A newcomer to watch: The "UK Media Research Centre." A source told me it was intended to "pay people to write pro-Israeli articles which they then place." But one of the founders, @DannyCohen, says that's not the case... 🧵 In addition to Danny Cohen, two directors are listed: @KarenPollock100 and @LordIanAustin . The latter is listed as a director of the @JewishChron, though who actually owns that paper is a riddle wrapped in an enigma (2)

In 2011/2 MPs on the @CommonsCMSwere were probing Rupert Murdoch’s company. Result? 7 of them had their phones targeted – literally hundreds of calls from the company’s phone hub. This pattern is what @byNickDavies has been investigating for @prospect_uk (🧵 - 1) Phone-hacking has mainly involved celebrities. But the new evidence suggests something more disturbing: that the company used the same criminal methods to get political and commercial intel ..and maybe smear MPs 2

Gibbgate: 🧵I think Gibb is now the most important journalist at the BBC, even though he doesn’t work there. And therefore he’s one of the most important journalists in the country. 1/7 Gibb was nominated by a friend, the mysterious Downing Street fixer, Dougie Smith – even if Downing Street strangely doesn’t list him, or answer for him. He’s the Man who Never Was. 2/7

So I have had a reply from the acting chair of the BBC about Robbie Gibb and his attempt to fix the chair of the BBC regulator. Highlighted in red are the bits where she answers a single one of the 15 question I asked (joke: she doesn’t) 1/4 Green shows the extent of her investigation & the fact she accepts Gibb’s word that there’s nothing to worry about. Orange answers a question I didn’t ask. (2/4)

I think I have found a genuine story in @NadineDorries's book, The Plot, out today. It concerns manoeuvrings to get the “right” person in to chair the supposedly independent media regulator, @ofcom (thread) (1/9 ) Dorries describes a meeting in which @RobbieGibb , former comms director for Theresa May and a BBC director, tried to persuade her to appoint Lord Stephen Gilbert, “a party apparatchik” to chair Ofcom (2/9)

As another hacking trial starts (<2k settled so far) a gripping narrative of the ragtag army of former hackers and private eyes now working to avenge the victims - including Prince Harry prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/ph… Writer, @tomlamont , spent weeks with the poachers-turned-gamekeepers who have been working for < 10 years to help expose cases and get them into court (2)

1 (thread). Most UK papers think a drunken snog at Strictly is the most important story today. More important than a terrifying new #IPCC report saying we have 12 years to stave off the catastrophic effects of global warming... 2. More important than this (from @guardian. The Independent and @washingtonpost also led on it, along with the @BBC. London Times leading on Brexit.)

Nick, I agree you do sometimes have other voices. Though not many, to my ears. I tweeted after hearing half an hour devoted the wars within one tribe and no discernible other views. 1/6 My question was a bigger one about how the BBC conceives of impartiality in such difficult circumstances 2/6