In case you missed it earlier, here’s the video clip of an attempted foam pie-ing of Rupert Murdoch during today’s culture, media and sport select committee at the House of Commons. The real star is Murdoch’s wife Wendi Deng whose lightning reaction ensured the assailant ended up with most of the foam on his own face.

• Select committees: Reaction to appearances by police, the Murdochs and Brooks
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Creative Commons on YouTube
• TechCrunch: YouTube launches creative commons licence option
• paidContent UK: Government considers plans to remove ugc sites
• Phone hacking: Follow Les Hinton’s evidence to MPs

An MP urged the government to set aside time for a Commons debate on gagging orders today, suggesting there are rumours circulating that another member of Parliament has taken out a super-injunction to prevent discussion of their activities, Jon Slattery reports in this blog post.

The allegation was made in the Commons as MPs discussed future Parliamentary business – including whether to debate judge-made privacy laws and gagging orders.

Conservative MP for Hendon, Matthew Offord reportedly said:

“Is the Leader of the House aware of the anomaly this creates if, as has been rumoured, a member of this place seeks a super-injunction to prevent discussion of their activities?”

Leader of the House Sir George Young was said to reply that it was “a very important issue about how we balance on the one hand an individual’s right to privacy and, on the other hand, the freedom of expression and transparency”.

He said the government would wait for the report from Lord Neuberger’s special committee on the issue, before deciding the next step.

“It may then be appropriate for the House to have a debate on this important issue,” he added.

• ‘Super injunctions’ parliamentary debate: kicks off 2.30 pm
• Independent: Poll finds judges ‘too ready’ to gag newspapers
• BBC CoJo: When a super injunction is not a super injunction
• John Bercow calls the Daily Mail a ‘sexist, racist, bigoted, comic’
• Richard Wilson: ‘No one knows how many secret super-injunctions are currently in force’

The Independent reports that Labour MP Chris Bryant has secured a Commons debate on the ongoing phone-hacking case. The paper says that Bryant will make further allegations during the debate, which will take place on Thursday.

Mr Bryant has secured a 30-minute Commons debate on Thursday which will include a formal government response. He said: “It has become apparent that the extent of phone hacking is greater than either News Corporation or the News of the World have admitted to. Indeed, it would seem it was far more substantial than that found by the original investigation that the Metropolitan Police could be bothered to mount.” The Rhondda MP said “enormous issues” had been raised by the scandal, which led to the jailing in 2007 of the private detective Glenn Mulcaire and NOTW’s royal editor Clive Goodman.

Full story on Independent.co.uk at this link

• Independent: John Prescott evidence triggered new inquiry into phone hacking
• BBC: Ken Livingstone calls for ‘arms-length relationship’ between media and police
• Independent.co.uk: Solicitor general to look into phone hacking concerns
• Met to apologise for failing to warn phone-hack victims
• FT editor criticises Fleet Street for ‘conspiracy of silence’ over phone hacking

MP Tom Watson has speculated that his question in the House of Commons last Thursday, like many other phone hacking concerns, will receive scant attention by the press.

Linking to an Independent on Sunday report, he tweeted: “yet another phone hacking story that won’t be reported anywhere else”.

And Google News shows us Watson is right so far – only the IoS appears to have picked up the solicitor general’s response to his question about the investigation of the News of the World phone hacking case.

[From Hansard: PDF at this link]

Mr. Tom Watson (West Bromwich, East) (Lab): Will my hon. and learned Friend satisfy herself that the Crown Prosecution Service has not successfully prosecuted cases on the basis of police files that were compiled using evidence illegally obtained by News of the World phone hacking?

The Solicitor-General: Yes – I am not sure that any connection has been made, but I am very well aware of the issue, and it is an issue well raised.

Further to that, the Independent on Sunday reports:

Whitehall sources said that there would not, at this stage, be a full-blown investigation into any concerns, but that the issue would be examined. A more detailed investigation would take place if substantial evidence was put forward, sources said.

According to the paper: “a spokesman for the Met said it would not be commenting on the parliamentary exchange. A News International spokesman declined to comment.”

• Phone hacking: Lib Dem MP raises question of Tessa Jowell’s phone
• New arrest in phone hacking investigation
• Metropolitan Police statement on dropped action against Guardian
• Phone hacking update: Ex-employees ‘clarify’ Murdoch evidence
• Independent: John Prescott evidence triggered new inquiry into phone hacking

The House of Commons culture, media and sport committee will hear evidence from Matt Brittin, managing director, Google UK and Paul Bradshaw, lecturer in journalism, Birmingham City University this morning (scheduled for 10.30am but there was a problem with the live feed, which is now working). Caroline Beavon (@carolinebeavon) is liveblogging for the Online Journalism Blog.

Follow the live-blog here…

Watch it at this link…

• #FollowJourn: @carolinebeavon/multimedia journalist
• #aopforum: Live coverage on microlocal media discussion
• #JNTM: Journalism’s Next Top Model event at University of Westminster (follow live)
• #j-crisis: Is world journalism in crisis? Follow it live from 2pm (GMT)
• Liveblog: Keith McSpurren from CoverItlive

As reported by the Guardian, a report published today by the House of Commons culture select committee criticises the ‘arrogance’ of the BBC Trust and the BBC for brushing off MPs’ concerns over the expansion of the BBC’s commercial activities, particularly BBC Worldwide’s acquisition of Lonely Planet. In the report’s conclusions the committee stated:

“The purchase of Lonely Planet remains the most egregious example of the nature of BBC Worldwide’s expansion into areas where the BBC has no, or very limited existing interests. Had the BBC Trust been a more responsible oversight body, it would have given more serious consideration to the likely impact on the commercial sector. We can only speculate as to why it did not.

“Our report demonstrated that, in terms of public disclosure of the financial details of the Lonely Planet purchase, the BBC was certainly not as transparent as it claimed to us to have been. The BBC’s arrogance demonstrated in much that it presented in its case to us in this respect, and in the way that it ignored this aspect in its response, is self-defeating in terms of the preservation of its public reputation.”

• The report can be found at this link.

The criticisms follow culture minister Ben Bradshaw’s comments at last week’s Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge: he said there could be a case for a ’smaller licence fee’ and also suggested that the BBC Trust model is not ‘sustainable’.

In response to today’s report, the BBC Trust said it had been carrying out its own review of the BBC’s commercial services, the completion of which has been delayed ‘until there is greater clarity around the Digital Britain report’. The Trust announced changes to BBC Worldwide’s governance which were reported to the committee last week, it said. “These changes addressed a number of the issues to which the committee’s latest report refers,” it claimed.

The BBC Trust Statement in full, made in response to the report:

“The BBC Trust was established to give a stronger voice to licence fee payers and defend the BBC’s independence. 
BBC Worldwide operates within a framework set by the Charter and Agreement. It has no access to licence fee funding and operates at arm’s length from the BBC’s public services.

“The Trust oversees BBC Worldwide’s strategy and controls. We are committed to ensuring licence fee payers get a good return on their investment, while being mindful of the BBC’s impact on the wider market, and to this end the Trust has been carrying out its own review of the BBC’s commercial services.

“The Trust’s own review was launched in advance of both the Committee’s work and the Digital Britain report. In March the Trust published its interim conclusions, noting that there should be changes to BBC Worldwide’s detailed control framework to establish a more contained focus for its operations. The Trust said that it would publish its final review once the role of BBC Worldwide in the Digital Britain discussions was clear.

“Given this timetable we welcomed the Committee’s report in April, cooperated with their enquiry and responded as fully as we were able to at the time of its publication.

“In the meantime our work has continued on specific issues. The Trust last week announced changes to BBC Worldwide’s governance which were reported to the Committee. These changes addressed a number of the issues to which the Committee’s latest report refers.

“Although the completion of our review of Worldwide has been delayed until there is greater clarity around the Digital Britain report, we are eager to complete this work and look forward to announcing further conclusions as soon as possible.”

• Media release: BBC Trust approves greater international focus for Worldwide
• Crikey.com.au: Layoffs at BBC Worldwide’s Lonely Planet
• BBC Trust launches ‘its largest’ TV service review – into BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Four
• PaidContent: Lonely Planet will share ad revenue with bloggers
• A new blog for the MST’s independent press review group

Three high-profile political figures mired in controversy, two thrown out of their jobs, one suffering a humiliating demotion – all thanks to internet activists of differing political hues from green to darkest blue.

Hang your heads in shame video-sting victim Alan Duncan, and Smeargate’s Derek Draper and Damian McBride. Take a bow Tim Montgomerie, Guido Fawkes, and Heydon Prowse.

But was it really the web wot done it? I’m not so sure.

Or at least I don’t think the web could have done it without the traditional media, television news and newspapers in particular.

Clearly this is at odds with Guido’s reading of the situation.

Writing on his blog this morning yesterday Paul Staines (for it is he) asks who forced Alan Duncan from his role as shadow leader of the House of Commons.

Not Tory leader David Cameron, that’s for sure. Rather it was the unlikely pairing of Tim Montgomerie and Heydon Prowse, ‘the blogosphere’s shepherd of the Tory grassroots and the angry young man with a video-cam’.

Of Prowse, who filmed Duncan on the terrace talking of ‘rations’ in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal, Guido notes:

“Heydon Prowse, who is he? He just destroyed the career of a greasy pole climbing Westminster slitherer. No house-trained political nous, no insight, in fact a little naive. He still did it.”

And Guido is in no doubt what this means in the wider context:

“The news is now disintermediated.”

The same applies, apparently, to the sacking of Damian McBride and Derek Draper, both prime ministerial advisors in their time. McBride and Draper were outed for their parts in a plot to use a pseudo-activist blog to spread rumours about various high-profile Tories.

The emails incriminating the two men found their way to Guido/Staines, and were in turn picked up by the media.

(Ironically, the site was meant to be the left’s answer to right-wing blogosphere attack-dogs, Guido among them.)

This week saw the story take another twist. Would-be smear victim Nadine Dorries MP carried out a threat to sue Draper and McBride and enlisted the help of Guido and fellow blogger Tory Bear to be servers of writs.

No one is doubting the origin of both stories, nor the journalistic craft in exposing the men at the heart of them. But it took the mainstream media to push these events into the public consciousness, into the mainstream.

And it took the attentions of the mainstream media to effect the sackings and demotion.

On the day it broke, the Duncan story led the BBC 10 o’clock News and featured prominently on other channels. In the ensuing 48 hours it spawned dozens of national press stories – the Daily Star went for ‘Dumb and Duncan’, The Mirror for ‘Duncan Donut’, others were more po-faced – as well as leader comments, opinion pieces and letters.

The coverage continued into the weekend and despite Duncan’s very swift apology and Cameron’s initial willingness to draw a line under events (“Alan made a bad mistake. He has acknowledged that, he has apologised and withdrawn the remarks.”) the drip, drip of media focus eventually forced the Tory leader to act.

It was a similar pattern with Smeargate.

Would PM Gordon Brown and Cameron have acted if these had remained just web stories? Not in 2009.

Is the news disintermediated? Not yet. Instead we have a symbiotic – if dysfunctional – relationship between the blogosphere and the traditional media.

The latter fears and dismisses the former in equal measure, but increasingly relies on it to take the temperature of various constituent parts of society and, yes, to source stories. Guido is such a good conduit through which to leak precisely because the media reads him.

The former, meanwhile, is disparaging about the latter (sometimes for good reason) but nonetheless needs it to vindicate its journalistic endeavours.

A final twist to the Alan Duncan story. Heydon Prowse offered Guido first refusal on his secret video recording back in June. Guido turned it down. “D’oh!” he later wrote in a confessional blog post.

Guido always has the good grace to admit when he’s goofed, as he did earlier this year over James Purnell’s fictitious leadership bid.

Will he accept with equally good grace that the mainstream media were a vital ingredient in the sackings and demotion of McBride, Draper and Duncan?

Jon Bernstein is former multimedia editor of Channel 4 News. This is part of a series of regular columns for Journalism.co.uk. You can read his personal blog at jonbernstein.wordpress.com.

• Online commenters are like ‘particularly aggressive sub-editors’ says Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow
• PoynterOnline: Everyday ethics for journalists using social media
• #ijf11: Be accessible, be realistic, Guido Fawkes advises small news outlets
• ConservativeHome blogger granted lobby pass
• Guido Fawkes: Ten years ago today Drudge ended the reign of the media gatekeepers

Journalism.co.uk will be reporting today’s culture, media and sport select committee meeting at this post, using CoverItLive. We’ll also send out occasional updates via our event Twitter account, @journalism_live.

Background: following reports by the Guardian newspaper that there were further allegations and evidence, previously unreported, indicating that News International journalists had repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories, the House of Commons culture select committee has begun taking new evidence. Last week it heard evidence from Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who reported the allegations, Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of Guardian News & Media and Tim Toulmin, director of the Press Complaints Commission.

• Previous Journalism.co.uk coverage can be found at this link.

Today the committee will hear evidence from Andy Coulson, former News of the World editor (and currently director of communications for the Conservative Party), and Stuart Kuttner, former NOTW managing editor.

• Commons committee hearing tomorrow: It’s Andy Coulson’s turn…
• Who will the PCC question at NOTW if it re-opens investigation into phone hacking?
• Nick Davies told Commons committee in April that PCC phone hacking inquiry flawed
• MediaGuardian: Heat back on Andy Coulson
• Phone hacking: Rusbridger answers questions on the ‘dark arts’ of Fleet Street

The re-opened inquiry into press, standards privacy and libel by the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee will hear evidence from former News of the World editor Andy Coulson and Stuart Kuttner, former Managing Editor, News of the World.

Kick off is 10:30am (BST) – and you should be able to watch a live video stream on the parliament website.

Coulson’s involvement in the recent phone hacking allegations will be top of the bill – in particular to whether he did, or did not, know the extent of the activities at the paper.

Last week the committee heard from Nick Davies, the journalist behind the reports, and Press Complaints Commission (PCC) director Tim Toulmin, who said that while the ‘buck stops’ with the editor, Coulson has since resigned from this post.

• Phone hacking liveblog: Coulson and Kuttner’s evidence
• MediaGuardian: Heat back on Andy Coulson
• Phone-hacking on Dispatches: a good documentary but not enough new evidence
• Phone-hacking: Dispatches source claims Coulson listened to recordings
• Guardian’s phone hacking interactive: ‘The growing web’

Paul Farrelly, member of the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee, says the committee had to react quickly to the Guardian’s revelations about alleged phone hacking by the News of the World – but acknowledges that ‘the Guardian story has a long pedigree’.

Farrelly adds that the committee will be pursuing the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) further over its phone hacking investigations to date.

Full article at this link…

See Journalism.co.uk’s coverage of the phone hacking allegations at this link.

• PCC calls for submissions to governance review
• Solicitor Mark Lewis considering legal action against PCC
• MediaGuardian: Phone records suggest 100 accounts hacked by NOTW
• MediaGuardian: Max Clifford plans legal action over NOTW phone hacking
• Phone hacking liveblog: Coulson and Kuttner’s evidence

Will the PCC question News of the World’s Stuart Kuttner, who yesterday stepped down as the paper’s managing director, if it re-opens the investigation into phone hacking?

[Update 10.07.09: News International said the 'departure of managing editor Stuart Kuttner has no connection whatsoever' with events referred to in a statement]

In evidence given to the House of Commons culture select committee in April, Nick Davies criticised the PCC for failing to hold the News of the World to account on charges of phone hacking:

Mr Davies: If you say to [Andy] Coulson, “Come and give evidence even though you are no longer an editor” and if he says, “No” then that is an interesting tactical failure on his part. It is not just the editor of the paper; what about the managing editor? Why not call Stuart Kuttner, the managing editor of the News of the World, who has been there for years and who has a special responsibility for contracts and money? Why not call him to give evidence? There was a real will on the part of the PCC to avoid uncovering the truth about phone hacking.”

The PCC is now looking at the case again in light of Nick Davies’ exclusive report for the Guardian and could re-open the investigation. So who will they question?

Stuart Kuttner, as Davies suggested? “Kuttner will remain at the News of the World part time to work on special projects for the tabloid, including its Sarah’s Law campaign,” the Guardian reported yesterday.

The PCC decided not to question former News of the World editor Andy Coulson (as we write, he is still the Conservative Party’s communications director) for its 2007 inquiry, citing that he was not longer ‘answerable to the PCC’.  But would they question Kuttner, in his new part-time role?

In 2007 the PCC stated in its report on subterfuge and newsgathering:

“Despite Mr Myler’s [new News of the World editor] appointment, the question arose whether the PCC should ask Mr Coulson to give an account of what had gone wrong. The PCC decided not to do so. Given that the PCC does not – and should not – have statutory powers of investigation and prosecution, there could be no question of trying to duplicate the lengthy police investigation. Furthermore, Mr Coulson was, following his resignation, no longer answerable to the PCC, whose jurisdiction covers journalists working for publications that subscribe to the self-regulatory system through the Press Standards Board of Finance.

“As a result, that part of the investigation involving the News of the World was conducted by the Director of the PCC with Mr Myler.  The Chairman of the Commission also discussed the matter on a number of occasions with the Chief Executive of News International, Mr Les Hinton.”

The PCC stated today:

“Any suggestion that further transgressions have occurred since its report was published in 2007 will be investigated without delay. In the meantime, the PCC is contacting the Guardian newspaper and the Information Commissioner for any further specific information in relation to the claims, published today about the older cases, which suggest the Commission has been misled at any stage of its inquiries into these matters.”

• Phone hacking liveblog: Coulson and Kuttner’s evidence
• Commons committee hearing tomorrow: It’s Andy Coulson’s turn…
• Nick Davies told Commons committee in April that PCC phone hacking inquiry flawed
• Alan Rusbridger on Coulson resignation: ‘This is not the end of the story’
• MediaGuardian: Scotland Yard uncovers new material in phone-hacking case

You may recall that back in April Nick Davies gave evidence to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport select committee, for its review into press standards, privacy and libel.

In the course of that session he claimed there was ‘a real will on the part of the PCC [Press Complaints Commission] to avoid uncovering the truth about phone hacking’ and that newspapers still used private investigators: “It is wrong but they are not doing anything about it and that continues despite Motorman [investigation undertaken by the Information Commissioner's Office into alleged offences under data protection legislation.] All that has happened is that they have got a little bit more careful about it. I actually got to know that network of private investigators who were exposed in Motorman. Years after that I was in the office of one of them and he was taking phone calls from newspapers while I was there.”

The committee chairman, John Whittingdale, said: “We did do an investigation both into Motorman and into Goodman so I do not want to revisit old ground too much”.

The same committee which today announced it will open a new inquiry ‘into the Guardian revelations about the use of illegal surveillance techniques by News International newspapers’ (Guardian.co.uk).

Yesterday Nick Davies’ Guardian exclusive – which reported Murdoch papers paid £1m to silence victims of phone hacking – alleged that the evidence posed difficult questions for the PCC: it has ‘claimed to have conducted an investigation, but failed to uncover any evidence of illegal activity,’ it was reported.

Davies is no friend of the Press Complaints Commission – as reported on Journalism.co.uk before – and used his appearance in front of the committee in April to argue that the ‘PCC’s performance is so weak that it threatens the concept of self-regulation.’

The PCC has stated today, in light of the new reports, that ‘any suggestion that further transgressions have occurred since its report was published in 2007 will be investigated without delay.’

Now, let’s look back at Davies’ comments in the Commons in April (from uncorrected evidence on House of Commons site). Davies laid the bait for us all, but it would seem only he pursued his allegations against News of the World, to secure yesterday’s scoop:

Mr Davies: It is that word that Roy [Greenslade] has just used that is the important one, their independence. They [PCC] are not sufficiently independent to do their job properly; they are not functioning as an independent referee. You could see it, for example, in the way they handled the Clive Goodwin [sic] story. There are newspapers publishing stories all over Fleet Street; there is a whole lot of hacking going on, hacking into mobile phones. They conducted an inquiry which was set up in such a way that it could not possibly disclose the truth about that illegal activity. Why? Why did they not conduct a proper, independent inquiry? It was the same with the information commissioner after Operation Motorman. We used the Freedom of Information Act on the information commissioner and got hold if the e-mails and letters between the commissioner and the Press Complaints Commission. You can see there the information commissioner saying, “Look, we have just busted this private eye. It is horrifying what newspapers are doing. Will you put out a clear warning to these journalists that they must obey the law?” The short answer was, “No, not if we can help it”. You may be familiar with all this —–

Q435 Chairman: We had an inquiry into Motorman.

Mr Davies: Did you have the e-mails and so on?

Q436 Chairman: We had representatives of News International and so on.

(…)

Mr Davies: Also, when he [Paul Dacre] goes into hospital to have operations on his heart, there is always a message sent round Fleet Street saying, “Mr Dacre’s in hospital, please do not report it”. Medical records are supposed to be plundered by Harry Hack with beer on his breath and egg on his tie. It is wrong but they are not doing anything about it and that continues despite Motorman. All that has happened is that they have got a little bit more careful about it. I actually got to know that network of private investigators who were exposed in Motorman. Years after that I was in the office of one of them and he was taking phone calls from newspapers while I was there. It has not stopped; it has just got a bit more careful. It had got so casual that every reporter in the newsroom was allowed to ring up and commission illegal access to confidential information, now they have pulled it back so that you have to get the news editor to do it or the news desk’s permission. It is still going on and it is against the law.

Q446 Paul Farrelly: Do you think the PCC missed a trick with its own standing reputation in not summoning Mr Coulson?

Mr Greenslade: I wrote at the time and have maintained ever since that the Goodman affair was a very, very black moment in the history of the PCC. This man was jailed for breaking the law. His editor immediately resigned but there were huge questions to ask about the culture of the News of the World newsroom which only the man in charge of that newsroom could answer. When I challenged the PCC about why they had failed to call Mr Coulson they said that he was no longer a member of the press. That seems to me to be a complete abnegation of the responsibilities of the PCC for the public good. In other words, to use a phrase Nick has already used, it was getting off with a technicality.

Mr Davies: If you say to Coulson, “Come and give evidence even though you are no longer an editor” and if he says, “No” then that is an interesting tactical failure on his part. It is not just the editor of the paper; what about the managing editor? Why not call Stuart Kuttner, the managing editor of the News of the World, who has been there for years and who has a special responsibility for contracts and money? Why not call him to give evidence? There was a real will on the part of the PCC to avoid uncovering the truth about phone hacking.

Q447 Chairman: We did do an investigation both into Motorman and into Goodman so I do not want to revisit old ground too much.

Mr Davies: It is what it tells you about the PCC.

• Media Guardian: Fresh phone hacking investigation into John Terry affair stories
• Who will the PCC question at NOTW if it re-opens investigation into phone hacking?
• BBC: Ken Livingstone calls for ‘arms-length relationship’ between media and police
• Phone hacking: new government inquiry launched, PM expected to be quizzed today
• Observer: Readers’ editor defends paper’s use of private investigator

The Guardian has launched a new crowd-sourced experiment: ‘Investigate your MP’s expenses’. More to follow from Journalism.co.uk soon.

Extracts from the Guardian press release:

“The Guardian has today launched a major experiment in crowdsourcing following the publication of thousands of MPs’ receipts by the House of Commons.

“The Guardian has uploaded all of these documents to its own microsite, Investigate your MP’s expenses, allowing members of the public to interact with and analyse the data; an impossibility on the government’s website.

“For every document for every MP, users of the site will be able to: add narrative on individual expenses; highlight documents of interest; tell us how interesting that receipt is and provide a context for each receipt; help us by entering the relevant expenses figures and dates on each page.”

• Nieman Journalism Lab: Four crowdsourcing lessons from the Guardian’s expenses experiment
• Tool of the week for journalists – DocumentCloud, to analyse documents as data
• News organisations should get ready for data, says Martin Moore
• Let the expenses data war commence: Telegraph begins its document drip feed
• MPs’ travel expenses disparity highlighted by Guardian Open Platform projects

From the first day the Telegraph began printing information about MPs’ expenses Journalism.co.uk wanted to know what would happen to the data and how exactly it was being handled inside the ‘bunker’. An insight into the process would have been fascinating for journalists and non-journalists alike.

Would the expenses information ever be released in its pre-redacted format? Or would it be too much of a legal risk and detract from potential print sales?

Unfortunately, the Telegraph press office did not want to discuss the issue, and any enquiries made directly to journalists were forwarded to the press office. We were told we were on the waiting list to talk to someone about data, but we never heard anything.

Today, however, the big announcement was made, following the House of Commons’ official release of blacked-out and redacted data. The Telegraph will print a special supplement free with this Saturday’s Daily Telegraph. It’s a move reported here by the Guardian. The Telegraph also said:

“Inside the 68-page magazine supplement you will find files concerning all 646 MPs, with details of their Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) expenses for 2007-8, the most recent year for which figures are available.

“This is the first time that such detailed information about our elected representatives has been available in one place. It is an historic moment. We believe that our expenses files will help change the face of British politics for the better.”

Journalism.co.uk asked the press office if the information would be available online.  No answer as yet.

But… we just spotted this exchange between the Telegraph.co.uk editor, Marcus Warren, and a follower on Twitter.

MarcusWa: @craigelder: i wld suggest everyone wait a day or two for the uncensored expenses to appear….

craigelder: @MarcusWa: Might we be seeing something on Saturday?

MarcusWa: @craigelder: in newspaper form yes, saturday http://bit.ly/10HiC8

MarcusWa: @craigelder i can also suggest that you ‘watch this space’…..

craigelder: @MarcusWa: I had a feeling! Looking forward to it. Any chance the data can be made available in some sort of *useful* online format as well?

MarcusWa: @craigelder: i can’t say as yet!!!

craigelder: @MarcusWa: You tease

Related links:

• ‘Has the Telegraph failed by keeping expenses process and data to itself?’
• ‘Telegraph ‘didn’t tell any lies but was selective in its facts’, says Lib Dem Voice site editor’

• Let the expenses data war commence: Telegraph begins its document drip feed
• MPs’ expenses data will be officially released Thursday but how much will be edited out?
• #FollowJourn: @MarcusWa/online editor
• Were these MPs’ expenses stories misleading? The screen grabs
• Why the Guardian is killing technology print supplement

Yesterday it arrived: the final version of the Digital Britain report. Landline users among us will have to sacrifice around three lattes a year to meet the 50p a month levy for the Next Generation Fund.

Director of digital content for Guardian News & Media, Emily Bell, asked, via Twitter, for two words to sum it up other than ‘colossal disappointment’. An advanced Twitter search showed these responses from her followers: ‘as expected,’  ‘damp squib,’ ‘disappointingly colossal,’ ‘wasted chance’ and ‘too cautious’. However, Bell is now worried she might have been ‘too negative’ in her reaction – but that could just be her going soft, she says.

Ten good links*:

• 1. Universal access of 2 Mbps by 2012, but will it be achievable, asks the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss.
  

• 2. ThinkBroadband’s summary. It’s clear and rectifies misunderstandings that might arise from second-hand summaries of the report.
  

• 3. Ben Bradshaw’s announcement in the House of Commons,  ITN video on YouTube.

• 4. No word on Channel 4 or BBC Worldwide partnership, as reported by Paul McNally on the Press Gazette blog.

• 5. PageFlakes page with related links for Digital Britain content: including video, Twitter and blog searches.

• 6. Bill Thompson’s thoughts, also here on the BBC’s pages.

• 7. The BBC opposes top-slicing of the licence fee for independent news consortia, stated by the Trust’s chair Michael Lyons in a BBC press release.

• 8. The paidContent:UK overall verdict is 7/10. Read it a bullet-point summary on the new-look site.

• 9. OFT report on local and regional media ownership rules released to coincide with Digital Britain report. Nothing will change. It’s a decision welcomed by the National Union of Journalists.

• 10. Oh, and the report itself, at this link.

*with an extra two, for luck.

• The Root Of The Matter: Emily Bell on ‘Journalism 10 years from now’
• Digital Britain – a round-up in 10 bullet points
• Bill Thompson (@billt) on two cultures: those literate in code and everyone else
• Guardian Media Talk: Digital Britain, Suzanne Breen and Twitter in Iran
• Chance to submit questions to former Guardian digital director Emily Bell