George Michael:Not much faith in Leveson

George Michael has swung a Twitter bat at David Cameron and the Tories, and Rupert Murdoch, and... oh, everyone:

The singer made his remarks in a series of tweets on Tuesday morning, ranting about Rupert Murdoch, David Cameron, phone hacking, the Daily Mail and the allegedly "sham" system that he claims has failed to jail any journalist for criminal activities apart from the royal editor of the News of the World, five years ago.

Michael started his tweets 10am by criticising the Daily Mail for not covering remarks he made in defence of gay teenagers.

He then moved to Murdoch: "who btw, has been called 'unfit' to run a major media company by MPs. Understatement of the year?".

Then Michael laid into the Tories over two sequential tweets: "And it's so funny that the Conservatives in government are defending him! Trying to cover their arses when those lily white buttocks of theirs are already on display for the whole world to see. Cameron must be the most cowardly PM we've seen for decades."

To finish off, Michael claims that he'd been asked to appear at the Leveson enquiry but had turned them down.

It turns out this might have all the truth of Andre Ridgeley saying that he was invited to do his thing on Listen Without Prejudice - Volume One, but was too busy.

If you're asked to appear at Leveson, you have no choice but to appear; it's possible that Michael was given the opportunity to appear as a volunteer, but didn't; even so, that wouldn't have come from the Enquiry team.

You can trust Gordon Smart's column

There's a new book about the Phone Hacking scandal - or the parts which have come to light so far - and Roy Greenslade has an extract from Chris Atkins' chapter on Starsuckers. From which, I'm going to extract a key part:

Our biggest story was in The Sun, revealing that Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud was secretly a fan of Quantum Physics.

It ran as a lead story in Gordon Smart's Bizarre column. Smart's article also included a fabricated quote: 'There is a lot more going on under that blonde barnet than Sarah is given credit for. She's a smart cookie and does read an awful lot.'

This quote didn't come from Jen, showing that the Sun will add fictitious quotes into their articles, as well as not running basic checks.

At the time, Girls Aloud appeared regularly in The Sun, so it would have taken minutes to check with the agent or PR if there was any truth to our story.

The Harding physics story was then was picked up by dozens of news sites around the world. Had we claimed it, the story fee would have earned us £600 from News International...

Gordon Smart has been asked about this total made-up bollocks which he published in a newspaper, during the Leveson enquiry:

LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Actually, what we're discussing is the suggestion somebody deliberately made up a story and phoned you up and then it appeared in the newspaper. I don't consider that's entirely trivial. Do you?

[Gordon Smart]: No, I don't, and we take it seriously. We called the PR, we checked it out, and he said he had no issue with the story. He didn't want to ring the person, Sarah, directly about it because he said it sounds like her. He said, "It wouldn't surprise me at all if she owned a book like that", and that was a green light for me to publish.

There's no explanation of how 'she might own a book, it's not impossible' turns into the made-up quote that Smart published.

What is beautiful, though, is how Smart promises that he takes seriously ensuring that everything he publishes is true while defending publishing a story that clearly isn't.

Gordon in the morning: Health matters

Here's something that Leveson might like to ponder. Earlier this week Sun editor Dominic Mohan and showbiz editor Gordon Smart appeared before the judge, insisting that theirs was an ethical, sound newspaper.

Today, there's rather a lot about Robin Gibb's health, matters which would appear to be private and without any real public interest justification.

Richard White, chief showbiz writer, has apparently spoken to a "close family pal" - one of those "close" "pals" who yaks to the newspapers about a sick friend; we all have those, right?

Obviously, if this was information Gibb and his family wanted being raked over by the newspaper, that close pal would be happy to speak on the record, yes?

And just in case there was any doubt:

His spokesman would not comment.

Why is The Sun printing details about a seriously ill person who clearly doesn't want to have that information in the public domain? Maybe Justice Leveson could bring back a couple of Sun people and ask them to show their thinking.

Gordon in the morning: Hair appointment

It's a miracle there's anything on Bizarre today - not only because Gordon was busy explaining what a tight ship he runs over at the Leveson Enquiry yesterday, but because we now know the hours and hours and hours put into making sure all the stories are true and accurate. Who knows what lengths the Smarties went to in order to check whether the lyrics to a Jay-Z song were true, for example?

Still, some sort of kudos to the subs for sneaking a reference to Smart's day in court into an otherwise pointless bit on Wayne Rooney's ridiculous new Young James Herriot hairdo:

Looks like Rooney’s had the hairdryer treatment

Surely a reference to Gordon's evidence:

Smart says he has heard it mentioned that working for the Sun is like being centre forward for Manchester United; "if you don't score you'll get the hairdryer treatment and get dropped".

Gordon in the courtroom

Gordon Smart has been giving "evidence" to the Leveson enquiry this morning; his written submission to the enquiry has just been published.

He seems to print an awful lot of photos of celebrity's kids for someone who takes the PCC code so seriously.

This bit is interesting, where Gordon talks about the use of "sources":

Without further corroboration, that story would not be published. This happens very occaSionally, For example, one member of my staff had a great contact linked to a female pop star. She was reluctant to reveal his/her identity because both she and her contact were aware I was close to the pop star in question and they had concerns about the contact’s anonymity being compromised. The story was published because I was able to corroborate the information officially through the PR company and my contacts.

Gordon also shares the process which went into the publication of the photo from Mani's mum's funeral, and - oh! - the heartbreaking difficulties he faced deciding to publish:

By way of example, this year I chose to print a picture of a band reunited for the first time in 20 years after an acrimonious split. The picture was taken by a pub barman at the wake of one of the band member’s mothers. After careful consideration I decided the story of their reunion was such a positive pieces of news, I felt we could publish the picture despite the circumstances in which it had been taken. The publication of this picture caused some upset at the time amongst certain relatives of the bereaved band member, but I have since spoken to him and he accepted that it was a fair decision to publish

You'll spot that the upset was amongst a number of relatives, who have turned into a "him" by the second clause of the sentence.

And you'd have to wonder at the mindset of a man who - even if a self-justification written months later - would think that it was "positive" that two people had met up at a funeral.

The other strange thing is that Gordon claims that all Bizarre stories are rigorously stood-up before publication; and yet this photo was published connected to a claim the Roses were reuniting. A tale which was pretty comprehensively rubbished as soon as it appeared. Unfortunately, Gordon's written evidence doesn't seek to connect how the story was simultaneously being stood up while being knocked down everywhere else. Perhaps a question for another day?

Gordon in the morning: Gordon in the courtroom

A worried Gordon brings news this morning that someone has apparently threatened to reveal secrets about Tamara Ecclestone. You know how much The Sun, and the Bizarre team in particular, hate the idea of someone's privacy being invaded.

Which reminds me: Gordon's name came up once or twice in the Leveson enquiry into the press yesterday. Unusually for Gordon, who likes a story that he can place himself in, the tale doesn't get a mention in today's column.

There's not even the chance of a mock-up image of how Gordon and Justice Leveson might look if they came together to thrash things out:

Yesterday, Chris Atkins appeared at the enquiry. He made the movie Starsuckers, which set out to prove that certain newspapers would print any old rubbish without a care for the truth of it. I know it's hard to believe Smart's name would come up in this context, but it did. From the Guardian's live blog:

One of the stories that Atkins and his collaborator Jen got into the papers was about a Girls Aloud singer.

"Sarah Harding was secretly a fan of quantum physics".

It ran as a lead story in Gordon Smart's Bizarre column in the Sun complete with a fake quote.

The Sun objects to this and have asked the Leveson inquiry to challenge it. It says it rang Sarah Harding's PR who gave them the quote.

Atkins says he finds this "a remarkable coincidence" as the Sun did not challenge this claim about the fake quote since the movies came out two years ago.

You've also got to love a response which quibbles over how made-up the quote was while not actually engaging with the wider question of how a totally bollock-stuffed story appeared in Smart's column in the first place.

Chris Atkins does point out that running rubbish doesn't actually stand in the way of being celebrated by your peers:

Gordon Smart was, after our film, voted the number one celebrity journalist of the year and second was Clemmie Moodie of the Mirror and both of them ran our stories.

There's your angle, Gordon: "Judge hears of Sun man's awards success". It's not all grim news for The Sun in the courtroom, is it?

By the way: the original of that photo is worth a look.