus in defence of the community in the East End
against the agenda that Crossrail hole plot typifies,
is VERY unique. NO session of the Tower Hamlets
Council , whether as ‘full council ’ or as
‘committee’ has come to match, let alone supersede far
less surpass [as judged objectivity] that work in any
significant way.. Yet ‘reading’ the ‘coverage’ in the
‘ELA’ it would be impossible to even imagine that that
has been the case. The ‘ELA’ policy is demonstrably to
side with the Tower Hamlets Council’s pro-Crossrail
hole plot controlling clique.
8. The space given to the Tower Hamlets Council’s
alleged campaign against the Crossrail hole plot is
unjustified and it is irresponsible. The facts are
that the controlling clique continues to back the
fundamentally flawed scheme. That is not the position
of any ‘campaigner against the same scheme’ on the
facts, there has been no campaign by the Tower Hamlets
Council if there were then we would not have to have
been doing 4 years of hard work.
9. On every count, we have been and are continuing to
be the campaigners aghast the Crossrail hole. And the
majority of the energy of our campaign has been
devoted to countering the behaviour f the Tower
Hamlets Council . Yet the ‘ELA’ keeps finding excuses
to paint the Tower Hamlets Council as a campaigner.
This conduct is dishonest And a lie. And it must not
be repeated. If it is repeated then there cannot be
any other basis for doing it other than that the ‘ELA’
is biased and prejudiced against us and in favour of
the wrong-doing clique.
10. Khoodeelaar! has been requested by hundreds of
people from Stepney through Whitechapel to Brick Lane
to represent their opposition to the Crossrail hole
plot to the House of Lords . That we are doing. Yet
the ‘ELA’ has neither the space nor the inclination to
report this.
11. The allegedly 2 page spread that the ‘ELA’ carried
in 2006 was full of factual errors, inaccuracies and
fabrications. Despite our pointing this out in great
detail soon afterwards, the errors have been allowed
to stay uncorrected. As has the Khoodeelaar! Campaign
being put on the side as an occasional thing.
12. No-one would know by reading the ‘ELA’ that we
are directly auditing and dealing with all published
and publicized components of the Crossrail plot scheme
on a daily basis. If nut on an hourly basis during
some parts of every week!
13. Strangely, [1] there appear to be some
mysteriously persistent and large space being
allocated to characters that do nit really warrant the
plugs. Perhaps the ‘decision-makers’ on the ELA are
too preoccupied with finding excuses to plugs these
spurious elements to be able to report the campaign
against the Crossrail hole attacks on the East End of
London…
14. How many other campaigners have taken their
demands or arguments to the legislative upper chamber
of the UK Parliament from the East End of London apart
from Khoodeelaar! and our associated campaigners?
15. Strangely [2] , some dubious and totally
unrepresentative elements keep being featured in the
‘ELA’ as if they speak for the community on the
issues concerned.
16. There are several hundred other items that we
shall be referring to in due course. Those will
include precise factual items that the ‘ELA’ has been
getting wrong despite being given the correct facts,
the correct context, history, reference and despite
being very clearly and repeatedly told not to get the
stuff so wrong..
“
=======
ffice of Fair Trading probe into council newspapers on the rates
20 April 2009
By Malcolm Starbrook
THE Office of Fair Trading is looking at the effects on Britain’s struggling local press by town halls running their own free newspapers out of council tax.
It is part of a review into press ownership and follows a consultation paper in which the competition watchdog invited the regional publishing industry to submit evidence about the public sector media.
The OFT has held meetings with the Newspaper Society and the newly formed Local Media Alliance which have both raised fears about the impact town halls are having on the already-fragile regional media.
RISING PRESSURE
Publishers are under increasing pressure from public sector bodies developing their own media outlets such as newspapers and online TV channels paid for out of council tax, it has been told.
The local authorities that submitted a response to the OFT investigation argued that their own communications were important to ensure accountability.
Some said it was important to make a distinction between reducing their ad costs in local newspapers and directly competing for advertising revenue in the open market.
BATTLEGROUND
The situation in East London is becoming more of a battleground.
Barking & Dagenham council is to launch a newspaper paid for by local taxes which is to carry council advertising rather than the authority placing ads in the local press as it has always done traditionally for the past 90 years. Neighbouring Newham is now considering launching its own newspaper.
Both follow the example of Tower Hamlets which has been running its weekly East End Life launched in direct competition with the long-established East London Advertiser which marked its 122nd anniversary in November. It is paid for out of town hall coffers—both the printing and its massive distribution to nearly every property in the East End.
BIASED
The Advertiser has been running its own campaign with Government ministers, now backed by Opposition local councillors this week.
Both Conservative and Respect Opposition groups at Tower Hamlets have complained that the Labour-controlled East End Life ignored their alternative budget proposals. They claim it is biased while only giving coverage to Labour’s budget—which is one of the few in London to rise this year.
+++
Open letter to MP Denis MacShane, from retired Australian newspaper correspondent Leo Chapman now living in London.
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