Twitter is rife with speculation over whether The Sun might have bought the rights to Gillian Duffy's story. It would be in keeping with their recent tactics.
Twitter is rife with speculation tonight as to which right-wing paper might buy the rights to Gillian Duffy’s story, the woman at the centre of “bigot-gate”. If true, it would be in keeping with other recent rumours of the tabloid’s spending patterns.
Earlier this evening politician, Tom Watson, tweeted, “The Sun have paid 50k+ for an exclusive interview with Mrs Duffy. Murdoch turning this election into a farce”. This was swiftly followed by a denial from The Sun’s twitter account saying, “wrong again Tom. We haven’t done any ‘deal’ with Mrs Duffy, or paid her any money.” Then shortly after 9pm the Guardian’s general election editor Matthew Wells tweeted, “Andrew Porter dropping hints on BBC Campaign Show that Telegraph have got the Duffy story”.
But Mr Watson can be excused for thinking this might be in keeping with The Sun’s line of attack during the election campaign. The paper projected its bile on Nick Clegg last week – a move which appears to be backfiring. And unreported by the entire mainstream media, The Sun’s political editor Tom Newton-Dunn, was – according to Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff – caught telling colleagues, “It is my job to see that Cameron fucking well gets into Downing Street”.
Meanwhile, writer and academic John Naughton blogged today about an “intriguing email which dropped into my inbox”. It appeared to commission information for The Sun’s Jenna Sloan and said:
“I’m looking for a teacher and a nurse to be case studies in The Sun next week.
“This is for a political, election feature and both must be willing to say why they feel let down by the Labour Government, and why they are thinking about voting Conservative.
“We’ll need to picture them, and also have a chat about their political opinions. We can pay the case studies £100 for their time.”
Naughton cautions that the email may not be genuine. We’ll certainly know one way or another before the election is over.
36 Responses to “Murdoch press just doing their f—ing job”
SSP Campsie
Tonights #Murdochwatch http://short.to/299u3 #ge10 #ge2010 #votetorygetmurdoch
Chris Roberts
RT @leftfootfwd: Murdoch press just doing their fucking job http://bit.ly/bO0n2D
Sam the Drummer
RT @leftfootfwd: Murdoch press just doing their fucking job http://bit.ly/bO0n2D
Matthew Rhodes
RT @nextleft Is Sun offering to pay nurses & teachers who will appear in paper to attack Labour & say vote Tory? http://bit.ly/bO0n2D
Donovan Clarkson
RT @nextleft: Is Sun offering to pay nurses & teachers who will appear in paper to attack Labour & say vote Tory? via @ leftfootfwd http://bit.ly/bO0n2D