You haven’t even come close to establishing that this is in fact a fact.
Removing the names from reportage of what was said on a major US TV show, and banning any mention of why they were removed is pretty blatant (and malevolent) censorship IMO
I cannot possibly describe how much I wish our stateside news reporting agencies would stop reporting “the fact that someone said something” as if that alone made it news.
I’ve had to endure decades of news programs “reporting” on fraudulent nonsense, repeating openly fact-free allegations over and over again under the guise of “someone important said this thing”.
Thank goodness that some news agencies are actually prevented from repeating baseless slander just because one human being somewhere said it out loud.
I always liked the pompous “Action News 7 has learned” something construction. It might simply mean that they read the press release, or were at the press conference.
Of course not, but it does mean that, inevitably, you’re going to lose it anyway. That’s just the way it is, and THAT is what people need to understand.
This!
I also deplore headlines that scream about how something “might” happen. Also not news.
Having read this entire thread, I’m still of the view that:
- I don’t care about the photoshopping thing;
- I don’t need to know about the Princess’s medical issues (although I hope she’s okay); and
- the British press continue to suck.
That is all.
Hear Hear!
I can’t express how much I disagree with this. I mean I’m not happy with what the news channels churn out nowadays but that (FFS just reporting what a cop said at a press conference is not actually journalism!) but absolutely it is news that Stephen Colbert said this, and a free press should be allowed to report on this fact.
Also its very likely nothing to do with libel (though the UK’s libel laws are a joke), its not like CBS doesn’t have lawyers who would be pretty unhappy if he repeated something that was known to be false.
Recently these kind of injunctions have been about “privacy”. Which is bullshit because purile or not its is a public matter what the heir to the throne does with his reproductive organs, the British system of government makes it so (and even it wasn’t politicians cheating is a public matter). I don’t want to hear about it but it is ablsolutely right of a free press to report it. And also there is zero chance anyone would give a crap about their privacy if this was some residents of a council estate who’d just had a public brawl outside their local pub. Its only the ultra-rich that can afford to issue this kind of super-injuction, the rest of us have no chance of getting access to that that kind “right”.
Also:
- The British public apparently still reads newspapers.
We read their apps, anyway
Well, it’s potentially news that Colbert repeated a British Tabloid’s fact-free rumor about two married people cheating on their spouses with each other. Colbert’s actions are news, the rumor itself is not, and need not be repeated in order to tell us about the naughty thing Colbert did.
The reality is that the “news” agencies don’t give a fig about Colbert’s show, they care about getting the clicks that juicy gossip sends their way.
The two are intricately linked. Reporting “Colbert said something about the royals” is not fully reporting what happened. If the state can use the power of law to compel the press to say that and not “Colbert spoke about the rumors the prince of wales was having an affair with the Marchioness of Cholmondeley” means you don’t have freedom of the press any more.
Are people really installing apps from the “red tops” and the daily fail? I’d trust TikTok to share my data responsibly before I did that 
This seems to be the focus of most media outlets today.
Gee whiz, how will the world get along without the news “fully reporting” on a comedian’s bit about Prince William? The public needs to be informed about the important topics of the day!
Right now, freedom of the press is more likely to usher in a US Dictatorship than prevent one, so please excuse my failure to give it the importance it used to have.
So getting back to the OP. The matter of the manipulated photo being passed to the news agencies is important. This just came up on my Twitter feed:
The “kill notice” that was issued for this photo was the kind that is usually issued to photos released by regimes like Iran and North Korea. That the palace is now lumped in with them is pretty hilarious, and definitely news.
Private Eye joins the fun …
If the government forced it then its censorship. If the company did it then it’s an editorial choice. If it was an editorial choice based on UK libel laws then it’s smart. Not being able to quote a U.S. comedy show in the UK is not an attack on the press.