Leona Lewis and Amy's public disgrace

Leona Lewis loves Amy Winehouse, she does, but, oooh, that woman is a a worry with her image and all:

“A performer’s privacy is taken away. The media are always there. You can’t make your mistakes in private,” Lewis said.

“I have the advantage of a great support structure. I get honest opinions from my family and friends.

“They aren’t always telling me what I want to hear, but the truth helps keep my head straight.”

It's not as if Amy didn't have people telling her truths, either - there are very few addicts who don't have someone they've chosen to ignore as they embrace their habit.

And is Lewis really saying - as she appears to - that the problem is less that Winehouse has got substance abuse problems, than the papers write about them? "If only she could have got on smoking crack in private..."?

It's easy to blame the press for everything, but this seems a little odd. And even if somehow a crack habit is only a problem when it's in the papers (does a crack pipe smoked in the woods matter if nobody films it on a cameraphone?) then isn't Winehouse a little to blame for not exactly having tried to protect her privacy, what with the parading down streets in Camden smoking drugs, posting videos to YouTube of her doing stuff to mice, her husband beating up people in pubs and so on. The papers might have been unflinching in their stare, but she did cry "look at me" rather a lot, didn't she?

Here is the news... and this is the RIAA reading it

In the latest attempt to spend cash on doomed attempts to fight filesharing, the RIAA has apparently been sending TV stations in America a "video press release" which, unsurprisingly, offers an RIAA tinted view of music piracy. Some channels are running it as if it's impartial news.

Heather Mills murdered

Oh, hang about, she hasn't been; it's just another squawky over-reaction from the one-woman self-pity machine. "Murdered by the media." She's now decided that she's no longer like Kate McCann or Diana, instead she's more like Sydney Cook:

"I don't think anything can prepare you for being treated worse than a murderer or a paedophile when all you have done in 17 years is charity work."

She does seem to have forgotten the celebrity dancing contests, the high-profile marriage to a Beatle and, erm, that she didn't start her charity work until after her accident 14 years ago.

But she's still lying about the Kate McCann comparison:

I never said I compared myself to the McCanns and they (the Press) said I did," she said.

Perhaps someone should gently sit her down and play her her own GM-TV appearance, where she said:

I am trying and I am being pushed to the edge. Eighteen months of abuse. Worse than murderers and paedophiles. 4,400 abusive articles. Look what they’re doing to the McCanns. The woman and the poor father have lost their daughter. What are we doing as a nation? What are we doing persecuting a woman that is devastated behind closed doors and trying to hold it together as I have for eighteen months.

To try and deny you said something on national TV - twice - seriously undermines your case if you're setting yourself up as a critic of false reporting.

Mills then suggests that her mauling at the hands of the press is because she's some sort of revolutionary hero of our times:

"I'm a woman who puts fear into men who want to control women," she said.

"If you look at every single person in the history of the world who has tried to make a difference, you'll find a very long section of their lives where they were treated horrifically by the government or by the media."

But since Mills' campaigns have been strictly limited - a well-meaning but woolly spot of vegetarianism here, worthy but hardly radical work for landmine clearance and disabled people - it's hard to imagine that there's a secret bunker in Whitehall where civil servants are quaking at the very mention of her name. Indeed, a more fitting comparison for Mills, rather than Sylvia Pankhurst or Rosa Luxembourg, would be, say, Paul Danan. Or maybe it's part of the conspiracy that Danan has been dumped from panto in Preston after swearing at the Christmas lights switch-on. Oh no he didn't. Oh, yes, he did.

Meanwhile, Heather has been expressing her disgust at rich people:

"Sadly, you have to mix at a certain level of people to raise the level of funds you need to bring about the greater good," she said.

"Because people are very snobby - these people who have lots of money, they're either snobby or they're stingy.

"If you have lots of money you have to be stingy because why would you that amount of money."

See! She's only rubbing shoulders with the wealthy because she's gone undercover on our behalf to change the world. God, how she hates the constant fine dinners, the stream of exquisite wines, and the laughter of the rich. Really, she's just waiting for the time when she can bring the whole edifice crashing down with TRUTH and a few well-placed tears.

Now, this might make her seem rather two-faced, and one does wonder how, the next time she's sneaked her way into the belly of the aristocracy the rich and powerful will feel about her knowing she's told the world she only pretends to like them to milk them dry.

So where does Dancing With The Stars fit in? And her attempts to scoop up large piles of divorce cash?

It's all part of the plan:

"But you have to be able earn a certain living and be able to mix in that arena to influence those people and kind of drag that out of them to actually make a change and make them realise that's what's really exciting about life."

See? She has to be rich, otherwise she couldn't get into the palaces and castles and manors, and sleep on their Egyptian cotton sheets, and eat their organic scrambled eggs, and play deck quoits with the sons of Earls and sisters of novelists and... sorry, what was she doing it for again?

Indeed, if we can raise ten million quid for her, she might be able to infiltrate their luxurious country piles deeply enough to bring about a proletarian revolution by Christmas. Send money now.

Mills dumped by PR advisor

You know, it's kind of curious that Heather Mills should rail quite so strongly against Rupert Murdoch's papers when she'd been paying for PR services from Phil Hall, who had worked for Rupert as News of the World editor.

Had been paying, mind: Hall has walked away now, opting to not be part of the current campaign:

"We are still mates but I am not working with her any more," Mr Hall told MediaGuardian.co.uk.

"Yesterday, she said she wanted to do this TV campaign attacking newspapers, but I have a good relationship with newspapers and my business depends on feeding that good relationship," he added.

"She wanted me to orchestrate this campaign and make calls to newspapers but I have got friends and mates in national newspapers and it didn't seem right to make those calls and attack them."

Interesting he was there in the first place, though, isn't it?

Heather Mills, sobbing on GMTV about how she was an "ordinary person" while having a former tabloid editor advising her on media relations?

Heather Mills, disgusted by the Sun, while employing the former editor of their sister paper.

Heather Mills, comparing her treatment by the press to the way Diana Windsor was treated, while employing a man who told ITV he felt he had a "huge responsibility" for what happened to Diana?

Heather Mills, crusader for public protection from the worst excesses of the tabloid press, while having her PR handled by a man who cheerfully admitted using pretty girls ("Hall's angels") in entrapment set-ups to "expose" the behaviour of Tom Parker-Bowles?

No wonder Hall is backing off from the latest campaign. As humbug goes, this is something of a gobstopper.

Mills: The media is just beastly

Sobbing on the GMTV sofa, Heather Mills tells how terrible the media has been to her:

“I have been offered nothing, OK? Nothing! We go to court over my daughter. I’m not allowed to talk about it because it’s a criminal act if I talk about my daughter. You have no idea what’s going on. These figures are made up. £100 million, £50 million, £20 million … How do you know if I even want any money? I’m £1.5 million in debt in lawyer’s fees. And that’s as much as I can say or I go to jail for telling the truth. So I’m gagged at the moment because I’m not allowed to say a word while the media are fed this spin by a certain corner.”

How do we know if she wants any money... hmmm, perhaps because if you didn't, it's unlikely that there would be constant deal-or-no-deal meetings in court. Unless we're expected to believe that McCartney is trying to force money on Heather and she's trying to argue her way out of it?

So, there's a big court order banning Mills from "talking about her daughter", then. Only, when she's asked if Paul is trying to enforce a permanent ban on her doing media interviews, she snorts:

“It’s rubbish! I could sell my story right now. I’m trying to protect Paul and our daughter.”

So, she could sell her story right now despite it being a "criminal act" if she talks about her daughter. That makes sense, then.

And then Mills just gets weird:

My sister was crying her eyes out because that awful Jordan and Peter Andre did a joke on Sunday and I’ve had six amputee girls crying their eyes out because they’re getting bullied at school because people are joking about the loss of my limb. Jonathan Ross said, ‘She’s such an effing liar. We’ll find out she’s got two legs instead of one'.”

Ross called you a "fucking liar"? Really? When? Or are you, you know, making things up in the media? And even if the "crying amputee girls" are being bullied because of you (and are there really children who wouldn't bully kids different from themselves until Mills started divorce proceedings?), isn't there something horribly cynical about throwing them into a GMTV interview?

But that's not as low as Mills sinks: she then compares herself to the dead of Hillsborough:

“I’m not fighting the press, I’m going to the European Parliament. And we’ll change the law like I did with a group of like-minded people where they have to have responsible journalism! They’ve pushed so many people over the edge. Extraordinary people have written to me. Look at Hillsborough; look at them saying, ‘They looted the pockets of the dead bodies’ when they were trying to find IDs to find out who they are! They urinated all over them.

She went on to say: “My plan is to change the law in the European Parliament and I will do it. I’m fed up with a specific portion of the media. Some of them are still supportive, but some of them that are abusing me. I will investigate every single one of those journalists.”

Every single one, eh? Blimey. You're going to be busy.

The Times isn't exactly quaking in its boots:

She directed viewers to the website youk.com to find out more about her petition. Times Online was unable to find any reference to the campaign on the site.

We can understand Mills being frustrated by the way the media portrays her, but this isn't the correct response. Comparing herself to, say, the McCanns - and she does - and the attempt to elevate her victimhood to martyrdom has the net result of leaving herself looking absurd.

Oddly, despite the media being so terrible, she has, you know, used it to her advantage:

For six years, when I lost my leg, I was the model that overcame adversity, inspired other amputees to get on with their lives. Front page of all the newspapers. The Sun, "Model of Courage". They serialised my book. I told my whole life story in my book. It all went to charity. The Sun had it there. I talked about my glamour modeling when I was a teenager.

Ah, but apparently, this doesn't count because she was doing it for charidee:

I haven't used the press for anything except my charity. When did I promote a record? When did I act for anything?

Um... Dancing With The Stars? Guest-hosting Larry King Live? Doing, ooh, GMTV interviews?

[UPDATE: Thanks to all the commenters who pointed out that Ross did, actually, call Mills a liar. Sorry we didn't believe you, Heather. And the Times has explained the uk.com website]

We all feel shame in the cold hard stare of George Michael's disgust

Apparently, George Michael has been disgusted by the media's reaction to Robbie Williams. Apparently unbothered that Williams might have brought some of his own troubles on himself by swanning about like he was some sort of demi-god, releasing a slipshod album that included vindictive personal attacks on his former manager, spent time crowing that he'd sold out his tour with more nights that Take Thats, Michael growled and grumbled:

"Take That came back with a perfectly acceptable record and good for them.

But I can't believe the way the media have treated Robbie Williams over this.

It's their dream come true for Take That to have come back and knocked a bit of stuffing out of him."

Presumably, when he attacks "the British media", Michael is somehow managing to overlook Victoria Newton's fawning 24 hour Williams PR stand, her "send a card to Robbie initiative, her publishing of the lyric attacking Nigel Martin Smith, with little regard to the very real riskk of it containing potentially libellious allegations, and so on.

It's almost as if George Michael has some sort of problem with the British press - you know, like constantly appearing on front pages in long-lens shots stumbling out of cars, that sort of thing - and is using Williams as some sort of proxy.

Just imagine.

Meanwhile, Michael has been trying to get a part in EastEnders or Coronation Street. Apparently he thinks it would be a great move:

"It would be a great place to learn to act."

No, George. A great place to "learn to act" would be a rehearsal room working on an amateur dramatic production of an Agatha Christie. Going into a programme watched by ten million people filmed on the sort of production line basis that Adam Smith would think a little over-mechanical isn't really a great move for someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Still, we're sure the other cast members will be keen to welcome you aboard knowing you think what they do is the nursery-room of acting.

Heart murmurs

The future of Heart and Galaxy is up in the air this morning as owners Chrysalis announce a review of their business. Amongst the possible options are a demerger of the radio and music divisions:

Chrysalis chief executive, Richard Huntingford, added: "The latest Rajars and current trading confirm that we start this process from a position of considerable strength.

"We have no preconceived view on the outcome of the review, other than a commitment to ensure Chrysalis Radio's participation in the long-term development of the UK radio sector and thereby deliver the greatest benefit to all stakeholders, including shareholders, listeners, advertisers and employees."

Our instinct here - and forgive us our cynicism - is that the second on that list of stakeholders might be lowest in list of priorities.