Rupert, James and Rebekah at the Culture, Media and Sport select committee

The transcripts of the appearances by Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks before the Culture, Media and Sport select committee are now available online.

I took the text of the two sessions from the Guardian, and stuck the straight into Wordle. Then, because I didn't like the results, I took the words "James", "Rupert", "Murdoch" and "Mr" out of the Murdoch's session and the words "Rebekah" and "Brooks" from that transcript and tried again.

Here then for your enjoyment are yesterday's sessions as word clouds. The bigger the word, the more often it appears in the transcript.

Rupert and James Murdoch - click to go to a larger version.


Rebekah Brooks - click to go to a larger version.

Press regulation: what's to fear?

One of the likely casualties of recent events in the media is the Press Complaints Commission.

As a regulator it's been, well, pants. The Express group of papers - which really do need regulating - have been allowed to drop out, and many breaches of the PCC code go with relatively little comeback on the publisher. Self-regulation hasn't worked for the national press.

Broadcasters are of course regulated by Ofcom, which has statutory powers. And news broadcasters seem to manage alright under its jurisdiction. One of the star news services of the past few days has been Sky News: from it's fantastic hour at six o'clock on Thursday evening to Adam Boulton tonight describing the future of his own channel as "in the balance" as spotted by Richard Jones

Odd to see Adam Boulton on Sky News saying that the future of his own channel is "in the balance" after today's developments.less than a minute ago via HootSuite Favorite Retweet ReplyRichard Jones
rlwjones

Unlike the News International controlled press they've given space to this story, and haven't been afraid to interview people who've been critical of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. They've been across the story, covering it with balance and vigour. And all of this under the control of a regulator.

Journalists need some freedoms to do their job, but the loss of self-regulation doesn't mean the sky will fall in.