Hugh Grant says if he called the police to report a crime the media showed up before the cops

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/world/187642/tabloids-showed-police-hugh-grant

Tabloids showed up before police - Hugh Grant

Tue, 22 Nov 2011

British tabloid journalists competing ferociously to secure front-page news believed themselves untouchable in recent years, losing all sense of right and wrong and making some public figures afraid to leave home, an inquiry has heard.
Appearing at a public hearing into media standards, witnesses including the family of a murder victim, a lawyer and the actor Hugh Grant said the press had completely lost control before a phone hacking scandal blew up this year, drawing attention to media practices.

Grant said that if he ever called police to report a crime, a photographer would always turn up first. Fear of drawing attention to a girlfriend meant he had missed the birth of his child and previous girlfriends had been hounded by photographers, leaving them terrified.

"A free press is of course a cornerstone of democracy," Grant told a packed London court room. "I just think that there has been a section of our press that has become toxic over the last 20 or 30 years.

[Greybnk48]

1. Exactly Mr. Grant. And the cancerous element of your press

metastacized to the U.S. in about 1996. Take the Murdoch's down there and maybe we can get rid of them here.

[dipsydoodle]

5. The enquiry is about our press ethics in general

not just News Corp. One way or another , other than maybe the hacking issue , they've all been at it by the look of things.

[Fumesucker]

2. A section?

Oh Hugh, you poor naive man..

[Javaman]

3. last time I checked, tapping phone lines isn't part of "free press".

good on you, Mr. Grant.

[dipsydoodle]

4. That's from yesterday coverage - today's has been better

in the absense of that prick doing his failed Prince Charles impersonation in a last ditch attempt to get another 15 minutes of fame.

Leveson Inquiry: Coogan says reporters went through his bins http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15842034

More links on the page.

Our press here in the UK , in general , would've preferred it if the enquirey had stayed focused on hacking instead of their antics in general. They fear for an overall clamp down on the press.