Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Daily News Editor-In-Chief Gets A Taste Of His Own Tabloid Medicine

Classic - Colin Myler, a tabloid editor and newsman who has spent his life having other people blindsided and hounded by reporters, finds himself followed to the cleaners by an ITV reporter.

Video here.

Myler, the Daily News editor-in-chief who sent Daily News reporters to schools to ask parents how they felt about having their kids taught by "bad teachers," the editor-in-chief who sent Daily News reporters to camp outside the homes of teachers rated "bad" on the NYC Teacher Data Reports and take their pictures for the papers, is getting a taste of his own tabloid medicine as he drops his clothes off.

There's a reason Myler is getting the tabloid treatment.

The Commons select committee report on the News Corporation hacking scandal that was released today said Myler had

deliberately avoided disclosing crucial information to the committee and, when asked to do, answered questions falsely."

The Guardian reports that Myler has issued a statement defending himself:

"I stand by the evidence that I gave the committee. I have always sought to be accurate and consistent in what I have said."

Given the seriousness of the Commons report censure and the possibility that Myler will have to appear before Parliament to publicly apologize for his deliberately misleasing the committee investigating the hacking scandal, I would think this won't be the last time Myler gets followed by a reporter looking for comment - especially since Myler remains as editor-in-chief of the NY Daily News.

Lying to Parliament is not the only crime Myler is accused of in the hacking scandal.

In addition, Labor MP Tom Watson has accused Myler of sending reporters to dig up dirt on Commons committee members who were investigating the News Corporation hacking scandal in order to intimidate them from following through in the investigation:

Colin Myler's editorship of the New York Daily News, one of the most prominent newspapers in America, has come under renewed scrutiny following allegations that he attempted to intimidate members of the UK parliament investigating phone hacking at the News of the World at the time he led the now-defunct tabloid.

Media monitoring groups and experts in journalistic ethics in America have described the allegations raised against Myler as "horrifying" and "abhorrent". New York magazine has also published a 5,000-word profile of Myler in its current issue, putting a spotlight on to Myler within the US media that he has assiduously tried to avoid – until now with relative success.

...

The allegations were made last week by Tom Watson, a Labour MP who has been at the forefront of the exposure of phone hacking and other illegal activities within Rupert Murdoch's UK newspapers. At the launch of his new co-authored book, Dial M for Murdoch, Watson said he had been told of Myler's attempted intimidation of MPs by Neville Thurlbeck, former chief reporter at the News of the World.


Myler has yet to respond to that allegation.

Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman has made no comment at all.

Apparently in the world of Zuckerman and Myler, accountability is only for the little people - like the teachers smeared by the media, in particular the New York Daily News, over the error-riddled TDR's.

But when the editor-in-chief of one of the nation's biggest newspapers is censured for lying to Parliament and accused of having his reporters dig up dirt on investigators in order to use that information to intimidate them into lightening up in their investigation, there is no accountability for either the editor embroiled in the scandal or the real estate mogul who hired him to run his newspaper.

2 comments:

  1. Wow! If there was any justice in this world, his reputation would be in the toilet and he wouldn't be deemed fit to be an editor.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very true. In fact, if there were any justice in the world, criminals like Myler wouldn't be deemed fit to work in journalism.

    ReplyDelete