Readers will no doubt be aware that the tissue of lies spun out by London police to cover for the killing of Brazilian man Jean Charles de Menezes continues to unravel. Of course, no-one who has followed the media shenanigans by the British security forces in the North over the years should be surprised by any of this.

The latest is that the police leaks claiming that the Tube CCTV system (the one which provided such good records of the original bombers) was completely inoperative on the day de Menezes died, unsurprisingly turn out to be far from the truth. Lenin's Tomb has details.

Unfortunately, a hopeless media has already accomplished the aims of the London coppers in defusing the initial fallout from the events of this murder, when public pressure might have produced resignations. The initial reporting (based on deceitful police sources) in the days when de Menezes' death was front page news has already implanted a false narrative in the public mind, and subsequent corrections inevitably get much less attention.

(People following the recent killings and other scandals by Gardaí here will note the similarities in this old routine).

The press system of reporting the spin of police 'sources' will likely continue untroubled, awaiting the next hapless person to die from security force action. Bloggers could make ourselves useful by calling out specific 'security correspondant' shills for the police. It's a small step, but the Dan Rathers episode in the US shows how it is now possible (through the non-existent barriers to publishing of the Internet) to nowadays in turn watch the Fourth Estate watchers.

The media system of uncredited sources is poison to democracy, where it is subject to such unpunished abuse by duplicitous parties. Perhaps a Media Matters for Ireland and the UK (considering the incestuous relationship between the media in both parts at present) could do a good deal of public service in consistently calling these hacks to account.