Haha, love the angle. I normally feel really uncomfortable with these type of interviews, because Paul was absolutely destroyed in front of millions of people, and it feels like bullying. But to think going on air and defending the stuff he did makes him look and sound like the vermin he clearly is, so the more people destroy the rat the better. He's not a journalist. He's that feral pleb in the office or playground that goes round grassing on other people because he's got absolutely no personality of his own. It's his only way to feel important. To think that he's breathing the same air as normal people even annoys me!
"its good of you to come on, but you strike me as a genuinely tortured soul" - oh man, nothing like a posh english lady to utterly destroy with the gentlest of put-downs. That was award-winning.
Coogan has always been very intelligent. You have to be to create such a brilliant satirical character as Alan Partridge - probably the greatest comedy character ever.
My favourite McMullen arguments: 1) Hey, Steve, you have money, why shouldn't your phone be tapped? 2) It's all a bit of fun 3) Freedom of Speech? Huh? I'll google it... 4) A process, which raises huge privacy and moral issues, manages to achieve positive outcomes some of the time and utterly fails with no chance of success at others, so therefore the process is always OK.
Paul McMullen makes me feel physically sick. The press don't have the right to listen to anyone's answering machine messages - whether they're good or bad, rich or poor.
Love how coogan sits there after the end of the programme he's still exasperated with the morally corrupt guy. I already loved Steve coogan but after seeing that he has gone up a notch or three more. Thankyou Mr coogan for your voice .❤️❤️
“If you see a lovely field with a family having a picnic, and a nice pond in it, you fill in the pond with concrete, you plow the family into the soil, you blow up the tree, and use the leaves to make a dress for your wife who is also your brother.” “You make pigs smoke!”
Not all of them, some are still doing great, important work to this day. Granted though, any rag with Rupert Murdoch's grubby mitts all over it is cancer, pure & simple.
"You've gotta get rid of emotions to think about it rationally". So many people say stuff like this. What's rational about disregarding emotions? About ignoring a whole realm of facts - because emotions are facts and they're facts that matter a lot.
...and the reason for why the News of the World ceased to exist as of 2011 was? The final editorial: "Phones were hacked, and for that this newspaper is truly sorry... there is no justification for this appalling wrongdoing." Hiding behind the ideal of a 'free press' (an ideal is all it ever was by the way), while abusing every position of trust that a truly free press enjoys, is the same as a gunman using children as a shield and blaming the Police for shooting at him. It is morally reprehensible to argue that the NoTW's behaviour had any moral justification to support it's pursuit of using the details gained from illegal phone hacking, to sell it's paper. If anyone's going to hack phones, it's going to be with Parliamentary consent and called 'MI5'.
Watching this in 2021. If we didn't have the press to call out lies in political campaigning, we'd probably now be in a situation where the UK had left the EU, and some career liar was PM.
When someone has a pen in his hand during a discussion they’re on the defensive, and projecting the image of holding a weapon - McMullan is utterly reprehensible and criminal.
Saying Coogan courts the Papparazzi everytime he walks down a red carpet is like saying someone courts the buzzards as he walks the desert. They come to him. He just has to either cope with it or never leave his house.
I don’t understand why Steve Coogan earning £5m a movie means that Paul McMullan has the right to tap his phone. That’s in incredibly warped way of thinking, not to mention a very weak argument just justify press intrusion.
What a wonderful piece - you can clearly see that everyone around the table has their own biases, their own motivations, and you can see what arguments spring out of those motivations. Next time you hear "freedom of the press" you'll have a clearer understanding what sort of person would make that argument
Tabloid logic: "You make money, you're famous, ergo we have carte blanche to stick out noses into anything we want and damn you, because-you know- you're _successful_ " Ahh, our distinctly British culture of "player hating"
The reporter saying that if they can't hack phones, how are they supposed to catch politicians cheating, is like the police saying, how can we catch criminals unless we break into random peoples houses just to check they aren't committing crimes.
100% behind Coogan. He's bang on the money. His comedy doesn't pretend to be sympathetic or moral but the tabloids do. There is a difference. Coogan makes money up-front honestly. Tabloids play both sides off each other and go with what sells more.
looking at these comments is making me laugh my ass off, i am an alan partridge fan but haven't watched it in years and reading these comments is just triggering all these happy memories of watching the show..also agree with everything coogan says :)
I love how much everyone hates these kind of journalists lmao they think the general public want to hear about the 'shallow lives some people live' as if were as mad as they are about other peoples success
Are they discussing about wiretapping ? That is ILLEGAL in the US, unless it involves a criminal investigation, and even then, there must be probable cause, in addtion to, documents filed.
Fair play to Paul for coming on there. There is an honesty about him. He's not pretending he's perfect and I can see his point about exposing multi millionaire celebrities
Wow, Paul McMullen is just sitting there saying that its OK to hack into and listen to people's messages. The expressions on the rest of the panel's faces when he started saying that were priceless.
hang on what does how much Steve Coogan gets for a movie have to do with him being angry at having his privacy invaded? That right there is clutching at straws. Just because he's successful, doesn't mean he deserves to have his phone hacked
I agree Barry (he could've been successful if he'd pushed that more eloquently, you make millions from Murdoch's companies then complain when he stings you....Coogan doesn't care about his personal life being intruded upon as much as the Dowlers' et al who don't have his media knowledge). Worrying what low calibre, no scruples folk tabloids employ.
@@jaycuthbert245 that's just the line Paul McMullen was using in all these interviews, he started it with Hugh Grant who probably does earn that depending on the film then just started saying it to everyone
