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Exclusive: Roger Cook, how Murdoch's News Of The World killed The Cook Report

Friday Drivetime | 23.09.2012 23:45 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Other Press | World

Friday Drivetime: BCfm’s weekly politics show presented by Tony Gosling. At five: discussing the big stories in Bristol, Britain and around the world. After six: straight talking and investigative reports with Martin Summers. For all the shows back to Easter 2009 visit the Friday Drivetime archive page.

Audio Roger Cook - 35mins - mp3 8.1M


Investigative journalist and author of ‘Dangerous Ground’ Roger Cook describes how Rupert Murdoch’s News Of The World launched a smear campaign in 2000 and got 10 million viewers-a-week The Cook Report taken off the air by ITV.

Roger describes some of his investigations:
Terror In The Skies, the penetration of airport security and hijacking of airliners in the United States in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks;
Hope For Hillsborough, South Yorkshire police misconduct and the Hillsborough disaster cover-up;
Dirty Bomb, being offered former Soviet weapons grade plutonium & thermonuclear weapons on the Russian black market, the SS20 warhead Roger Cook was offered has a yield of 150 kilotons or 10 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb which killed over 100,000 people;
The Truth Behind The Front, secret filming of racist Nick Griffin infiltrating the National Front;
The Devil’s Work, satanic abuse circle around ‘The Sorcerers’ Apprentice’ shop in Leeds, Yorkshire run by Chris Bray;

News International, an organised criminal gang conducting burglaries, not just hacking voicemails but tapping the phones of their legal opponents. How storage company Iron Mountain managed to destroy the film archive of The Cook Report. Appeal for people to put recordings they have of The Cook Report onto YouTube.
 http://bcfm.org.uk/2012/09/21/17/friday-drivetime-89/21788

Friday Drivetime
- Homepage: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/63107

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Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Removed because......

25.09.2012 11:50

The viewing figures had been in decline for years. Cook was a spent force as far as investigative journalism was concerned about two years before ITV finally pulled the plug. His searches for ever bigger and more sensational stories saw production costs going through the roof and eventually it was decided enough was enough. The Cook Report came to an end in 1999 when ITV, which had previously cancelled a number of current affairs programmes made for the channel (including World in Action) was faced with dwindling budgets and had focussed on other kinds of programming. So the Network Centre decided to concentrate its current affairs efforts on Tonight - which, though it attracted fewer viewers, was said to be significantly less costly to make.

The News of the Screws didn't kill off the Cook Report, the viewing public did.

Back in the real world

Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Inconvenient truth

25.09.2012 13:31

Removed because the viewing figures had been in decline for years. Cook was a spent force as far as investigative journalism was concerned about two years before ITV finally pulled the plug. His searches for ever bigger and more sensational stories saw production costs going through the roof and eventually it was decided enough was enough. The Cook Report came to an end in 1999 when ITV, which had previously cancelled a number of current affairs programmes made for the channel (including World in Action) was faced with dwindling budgets and had focussed on other kinds of programming. So the Network Centre decided to concentrate its current affairs efforts on Tonight - which, though it attracted fewer viewers, was said to be significantly less costly to make.

The News of the Screws didn't kill off the Cook Report, the viewing public did.

Reporter

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