The MSM: Even Sleazier Than We Thought

I realise pretty much everyone reads Laban anyway, but there may be some folks who didn't catch an incredible quote over over there a few days ago:

Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council - Tameside holds regular meetings with local newspaper editors to gather information and stop sensationalist reporting which might otherwise start or add to rising tensions, e.g. in response to a Kick Racism out of Football campaign, an extremist political group wanted to picket a local football stadium. A local newspaper was going to print the story on its front page – an action that was likely to bring unwanted publicity to the picket and fuel rising community tensions. The intervention of the Community Cohesion Partnership prevented the story from being run and in the event no-one turned out for the picket.

Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council - The Berwick Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP) is working with the local press/media to vet stories involving migrant workers from eastern Europe and Portugal employed in the food processing and agricultural sectors to prevent stigmatisation.

No room for misquote there. Government officials are scrutinising the media's output to prevent reporting of the wrong truth.

If nothing else, I hope folks in Tameside and Berwick aren't paying full price for their newspapers. After all, they're only getting half the news. But where are the usual suspects ? Amnesia Intentional ? Libertard ? Human Wrongs Watch ? These folks have spent years talking about the looming night of fascism, but now we have state functionaries defining what can and can't be reported, that's apparently not oppressive at all.

I guess this is what leftists mean when they talk about the Blogosphere being used for irresponsible rumour-mongering: people reporting stuff what happened without proper authorisation from the authorities.