Murdoch III

I spend torturous hours roaming around the national and international news sites, blog sites, Facebook and other forms of social media to get the latest on Murdoch so I thought to myself: “Why can’t we have all the news in the one place?”  Hence, the Murdoch pages.

Dear friends, if any of you happen to find any interesting articles or developments perhaps you would be kind enough to share the link with us on this exclusive thread.

As Mobius pointed out, this story will keep growing legs.  As such, I’ll keep adding new pages to this thread like I do with the popular Media Watch section.

And just to remind you how much of a prick he is – I’ve included a photo for your inspiration.

The Murdoch pages are archived after 300 comments (or thereabouts), as beyond that they can be slow to open if accessed by some mobile phones.

Here is the link to the previous Murdoch discussion:

Murdoch II

364 comments on “Murdoch III”

  2. “His (James Murdoch) admission to Parliament also increases the risk he could be pursued under America’s Rackateer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (RICO) Act, because he opened the email before the alleged hacking at the News of the World ended.

    Mr Murdoch has not been questioned or arrested in connection with any offence and sources close to him deny he is vulnerable. News Corp declined to comment”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/8960019/James-Murdoch-admission-piles-pressure-on-News-Corp.html

  4. Pip

    then the News ltd papers will not publish this

    “So, who did hack Milly Dowler’s phone?
    Scotland Yard is hunting for new evidence to confirm whether a senior journalist at the News Of The World deleted the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s voicemails, thereby giving her parents false hope that she was still alive.
    A revised timetable of what happened immediately after the 13-year-old disappeared in March 2003 has created uncertainty about key assumptions of the phone-hacking scandal. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police ruled out the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire as the person who initially hacked into her mobile phone account.

    But The Independent understands that Surrey Police have evidence which points to a former senior newsdesk executive at the NOTW as the journalist who first accessed Milly’s voicemails within 72 hours of her disappearance.
    The Independent has been told the identity of the journalist but cannot name him for legal reasons. He is already on police bail in connection with the phone-hacking scandal.”
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/so-who-did-hack-milly-dowlers-phone-6276131.html

    Typical of Murky news But it is not going away.
    Fairfax should reprint this story, as they did the story on James Murdoch being caught in his own lies.

  5. The latest being that both Rupert and Lady McCartney may be called…

    Mr Justice Leveson said, “The only person who would lawfully be able to listen to the message is the lady in question or someone authorised on her behalf to listen to it. Isn’t that right?”

    “Possibly,” said Mr Morgan

    “Well?” said the judge.

    “What do you expect me to say?” asked Mr Morgan. “I can’t go into the details of this without compromising the source.”

    Mr Justice Leveson said, “I am perfectly happy to call Lady McCartney to give evidence as to whether she authorised you to listen to her voicemail…

    http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/tv-host-quizzed-over-mccartney-voicemail-hacks-20111221-1p4fs.html#ixzz1h9Sq5P8h

  6. Peter Hain confirms investigation by police of high security hacking

    News International’s chief executive denies that company was involved in any interference with Hain’s computers

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/23/peter-hain-investigation-police-hacking?newsfeed=true

    Peter Hain has confirmed that police have met him to investigate the possible hacking of his computers while he was in his high security cabinet post as Northern Ireland secretary between 2005 and 2007. The approach by officers from Operation Tuleta was first reported in the Guardian last month.

  7. What does CNN do with Piers Morgan now?

    The host’s bumbling testimony about his part in the phone hacking scandal surely has CNN wondering what it got itself into

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2011/dec/20/piers-morgan-cnn-leveson-inquiry

    Repeatedly pressed by Jay and Leveson to explain his past statements and career – which may or may not have involved phone hacking – Morgan’s memory became worryingly unreliable. By the end of Jay’s questioning the imperious interviewer familiar to viewers of Piers Morgan Tonight was reduced to sullen, one-word answers delivered with curt annoyance.

  8. And a little gem about Murdoch’s NOW

    “Few outside the sometimes surreal world of the tabloids had realised until the Leveson hearings got under way that a paper like the News of the World was being largely put together not by journalists, but by private detectives.

    The paper employed one private eye, Steve Whittamore, to blag ex-directory phone numbers, “friends and family” numbers, and addresses from car number plates. They employed another, Glenn Mulcaire, to hack into voicemails, using the phone numbers thus obtained. They employed a third, convicted criminal Jonathan Rees, apparently for his relations with police officers. They paid a fourth, Silent Shadow, to put people high and low under surveillance. And finally, a fifth private eye, who currently has to be known as “Soldier X” for legal reasons, was, according to allegations made at the inquiry, employed to plant a Trojan virus to hack into a target’s computer.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/23/leveson-inquiry-story-s

  9. But this needs it’s own little post

    “Rather in the way the origin of the Aids virus is believed to have been traced by scientists to some primates in the heart of the Congo, so Leveson seems to have been toiling through the tabloid jungle, in search of an incubator of the original phone-hacking virus.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/23/leveson-inquiry-story-so-far

    Now i know who was probably in the outfit of the grim reaper in those early aids advertisements, none other than Murky himself

  11. Ding ! Ding !, the winner of the best tweet of the day goes to UK MP John Prescott.

    Rupert Murdoch joins Twitter? ‘Now this will be fascinating,’ says PiersNews Corporation chief seemingly tries to break with 2011’s annus horribilis by tweeting ‘with his own voice, in his own way’
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/01/rupert-murdoch-twitter-account?newsfeed=true

    John Prescott…
    http://www.resonancers.com/tweets/johnprescott

    Hey @rupertmurdoch. I’m surprised you’re only following two people. The police said it was at least 800 http://t.co/G0CSQj3s

  12. With thanks to Steve H* for the link from Australians for an Honest Media on Facebook.

    Phone-hacking in numbers
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/28/phone-hacking-numbers?fb=native

    9
    Age of Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Grace, whose secret godfather turned out to be … Tony Blair. She had been baptised in the river Jordan in Easter 2010. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman were looking on – but Blair himself had been carefully cut out of a photoshoot supplied at the time to Hello! magazine.

    23
    Number of times that David Cameron met with News International executives in the first year he took office – including, it emerged, two social meetings last Christmas with Murdoch’s lieutenant Rebekah Brooks.

    Continue…

  14. Former NoW editor Colin Myler takes the helm at New York Daily

    NewsEditor who presided over News of the World during fallout from phone-hacking scandal to take charge at Murdoch rival

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/04/colin-myler-new-york-daily-news

    Colin Myler, the final editor of the News of the World who has been a key figure in the unravelling phone-hacking scandal in the UK, has crossed back over the Atlantic to take the helm of the New York Daily News.

    Myler’s appointment as editor-in-chief of New York’s biggest-selling tabloid gives him a chance to wreak revenge on the Murdoch family, with whom he has had strained relations in recent months as the hacking scandal unfolded.

  17. Survey: Republicans Trust Fox News And Nothing Else
    http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/01/18/406441/survey-republicans-trust-fox-news-and-nothing-else/

    The numbers show just how powerful Fox can be in setting the agenda and influencing the world view of conservatives, with virtually no competition or accountability from the outside world. This monopoly on news penetration for an entire half of the electorate would be bad no matter the network, but it’s especially troubling considering Fox’s shoddy, and often agenda-driven “reporting.” And unlike an openly-ideological news outlet like ThinkProgress or the National Review, which freely advertise their perspectives, Fox insists it’s a traditional “far and balanced” news outlet.

    In Oz we have ltd news….

  19. How Fox News Is Destroying The Republican Party
    http://mediamatters.org/blog/201201260009#.TyOc7SBxfoc.twitter

    That’s because Fox News isn’t simply offering a rightward take on the day’s events, or innocently providing Republican-friendly commentary, of course. It’s leading an exhausting, day-in, day-out attack campaign against Obama, Democrats and all their liberal allies. (Real or imagined.) Its relentless, paranoid crusade falls well outside the mainstream of American politics, which is why the Republican primary season, so proudly sponsored by Fox News, is shaping up to be such an embarrassment.

    Make no mistake, kingmaker Ailes has made sure his channel’s profoundly un-serious stamp permeates this year’s GOP contest. For more and more spooked Republicans though, it’s a stamp of failure and looming defeat.

  21. Pip
    Let’s hope so. P.M. Abbott is gagging, at least we’ll be suffering all on our own down under. But a Republican president is mindshakingly scary.
    Interesting that the first Republican president was Lincoln, who reunited the country. Now they want the job by dividing it again.

  22. Bob, the way the Republicans have morphed into their mindshakingly scary robes of corporatocracy makes Abbott look like an irritating schoolboy…..

    oh, wait…

  26. “Police to investigate alleged email hacking at the Times

    MP Tom Watson writes to officers at Operation Tuleta over accusation against News International title

    Watson said on Twitter on Thursday: “The Met police have confirmed to me they are investigating @rupertmurdoch’s newspaper The Times over email hacking.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/02/police-investigate-email-
    hacking-times

    Did Hartigan before he “retired” investigate email hacking when he assured the Australian public there was no case of phone hacking in News Ltd australia?

  28. Oh James M may be in trouble , from Tom Watson’s letter of complaint to police:

    “It is clear that a crime has been committed – illicit hacking of personal emails. It is almost certain that a judge was misled. In turn, James Murdoch has misled a parliamentary inquiry into where Parliament had been previously misled by executives of News International. ”
    http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2012/01/complaint-to-the-police-about-allegations-of-computer-hacking-at-the-times/

  31. Reuters has just published a story suggesting US authorities may have escalated their investigations into Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

    US authorities are stepping up investigations, including an FBI criminal inquiry, into possible violations by employees of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire of a US law banning corrupt payments to foreign officials such as police, law enforcement and corporate sources said.

    But US investigators have found little to substantiate allegations of phone hacking inside the United States by Murdoch journalists, the sources added.

    The FBI is conducting an investigation into possible criminal violations by Murdoch employees of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), a law intended to curb payment of bribes by US companies to foreign officials, a US law enforcement official said.

    The US official said that if any law enforcement action was pursued by US. authorities against Murdoch employees, it would most likely relate to FCPA.

    If it is found to have violated the FCPA, Murdoch’s News Corp, which has its headquarters in New York, could be fined up to $2m and barred from US government contracts, and individuals who participated in the bribery could face fines of up to $100,000 and a jail sentence of five years.

    Executives could be liable if they authorised bribes or knew about the practice but failed to stop it.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/07/leveson-inquiry-harding-mohan-buscombe-live

  33. “”News International’s concern that a public trial will further damage an already-tainted brand was evident as their lawyers repeatedly appealed in the High Court yesterday to have the trial delayed, potentially indefinitely. The demand was dismissed by the presiding judge, Mr Justice Vos, stating simply: “We’re ready for trial.”

    “Now 25, and having survived what she has called the “brutality” of Britain’s tabloid press, the Church trial is set to begin on 27 February and could become a legal landmark, bearing testimony to the musician’s determination to expose what she described as years of intrusion and rough treatment by newspapers. At the core of her complaints against the NOTW, which wrote 33 articles about her that she considers to be the product of illegal newsgathering, is a story that was headlined: “Church in three in a bed cocaine shock.” The story was not about the singer, but her father and she said it led to her mother trying to kill herself.”
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/charlotte-church-stands-alone-as-hacking-victims-settle-6676524.html
    trial set for 27/2/12

  34. Lachlan grabs Ten chair … Mills at Leveson … Textor’s tawdry tweet …

    http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/02/10/media-briefs-lachlan-grabs-ten-chair-mills-at-leveson-textors-tawdry-tweet/

    Murdoch appointed new Ten chairman. In a surprise, the Ten Network announced this morning that Lachlan Murdoch has been elected chairman, with Brian Long, Ten’s existing chairman, becoming deputy chairman and lead independent director. Will the announcement similarly surprise our apparently dozing media regulator, ACMA?

  36. Sue, I did….

    Textor’s turbulent Tweet. Influential pollster and political strategist Mark Textor employed some colourful turns of phrase when he lambasted Peter Brent’s Australian contributions on Twitter last night. The offending item, perhaps not surprisingly, has now been deleted. A language warning for those of a more delicate sensibility: don’t read past here …

    Let’s just say it rhymes with runt !

    Textor was the white-haired PR guru for the Coalition –

  39. Oh golly gosh

    “Rupert Murdoch is flying to London after five of tabloid’s most senior staff are arrested in ongoing inquiry into alleged bribery

    The worsening crisis at the tabloid could have wider ramifications for the Murdoch media empire, according to some media experts.

    Clive Hollick, former chief executive of United Business Media, said the latest arrests could intensify the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation into News Corp in the US.

    In a post on his Twitter account he added that the arrests “may lead to fines, director oustings and asset sales”.

    He also suggested that the developments could lead to the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom reviewing Murdoch’s control of Sky television in the UK.

    Hollick tweeted: “Will Ofcom conclude that Sun arrests on top of hacking render NI not fit and proper to hold #Sky license and make them sell shareholding?”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/11/sun-journalists-arrested

  40. For journos of News ltd a word from a union official”

    The NUJ has accused Murdoch of throwing his journalists to the wolves in a bid to save his company, adding that the reputation of those arrested will “inevitably” be damaged.

    General secretary Michelle Stanistreet said News International staff were reeling and furious at “what many sense to be a witch-hunt” and “a monumental betrayal on the part of News International”.

    “Once again Rupert Murdoch is trying to pin the blame on individual journalists hoping that a few scalps will salvage his corporate reputation,” she said.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/11/sun-journalists-arrested

  41. And today the new york times is running 1 story on the sun arrests and 1 on james murdoch and the incriminating email.

  42. More murky murkiness:
    “That the arrests are linked to alleged bribes paid not just to police officers but prison staff and Ministry of Defence officials, confirms Scotland Yard is throwing its net wider as it seeks to root out corruption. The arrest of an MoD official may invite speculation that the Official Secrets Act could have been breached.”

    “We’re more frightened by the [US justice department] than we are of Scotland Yard,” a source close to News Corp told Reuters last year. “All Scotland Yard can go after is News International, but the justice department can go after all of News Corporation.”

    One person close to News Corp suggested fears about an investigation being launched under the FCPA were overblown. But News Corp is clearly concerned about the possibility. Last year it hired Mark Mendelsohn, the deputy chief of the fraud section in the criminal division of the US department of justice, and an expert on the act.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/11/rupert-murdoch-media-empire-scrutiny

  45. Not surprising at all, just waiting to see if the paying of sources has spread outside uk.

    hartigan only investigated phone hacking, after successful review hartigan got the chop.

    and r brooks did state there was a lot more to come out, then mere phone hacking, brooks also has on record that she was aware of payments to police.

  46. I wonder if we are going to see on the ABC what the PM has been doing over the weekend. I noticed Sky thought it was important enough to allocate some time to her movements.

  47. Dowler’s taking case to America:

    It was reported on Sunday night that the solicitor representing the family of Milly Dowler and other alleged victims of phone hacking is to take his battle against Murdoch to America, It was reported on Sunday night that the solicitor representing the family of Milly Dowler and other alleged victims of phone hacking is to take his battle against Murdoch to America
    Mike Koehler, an expert in FCPA law at Butler University, said the arrests on Saturday marked an escalation in the risk of an FCPA prosecution for the New York-based News Corp. “This spreads the alleged bribery to a completely different newspaper, to a different segment of the company and to other public officials,” he said.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/13/news-corporation-us-inquiry-sun

  49. Thank you for the link, Eddie…

    “There are journalists in every other newspaper, including those leading the charge against us, who deploy exactly the same methods and procedures of trying to unearth stories which are in the public interest”
    End Quote Trevor Kavanagh

    I dare say there are, but for the moment it’s Murdoch who has been caught. It may be of the public’s interest aka hot juicy gossip, but that is not an excuse for using illegal methods, nor does it excuse invasions of privacy.

  51. If these reports are true then Murky will be in trouble with US regulators’. It would also explain why Murky has a team of lawyers on hand that deal with the charges of corruption by US companies in foreign countries.

    “Met probes claims that Sun paid some public officials more than £10k a year

    Source familiar with News Corp internal inquiry says it has found ‘serious suspected criminality over a sustained period’
    The Scotland Yard investigation into alleged illegal payments by Sun journalists to police and other public officials is looking into claims that some individuals received more than £10,000 a year and were “effectively on retainer”.

    “regular cash payments totalling tens of thousands of pounds a year for several years to public officials, some of whom were effectively on retainer to provide information” to the Sun. “In totality it involves a six-figure sum,” the insider added.

    The source said that the investigation is not to do with “sources or expenses” claims by journalists.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/15/met-sun-public-officials

  52. How did this woman get a visa to Australia, a working visa at that?

    “The former executive personal assistant to Rebekah Brooks, once one of the most powerful executives at Rupert Murdoch’s News International, has reportedly been prevented from travelling to Australia with her family after police confiscated her passport.

    Cheryl Carter, 47, arrested last month by Scotland Yard’s Operating Weeting investigation into phone hacking

    News International did not reply to queries but a News Ltd paper reported she was in line for a job with the company in Perth

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/australia-offlimits-for-murdoch-editors-aide-20120216-1tbqo.html#ixzz1mZsIYoex

  53. The old monster Rupert Murdoch finds his elixir with his back against the wall

    Who could fail to be impressed with Murdoch the adrenaline junkie, handbrake-turning into the offices of the Sun?

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/rupert-murdoch-old-monster-elixir

    The obvious explanation for the merriment is that people aren’t frightened of him any more. But after the indignities of the past few months, there is another, more curious sort of amusement to be had: watching how revitalised the old boy appears to be by having his back against the wall. Compare today’s bullish announcement that the Sunday Sun was on its way with that doddery appearance before the select committee last July. It goes without saying that his suggestion that “this is the most humble day of my life” was the worst piece of acting of 2011 – including anything accomplished by The Only Way is Essex cast. And there was something embarrassingly unwatchable about his willingness to play the fond old man, shielded from a slapstick attack by his young missus.

    Yet just look at the life in him now, virtually handbrake-turning into the offices of his beleaguered Sun yesterday and announcing that the paper was “part of me” in the familiar tones of a man who’d sell it in a heartbeat if it was necessary to his survival. (As his daughter Elisabeth recalled to Tatler, she once raced home from school to her beloved pony only to be informed by her father that he’d given it away in a News of the World competition.)

  54. Pip at 3.15
    Lets hope the pressure’s maintained on Murdoch, because any counterattack will be vicious.
    He’s interesting to watch, as this article implies. “Sell it in a heartbeat” indeed. Everything’s usable & disposable to him.
    But it is funny to hear his coalface staff, hundreds of them, who for years have regarded anyone as fair game (so long as they came within the established parameters) complaining that they’re being scrutinised & singled out.
    “How does it feel?” as Mr Dylan once remarked.

  55. With thanks to Steve H* on Migs’ Australians for an Honest Media facebook group:

    This year has seen unprecedented scrutiny of Rupert Murdoch’s empire in Britain. But what about in Australia, where he owns 70 per cent of the press? In Bad News, Robert Manne investigates Murdoch’s lead political voice here, the Australian newspaper, and how it shapes debate.

    Since 2002, under the editorship of Chris Mitchell, the Australian has come to see itself as judge, jury and would-be executioner of leaders and policies. Is this a dangerous case of power without responsibility? In a series of devastating case studies, Manne examines the paper’s campaigns against the Rudd government and more recently the Greens, its climate change coverage and its ruthless pursuit of its enemies and critics. Manne also considers the standards of the paper and its influence more generally. This brilliant essay is part deep analysis and part vivid portrait of what happens when a newspaper goes rogue.

    http://www.quarterlyessay.com/issue/bad-news-murdochs-australian-and-shaping-nation

  56. Murky and the sun on sunday.

    tom watson has written to the police commissioner wondering if murky has the power to lift bail conditions of his workers. murky has invited the 10 sun reporters to return to work. normal bail conditions have a “no contact” clause.
    watson has also asked the commisioner if they have secured evidence as the individuals would have access to evidence that could be tampered with.

    http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/20/tom-watson-rupert-murdoch-sun

  58. Charlotte Church settles over phone hacking scandal

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-24/charlotte-church-settles-over-phone-hacking-scandal/3849746

    Singer Charlotte Church has settled a claim against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) for phone hacking.

    The settlement means the group will be spared a potentially damaging public trial the day after it launches a Sunday edition of its Sun tabloid.

    There was no detail of how much NGN had agreed to pay Church, although media reports have suggested it could be one of the largest agreed so far.

    The High Court had been due to consider the 25-year-old Welsh singer’s claim that 33 articles in the now defunct The News of the World tabloid were the product of phone hacking.

  59. Inquest could end Azaria death mystery

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-24/coronial-inquest-into-azaria-chamberlain27s-death/3849756

    More than 30 years after baby Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from a campground near Uluru, her parents hope a fourth coronial inquest in Darwin today will officially blame a dingo for her death.

    It is the mystery that has divided a nation and led to three inquests, a jail sentence, numerous appeals and a Royal Commission.

    Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton and ex-husband Michael Chamberlain will today make another bid to have baby Azaria’s death certificate changed to say she was killed by a dingo.

    Nine-week-old baby Azaria disappeared while the family were camping at Uluru in 1980.

    The NT News owned by Rupert Murdoch has much to answer for in this case.
    I was in Darwin at that time and the sensationalist crap that was written about the Chamberlains was appalling.
    The rumours were spread that the Chamberlains belonged to a weird religion, Azaria meant sacrifice in the desert…. it was all lies and the newspaper industry made a fortune out of them.

  60. the newspaper publisher allegedly produced an email deletion policy in November 2009 whose aim was to “eliminate in a consistent manner” emails “that could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation”.

    News International also destroyed “all computers used by its journalists” in about October 2010 – including one machine of a reporter named specifically in actor Sienna Miller’s action, while in January 2011 all emails on its archive system up to 31 September 2007 were deleted according to a witness statement from NI’s recently appointed chief information officer. Hacking is primarily understood to have taken place between 2002 and 2006.

    The timing of the alleged deletion activity – contained in high court documents underlying celebrity hacking cases and which were released to the Guardian yesterday – is significant because it took place as accusations of widespread phone hacking first appeared and subsequently as legal actions against the News of the World developed.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/24/phone-hacking-news-international-email-deletions

  61. Judge warns Rupert Murdoch:

    Your trials aren’t over
    Last-minute £500,000 deal with Charlotte Church puts an end to one high-profile hacking court case – but others are imminent

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/judge-warns-rupert-murdoch-your-trials-arent-over-7440149.html

    For Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and its battered reputation, the pain and the growing legal bill continues. The judge offered no respite when he said: “I’m extremely keen that the momentum of this litigation should not be lost by the fact that the cases that were set for trial are settled.”

    and

    It can also be revealed that fears for her mother’s health forced Ms Church to settle her hacking claim against NI out of court, in the face of hardball tactics by Mr Murdoch’s lawyers which would have made Maria Church a focus of a trial.

  63. OH OH

    Murky may regret spreading the News, ie a new Sun on sunday news

    “Akers’ reference to the systematic nature of alleged corruption, and its endorsement by senior executives, will be a clear signal to the US department of justice that her allegations, if proved, fall squarely within the ambit of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Rupert Murdoch’s US parent company, News Corporation, could face fines of hundreds of millions of dollars unless it can show it has co-operated vigorously with the authorities in rooting out malpractice.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/27/sun-culture-illegal-payments-leveson

  65. Over the last few weeks while all the nastiness was erupting one of my pet (read that as : over the top crusades against evil) concerns is Murdoch and him wanting access and control of the Australian education market.

    This is because I had read about Murdoch skirmishes in the US and European markets and him eyeing Asia.

    The GAME is STILL On in the UK, phone hacking has just delayed the start.

    “One of Murdoch’s long-term projects is what he calls a “revolutionary and profitable” move by his media companies into online education. Gove would be a key figure in any attempt to penetrate the British schools market.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/26/schools-crusade-gove-murdoch

  66. Thanks Pip and Sue for keeping us up with this and reminding us that that the wheels of justice though grinding slowly, seldom fail to overtake the wicked. Murdoch genes promise he will live long enough to really suffer retribution for his overweening ambition and greed.

  67. Extract from charlotte church statement,
    “And I would have learned nothing more from an actual trial since it is clear that no one from News International was prepared to take the stand to explain their actions. In my opinion, they are not truly sorry, only sorry that they got caught.”

  68. On the relevation that the Sun had been paying public officials cash, MP tom watson has written to the UK Tax office

    “I am sure you will agree that no company, or individual, should be allowed to get away with what amounts to possible tax fraud by paying too little tax and acting in a dishonest manner.”
    http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/

    Tax avoidance, just another day at the office for Murky

  69. On Lateline tonight they spoke to their man in London, Paul Williams.
    He filled in the details of singer Charlotte Church’s Court case with Murdoch.

    She accepted a UK600,0000pounds settlement from Rupert Murdoch for the hacking offences, and apparently there was no confidentiality clause.

    Ms Church has revealed the reason for not going to Court, but instead, accepting the payout.

    The Murdoch employees splashed stories about her mother’s serious illness, including a suicide attempt across their pages, and Charlotte wants the world to know just how amoral the News Group really is.

    Good for her!

  72. Sun journalists ‘ran network of corrupt officials’
    AM By Lisa Millar
    Updated February 28, 2012

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-28/police-chief-details-illegal-sun-payments/3856166?WT.svl=news2

    A British police chief has detailed allegations that journalists at Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper cultivated a network of corrupt officials who received illegal payments in return for story tip-offs.

    Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, who is leading the criminal investigation into phone hacking, told the Leveson inquiry into media ethics that the payments were authorised at a very senior level.

    The allegations come in the same week that Mr Murdoch launched a Sunday edition of the Sun, a replacement for The News of the World, which was axed last year in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

    Assistant Commissioner Akers said the Sun had a network of public officials and police to approach for information, and one reporter had been given $220,000 over a number of years to pay those sources.

    “It reveals a network of corrupted officials,” she said.

  74. Pip, how unsurprising…from Lunalava on the Media Watch thread..

    This weeks ABC media Watch program mentioned the Parliamentary Press gallery and the issue of malicious leaks unnamed sources.

    The increasing use of unnamed sources is a way to avoid accountability by disgruntled politicians and of course journalist’s can lie their heads off with impunity.

    So these sources are not only “unnamed”, but they are paid ones as well. Obviously the truthfulness of these “cash for comment” sources is very highly suspect.

  75. The Murdoch empire in Australia says that it can’t happen here. I don’t believe them, the culture of corruption in the media runs deep I believe. We’re just scratching the surface.

  76. Aontony, I agree, we are just scratching the surface.

    Aside from the awful and just plain nasty campaign which has been raging across the various media oultets, against the Labor govt., generally, the NBN is, I believe, a thorn in the side of a certain foreign media magnate.

    As I write, The Prime Minister and the Communications Minister are announcing that Telstra has accepted the ACCC plan for the structural separation of the company.

    How many anti NBN spruikers have there been in the main stream media?
    The IT blogs tell a very different story.

    I expect to see some ‘interesting’ accounts of this announcement.

  77. Pip,

    I know that there are some who say that the manipulation by the media is just an illusion, but see how well it worked. We once had a foreign minister and now we don’t, therefore mission accomplished. The dirty tricks tactics went into overdrive in the media during the recent leadership stouch. How dare Rudd challenge. Rudd was called every name you could think of from being mentally unstable, a power freak, you name it. Divide and conquer, and the Murdoch media won.

    On a more positive note, Gillard didn’t come out of it all too badly but some such as Swan I have far less respect for than I previously did.

  78. Pip

    and what was the comment by Joe O’Brien at News24, after the NBN announcement.

    “There you have it the PM refused to say whether she had had a telephone conversation with Bob Carr”

    so back to usual by our ABC, obviously the annoucement today of the separation of telstra, a process that was beyond the howard govt, is not even worth comment.

    Do you think the ABC could employ a talking head with a bit of intelligence?

  79. Do you think the ABC could employ a talking head with a bit of intelligence?

    Apparently not Sue?

    Have you noticed the favourite buzz word now….vituperative..

    It’s everywhere.

  81. “US authorities are considering bringing action against Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the Sun’s parent company, under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), legislation that allows officials to go after US firms alleged to have bribed foreign officials. If found guilty, News Corp faces a possible court case and hundreds of millions in fines.

    FCPA experts said investigators would be looking for any similar evidence of payments that could violate FCPA rules in other News Corp markets like Australia”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/27/news-corp-us-authorities

  84. Now they are blaming R Brooks from saving an old horse from the glue factory.What next?
    @rupertmurdoch

    @rupertmurdoch You comment on her horse but not on her insider knowledge of a criminal investigation into your company. Have you no shame?
    @tom_watson

  86. News International accused of email deletion policy
    Published Saturday, Feb 25 2012, 2:58am EST
    | By Andrew Laughlin

    http://www.digitalspy.com.au/media/news/a367734/news-international-accused-of-email-deletion-policy.html

    Rupert Murdoch’s News International has been accused of preparing to delete emails as fresh allegations of phone hacking against the News of the World emerged in 2009 and 2010.

    Court documents filed by victims of voicemail interception claim that the UK newspaper publisher allegedly put in place an email deletion policy in November 2009, which aimed to “eliminate in a consistent manner” emails “that could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation”.

  87. James Murdoch has stepped down as executive chairman of News International, News Corporation’s troubled UK newspaper wing.

    News International has been embroiled in a phone hacking scandal which has seen the arrests of several former top editors and the abrupt closure last year of the News of the World.

    The New York-based media-entertainment giant said James Murdoch was stepping down from News International following his relocation to company headquarters in New York as deputy chief operating officer.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-01/james-murdoch-steps-down-as-news-international-chief/3861292

  88. The SMH is running the same story this morning by a different journo, but whose phrases bear a remarkable resemblance to other:

    In a move that raises questions about the succession to Rupert Murdoch, James is leaving the print-based British arm but will keep responsibility for international television interests as deputy chief operating officer for News Corporation.

    Therefore the headline of “James Murdoch quits as hacking claims keep coming” is somewhat of an exaggeration is he is still deputy chief of News Corp.

    http://www.smh.com.au/business/james-murdoch-quits-as-hacking-claims-keep-coming-20120301-1u3xe.html#ixzz1nny8aTsd

  89. Why are they getting James out of Britain.

    Maybe they are moving slowly up the tree with the arrests.

  90. Just heard a free press is critical for society. I suggest that honest press is more important.

  92. CU on 1/3

    james has been winding up his business in the uk ever since brooks stood down.
    daddy wanted him away from any more appearances with leveson or the mps. as tom watson said, we don’t need him to write up our report however, it may be more interesting for the murdoch’s if the yanks proceed with the foreign investment scandal. on the foreign investment investigations, it has been reported, that murdoch got together a specialist team of lawyers way before the bribery/corruption of public officials broke in the papers.

  93. cu

    “Last July, the company retained Mark Mendelsohn, who served as deputy chief of the Fraud Section in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department. Mendelsohn, now in private practice, was internationally respected as an architect of the DOJ’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement program.

    News Corp sources confirmed that the Management and Standards Committee was also working with Williams & Connolly, a prominent Washington law firm specializing in white-collar crime cases.

    The New York Times reported last year that one of the lawyers working on the News Corp case was Brendan Sullivan, a Williams & Connolly partner known for his public defense of White House aide Oliver North during Congressional investigations into an arms-for-hostages scandal during the administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-usa-murdoch-investigation-idUSTRE81616620120207

  94. Brooks re-arrested in new UK hacking raids: reports
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-13/brooks-re-arrested-in-new-hacking-raids/3887300

    Police have arrested former News of the World editor and close Rupert Murdoch associate Rebekah Brooks for a second time in a new round of detentions in Britain’s phone-hacking scandal, Sky News reports.

    British police confirmed they had held five men and one woman after dawn raids on Tuesday across the country on suspicion of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, with the woman described as 43-years-old and living in Oxford.

    Brooks, who has become a central figure in the phone hacking scandal, is 43-years-old and lives in Oxfordshire.

    Sky News, which is part owned by Murdoch’s media group, said her husband Charlie Brooks had also been detained.

  95. Pip

    apparently the hubby has also been arrested. i wonder if that “laptop” featured in the arrests.

  96. Quite serious charges now being laid. I wonder if the Murdoch son is in the UK.

    Dawn raids says it all.

  97. Sue and Cu, it’s not getting any less interesting is it, with the 5am visit and arrests.

    Cu, the end of the article mentioned that “two sources” said James Murdoch is in New York, but possibly a pinch of salt is required…

  99. PM Cameron, oh dear

    “Charlie Brooks, who writes for the Daily Telegraph, is an old friend of David Cameron – they were at Eton together and maintain a close friendship.”

    1st andy coulson
    2nd rebekah
    3rd charlie

  100. Pip

    “Hanna has not been named in previous news reports—such as this breakdown by the BBC—as a key player in the scandal. According to Hanna’s LinkedIn profile, he has worked as News International’s director of group security since April 2009. Prior to that, he was VP & head of security for Nomura International.

    It will be interesting to see how Hanna as the security director became involved in this tabloid phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the media company, which is owned by News Corp.”
    http://www.securitydirectornews.com/blogs/

    One idea is THAT brief case. remember the one charlie was sent to retrieve from the garage, but the garage attendants, who found the package in a bin had telephoned the police and handed it to them.

  104. Sue, it could be that the laptop was left in the bin temporarily, out of harms’ way….sometimes “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men….often go awry”.

  108. They lied in 1981, they lied in 2010.
    LIARS

    “A secret meeting between Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher cleared the way for News International to buy the Times and Sunday Times in 1981, Thatcher’s private files reveal.

    A long note – marked by her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, as “commercial in confidence” – of the Sunday lunch at Chequers on 4 January, three weeks before the first cabinet committee discussion of the Murdoch takeover, shows the meeting was held at his request.

    Thatcher gave the meeting no publicity and instructed that the note should not leave No 10 Downing Street; the media tycoon later gave the impression in the newspaper’s own history that he had no contact with the prime minister ahead of Conservative approval of the purchase.

    This direct personal lobbying was critical, as the government had the power to block his acquisition by referring the bid to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission because Murdoch already owned the Sun and the News of the World. The government’s subsequent refusal to do so paved the way for the creation of what is easily the largest newspaper group in Britain

    Thirty years later, the circumstances surrounding Murdoch’s purchase of the Times titles came back into focus as his News Corporation bid for full control of BSkyB. Negotiations between News Corp and the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, led to a similar outcome – with the minister proposing to approve the merger in lieu of a full referral to the Competition Commission, in return for an agreement to spin out Sky News.

    But the deal collapsed in furore that followed the revelation that Milly Dowler’s phone had been targeted by the News of the World.

    David Cameron’s first meeting with a media owner after he became prime minister in May 2010 was with Rupert Murdoch, who entered No 10 by the back door. Two months later Murdoch’s News Corp launched its bid for Sky, and the proprietor met Cameron in July 2010. This meeting was not initially disclosed

    The disclosure of the secret Chequers lunch in the 1981 Thatcher papers held at the Churchill archives centre, Cambridge and now released after 30 years, flatly contradicts the account in the official history of the Times that says the two scarcely knew each other and “had no communication whatsoever during the period in which the Times bid and referral was up for discussion”.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/17/rupert-murdoch-margaret-thatcher

  109. Oh goodness, just reading the letters from the lunch. Back in 1980 Bloody murky was keen to introduce PM Thatcher to “a group of New Right politicians” during her visit to NY. (So peddling the new right was the Murky way back in 1980)
    Reagan was the new administration.
    The letter also says that Murdoch was to discuss Australian politics, but makes no further mention. Fraser of course was in power, i wonder what was said.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/interactive/2012/mar/17/rupert-murdoch-thatcher-meeting-letters

    while looking at Murdoch/Fraser i came across this little blog piece called, Rupert Murdoch, Al Capone and OJ Simpson
    http://aussiecrier.com/?p=1509

  110. Murky jnr leaving more of his jobs in London. I wonder why?
    “Sotheby’s auction house says News Corp. executive James Murdoch is stepping down from its board.

    In a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, the auctioneer said Murdoch had decided not to stand for re-election at Sotheby’s May 8 annual meeting in order to focus on his role as News Corp.’s deputy chief operating officer. ”
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/03/17/world/europe/ap-news-corp-james-murdoch.html?_r=1&hp

  111. “But his anger, even 30 years on, shone through under questioning. He spoke of the “leader of a country” being “in hock to a press proprietor.

    He also referred with obvious disgust to the opening paragraph of the note to Thatcher from her press secretary Bernard Ingham with details of her discussion with Murdoch.
    “In line with your wishes the attached has not gone outside No 10 and is, of course, to be treated ‘Commercial – in Confidence.'”

    Evans, believing that the MMC referral was a constitutional requirement, asked rhetorically: “Does it mean anything when you pass a law and it’s broken?”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/mar/17/sundaytimes-rupert-murdoch

    And does it mean anything when the law and it is broken by the Prime Minister of the country?

  114. Murdoch’s new sunday rag going backwards even with it being at half the price of its competitors.
    “Sunday edition suffered a surprise slump on its fourth weekend, losing more than 300,000 in sales, leaving the circulation of Rupert Murdoch’s new weekend tabloid hovering at just over 2.3m.

    Industry estimates indicate that the title was down by about 12% on the previous week’s sales of 2.7m – and down more than a quarter from its high-profile 3.22m debut a month ago.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/20/sun-sunday-sales-slump-rivals-regroup

  116. CU, I should have put up the sarcasm alert for the Thatcher comment. Now there’s a real example of lying disorder.

    In fact it seems that every Tory leader must front up for their three-in-one shot of mendacity, dishonesty and cheating on a reguar basis, judging by their performances over the years.

  118. I will pop in now and then to put up links…

    this one is important due to Vince Cable’s comments about James Murdoch and his colleagues…

    And the fact Cable got shoved…

    And national banks in the UK:

    Vince Cable hints coalition banking row is brewing
    Speaking at Guardian Open Weekend, business secretary says he envisages a state-owned bank that could be directed to lend

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/24/vince-cable-coalition-banking-row?INTCMP=SRCH

    N’

  119. The immediate threat to the young tycoon’s succession is the report of the House of Commons Culture committee, which is already three months past its due date. It has been clear for some months that its members are deeply divided over how hard James should be whacked, and it is said that the report is being fought over line by line.

    Interestingly, the balance of power is held by a Liberal Democrat MP, whose party has long disliked the way the Murdochs have abused their power in Britain. The other ten members of the committee comprise five Tory and five Labour MPs.

    How deep in doodoo is James Murdoch?

    http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/power-fail/how-deep-in-doodoo-is-james-murdoch/201203201180

    Think of the pressure that is now being applied by Murdoch papers investigating the present Tory/Lib Dem government.

    Hmmm

    N’

  123. thanks for the links Nas I am reading them 1 by 1.

    The one about Vince cable is interesting where he is touting a british business bank owned by the government which lends to businesses.

    We had one called the CDB. The Commonwealth Development Bank.

    It was an entity within the CBA. It supported and lent to businesses when no other bank including the CBA would lend.

    With the preparation of sale of the CBA it was deemed to be an noose for any private investor as it did not make much of a profit. As a result it was slowly strangled and folded into the CBA where it disappeared into oblivion.

    A truly epic fail day for our banking system and for small business, especially rural businesses.

    Who did this ?. Paul Keating.

  124. nas link at 10.22

    ““Rupert Murdoch made a speech in which he lambasted Britain for having the BBC. James Murdoch said ‘the only guarantor of independence is profit’.

    James Murdoch’s above comment is astounding.

    The only guarantor of independence is not needing to make a profit.

    Profit drives, greed, deception, manipulation, lies, denial, theft and much more. Especially when it is demanded to be increased year on year.

  125. Good point re: banking Shane.

    I’ve been thinking that in some ways our so called economic success over the past decade and more is probably undermining the govt…and Labor…they seem as mesmerized by the mining booms and financial private companies and big supermarkets and mall developers as the Liberals…

    It’s the little guy and gal that gets missed. And don’t they know it.

    Also, ironically, there are a number of workers in some cities doing okay…and they don’t see much use for Labor’s policies and unions…

    In a recession that might be different.

    We need a new party.

    Murdoch’s people know how to manipulate and appeal to the so called battlers…tits and bums approach is all part of it.

    And defining the ALP and Greens as canoodlers…and latte sipping types.

    The ALP need desperately small farmers, contractors, business types as candidates…

    Diversify more.

    The average bloke is disappearing in the party…a lot of the message spreaders on TV come cross as a bit wet and limp…if ya get my drift.

    Gillard attacking bearded men was stupid.

    Screwing over Kim Carr doubly dumb.

    N’

  126. Nas

    I agree the ALP is just as bedazzled as the Liberals. They have been just as conned and just as manipulated.

    Otherwise how do you explain the concentration of big businesses, the selling of assets and the decimation of small business during the ALP years before John Howard, who just consolidated and expedited what was already happening.

    There needs to be unions and strong unions, but the ALP needs to let go of their influence in the party so it can become more independent.

    The ALP needs to have grass roots votes and abide by them. The ALP needs more candidates from all different walks of life. The ALP needs to stamp its platform as being broadly capitalist with a social responsible agenda along with essentail services being publicly owned to ensure its citizens are not beholden to essential services driven by corporate greed in lieu of service to the people of Australia.

    That would be a good start.

  128. shane and nasking

    james stepping down from another UK board is just another move on his relocation to the usa.

  130. Nasking

    just heard on news 24 more on Murdoch, this time a subsidiary company, will check the papers

  134. This is another story on Murdoch and includes that the attack on Canal also happened to another Murdoch competitor, in Italy.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/26/ondigital-beaten-fair-or-undermined

    “Canal Plus’s problem was global: it owned a satellite broadcaster in Italy, Telepiù, where it was in loss-making competition with Murdoch’s wholly owned subsidiary Stream. The French company complained that it was a victim of piracy in Italy, and in March 2002 launched a high-profile $1bn lawsuit in California against News Corp’s NDS. Canal Plus accused NDS of being behind a “cloak and dagger” operation in which NDS was “engaged in a conspiracy” to hack into its encryption source code and have it distributed online.

    Canal Plus’s legal challenge came to an end at about the same time. Parent company Vivendi had its own financial problems, and decided to get out of Italy. It sold its pay TV operation there to Murdoch, paving the way for the creation of Sky Italia, today the second largest pay TV company in or affiliated to the News Corp empire, after BSkyB in the UK. As part of the €920m deal, the Canal Plus lawsuit was also dropped, and it appeared the subject had gone away for good.”

  135. Sue,
    I left you a link etc. re: Institute of Public Affairs over at the Media Watch thread.

    Yes, disgraceful and potentially criminal behaviour by the Murdoch empire if this BSKYB stuff turns out to be true.

    Thnx for the link.

    Cheers
    N’

  136. Good:

    ‘Frontline’ takes on ‘Murdoch’s Scandal’

    Published: March 26, 2012 3:08 PM
    By VERNE GAY  verne.gay@newsday.com
    THE SHOW “Murdoch’s Scandal” on “Frontline”
    WHEN | WHERE PBS/13, 10 p.m. Tuesday

    REASON TO WATCH “Frontline” takes on Rupert Murdoch

    WHAT IT’S ABOUT

    Rupert Murdoch, the world’s mightiest media baron, presides over an empire that once included a now-defunct newspaper, the News of the World, in Britain that tapped the phones of thousands of people, including a 13-year-girl named Amanda Jane “Milly” Dowler….

    That is the hard and chilling core of this story; Tuesday night, Lowell Bergman, former “60 Minutes” producer and veteran investigative producer, says what happened next. He interviews Nick Davies, the Guardian reporter who broke the story, and others who say “hacking” was a common practice because the newspaper could print information without fear of lawsuit, or use it to punish enemies…

    A post-broadcast note says no one from News Corp. agreed to

    …they provide context, and in this kind of story, context is like a small nuclear device. In interview after interview, Bergman finds a pattern of triangulation, in which journalist-police-government fed off one another to get scoop-money-power-votes. No one here accuses Murdoch himself of sanctioning the payoffs to police and investigators, which apparently went on for years, but the story is so devastating that no one really has to. “Frontline” reports that Murdoch has long used his British tabloids to manipulate the political establishment — the equivalent of Capt. Renault reporting that he is shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here. But when you consider, as “Frontline” does, that phone hacking helped the News of the World — and by association, Murdoch’s News Corp. — establish that influence, then that is a whole other level of corporate malfeasance. And to think that a terrible tragedy, a little girl’s murder, broke this story wide open.

    BOTTOM LINE Devastating

    http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/frontline-takes-on-murdoch-s-scandal-1.3624323

    The empire crumbles…piece by rotten piece.

    N’

  137. on March 27, 2012 at 9:24 amSue
    something else james didn’t know about

    “James Murdoch, who is deputy chief operating officer of News Corp and chairman of BSkyB, was a non-executive director of NDS when ONdigital was hacked. There is no evidence, the BBC says, that he knew about the events alleged by Panorama.”

    —————
    Sue,
    James doesn’t seem to know much considering his mega-important roles at the papers and BSKYB…

    He musta picked up that contagious memory loss illness that John Howard had over the children overboard affair…and many other things.

    “I know nothing!!!…I only flush the toilets here”.

    N’

  138. are there any implications in australia, this from wikipedia

    “There has been considerable controversy over the role Foxtel may have played in Galaxy’s demise: in 2003 it was the target of legal action by Australis bondholders, who sued Foxtel’s parent company News Corporation for the $6 billion which they alleged Australis would have earned had it not lost the rights to the programming content.[6]”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_%28Australian_television%29

  139. Nasking

    I remember reading that before James got to head the UK business he headed Sky, Europe. I wonder if he knew aboy Italy?

    Sky dominates Asia as well, i wonder what happened there?

    Lets thank Gillard, Conroy and Cabinet for cancelling the Australia Network tender. Take that The Australian newspaper!

    now thanks i will read the full frontline piece.

  140. Good researching Sue…

    From the SMH article:

    According to the claim filed in New York, Murdoch first tried to buy Australis out of the contract for a piffling $US220 million, then resorted to a campaign to try to destroy Australis as a competitor, and abort the $6 billion deal which he planned to renegotiate on vastly more favourable terms directly with the studios. Win-win.

    Beginning in 1996, as Australis sought to tap the US junk-bond market for the capital it needed to build its business, News Corp contacted financiers, advisers and prospective investors, giving them “misleading and disparaging information” in an attempt to scuttle the fund raising, say the bondholders.

    When this failed – the money was raised, though Australis was forced to offer an excruciating 16 per cent return to get it.

    The claim says that a financial report was leaked to the News Corp paper The Australian, which published a damaging article predicting that Australis would be losing money right through until 2009.

    The claim cites two out of four cases in which News Corp’s tactics “poisoned the environment” for bond raising.

    In the first, Merrill Lynch – one of Australis’s largest bondholders – which had said it would support an additional raising of $400 million in bonds and equity, pulled out and made only a token investment, after being made the sole manager of a $US1 billion offering of News Corp securities.

    In the second, another major bondholder, Oppenheimer, cancelled an order for bonds worth $US12 million. There was a “rumour” this happened after News bought its existing bondholding at a premium above the market price.

    As Australis struggled to stay afloat under this relentless assault, it was forced to seek a merger with News Corp. News was given access to its books to do due diligence, but after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission vetoed the deal, the claim says a list of Galaxy subscribers apparently fell into the hands of its competitor, Foxtel, whose salespeople began making calls to try and persuade people to switch to their network.

    ————–
    So it’s possible that News Ltd used its own newspapers to undermine Australis…in order that the company Foxtel that it had significant shares in could benefit.

    Is this not anti-competitive behaviour…predatory practise at the least?

    N’

  141. Nasking

    “Is this not anti-competitive behaviour…”On a World stage

    Dr Evil and a family of mini mes

  142. A preemptive strike, in other words before el gordo tries to disrupt this thread

    Murdoch is a sceptic
    “The Climate Killers
    Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming

    The Disinformer
    Rupert Murdoch”
    http://weirddream.com/

  143. Nasking

    Could the hacking set up action by shareholders, who lost their investment when the company folded?

    “The downfall cost the operator’s shareholders more than a billion pounds and 1,500 employees lost their jobs.

    Panorama secretly filmed Mr Adams denying any knowledge of these codes.

    “I never ever had the ONdigital codes, I never touched an ONdigital card, ever once. I’ve never seen an ONdigital pirate card. I’ve never had any codes,” he said.

    But Panorama says internal emails suggest otherwise.”

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-27/news-corp-accused-of-hacking-rival-company/3914764

    What a pandora’s box

  145. “An Italian computer expert who is the prime suspect in a piracy ring on trial on Italy for the alleged targeting of pay-TV companies was working as a consultant for a News Corp subsidiary involved in the industry.

    Documents obtained by The Independent show that Pasquale Caiazza was receiving regular payments from a bank account controlled by News International, Mr Murdoch’s British newspaper business.

    The American Department of Justice is understood to be monitoring the Italian court proceedings as part of a wider review of evidence of potential wrongdoing within the News Corp empire.”

    “Mr Caiazza, a Naples-based computer security expert, received nearly £12,000 in monthly instalments during 2003 and 2004 from a News International bank account in London. Using the hacking nickname “Linixone”, he is accused of pirating satellite TV encryption cards produced by Nagra France, a company which held a contract to supply the technology to Sky Italia, a News Corp company”
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/scandal-spreads-to-murdoch-tv-empire-7586250.html

    There is a lot in this article which leads to even more questions, including Murdochs promtion from Australia to Sky Europe and now News International UK of Mockridge

  146. Further on the story of the hacking of codes for pay tv.

    News ltd do not deny they had the NDS codes, it appears they have denied they passed the codes to the piracy company, THOIC. Panorama appear to have the evidence, a new witness , Gibling of THOIC,who claims he was paid by News ltd. If this evidence is true, will the previous court case in America stand and will the accuser in that case get his $19milllion back.

    “Lee Gibling, who ran THOIC, said Mr Adams sent him the ONdigital codes so other pirates could use them to make thousands of counterfeit smartcards. He said he was being paid £60,000 ($A91,000) a year by Mr Adams and was given thousands more to buy equipment.

    ”It is simply not true that NDS used the THOIC website to sabotage the commercial interests of ONdigital/ITV Digital or, indeed, any rival.”

    “The company (News ltd) does not dispute that it got ONdigital’s secret codes, which is not illegal, and that the material was passed on to Mr Adams (security analyst), who denies he ever had the codes.”

    “News Corp said in a statement that it fully accepted NDS’s assurance that there had been no wrongdoing: ”The United States Department of Justice, a federal court jury and a federal appellate court have all rejected allegations … that NDS was either responsible for TV piracy or for distributing codes to facilitate piracy.

    ”Moreover, the United States court ordered NDS’s accuser to pay $19 million to cover NDS’s legal fees and costs.”

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/news-corp-firm-hired-tv-hacker-20120327-1vwfo.html#ixzz1qLo74FQn

    And apart from a court case in the USA that could be challenged. There will be the US federals who will be wondering if this American company has broken American laws of not harming businesses outside America.

  147. In the last couple of days I read in one of the articles that after the collapse of the Sky rival in the UK the services of of the hacker were not needed and the person was paid 15thousand pounds as a severance payment it included a confidentiality clause. That sounds a bit cheap, it may come to be that these old dealings unravel due to a cheap payout.

  149. Hmmm…

    Pay TV piracy hits Murdoch

    Exclusive: Neil Chenoweth
    March 28, 2012 – 9:36AM
    SMH.com

    A secret unit within Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation promoted a wave of high-tech piracy in Australia that damaged Austar, Optus and Foxtel at a time when News was moving to take control of the Australian pay TV industry, a four-year investigation by The Australian Financial Review has revealed.
    The piracy cost the Australian pay TV companies up to $50 million a year and helped cripple the finances of Austar, which Foxtel is now in the process

    The AFR investigation  has revealed a global trail of corporate dirty tricks directed against competitors by a secretive group of former policemen and intelligence officers within News Corp known as Operational Security.
    Their actions devastated News’s competitors, and the resulting waves of high-tech piracy assisted News to bid for pay TV businesses at reduced prices – including DirecTV in the US, Telepiu in Italy and Austar. These targets each had other commercial weaknesses quite apart from piracy.

    The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is still deliberating on final details before approving Foxtel’s $1.9 billion takeover bid for Austar, which will cement Foxtel’s position as the dominant pay TV provider in Australia.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/pay-tv-piracy-hits-murdoch-20120328-1vxfw.html#ixzz1qMO8unAO

    Geez, who woulda thunk it?

    N’

  153. Yes indeed Tom R…

    One helluva stench.

    Rupert must stand down from News Corporation…no more scapegoating his kids.

    Tho I reckon James has allowed himself to become a clone.

    N’

  154. And in the USA a company that accused Murdoch of the piracy had to pay Murdoch millions.

    Well up to now that is.

  156. This latest news from the Australian Financial Review still not on ABC online or ABC 24…

    Doesn’t surprise me.

    N’

  158. Do you think the oo will cover this story? No wonder they were adamant there was no telephone hacking in australia, the question to them had been too specific.

  160. Nasking

    that is the best bit of all, murky’s closeness to the operation.

    but what may be even more interesting is that murky and his clan have global hacking issues .

  161. here we go on the phone hacking, 26 auditors now that says a lot.

    “A REVIEW of News Limited’s major newspapers has found no evidence of illegitimate phone surveillance or payments to public officials, the media company says.

    The three-month review was commissioned by News Ltd chief executive John Hartigan, and carried out by a team of 26 auditors.

    The auditors scrutinised almost 700,000 transactions carried out over a five-year period.

    Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/no-phone-hacking-at-news-limited-review-finds/story-e6frfku0-1226194744675#ixzz1qMdu95Pg

  162. how long will it take our ABC to pick up the afr story?
    it must be a worry for all those news ltd appointments in the ABC

  163. Kinda puts John Hartigans departure (out the back door) into a different light.

    Congratulations Sue, you spotted the Rotten State of News Ltd a long time ago.

    The really sad thing is many in the business community still believe the Murdochs are “clever” business men.

    Doesn’t their ABC look stupid for getting into bed with News Ltd

  164. An interesting point in the afr article is that at the time around 1999 onwards there were no laws in Australia against satelite piracy. And of course Murdcoh friend (and must be visited while in America) of PM Howard would not have requested any change to the laws. It all falls in to place

  167. Is the ABC too busy doing a risk assessment of their exposure to the latest Murdoch scandal to mention the story on the News 24 TV????

    Has an internal inquiry began?

    Will Chris Uhlmann run a story on 7.30, pigs might fly.

  168. Interesting:

    News piracy allegations should be investigated by police: Conroy

    March 28, 2012 – 11:57AM

    Media reports that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp promoted the pirating of its international pay-TV rivals were serious, and allegations of any criminality should be investigated by police, the Australian government said today.

    “These are serious allegations, and any allegations of criminal activity should be referred to the Australian Federal Police for investigation,” a spokesperson for Senator Conroy said.

    Separately, Treasurer Wayne Swan told a conference in Melbourne that the allegations of News piracy were “concerning”.

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/news-piracy-allegations-should-be-investigated-by-police-conroy-20120328-1vxn0.html

    N’

  169. Its ok lunalava the ABC mentioned the piracy BUT in the finance area.

    “Has the story affected the share price. No because News ltd is doing a share buy back so News share are up”

    Oh goodie eveything is right in the world, and that was as deep and as balanced as there ABC will get.

  170. I expect the ABC managing director Mark Scott to come out and say he has “full confidence” in News Ltd and their productive relationship will continue.

  171. The ABC is not only not taking up the AFR story, but they are not reporting statements by
    The Acting Prime Minister, deputy PM Swan
    The Minister for Communication Stephen Conroy

    Why would that be Mr Mark Scott?

  173. Mark Scott…worked for the New South Wales Greiner Liberal Party Government, as chief of staff to the Education Minister, Virginia Chadwick and as a senior adviser to education minister, Terry Metherell.

    (wikipedia)

  174. 1.40pm and still no story on abc online about murdoch

    The oo is far too busy defending apple to worry about little distractions like this either Sue.

    Mind you, the oo I understand, they dwell in the mud, but we should expect far better from our ABC

    As Migs mentioned in his other topic, the media should be exposing this sort of behaviour, not hiding it.

  175. Nas at 12.10 PM, I wonder if Labor are smelling a bit of blood in the water.

    If they don’t over play it, it might be just what they need to focus the publics attention on the problems with the media who have been so savagely mos-representing them for so long.

  176. Tom R,
    I think it ‘s best left to the police, media watch, other media…concerned victim companies, the courts, the tax office…and the inquiries.

    Not to mention the public…who can vent their disgust as consumers, viewers, readers.

    The government has other work to get on with.

    N’

  178. Nasking I think they are talking criminal behaviour with Murdoch. The ACCC looks at civil (commercial) matters. Criminal and civil procedures are different, mainly concerning the burden of proof.

  180. After reading about a possible bogus court case and the way the authorities have bben assisted to combat piracy, then a lot can be read into this statement:

    “Foxtel has always worked hard and spent significant amounts of money to combat piracy,” the spokesman told AAP in a statement.

    “This has included running an extensive court case against pirates and working with the AFP, other subscription TV providers including Austar and advocating with government to enact effective laws to protect Australia’s creative industries and legitimate consumers”
    http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/conroy-responds-to-news-piracy-allegations-20120328-1vy4v.html

    And yet still nothing on ABC

  182. Interesting that their abc decide to (finally) run the story once the Government have made a statement about it.

    And, reading that, it is almost as if the Government is leading the charge against the company, rather than just responding to news as reported ON OTHER SITES.

  185. Interesting that the story runs just as the ACCC was to rule on the takeover by foxtel of austar.
    the parallel with the uk where bskyb was about to get total control

    hmmm interesting

    hallelujah indeed

  186. A sting too far for News Corp?

    Stephen Bartholomeusz

    Published 4:03 PM, 28 Mar 2012

    News Corp has already been destabilised and distracted by the ongoing and ever-deepening phone-hacking scandal and allegations of corrupt payments to officials in the UK. Will the resurfacing of old allegations of immoral behaviour in its pay television operations be the final straw for investors that forces significant change within the group?

    The new allegations, by the BBC’s Panorama program in the UK and, very dramatically, in the Australian Financial Review – which built five pages of coverage around 14,000 emails that it said originated from a former head of operation security for a News’ technology subsidiary…

    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/News-Corp-hacking-emails-Murdoch-AFR-pd20120328-ST695?opendocument&src=rss

    It’s possible Murdoch has met his Russian winter.

    N’

  189. Sue,
    For all we know Murdoch’s empire…or associates…paid puppets…mighta hired people to attack the reputation of our blogs…even put commentors in there…they have alot of money…

    And blogs are their long-term competition for ads etc…

    Ya never know…

    Now we hear about all this potential sabotage.

    I hope not. Be sad stuff.

    New bloggers are running on the smell of an oily rag. Many good-hearted volunteers.

    Hmmm…hard to know these days…what with all these accusations…

    May turn out to be nothing.

    But I know one person who ended up in hospital after relentless abuse…

    I’d rather believe the Murdoch empire kept its integrity online tho.

    Strange days indeed.

    N’

  190. TB,
    The Global Mail is one of my fave sites right now…

    That article is revealing.

    Another Faustian pact.

    N’

  191. TB

    the scotland thing with murky has been around for a while.
    but murky says one thing and does another, like his big annoucement that all his newspapers would be carbon neutral. trouble is he is one of the sceptics and his editorials are anything but carbon neutral.

    anyway you will be glad to see all murkys pigeons coming home to roost

  192. The drum is discussing the murdoch piracy

    Discusssing? 2 news ltd journalists and a person from willard consulting
    Hildebrand from the tele had a bit of a laugh, he didn’t know much about it but News ltd had won a settlement of $19million and fancy a top class security mob using emails that now were on the net.hehehhahha

    Why not someone from Fairfax, AFR

    Well that confirmed my opinion of the ABC and the Drum

  193. Just checked out David Miles from Willard consulting, he was an advisor to Nick Minchin

    BULLSHIT………….. DRUM

  195. So three writers for the Murdoch empire are brought in to discuss the accusations against Murdoch?

    That’s no good Sue. No good at all.

    good work.

    My wife and I want our taxes back…the ABC is not doing its job.

    N’

  196. Unlike gutless Australia, the Americans are keeping a very close eye on Murdoch. They want to hammer him. They won’t stop until they do, no matter how long it takes.

    If it is found that anybody from his slimy organisation hacked the phone of just one 9/11 victim, he’s dead meat.

  198. David Miles is an arsehole. He pays big tax, lucky him. He should get something back. Why?

    The young woman sitting beside him, could not bring herself to look at him. She did not appear that impressed. Are people like him real. They get big money for sounding like idiots.

    How much does the ABC pay these people, DO they pay them personally or the organisations they work for.

  199. From The Independent in the UK:

    Murdoch company in pay-TV piracy scandal ‘paid Surrey Police’

    The News Corp subsidiary at the heart of claims it used computer hackers to crack rivals’ technology made a £2,000 payment to a British police force for “assistance given to us in our work”, The Independent can reveal.

    NDS, a London-based specialist in satellite television encryption technology, said yesterday that a payment made to Surrey Police in the summer of 2000 was a “charitable donation” for which it had received a written acknowledgement.

    But a cache of 14,000 internal emails belonging to the London-based company shows that its deputy head of security, Len Withall, asked for a cheque to be drawn for £2,000 as payment for “some work” he had been doing with the force over the previous six months.

    Mr Withall, who was a former detective chief inspector with Surrey Police before joining NDS in the early 1990s, asked for the payment to be made from a special budget “set aside to Police/Informants for assistance given to us in our work”.

    Surrey Police, which was rocked last year by revelations linked to the News of the World’s hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s mobile phone, said it could not find a record of the payment on its accounting records but was conducting further investigations.

    Payments to police by private companies are not illegal and are made frequently for events such as the policing of a football match.

    But the revelation that a corner of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was seeking to pay a British police force for unspecified work will fuel the controversy surrounding allegations that NDS supplied the encryption codes of rival companies to hackers in several countries, including Britain, who then created pirated “smart cards” for sale on the black market.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/murdoch-company-in-paytv-piracy-scandal-paid-surrey-police-7595084.html

    And so the sordid story rolls on piece by piece…

    Where it will end nobody knows…

    N’

  200. From yesterday’s Crikey:

    Chenoweth has spent more time than anyone researching and writing about the world’s most powerful family. As we all know, the Murdochs play the game hard, so News Corp has long campaigned to undermine Chenoweth’s employment at Fairfax, claiming he is biased, obsessed and full of conspiracy theories.

    There has been a recent regime change at Fairfax with Hywood coming in and removing Michael Gill and Glenn Burge, the duo who ran The AFR for the previous decade. They were replaced by two News Corp recruits from The Australian  — Brett Clegg and Michael Stutchbury — who both had spent many years previously at The Fin.

    What to do with Chenoweth was always going to be an interesting question for The AFR’s new leadership team. The timeframe of the various moves is important to note:

    February 7, 2011: Greg Hywood replaces Brian McCarthy as CEO of Fairfax.
    March 21, 2011: Hywood removes Gill and Burge and Clegg announced as AFR supremo, sparking tough News Ltd moves to enforce some gardening leave.

    July 4, 2011: UK phone hacking scandal explodes, sparking a series of articles by Chenoweth in The AFR which is editorially leaderless.

    September 28, 2011: Clegg finally settles in as AFR CEO and immediately poaches Michael Stutchbury from The Australian to be editor.

    Early November, 2011: Chenoweth takes annual leave and long service leave from The AFR to help the BBC’s flagship investigative program Panorama research allegations about News Corp’s role in global pay-TV piracy.
    March 27, 2012: The Panorama program goes to air and The AFR carries a two-page Chenoweth spread summarising the allegations.

    March 28, 2012:The AFR goes super-hard with five pages of new Chenoweth allegations, including details of hacking and piracy involving NDS in the Australian pay-TV market.

    In the end, The AFR’s hand was effectively forced by the quality and gravity of what Panorama produced. It would have looked very strange to see an AFR reporter helping the BBC drop a bombshell without sharing the goodies around.

    However, The AFR’s decision to go so hard today was still very brave. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the Fairfax empire follows up. Will there be editorials damning the unethical Murdoch empire?

    While there have always been plenty of competitors and journalists who take pot-shots at News Corp, the key to its power has been an ability to keep compliant regulators and politicians on side. That all changed in the UK when everyone turned on News Corp over phone hacking. News of the World was closed, scores of employees have been arrested, the BSkyB mop-up takeover was abandoned and there are now serious prospects the company will be kicked out of Britain in disgrace.

    http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/03/28/mayne-afr-steps-up-as-chenoweth-detonates-big-murdoch-bomb/

    Neil Chenoweth of Fairfax (AFR), Nick Davies (The Guardian), Stephen Mayne (Crikey, shareholder), Tom Watson (UK Labour)…Panorama team…PBS Frontline team…Robert Greenwald and team…

    just some of the people and groups not afraid of giant media octopi with lots of extra tentacles.

    Helping to restore democracy…and media ethics…balance.

    N’

  201. Just being fair and balanced…reporting in Wisconsin…

    Didn’t it do the Republicans alot of good?

    And hasn’t Israel gone from strength to strength since Rupert and Fox News and paper teams decided to promote them and their grievances and hates and conflicts so much.

  203. Fox News has had such a positive influence on the American system:

    GOP Justices Clown over Health

    by Robert Parry | March 28, 2012

    @ Smirking Chimp blog

    Healthcare Policy | Supreme Court
    by Robert Parry | March 28, 2012 – 9:01am

    The Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court behaved more like Fox News pundits than serious jurists weighing the constitutionality of an important law addressing the health of the American people. On Tuesday, they posed silly hypothetical questions of the sort that might boost TV ratings among Tea Party viewers but had little to do with the Constitution.

    Based on their goofy and hostile questions, the Republican majority seems poised to strike down the core of the Affordable Care Act, the so-called individual mandate, an idea that ironically originated with the right-wing Heritage Foundation, was enacted by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, and only became a bête noire when President Barack Obama embraced it.

    Now, despite the Constitution’s grant of broad powers to Congress to regulate interstate commerce, the five Republican partisans on the Supreme Court appear ready to kill the health reform law in the midst of a presidential election and deliver a body blow to Obama’s reelection hopes.

    The core of their objections to the law was that if Congress can mandate Americans buy health insurance, it can do all sorts of other crazy things, like make people buy cell phones, broccoli, automobiles and burial insurance. (Or maybe make them wear funny hats and clown noses.)

    Of course, what the Republican majority is ignoring with its bizarre questions is that there must be the political will for a majority in Congress to undertake any such legislation and that the President must sign the bill into law. The Constitution also gives Congress a virtually unrestricted power to regulate interstate commerce.

    But rather than deal with practical political realities or even the intent of the constitutional framers, four of the Republican justices – John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy – asked prejudicial what-ifs, the sort that could be applied to discredit virtually any legislation or legal argument.

    Basically, they were asking: What if the most extreme and nutty interpretation of every law and ruling were applied mindlessly in every conceivable instance?

    Yet, surely, they would not like it if such a goofball approach were applied to their prized rulings, like the 2010 Citizens United case which opened the floodgates for billionaires to spend whatever they wished for negative ads to tilt elections. What if one person possessed all the money in the United States and bought up every minute of advertising time on every TV and radio station? What then?

    And what if the Republican logic in Bush v. Gore – that all states had to have equal voting standards and machinery in every precinct – were applied to all elections? Then virtually every elected official in the United States would be in office illegally and thus every law ever passed in the United States must be thrown out, possibly along with the justices of the Supreme Court who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Gee, what if?

    Naturally, that would be crazy talk, but really no crazier than the notion that Congress and the President would willy-nilly enact legislation requiring everyone to eat broccoli. That is reminiscent of the old right-wing canard that granting equal rights to women would force unisex bathrooms.

    The one Republican justice who didn’t ask silly questions was Clarence Thomas, who as usual sat silently during the oral arguments. But his no vote on the law is considered a sure thing, since his wife has been out publicly rallying opposition.

    http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/42241/gop-justices-clown-over-health-care

    When, if, ObamaCare is destroyed…the people suffering, losing out can partially thank Fox News.

    Get your emails ready to send to Rupert.

    N’

  204. Part of News Corps Response to the NDS Allegations.

    “You have also taken emails wholly out of context. This has helped paint a picture for your viewers that is incorrect, misleading and deeply damaging to my company and our sister company News Corporation.”

    I suggest they look at Foxnews or most of their own tabloids for exactly the same manipulation and doctoring of facts and truth when reporting so called news.

    From my own observations they are the leaders in this field.

    Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/news-corp-chief-slams-pay-tv-piracy-claims-20120329-1w0ay.html#ixzz1qTSkhA2A

  205. “You have also taken emails wholly out of context. This has helped paint a picture for your viewers that is incorrect, misleading and deeply damaging to my company and our sister company News Corporation.”

    I wonder if they are aware that climate scientists had emails too 😯

    Can’t wait for bolt to start using this defence

  206. From Frontline:

    How Does News Corp. Make Its Money?

    March 27, 2012, 10:08 pm ET by Sam Bailey and Gretchen Gavett

    By all accounts, Rupert Murdoch loves newspapers. Last month, with his media empire under assault from the ongoing phone-hacking scandal, he personally arrived in London for the launch of a Sunday edition of The Sun. “Having a winning paper is the best answer to our critics,” he wrote in a staff-wide e-mail.

    But as the graphic below shows, Murdoch’s beloved newspapers have become a smaller and smaller part of his empire over the past 10 years. As three former News Corp. executives recently told The New York Times, News Corp. today has become “a sports and entertainment company with a newspaper problem.”

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/media/murdochs-scandal/how-does-news-corp-make-its-money/

    I gotta get myself a sports team, a sports channel or twelve…maybe a movie & tv channel…

    and of course some news channels I can spruik my product on…

    perhaps a cable, payTV network…to advertise more…make some more bucks so I can buy the best players…

    of course some newspapers and internet sites would help the promotion…especially if I use a few tits & asses…fear-mongering, dog-whistling, fabrications and exagerrated stories to get attention…

    I can dump the papers once everyone’s online…most of the staff are expendable grunts anyway…

    I could then afford to own a business channel…point people in the direction of my preferences…turn them off my competitors…until I takeover their patch…then they’ll come grovelling…

    Not necessarily in that order…but my grandiose dream could become a reality…

    Provided the elite know of Mummy and Daddy and Grandad…and how wonderful and intelligent and charitable and moneysmart our family is…

    and brave and radical of course…got to show them I can get down in the trenches too…give the Poms a good middle finger…

    Stick it to the elite and all that…deny I’m part of it…gotta talk like I’m one of the mob…

    I’ll get the papers to be my common man voice…yes, good idea…now I really have a hard-on…

    I mean being part of an influential dynasty has to have some benefits…RIGHT?

    in fact, I could own the world…

    Politicians, police, sports stars, celebrities, media hosts, journalists, private eyes, CEOs, presidents, intelligence officers, security guards, music sports & film critics, public debates, studios, refs, coaches, generals, directors, producers….gasp!

    I could send off a daily email to my Mother…

    LOOK AT ME MA…I’M ON TOP OF THE WORLD

    N ‘

  207. Nasking @ 11.04

    just read the piece and must comment.

    the astounding information is that
    Early November, 2011: Chenoweth takes annual leave and long service leave from The AFR to help the BBC’s flagship investigative program Panorama research allegations about News Corp’s role in global pay-TV piracy.

    Bloody hell the guy had to do it out of his own time.

    Now what will happen, if Fairfax lets the story drop then NEWS LTD may win. We can only hope that as happenned in the UK the story is so big it takes on its own life. We may have to rely on those overseas media organisations to keep it alive as Australia may have already capitulated to News Ltd.

  208. Sue,
    I think there’s alot more to come.

    Via a link provided by Norman @ The Political Sword:

    With the British regulator, Ofcom, now investigating the piracy allegations in the U.K., this new tale of TV hacking—if substantiated—has the potential to do for News Corp.’s broadcasting business what phone hacking has done to News International’s papers.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/28/murdoch-hacking-scandal-could-go-global-threaten-news-corp-core-tv-business.html

    News corp is a posh ship…but it now has a captain like the one on the Costa Concordia…

    N’

  209. Can’t wait for bolt to start using this defence

    Tom R

    Bolts defence is freedom of speech, something he astutely denies those who disgree with his comments, except for a couple to appear unbiased.

    Like news Limited where I am unable to post any comments at all on any topic even if I agree. It appers my email address has been banned for comments. Once again freedom of speech only for those who agree with the Murdoch doctrine. Except for a few comments allowed through by moderators to give the appearance of balance.

  210. Nasking thanks for that, from the link

    “If these emails are genuine (and Neil Chenoweth told The Daily Beast that a legal take-down notice from NDS’s lawyers would suggest they are), it would indicate that NDS had an unfair competitive advantage over its rivals. ”

    Also what we alluded to in previous posts, that News ltd had faced the courts but now there is the evidence the previous cases did not have. And this could mean billions to news Ltd

  211. Nasking

    when is our ABC going to run the BBC Panorama story?

    or is it that the news ltd infiltrators will not allow it to air?

    (personally, thanks tom r i watched it here at the cafe)

  212. Shane wrote: Once again freedom of speech only for those who agree with the Murdoch doctrine. Except for a few comments allowed through by moderators to give the appearance of balance.

    Indeed Shane…it’s “appearance” that counts when yer trying to dupe the gullible, the naive, the fatigued, the busy…the TRUSTing.

    N’

  214. on March 29, 2012 at 5:17 pmSue
    when is our ABC going to run the BBC Panorama story?

    Yes, will probably have to be the ABC, perhaps 4 Corners…

    the other free-to-airs wouldn’t cope…even tho they get govt subsidies. Too deep for them.

    And SBS is supposed to be presenting a multicultural society…Murdoch’s goings on are very white scots aussie american pommy monoculture…

    unless you include his empires invasion of China, Italy etc…
    —-

    (personally, thanks tom r i watched it here at the cafe)

    Yea, good stuff Tom…required viewing.

    Time for popcorn with tabasco.

    http://www.youtube.com/results?q=panorama%20murdoch

  217. Sue,
    I give The Drum credit today for pushing the story.

    Murdoch sounds like he’s threatening people on that tweet…

    So much for the libertarian who believes in free speech.

    More bullying from News Corp, News Ltd etc I take it.

    Surprise surprise.

    Pattern of behaviour.

    N’

  218. From your link Sue

    “Panorama presented manipulated and mischaracterised emails to produce unfair and baseless accusations,”

    That still gives me a chuckle

  219. Considering he’s has a free ride for almost 40 years I have no sympathy for him. Nor his associates.

    Murdoch doesn’t seem to have worried about all those individuals his companies tore jobs away from due to possible anti-competitive behaviour…at the least due to having undue influence over politicians, police and other decision-makers…

    Or those damaged, traumatised, terrified, bullied by his papers and Fox News.

    Even Napoleon had his winter…exile…then Waterloo.

    Democracies need renewal.

    Once people stop being scared…the change begins…the inevitable begins to happen…

    N’

  221. NDS was formed in the late 1990s for the legitimate purpose of protecting News Corp’s intellectual property and its pay TV revenue from rampant piracy that was damaging its operations.

    Pay TV operators issued smartcards to subscribers who then slotted them into set-top boxes in their home. But these cards can be hacked. The card and set-top boxes unscramble the encrypted signals from the provider, and block access to channels that the subscriber has not paid for. At the time, pay TV encryption was a rapidly developing frontier technology and pay TV providers were in a race to keep ahead of the hackers and the pirates.

    The information uncovered by Chenoweth suggests that NDS attacked the pirates and prosecuted them, but in so doing obtained encryption codes for the cards operated by rivals. Using that knowledge, it promoted a wave of high-tech piracy that damaged Austar and Optus, the pay TV rivals of Foxtel, which is 25 per cent owned by News Ltd.

    Foxtel is now poised to buy Austar. The piracy cost the ­Australian pay TV companies millions of dollars a year and  undermined Austar’s finances. As well as harming rivals by ­fostering piracy, NDS also appears to have withheld a piracy fix from client DirecTV for 15 months just as News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch was set to buy the company in early 2000. This cost DirecTV millions of dollars in revenue, depressing the company’s value. NDS was paid more than $90 million to ­provide security to DirecTV.

    It is not clear if top News Corporation executives knew of the NDS dirty tricks. NDS reported to the office of Mr Murdoch. The chief operating officer of News Ltd, Chase Carey, was an NDS director and oversaw NDS in the late 1990s. It may be that NDS displayed elements of a rogue operator within the News Corp stable with an agenda that did not always accord with that of its parent.

    At least until now, there has been no known link between the pay TV piracy allegations and the UK phone hacking scandal that has badly damaged News International, the UK arm of News Corp. The egregious phone hacking by journalists and private investigators at News Corp newspapers and other media companies has no known counterpart in Australia.

    The evidence uncovered by Chenoweth, however, reveals that NDS paid £2000 to Surrey police for information. Surrey police are at the centre of the UK phone hacking inquiry. In addition, the emails suggest that NDS intended to procure phone records in Australia illegally. The Australian Federal Police has confirmed that it has been working with UK police investigating News International since July last year, but the content of the investigation is not known.

    Under Australian law at the time, hacking and piracy of smartcards was not illegal. But the evidence uncovered by Chenoweth raises legitimate questions about corporate governance, accountability and trust at an important public corporation that go beyond the question of legality. News Corp strongly disputes the conclusions of the Financial Review’s investigation.

    http://afr.com/p/opinion/governance_concerns_at_news_corp_cD1DOCJOh9ktZmZpNRYFHK

    Governance concerns indeed.

    Win at all costs mentality it seems.

    Pretty well a culture of do and say anything to ensure profits and expansion.

    This doesn’t surprise me…Murdoch’s businesses really took hold in the heady 80s….

    The 1980s saw laissez-faire economics and neo-liberalism takeoff…partially in reaction to over-the-top union strikes and militant approaches that hindered economic growth in the 70s…and eastern european communism came under intense criticism and protest…these morally and environmentally bankrupt regimes doing nothing for the cause of social democracy.

    Add the spread of cocaine use that made business and other high profile users pumped up, money accumulating obsessed, painfully egotistical, ready to take short cuts, overly confident and aggressive in business, big impulsive spenders…taking crazy risks…energised…

    And the rejection of political correctness partially due to its stifling effects on humour, banter, the workplace…and a sense that some in minority groups were taking advantage of laws and government funding…

    We must add of course the growth of evangelism…and eventually prosperity evangelism…

    And a parallel and exponential growth in tolerance of sexual tittilation and sex-based humour off the back of sexual liberation movements…and partially in response to attacks on contraception and free love in tandem with promotion of family values by born again etc. Christians…and of course the use of sex and nudity to promote products…and hook in viewers…

    Advertisers used the liberalisation of the market to reach more living rooms…more often…including using product placement in films…and television…

    Sports became more corporatised…

    Gay rights issues became more prominent partially due to the tragic AIDS epidemic and slow response by governments…and irrational response by some political and religious figures…gays gained higher profiles as they “came out” or
    were exposed by celebrity and scandal fixated media.

    And of course the elite tree was being shaken…aristocrats in the UK went broke…new entrepeneurs exploded into public view off the back of new technology…computer games, videos, walkmans…and property investment and resort opportunities…

    So it’s not surprising that this environment that Murdoch’s papers began to thrive in…sometimes influence…has driven much of his…and his associates and long-term staff’s behaviour…and way of looking at the world…and doing business.

    Problem for Murdoch is he missed the internet boom for awhile…got on board too slowly…leading him to push his interests too aggressively the last few years…the bullying and manipulation and profiteering, attention-seeking tactics of his papers and Fox News has become sooo obvious…and led to terrible mistakes…costly outcomes.

    And the culture of News corporation has not evolved much since those heady 80s…

    even tho some might like to believe so…just more shiny and polished looking.

    Times have changed Rupert…you can’t just buy yer way to owning an empire that pushes others around…without intense scrutiny and pushback.

    Old enemies have long memories…and also inluence and deep pockets.

    And neo-liberalism ain’t what it used to be.

    N’

  222. Interesting:

    In 1998, Rupert Murdoch made an attempt to buy the football club Manchester United F.C. with an offer of £625 million, but this failed. It was the largest amount ever offered for a sports club. It was blocked by the United Kingdom’s Competition Commission, which stated that the acquisition would have “hurt competition in the broadcast industry and the quality of British football”.

    (wikipedia)

    N’

  223. You can follow UK Labour mp Tom Watson on Twitter:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/#!/tom_watson

    Watson has been critical of conservative Fox News host Glenn Beck, saying that Beck’s “type of journalism is dangerous and can have wide-ranging negative effects on society. The kind of material broadcast by Glenn Beck is not unique; a number of other ‘shock jocks’ operate in the States. However, none has displayed intolerance on such a frequent and irresponsible scale as Glenn Beck. It is vital that that kind of ‘news’ is not made or broadcast in the UK. However, the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corp means that there is an increased threat of its becoming a reality.”

    Watson played a significant role in the News International phone hacking scandal by helping to bring the series of events at the News of the World into the open.

    As a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, he questioned Rupert and James Murdoch, along with former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, in a Committee session on 19 July 2011. After the subsequent re-questioning of James Murdoch on 10 November 2011, Tom Watson received widespread coverage for his likening of Murdoch to a mafia boss.

    Sun Journalist Controversy

    On 13 February 2012 Tom Watson proposed to the twitter community that The Sun needed a twitter hashtag for an article relating to the ongoing police enquiries into corruption, “The Sun’s “poor us” article needs a hashtag: #sunarrests”

    A Sun journalist, Jacqui Swift (@jacswift), responded within 40 minutes. It has taken the twitter world by storm and caused new controversy for The Sun.

    Her proposal was subsequently deleted by her but can be seen in full at the link below, suggested that “@tom_watson you are a fat wanker is a better hashtag”.
    (wikipedia)

    N’

  227. Former NoW deputy editor: I gave PR advice to Met police commissioners

    Neil Wallis tells Leveson inquiry of his unofficial role while still a journalist, claiming he helped Lord Stevens get the top job

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/02/now-deputy-editor-met-police-commissioners

    The former deputy editor of the News of the World, Neil Wallis, acted as an unofficial adviser to a succession of Met police commissioners and helped Lord Stevens secure the top role in 2000, the Leveson inquiry has heard.

    Wallis described on Monday how he gave advice on an ad hoc basis on policy and strategy to three police chiefs at the force going back to the mid-90s when Lord Condon was the Metropolitan police commissioner.

    When John Stevens was applying for the commissioner’s job in 2000, Wallis was at hand throughout, telling him he would improve his chances if he fashioned himself as the “copper’s copper” and a “man of action rather than rhetoric.

  230. And to think that Murdoch was only re-elected to the position 30 November 2011.

    ww.perthnow.com.au/business/media-marketing/james-murdoch-re-elected-as-bskyb-chairman/story-e6frg2rc-1226210006258

    So apart from a possible critical report from the MP’s committee, which he has known about since before he was re-elected, what has changed?

    And with a court case in Italy will he next step down from “smaller pay-TV businesses in Italy, Sky Italia, and Star in Asia”.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/03/james-murdoch-step-down-bskyb-chairman

    So the departure from the UK and move to New York may have greater significance.

  231. Sue, the Levesen Inquiry is progressing and young James has been under a lot of pressure, so whether he jumped or was pushed, New york will be a little ‘cooler’ for the time being.

  232. pip

    the mp’s committee which had both rupert and james, and then recalled james is due to report after easter.
    then there is the independent body that is deciding whether Murdoch is “fit and proper” to hold the license for bskyb

    and now the panorama story all adding to the bigger picture.

    but then there could be issues back in the ol’ u s of a

  233. Sue, that’s a thought, the U.S. Justice Department is investigating the company for possible violations of an American law that makes it a crime for a U.S.-based company to bribe foreign officials.

  235. Pip @12.31am, are you sensing that a slight breeze will bring the whole rotten structure tumbling down burying the Emperor AND his minions both o/s and here. Oh dear, won’t it be heartbreaking to see the Liars Party and their scaly mates in the msm weeping into their beer/

    The thought of Pies, Janet, Dolt & co clearing out their desks, gives me a warm glow.

  237. I really, really want Thomson to come out of this smelling like a rose and the skank Kathy Jackson covered in merde!

  238. We can dream Jane – I really don’t think that will be the case, but wouldn’t it be exquisite to see the squirming from those who have publicly crucified Craig Thompson and deified Kathy Jackson 😉

  239. You think the dills would have been wary of KJ when it came out “the shovel” was her own..

    the smirky uhlmann probably hasn’t bothered to read about that.

  240. It’s hard to say, Bacchus. Apparently Thomson seems pretty composed, which must be driving Sneerleader nuts.

    But it would be very satisfying to watch while the msm turned themselves inside out trying to locate and extract Sneerleader from the shit pile.

    Sue @11.18pm, I think they are clinging to her hoping she’ll be their “saviour” and the conduit to an early election. We can only hope Craig Thomson’s knocking up a big fat pie to launch straight at them.

  241. “Rupert Murdoch’s American media immunity

    The paradox is how little interest, until now, the US press has taken in the scandals engulfing the tycoon’s News Corp empire

    While the lack of charges seems to be interpreted in the US as a signal of weakness in the allegations, it more likely reflects the process of British law: plea bargains occur before indictment.

    In other words, some of the arrested subjects are likely bargaining and getting ready to testify against each other and those above. If the dominoes begin to fall, that will increase pressure on the US Justice Department to act under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

    Hollywood seems suddenly roused. Judging from the shocked and outraged calls I’ve gotten in the days since Frontline acquainted PBS viewers with the basic details of this long-in-progress, slow-motion downfall of the most powerful man of our time, maybe, finally, the story has reached us. And is ripe.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/04/rupert-murdoch-american-media-immunity

  243. Rupert a bit “testy” says this article. Apparently Murky is really annoyed with the UK PM, but when you read this, insert Gillard for Cameron and the same story could be applied here.

    “Meanwhile, I understand that Murdoch Senior has declared open season on the prime minister. Certainly, his newspapers appear to be giving David Cameron both barrels on a daily basis.

    Of course, I know that Murdoch doesn’t influence what his editors do. I am aware that he is a hands-off proprietor.

    It is simply a matter of coincidence that Murdoch’s disavowal of Cameron is echoed in editorials in The Sun and The Times. Great minds and all that.

    A short leader in today’s Sun, for instance, referred almost casually to “government incompetence”. And it concluded: “Goodness knows how this government would react in a real crisis”.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/apr/04/jamesmurdoch-rupert-murdoch

  244. “Apparently Thomson seems pretty composed, which must be driving Sneerleader nuts.”

    Well jane, he would be one that has some idea of what is in that report. He would know where the skeletons are buried.

    He does seem relieved.

    If the PM has contrived this outcome, I would say she is much clever than Mr. Abbott and he has truly met his match.

    I do not believe she has, but I do believe that many in government would have had a good idea of the likely outcome.

    This is the scenario I seen at the beginning, and I have been out of the game for a long, long time. What surprises me is that the problems were still there.

    I do know that Mr. Thompson was under attack the last time I seen him, just before I retired back in 2004.

    That is a long rime for a union to be dysfunctional.

    Many have come and gone, with the exception of Ms. Jackson.

    it surprised me that the Opposition did not also see this possibility. I can only surmise they are so focus on what they want today, that they do not care.

  245. “UK’s Sky news has admitted that one of its senior executives authorised a journalist to conduct email hacking on two separate occasions that it said were “in the public interest” – even though intercepting emails is a prima facie breach of the Computer Misuse Act, to which there is no such defence written in law.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/05/sky-news-hacking-emails-canoe-man

    And so it widens. So has Sky news Australia hacked any emails? Is hacking emails, by Sky a contibuting reason why the Australia Network tender was cancelled?.. ……….

  246. So from this news, we learn that hacking of emails was known of and considered for “approval” across News organisations.
    It was not a limited practice, only used by producers of newspapers.
    It was known by journalists, by managers, by editors but not owners. Well not owners is the evidence written and spoken by James and Rupert.

  248. From the New York times

    “But word that a broadcaster part-owned by Mr. Murdoch, and overseen by his son James, who stepped down as chairman of BSkyB only two days ago, was now confronting a hacking issue, will likely sharpen the focus on allegations of wrongdoing within the financially significant television operations of Mr. Murdoch’s worldwide operations

    It was not immediately clear whether James Murdoch’s resignation from BSkyB on Tuesday was connected with the Sky News disclosure two days later.

    In quitting BSkyB’s chairmanship, James Murdoch said he wished to shield the company from the phone hacking scandal engulfing his family’s British newspaper group. He did not allude to the hacking revelations at Sky News that surfaced on Thursday. ”
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/world/europe/murdochs-sky-news-channel-discloses-email-hacking.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

  249. And the Washington post gets an opinion from an assistant professor at Notre Dame.

    “It seems less likely, and it may not be in their best interest,” said Michael J. Mannor, an assistant professor of business strategy at the University of Notre Dame. “News Corp. is under a lot of pressure in a lot of different ways…. It’s important for a news media organization to have the trust of the public, and that’s been a big struggle.”

    The news came the same day that Sky News managing editor Simon Cole — who authorized the hacking — announced his retirement, although on Twitter he insisted that the move was unrelated to the controversy

    The news also follows the resignation of Murdoch’s son James from his title of chairman of BSkyB. The younger Murdoch said he was stepping down in a bid to insulate the broadcaster from the controversy, prompting one opposition lawmaker, Chris Bryant, to ask Thursday whether James had jumped ship to avoid being tarred by the latest scandal involving the Darwins’ email”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/murdochs-news-intl-challenges-sienna-miller-over-legal-costs-person-close-to-case-says/2012/04/05/gIQAaqrxwS_story.html?hpid=z3

  250. So the same managing editor that “authorised” the hacking just happened to be retiring.

    that sounds familiar

    This also sounds familiar
    “Sky News had asked the law firm Herbert Smith to conduct a separate review of staff email records and payment records in the light of “heightened interest in editorial practices”

    News Ltd chief, John Hartigan retires and

    “News Ltd’s investigation of its editorial spending has found no evidence that journalists in Australian were engaged in phone hacking or bribing police or other officials for information.

    The review was started three months ago by outgoing chairman and chief executive, John Hartigan

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/news-ltd-not-involved-in-phone-hacking-report-finds-20111114-1nf07.html#ixzz1rCkVnYWz

  251. I am feeling glader, daily, that the Governmnet so badly ‘botched’ their tender process Sue 😉

    In fact, I reckon that they have ‘botched’ it sooo badly, I might even call it a success (everthing is circular anyway)

  252. Tom r

    When will we see the headline.

    Govt botch/ schmozzle saves Australia from International Embarrassment.

    or just

    Thank you Julia

  254. Ofcom planning to strip Murdoch of BSkyB?
    http://www.imediamonkey.com/ofcom-planning-to-strip-murdoch-of-bskyb/

    James Murdoch may be stripped of his BSkyB position if a special team at Ofcom deem him to be unfit to remain as Chairman, following the recent phone hacking scandal.

    According to The Independent, Freedom of Information disclosures show that the media regulator has put together a team called ‘Project Apple’ to assess the fitness of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to hold a controlling 39% stake in BSkyB.

    Yesterday night a spokesperson for the regulator said: “In relation to the hacking and corruption allegations, new evidence is still emerging from the various inquiries. Ofcom is continuing to assess the evidence that may assist it in discharging these duties.”

    The Metropolitan Police are currently carrying out criminal inquiries into phone hacking, computer hacking and bribery at News International’s headquarters in Wapping, East London.

    Clearing out the old crew with a view to ‘starting fresh’/business as usual ?

  255. Tom, me too!

    The thought of the Australia Network in the old foreigner’s hands was too much to stomach.

    He’s been after a chance to cover Asia and China in his grand network of slime for some time.

    What the hell was KR thinking??

  256. CU @3.25pm 5/4, the PM is far too smart to put a foot wrong and as Sneerleader is finding out, she’s a much tougher nut to crack than he thought. She’s also head and shoulders above him on every measure, particularly honesty.

    Tom R, never have so many owed so much to such a “botched tender process” by an “incompetent ” government. Long may our incompetent PM and her minority government reign! 😀

    What the hell was KR thinking??

    Revenge is mine!! Bwwaahahahaha! or wtte.

  257. “Paul Staines, who blogs under the name Guido Fawkes, on Tuesday published what he said were more than 1000 recorded transactions between staffers at Rupert Murdoch’s News International and freelance detective Steve Whittamore, who was convicted of trading in illegally obtained information.

    In a blog post, Staines said he wanted to expose “industrial scale criminality” perpetrated by Britain’s press, accusing newspaper groups of refusing to name names because they “do not wish to report their own crimes.”
    http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/blogger-links-uk-reporters-to-shady-pi-20120410-1wnak.html

  258. Possibly just in time for Fox News networks before they launch more of their bile prior to the presidential elections

    “Mark Lewis, the lawyer who has been at the forefront of efforts to expose the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, is poised to bring the battle for legal redress across the Atlantic and to the doorstep of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

    the Guardian has learned that he will be having legal discussions that could lead to several lawsuits being lodged with the New York courts. The direct involvement of the US judicial system in allegations of illegal activity by News Corp employees would bring the scandal dramatically closer to Murdoch’s adopted home.”

    Also
    “Lewis will be attending a symposium on investigative journalism at UC Berkeley this weekend where he will be speaking on a panel titled: “The Murdoch Effect: The News At Any Price?”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/11/news-international-lawyer-phone-hacking

  259. Sue, the scandal enveloping the Murdochracy is picking up speed, it seems. Wouldn’t it be too tragic if it engulfed the Australian arm, together with a spot of collateral damage in shock jock land, their ABC and the Liars Party before the next election?

  260. Jane
    with 18 months to go until our election, there will be plenty of time for more Murkiness. But imagine the glee if Murky’s adopted country gets a few big law cases anounced before November this year.

    And will Fox news cover Murky’s next big (humble) day out at the Leveson inquiry? that appearance is due before the end of April also appearing will be junior and their special red head friend .

    And the plod keeping plodding on. Must be time for another “appointment” at the local nick.

  261. BTW, did anyone notice that Lavartus Prodeo aka Mark Bahnisch (sp) has quit. Seven years of blogging is a long time. I had a couple of emails from some of us old timers, from the days when blogging wasn’t considered serious, through to when the msm said that we were all wasting our time.

    I see that Mark is still around on Facebook putting up links and commenting.

  262. Emma Alberichi on Lateline had an excellent interview with Mark Lewis. The interview was prior to Lewis hopping on a plane to USA,
    Phone Hacking
    NDS
    Depositions
    Ex employees problems with Fox

    Possible legal action over pay tv, as highlighted in the panorama program, are not that far off.

  265. Sue, it looks like the emperor is having a lifetime of Friday 13ths. Long may they continue and bite large chunks out of the Liars Party, the msm and all shock jocks’ bums!

    Couldn’t happen to nicer people!

  266. Dirty tricks and leaks at the heart of Scotland Yard
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/dirty-tricks-and-leaks-at-the-heart-of-scotland-yard-7646599.html

    Scotland Yard today faces claims of a secret campaign from inside the highest ranks of the force to oust the former Commissioner Ian Blair – a civil war that pitted senior colleagues against one another and undermined its leadership during one of the most tumultuous periods in its history.

    Aided by a long-running newspaper campaign questioning his competence.

    Was there any area that wasn’t snared in the Murdoch net?

  267. Pip,
    From the link you provided:

    Lord Blair recently told the Leveson Inquiry that he believed the way he was consistently criticised as Commissioner – for being too liberal and too close to the Labour government and their policing policies – resulted from “political forces and the press” combining to deliver “a monstering” that lasted throughout his entire term of office. He told the inquiry: “I can think of no equivalent long-term treatment of a public servant in this manner.”

    He also told Lord Justice Leveson that when he was Commissioner the number of leaks to the media increased and, though he had never suspected senior colleagues of passing information to journalists for money, he believed there was “a desire to advance their own views in the public mind or to improve their own profile”.

    The Oxford-educated officer was pilloried by a number of newspapers, in particular by News International titles. In an editorial published in June 2006, the NOTW called for Lord Blair’s resignation after the Stockwell shooting, saying he had “lost the dressing room” and the “top tier at the Yard are in despair”. It added: “We share Lord Stevens’ view that police cannot engage in politically correct pussyfooting when lives are at risk.”

    Late in his commissionership, Lord Blair was told that both his official and private mobile telephone numbers had been found in the notebook of the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. Operation Weeting told Lord Blair last year that it believed these numbers had been obtained by Mulcaire in 2006 – the same year when intelligence was being gathered about the Yard’s internecine strife. Lord Blair said he had yet to be shown evidence that his telephone had been hacked.

    The relationship between Lord Stevens and Mr Wallis was detailed by the former tabloid executive during his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry earlier this month. Mr Wallis, who disclosed that he had advised Lord Stevens to present himself as a “thief taker” in his successful application to become head of the Met, said the former Commissioner had conducted a successful relationship with the media that contrasted with the “cerebral” Lord Blair, who, he said, had not been interested in the views of the tabloid press.

    When Lord Stevens began his column for the NOTW, entitled “The Chief”, Lord Blair made clear his displeasure. The column continued until October 2007. Mr Wallis said: “On a number of occasions [Lord Blair] was heard to comment on the fact that he could not understand how a column could be headlined ‘The Chief’ when it was factually incorrect as he himself was now the Metropolitan Police chief.” Lord Stevens did not respond to a request to comment on the allegations in the intelligence report.

    Lord Blair said he had no comment to make on the matter.

    The Labour MP Chris Bryant, who helped to expose the phone-hacking scandal, said: “These are extraordinary revelations. As every new strand of this story appears it seems ever clearer that the Murdoch newspaper empire behaved like a state within a state.” News International declined to comment.
    ———-
    Remind you of the Victorian situation…a certain police commissioner being constantly undermined by the Murdoch media and insiders…leaks…her replacement being treated in a similar fashion.

    If this attack on Blair…and the infiltration of the Met by News International…was to coverup the phone hacking and other illegal activities…I reckon this is sabotage of police work of the highest order…interference with ongoing investigations…etc etc…

    certainly criminal conduct…and an undermining of the judicial system.

    N’

  268. Nas’ yes it does remind me of the campaign to oust Christine Nixon and also simon Overland.

    It also brings into very clear focus the current campaign to oust our Prime Minister, our government and of course, the hounding of Craig Thomson who is the chosen target to achieve their desire.

    <blockquote.The Labour MP Chris Bryant, who helped to expose the phone-hacking scandal, said: “These are extraordinary revelations. As every new strand of this story appears it seems ever clearer that the Murdoch newspaper empire behaved like a state within a state.” News International declined to comment.

  269. .News Corporation’s Pursuer Had Modest Start

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/business/media/mark-lewis-lawyer-in-phone-hacking-case-chases-news-corporation-in-us.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

    The son of a part-time secretary and a failed businessman, Mr. Lewis grew up in Radcliffe, a working-class town on the outskirts of Manchester. He studied law at the University of Chester and for years loyally read The News of the World. He has multiple sclerosis, which has left him with a debilitated arm and a limp that has not slowed him down.

    Mr. Lewis Snr. might be written off as a “failed business man”, but he certainly hasnt failed as a parent.

    Rupert Murdoch has made a career of painting his critics as elitist, privileged and out of touch. But the English lawyer who stands at the center of the legal battles that have engulfed his News Corporation did not attend a select law school or work at a top London law firm.

    In fact, until 2009, when a parliamentary committee heard evidence into accusations of widespread phone hacking at News Corporation’s News of the World tabloid, Mark Lewis, a 47-year-old solicitor from Manchester, had never been inside the House of Commons.

    Mr. Lewis is going to America …

    The phone-hacking scandal has not jumped the ocean to the United States, but Mr. Lewis will. On Monday, he will hold meetings in New York to look into filing at least three civil suits related to phone hacking at The News of the World.

    Mr. Lewis said his clients believed their voice-mail messages were intercepted while they were visiting the United States or as they left messages on British cellphones that had been hacked by The News of the World.

    “If the person leaving a message is American, why should they travel across the Atlantic to issue a claim?” Mr. Lewis said.

  270. yes it does remind me of the campaign to oust Christine Nixon and also simon Overland.

    Indeed Pip,

    Some of that is discussed in Crikey posts here…including that strange exposing of an anti-terror raid by News Ltd…

    http://www.crikey.com.au/topic/victoria-police/

    Interesting ain’t it how they get info well before others?

    N’

  272. Nas’ an amazing story which involved a belief that someone caused the downfall of the Kennett govt., 150 years ago.

    From:- The Office of Police Integrity report,

    The report, relying largely on covertly recorded telephone conversations and on admissions from Weston, reveals how this former Detective Senior Constable, then acting as an adviser in the office of Police Minister Peter Ryan, used a largely compliant media to plant stories, some of them false and most of them seriously skewed, that added to the atmosphere of crisis surrounding Overland in the first half of this year.

    Reporters on the end of Weston’s activities included Carly Crawford of the Herald Sun, Dylan Welch of The Age, Stuart Rintoul of The Australian and the Neil Mitchell and his producer, Justin Smith, of 3AW.

    and

    In his interviews with the OPI Weston said that he cultivated the Police Association because of the political power it wielded. In Weston’s view the association was responsible for the downfall of the Kennett government, and the election of the Bracks government.

    What a rotten disgusting mob of vultures!

  273. Why is John Yates working for the brutal Bahraini regime?

    The former Met commander was appointed by the king of Bahrain to oversee reform of the country’s security forces late last year.

    http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2012/04/why-john-yates-working-brutal-bahraini-regime

    Oh dear. What happened to John Yates? How did a suave, sophisticated, liberal British policeman, once tipped for the top job in the Metropolitan Police, end up shilling for a vicious Middle East dictator who shoots, teargasses and tortures unarmed protesters?

    “Yates of the Yard”, as he became known during his pursuit of Tony Blair over the cash-for-peerages scandal, was appointed by the king of Bahrain to oversee reform of the country’s security forces late last year.

    The higher the leap, the longer the drop.

  275. Hi Sue, I haven’t followed this for days and you’ve peaked my curiousity 🙂

    Is this it?

    Police send journalists’ cases to prosecutors

    Journalists are among 11 suspects – who also include one police officer – whose cases the CPS is considering

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/18/police-refer-journalists-cases-prosecutors

    Scotland Yard has referred the cases of four journalists to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider potential prosecutions.

    The journalists are among 11 suspects, who also include one police officer whose cases are being considered, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), Keir Starmer QC said.

    Offences under consideration include misconduct in a public office, Data Protection Act breaches, perverting the course of justice, witness intimidation and breaches of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa).

    Starmer refused to give a timescale for a charging decision but said: “We are now entering a period where we are likely to make a decision one way or another.”

    Also some who haven’t been questioned yet…… they’ll be expecting a bang on the door now though…

  276. Pip

    yep that was it, when i posted, no details had been given.
    should be some more events over the coming weeks with murdoch senior and junior invited back to meet leveson.
    the pollies due to report
    and now the possibility of charges

  277. Sue I think the story was posted not long before I had a look for it.

    “witness intimidation” – nasty goings on !

  279. Perverting the course of justice – Bigger stakes than i would have guessed

    “The handover of the files follows the arrests of Ms Brooks, 43, and her husband, Charlie Brooks, last month. Four other people, including News International’s head of security, Mark Hanna, were also arrested. Police were believed to be investigating a possible plot to conceal the extent of voicemail interception at the News Of The World after Operation Weeting was launched. Perverting the course of justice carries a penalty of up to life in prison and a fine. News International declined to comment.”
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/brooks-and-thurlbeck-at-risk-as-prosecutors-get-first-hacking-files-7657267.html

  280. Pip

    Just a reminder, we have not heard what happened with the laptop that “belonged” to Brooks’ hubbie and was left by a friend in a garbage bin for him to collect. Unfortunately for the hubbie the parking station attendants called the police over the suspicious package. Hubbie Charlie tried via his legal team to get the laptop back before anyone looked to see what was on it. This all happened while Brooks was being interviewed by the police over her knowledge of phone hacking.

    So I am wondering is the laptop revelant to any charges?

  281. Oh and of course we read today the UK police set up a separate task force just for perverting the course of justice

    Task force – sasha- set up after rebekkah and charlie got to meet the police rather than attend the big social race meeting of the year.

  282. Pip and Sue,
    Top job.
    Thnx for keeping us informed.

    Sordid affairs indeed. We see the gradual exposing of criminal activities.

    As Fiona @ Mr. Denmore’s site…and on The Political Sword aptly described one journos deal with Murdoch…a “faustian bargain”.

    The same can be said for editors/gatekeepers, politicians, political advisors, the police and all the influential others who have abandoned their principles to get into bed with this megalomaniac…and his media-related cronies.

    I would not like to wake in the middle of the night knowing I had done a deal with Murdoch and his cronies. No money…nor sense of security…could alleviate the sense that I was aiding and abetting the Dark Lord himself…helping to throw a shadow of dread and fear across the land…tearing asunder the very fabric of an already vulnerable democracy under constant attack by the corporate aristocracy…propping up a villian of the highest order…a man, Rupert Murdoch, provided with an opportunity by family and riches and contacts to help change the world for the better…who mutated into an unrecognisable creature obsessed with expanding his reach…and filling the family coffers…giving more than just a wink and a nudge to his servants as they unleashed upon the public an unprincipled and morally bankrupt set of journalistic tendencies, practices and strategies in order to grow a media empire like a malignant tumour…tentacles reaching out to every part of society…helping to create a sick and twisted world…confused…and lost to the ravages of this beastly, insatiable thing known as News Corporation…and subsidiaries.

    To wake to that knowledge must be soul…and integrity destroying.

    N’

  283. Sue, I’d forgotten about Charlie and his laptop.

    Nas’ you are very welcome, but wait, there’s more… 🙂

    Dial M for Murdoch revelations:
    Rebekah Brooks’ office was bugged

    http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/04/dial-m-for-murdoch-revelations/#mulcaire-and-stevens

    Today sees the publication of Tom Watson and Martin Hickman’s book Dial M for Murdoch, which seems full to the brim with secrets of the darker side of News International. Among the biggest news so far is that Rebekah Brooks’ office was bugged by the Murdoch empire.

  284. Nas’, it was remiss of me not to tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed your
    character assessment of the old foreigner. 😀

  286. Pip
    thanks for the link on the book. i had seen it advertised on Watson’s web site but not those juicy quotes.

  287. Sue, a Watson interview…

    Author: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Operated as A ‘Shadow State’ in U.K.
    http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/author-rupert-murdoch-news-corp-tom-watson-book-dial-m-for-murdoch-314143

    Member of parliament Tom Watson tells a press conference for his book “Dial M for Murdoch” that the conglomerate has exerted “a malign and corrupting influence” on British public life.
    LONDON — Labour Party member of parliament Tom Watson said Thursday Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp’s publishing division News International operates “like a shadow state.”

    Member of parliament Tom Watson tells a press conference for his book “Dial M for Murdoch” that the conglomerate has exerted “a malign and corrupting influence” on British public life.
    LONDON — Labour Party member of parliament Tom Watson said Thursday Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp’s publishing division News International operates “like a shadow state.”

    { Just read this to offspring…”no S%&( Sherlock!” }

  291. From Lewis in US

    “News Corporation said only that they had “no comment” on Lewis’s American visit, but the stakes are potentially very high for the company. Both federal and individual state law takes a severe view of alleged hacking into a person’s stored communications.

    Under federal law, an individual who violates telecoms privacy for the purposes of commercial advantage can face five years in prison, or 10 years for a subsequent offence. Civil courts can also set damages measured against the profits gained by the violators.

    Lewis indicated that he was exploring the possibility of deposing the younger Murdoch should any of the cases come to court.

    “James Murdoch is now in the US rather than in England, and we have to look at that,” Lewis said. “It becomes relevant to all sorts of issues in respect to knowledge in terms of punitive damages.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/19/murdoch-news-corp-lawyers-us

  292. ” Rupert Murdoch is to give evidence to the Leveson inquiry into phone hacking and media ethics next week, with a day and a half set aside for the News Corporation founder.

    Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corp, is due to give evidence on Wednesday, continuing on Thursday morning if necessary.

    His son James, the News Corp deputy chief operating officer and former chairman of the company’s UK newspaper business News International, has been allocated a full day on Tuesday for his witness appearance.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/19/leveson-inquiry-rupert-james-murdoch

  294. Miglo

    What a significant date for a Murdoch to be appearing at Leveson, Anzac Day, 25th April.

    Will Rupert have finally done the most to sully the Murdoch name, well the name Keith Murdoch .

  295. It is ironic that Keith Murdoch established himself as a quality journalist during his coverage of Gallipoli.

  296. Wasn’t it also Keith Murdoch who said of one Prime Minister, I put him in and I’ll put him out. The Murdochs have been combining journalism and political influence for a very long time.

  297. At Huffington Post:

    But since arriving this week, Lewis said he has heard unproven allegations “which raise issues against other [Murdoch] titles or perhaps against Fox News that raise suggestions, not necessarily about hacking, but about untoward dark arts to obtain information that should be private information.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/19/phone-hacking-news-corp-rupert-murdoch_n_1438530.html

    Lift the carpet and you’ll see the rot, the wriggling maggots…

    N’

  299. Short but enlightening interview with Tom Watson on ABC 24 earlier…love the title of his & Martin Hickman’s Penguin book Dial M for Murdoch…he’s one gutsy, articulate investigator-cum-politician.

    Put many a lazy cop and reporter to shame.

    At least we’re seeing some useful investigative reporting going on in the UK now. The Independent. The Guardian. Internet sites linked above.

    Watson should do a One Plus One interview:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/programs/one-plus-one/

    N’

  302. Blair aide among 46 new Murdoch hacking claims
    Latest batch of phone-hacking cases puts The Times in the frame

    A key Labour aide who worked for Tony Blair and David Blunkett had his messages intercepted while employed at the highest levels of government, according to papers filed yesterday against Rupert Murdoch’s News International – one of 46 new claimants involved in a second tranche of phone-hacking lawsuits against the company. Matthew Doyle, who became Mr Blair’s deputy director of communications in Downing Street and continued to work for the former prime minister until this year, joined the England and Manchester United footballer Wayne Rooney, actor James Nesbitt and Sir John Major’s former daughter-in-law, Emma Noble, in filing damages claims.

    The latest salvo of cases also involves the first lawsuit related to allegations of illegal newsgathering against Times Newspapers, publisher of The Times and Sunday Times. It was revealed yesterday that phone hacking litigation has so far cost Mr Murdoch’s News International £10m in legal fees for victims. Mr Doyle is the latest member of New Labour’s innermost circle to bring a hacking claim against the News of the World and his proximity to two of the party’s biggest beasts while in government will raise further questions about the Murdoch empire’s efforts to snoop on the private lives of those running the country. Mr Murdoch and his son, James, will next week give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. Mr Blair’s wife, Cherie, has also brought a damages claim against the NOTW in the latest round of litigation while a cast of senior Cabinet ministers and Labour lieutenants, including Mr Blunkett, Lord Prescott, Tessa Jowell and Alastair Campbell have already received apologies and substantial damages payments for the interception of their voicemails.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/blair-aide-among-46-new-murdoch-hacking-claims-7665990.html

    Even The Times has been tainted.

    A bloody disgrace.

    Murdoch should be stripped of his ownership.

    N’

  304. Thanks Nas’. 🙂
    Thanks Eddie 🙂

    Murdoch to be quizzed on his UK political sway
    http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/murdoch-to-be-quizzed-on-his-uk-political-sway-1.3675251

    LONDON – (AP) — He was long considered one of the most important power brokers in British politics. Now, with his influence shriveled by Britain’s phone hacking scandal, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is returning to the U.K. to face questions about his ties to the country’s most senior politicians.

    It could be an uncomfortable few days for Britain’s ruling class.

  306. Methinks Lord Leveson was non too pleased about being lied to.

    “Lord Leveson said that Sky might get away with the hacking if prosecutors decide not to press charges, “but at the end of the day you’ve committed a crime”.

    “I understand,” Mr Ryley said.

    In a terse exchange with inquiry lawyer David Barr, Mr Ryley said it was “highly unlikely in the future that Sky will consider breaking the law”.

    “But you’re not ruling it out?” Mr Barr asked.

    “I am pretty much ruling it out,” Mr Ryley said. “There might be an occasion, but it would be very, very rare.”

    Mr Ryley also admitted that Sky News had misled Leveson’s inquiry when it insisted, in a 2011 letter, that the channel had never intercepted communications. He acknowledged that those assurances were false.

    “It is very regrettable indeed, and I apologise,” he told the inquiry.

    Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/hacking-inquiry-spreads-to-murdochs-sky-news-20120424-1xih5.html#ixzz1svegweC4

  310. UK bookies have now suspended betting on politican Hunt leaving cabinet.

    No. 10 must be concerned over James evidence and still to come in next 2 days ol’Rupert.

  311. “Emails from James Murdoch’s lobbyist appear to show back channel to culture secretary James Hunt during (sky) takeover bid”

    “It’s worse than I suspected at the time. Jeremy Hunt’s office was basically operating as a branch office for the Murdoch empire “

  313. Murdoch was given knowledge of the types of inquiries the govt may have after “dowler”, eventually led to leveson inquiry.

    WOW

  314. They really are sounding shocked at what looks for all the world like a great big take down Sue.

    I have to take time out from that robotic voice though

    A tweet from the man who tried to get this story out many years ago.

    Steven Nott ‏ @StevenNott

    #LEVESON – It’s amazing how one minute James Murdoch doesn’t recall anything then all of a sudden his memory is bloody PERFECT. #murdochfest

    …

  315. James Murdoch bombshell for Tories over BSkyB bid

    Tycoon son’s evidence puts PM and culture minister on the rack

    24 April 2012

    David Cameron and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt were on the rack this afternoon after sensational evidence to the hacking inquiry from James Murdoch.

    The Prime Minister was facing accusations that he acted inappropriately after Mr Murdoch confirmed for the first time that they discussed his company’s £8 billion bid to take full control of broadcaster BSkyB at a Christmas dinner party in the home of Rebekah Brooks.

    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/uk/james-murdoch-bombshell-for-tories-over-bskyb-bid-7675156.html

  318. Lawyer, Mark Lewis outside the Leveson inquiry, said about Rupert Murdoch’s upcoming appearance..

    “it will be interesting to see which persona attends. Will it be the frail, hard of hearing, humble Rupert or will he come out fighting. “

  319. I wonder just how deep the murdoch malignancy has gone into their ABC. After watching tony jones (Q&A) get live (on air) instructions from upstairs to stress the innocence of News Ltd and Murdoch in Australia, I would say the rot has gone pretty deep.

    At least now when our journalists piss on their audience they don’t even pretend it’s raining.

  320. lunalava

    It is worse than just the ABC. News Ltd has power everywhere across newspapers and television. Even the AFR has an ex News Ltd editor and see how the stories are changing.Then there are organisations like the IPA, who do not disclose their funders.

    So just how close is Abbott to News Ltd? We see the campaign launched by News Ltd against this government. It refuses to have articles on anything positive in government programs. Just 2 days ago Albanese spoke of the Transport hub in Sydney that would take 3,300 trucks off Sydney roads, yet it was not mentioned in the Telegraph*.

    And then the liar tag attached to the PM, where even their Senior Australian Journalists know this to be untrue.

    So in Australia we have News Ltd wanting a change of government so it supports even with nothing more than Abbott spitting the dummy wanting to be PM.

    Murdoch has been too close to UK Prime Ministers, from Thatcher to Cameron. In Australia we have heard of the private audiences, and the must attend meetings in the USA. Has Julia Gillard not performed according to Murdoch, probably not, she has defied News Ltd with the Carbon legislation. Murdoch contact with our Prime Ministers and Tony Abbott must be investigated before Murdoch owns Australia.

    (*online don’t know about print)

  321. INSIDER TRADING EVEN THE USA WILL LOOK AT THIS. And what happened on the asx?

    “Michel told Murdoch at 3.21pm on Monday 24 January, with stock markets in London and New York open, that he had “managed to get some infos [sic] on the plans for tomorrow (although absolutely illegal!)” which set out the timetable of Hunt’s announcement due next morning and quoted from the planned announcement.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/24/news-corp-leveson-inquiry-jeremy-hunt

  322. lunalava, it was very obvious, wasn’t it? And the usually suave Jones was aware that it showed, being very uneasy in his skin for the rest of the program. My sense of Emma Alberici’s biassed and bad interview with the Attorney General on Lateline and then last night’s 7.30 with Uhlmann similarly dreadful talking over Anthony Albanese was that the controlling hand was very obvious. But not so well practised that Alberici and Uhlmann made a good job of their interviews. They were appallingly inept.

    I don ‘t think there’s much doubt now that there is a very strong hand in the ABC news editorial room running the show. Surely all three of those interviewers are not died-in-the-wool Abbott fans? Heather Ewatt maybe? They all know there’s no job if they don’t toe the line. It makes one wonder about the move of K O’Brien to 4 Corners from 7.30. More pliable there and the senior statesman status compensated for the loss of clout in searching 7.30 interviews. That ‘lying Abbott’ interview wasn’t that long before his move, was it?

  323. I believe the PM has only one meeting with Murdoch. This occurred on gee first visit to the USA.

    I do not know why PM’s head straight to have an audience with him. One would think he is the pope.

    I believe this is the first PM in decades that makes a point to cater to the media.

    It could, no is the main reason that the media treats her the way it’s does.

    The PM should be congratulated on not playing the game to their rules.

  324. A must read from Nick Davies

    “Now we come to the dark heart of this strange affair.

    Critics of the Murdochs have often suspected that they have exploited their position as newspaper owners to win secret favours from governments – and the Murdochs and the politicians alike have denied it. Now, for the first time, courtesy of the volatile chain-reaction of the phone-hacking scandal, we have compelling evidence.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/24/leveson-inquiry-murdoch-david-cameron

  325. patriciawa the insidiousness goes deep at the ABC. The litmus test of bias is just how long a particular story “stays up”

    All politicians know that by the time you are sick of saying the same thing, some people are hearing it for the first time.

    So keeping certain stories up online including that little blue message across the bottom of the screen is the key issue here. Just observe how “negative” stories concerning the ALP have twice the shelf life of those portraying the Libs in a poor light.

    This unconscionable conduct by a public broadcaster.

  326. And is this what is expected of an ABBOTT government? The infiltration of News ltd stooges has run down the integrity of the ABC so there would be no public outcry when funding is cut.

    “Second, and potentially even more serious, the prime minister would be in jeopardy if the alleged support for the BSkyB bid proved to be part of a bigger deal between the Conservative leadership and News Corp. In its crudest form, the suggestion is that the Murdochs used the Sun to make sure that Gordon Brown was driven out of Downing Street so that the incoming Conservative government could deliver them a sequence of favours – a fair wind for them to take over BSkyB; the emasculation of the much resented Ofcom; and a severe funding cut to their primary broadcasting rival, the BBC.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/24/leveson-inquiry-murdoch-david-cameron

  328. Sue and lunalave, I guess we should take some heart from the fact that Murdoch has not succeeded in the UK? But who is there here in Oz to champion the cause of real press freedom? Even if Murdoch does go down how can these insidious ‘controllers’ be rooted out?

  331. Shit hits fan and bounces back into face and this is how News Ltd reports
    under “We don’t have that much power”

    “However, with the experience of two appearances at a parliamentary media committee behind him last year, James Murdoch looked increasingly assured at the day-long session at the Royal Courts of Justice.

    Wearing a sober grey suit and blue tie, his performances will be of major importance in his efforts to rehabilitate his battered image.

    Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world/murdoch-defends-record-at-newspaper-helm/story-e6frfkyi-1226337521235#ixzz1t0N0Lpjm

  332. So do I take it that our Kevin was embroiled with News over the Australia Network and that Conroy and his PM had a major victory there? Can our MSM’s crazy, almost desperate determination to put this idiot Abbott in as our PM be seen as a last ditch stand by Murdoch to retain a foothold in the land of his birth of which he is no longer a citizen? Well, the PM must win out, for all our sakes!

    Suddenly I see Julia Gillard with her government figuratively as a great warrior Queen leading her Welsh knights in shining armor against marauding Saxons (ie.Newscorp)! Well she has the good Welsh blood in her veins! And I’m not the only one who thinks like that! Our good friend Bushfire Bill acknowedged the PM’s courage over at Pollbludger last year and went on to liken her to Elizabether Tudor at http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2011/11/08/newspoll-53-47-to-coalition/comment-page-15/#comments His was No. 706.

    Which reminds me, Sue, I always appreciate your comments on my pomes. Have you seen this one, http://polliepomes.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/welsh-strains/

  333. I just had a thought. There is little in our media, apart from ABC24 showing the Murdoch being interviewed.

    The Murdoch’s could not have maneuvered the Slipper so called scandals to themselves off the front pages. By any ones reckoning, it is a bigger story.

  334. CU
    yes the Murdoch story has disappeared from our ABC and Fairfax.

    Yet Slipper is still newsworthy? What BS

  335. Thank you patriciawa

    I will now have another read on my other fave pollie Nicola Roxon.

    there may be a bit of material from the UK, If you saw anything of last nights performance by James M what had my eyes transfixed were the dazzling white fingernails. A bit too long spent with his manucurist. I thought he was trying to hypnotise the barrister, with the swaying fingers and monotone voice, didn’t work though.

  342. As per comment on 25 april @9.00

    Financial Services Authority looking into whether emails from culture department to News Corp broke insider trading rules

    “There is no allegation that any trading on information took place. But unlike the US’s Securities and Exchange Commission rules on insider trading, the FSA need not show that beneficial trades have been made under their “market abuse” rules in order to press charges.

    Section 118C of the Financial Services and Markets Act (2000) states that it is unlawful to simply disclose sensitive market information which could be used for gain. Any individual can be charged for such an offence and need not be a licensed trader.

    Under the act, the offence of “improper disclosure” states that it is a breach of the law to disclose inside information to another person other than in the proper course of their employment, profession or duties. The information itself must be precise, relate to shares or “qualifying securities”, not generally available, and price sensitive, and, in cases brought by the FSA, fines levied for such an abuse have run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. Codes governing UK company takeovers also state that shareholders must have equality of access to information.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/apr/25/fsa-considers-news-corp-emails

  343. Sue, I don’t think the following answer will help when it comes to the “improper disclosure” mentioned in your link.

    Murdoch: There was a ‘cover-up’ at News of the World
    http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/murdoch-blames-news-of-the-world-for-phone-hacking-cover-up-/s2/a548966/

    ‘There is no question in my mind that someone took charge of a cover-up’, News Corporation chairman tells the Leveson inquiry

    Posted: 26 April 2012 By: Paul McNally

    Management at News International and News Corporation were “misinformed” about the true extent of phone hacking at the News of the World, and “shielded from anything that was going on there”, Rupert Murdoch told the Leveson inquiry today.

    The News Corporation chairman said he blamed “one or two people” at the title “who perhaps I shouldn’t name” for hiding the truth from bosses.

    He told the inquiry today: “There is no question in my mind that someone took charge of a cover-up which we were victim to and I regret.”

    Murdoch added: “There were one or two very strong characters there who had been there many many years and were friends with the journalists – a drinking pal.”

    He referred to this person as “a clever lawyer”, and added: “There are reports that this person forbade people to go and report to Mrs Brooks [the News International chief executive]”.

    Well that’s alright then. 😯

  347. I’m definitely going to try and get back to sleep. We Canberra public servants need to front up each morning fit and able. :mrgreen:

  348. The Full Rupert: Murdoch at the Leveson Inquiry

    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/04/the-full-rupert-murdoch-at-the-leveson-inquiry.html

    What Murdoch said was, by turns, informative, amusing, self-serving, and hard to believe. The press baron repeatedly asserted that his support of various politicians was completely divorced from his business dealings. Coming a day after the same inquiry released a series of e-mails between a senior official and a lobbyist for a Murdoch company that appeared to show the government doing all it could to wave through one of his takeovers, and other evidence to the same effect, this didn’t seem like a particularly hopeful line of argument. But Murdoch stuck to it assiduously.

    ABC Lateline London correspondent Lisa Millar gave this acount of Rupert’s thoughts on the paparazzi….

    http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3489910.htm

    Now he surrounded by a press pack pushing him for an answer to the question of what his priority was at the time. He pointed to Rebekah Brooks and said “Her”, the inference being she was the priority. Now, at the time and subsequent to that, everyone has thought that was an incredibly inappropriate statement to make. How did he justify it?

    LISA MILLAR: It was considered inappropriate, you’re right, because of the number of victims and terrible stories that were coming out, the fact that he thought Rebekah Brooks was the priority. Well it was extraordinary today to listen to him talk about the anguish, as it was, of being harassed by the paparazzi.

    He said, “You know, if you’ve got the paparazzi chasing you as they were, they had microphones right under my nose and cameras in my face,” and it was almost people raising their eyebrows, looking at this man who’s made millions from the media, talking about being harassed and pushed into answering in a way perhaps he didn’t want to by the paparazzi. But then of course he said, “Most of them were free-lancers anyway; they didn’t work for me.”

    EMMA ALBERICI: The tables turning there. Lisa Miller, thank you very much.

  349. Former Sunday Times editor explains Murdoch’s editorial control
    Posted April 26, 2012 19:28:00

    Andrew Neil edited the Sunday Times for Rupert for eleven years. Rupert Murdoch has denied some of the things that he’s quoted him as having said. Mr Neil backs his own account and describes Mr Murdoch’s way or working – in which instructions often didn’t need to be given to editors, and unspoken deals done with politicians – in a way which gave the proprietor deniability.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-26/former-sunday-times-editor-explains-murdochs/3974664

  350. Rupert Murdoch told a ‘shameful lie’ to Leveson, claims ex-NoW legal manager

    Tom Crone denies he was responsible for phone-hacking cover-up and did not stop journalists telling bosses
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/26/rupert-murdoch-shameful-lie-leveson?newsfeed=true

    The former legal manager of the News of the World branded allegations by Rupert Murdoch that he was responsible for covering up phone hacking by the paper’s journalists a “shameful lie”.

  351. Pip,
    Good stuff.

    More from Lateline:

    EMMA ALBERICI:  Lisa, yesterday was all about the relationship between Rupert Murdoch and politicians in London and now more specifically they’ve been looking at the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World.

    In the past Rupert Murdoch has said that the buck does stop with him, so did he explain how this scandal unfolded under his watch?

    LISA MILLAR, ABC CORRESPONDENT: Well it was certainly a more hostile Rupert Murdoch than we saw yesterday, Emma, and he had lot of regrets, some apologies, but at the end of the day he was spreading a lot of blame.

    He was pointing the finger even at his son James for being pretty inexperienced, he said, when the issue first arose. He pointed to a couple of figures at the News of the World. He also suggested that he wished he’d gotten hold of Clive Goodman, the first royal reporter who was arrested and convicted over phone hacking, got him in a room without any of the lawyers and got to the bottom of it and then torn the place apart.

    But I think the headline that we’ll see come out of these proceedings today, this final day and a half of Rupert Murdoch, was that he admits there was a cover-up at the paper.

    Let’s have a listen.

    RUPERT MURDOCH, CEO, NEWS CORP: I think the senior executives were all informed and I – ah, were all misinformed and shielded from anything that was going on there. And I do blame one or two people for that who perhaps I shouldn’t name. Because for all I know they may be arrested yet.

    But, there was no question in my mind that – maybe even the editor, but certainly, beyond that, someone took charge of a cover-up, which we were victim to and I regret.

    EMMA ALBERICI: Extraordinary – extraordinary words there from Rupert Murdoch. Now, we know that Rupert Murdoch owns something like 175 news titles, including the News of the World and 6,000 journalists, so did he give any sense of how he was distracted, where his attention was during this whole scandal?

    LISA MILLAR: Emma, you do get a real sense that his heart was with The Sun, biggest-selling tabloid in the UK and that he didn’t care that much about the News of the World. He said he didn’t pay much attention to it. And while he apologised to all the people who lost their jobs there at the newspaper, he said when he made the decision to close it that he’d panicked and that was what forced that decision.

    But then he went on to say, “I should have closed it years ago.” So, a real sense that his heart was not in that newspaper, he didn’t pay any attention to it and where his head was was at The Sun newspaper.

    EMMA ALBERICI: It beggars belief considering what a profitable newspaper it was for the group in the UK.

    http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3489910.htm

    Indeed.

    N’

  353. Indeed Pip…the giant media mogul Rupert has shown himself to be a gutless fingerpointing worm.

    How any of his staff continue to have respect for him is beyond me.

    The way he demeaningly referred to NEWS OF THE WORLD demonstrated to me that he is willing to throw most of them under the bus in order to protect himself…and Rebekah Brooks interestingly.

    N’

  354. BTW:

    The News of the World

    was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011.

    It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations.

    Originally established as a broadsheet by John Browne Bell, the Bells sold to Lascelles Carr in 1891;

    in 1969 it was bought from the Carrs by Rupert Murdoch’s media firm News Limited. Reorganised into News International, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation, it was transformed into a tabloid in 1984.

    News of the World was the Sunday sister paper of The Sun. The newspaper concentrated on celebrity-based scoops and populist news. Its fondness for sex scandals gained it the nicknames News of the Screws and Screws of the World.

    It had a reputation for exposing national or local celebrities as drug users, sexual peccadilloes, or criminals, setting up insiders and journalists in disguise to provide either video or photographic evidence, and phone hacking in ongoing police investigations.

    Sales averaged 2,812,005 copies per week in October 2010.

    From 2006, allegations of phone hacking began to engulf the newspaper. These culminated in the revelation on 4 July 2011 that, nearly a decade earlier, a private investigator hired by the newspaper had intercepted and deleted the voicemail of missing British teenager Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered. However, a Scotland Yard spokesperson later admitted at the Leveson Inquiry that it had not been a private investigator who had deleted Dowler’s voicemail.

    (wikipedia)

    History thrown to the wind.

    Anyone is expendable.

    N’

  355. Ol Rupe had a nasty word about his housekeeper. Just what did she see and hear that annoyed him so much he would mention her at Leveson.

  357. Sue,
    You and I are in synch. 🙂 Good stuff.

    From an informative article by Richard Ackland, SMH columnist in Brisbane Times:

    The context of that swaggering lecture in 2009 is fascinating. The general election was held eight months later and a lot happened in the interim. In March 2009 the Tory opposition leader David Cameron (now the PM) said the BBC licence fee, which is the corporation’s main source of revenue, should be frozen. The opposition’s culture and media spokesman, Jeremy Hunt (a former PR man), made the same call.

    Just after James’s lecture in Edinburgh, Hunt wrote an article in Murdoch’s Sun attacking the BBC and saying it should curtail its commercial activities. Between the lecture and the publication of the article Hunt had flown to New York where he met News Corp retainers.

    Just before the lecture, Murdoch had complained that Ofcom was meddling in his business – in June 2009 the regulator had announced BSkyB should sell some of its channels. Less than a fortnight later Cameron declared that if he was elected to government he would scrap Ofcom.

    Thirteen days after the lecture, Cameron and James Murdoch had a drink at a private club in Mount Street, called George. Over a cocktail James said The Sun would back Cameron and the Tories at the coming election.

    It was revealed before the Leveson inquiry into the media on Tuesday that Jeremy Hunt, the Media and Culture Secretary, and his office, instead of acting in a quasi-judicial capacity in determining the merits of News’s bid for the balance of the BSkyB shares, was actively backing the bid.

    How the world has turned upside down. James has been drummed out of London with his tail between his legs, the BSkyB bid is in tatters, and the idea of ”soft touch” regulation of the media is a distant fantasy. In fact, out of all this will come a statutory scheme with powers to enforce codes of conduct for newspapers and internet media.

    The remarkable thing is that James Murdoch on Tuesday and his father Rupert on Wednesday were still clinging to their tattered scripts in evidence before Lord Justice Leveson.

    ”I want to put it to bed once and for all that I used the influence of The Sun to get favourable political treatment,” insisted Rupert with a straight face.

    James said he would never make ”such a crass calculation” about what his newspapers could have achieved in relation to the BSkyB bid in the run-up to the election. ”It would never occur to me.”
    The strangled guffaws could be heard around the world, right back to little old Oz, where almost on a daily basis the Murdoch papers shove their proprietor’s commercial interests down our throats.

    The relentless attacks on the national broadband network in News Ltd’s national daily The Australian and other of its capital city tabloids is not without an eye on protecting the patch of Foxtel, SkyNews and Fox Sports.

    The assaults on the Finkelstein findings and on the recommendation for a News Media Council are certainly something News Ltd has shared with other media organisations, including this one, but News has very much been to the forefront on that political campaign.

    It is notable that Tony Abbott’s Coalition is in step with News Ltd in its opposition to a statutory media regulator, a privacy law and the broadband network in its current proposed form.

    I think we’re entitled to know what backroom discussions, private drink sessions, winks or nods have taken place, if any. As Paul Keating once observed of Rupert Murdoch: ”You can do a deal with him without ever saying a deal is done.”

    He doesn’t have to ask prime ministers for favours. They understand implicitly what’s required.

    The wondrous thing about Leveson’s hearings is that for the first time since Murdoch went to Britain in 1968 to buy the News of the World, he has been put on the stand and pressed to account for his role and influence with successive British governments.

    We have seen over the past 12 months or so evidence of News International’s ever-spreading stain on British institutions and democracy – on the police, on the public service, on politics and on the media itself.
    In Britain, at least, the Murdoch ascendancy is over. But the Leveson hearing is not over.

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/…/…0120426-1xnv1.html

    Tony Abbott spruiked Andrew Bolt in his speech today.

    Freedom of speech and preserving, cherishing, respecting democracy is about leading people out of cages…not into them.

    N’

  358. Sue wrote: Ol Rupe had a nasty word about his housekeeper.

    Sue,
    next he’ll be blaming the paperboys and girls who deliver his papers. And the newsagents who sell them. 🙂

    N’

  360. From Tim de Lisle @ The Guardian:

    Rupert Murdoch’s evidence was like one of his tabloids
    Media mogul’s evidence at the Leveson inquiry was a lively mixture of accurate reporting, one-eyed comment and fantasy

    It was hard to say which of his statements provoked the most incredulity. There was his declaration that the News of the World was “a campaigning newspaper”.

    There was the idea that the great Harold Evans, while editing The Times, knocked on Murdoch’s door and asked what line to take.

    And then there was this assertion: “I take a particularly strong pride in the fact that we have never pushed our commercial interests in our newspapers.”…

    …The Sun is different: as the i-Sky corner in Private Eye shows, it plugs Sky doggedly.

    If Murdoch read that column himself, he would surely not have said what he said. If he had merely claimed “we allow our papers to criticise our TV programmes”, it would have been true-ish. What was outrageous was saying that he “never” pushed his commercial interests, and that he took “particularly strong pride” in it.

    As Harry Evans showed in these pages, it’s when Murdoch hotly denies something that we need to be most suspicious.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/26/rupert-murdoch-evidence-leveson-inquiry

    Murdoch denies using power to sway politics

  361. N’,
    former PM Kevin Rudd had lunch or breakfast with the old foreigner, and was all set to let him have the Australia Network.

    PM Julia Gillard had a meal with the old foreigner and hasn’t had a minute of peace from the Murdoch minions, and I include the ABC’s Murdoch Lite in that category.

  362. Indeed Pip,
    Rudd and Abbott.

    Not good…not good at all.

    As I wrote at The Political Sword:

    As someone who supported Rudd retaking the leadership I feel compelled to say I’m beginning to regret doing so going by the information I have read of late relating to Kevin Rudd’s possible opportunistic relationship with News Ltd.

    Frankly, I do not understand how a man treated so badly by a news organisation could be so willing to give them a leg-up.

    AND:

    Going by the relentless attacks on PM Gillard and her g.overnment it seems Bruce Guthrie was right back in May 2011:

    The 80-year-old News Corp mogul keeps a weekender just outside the millionaires’ coastal enclave of Carmel, which once elected Clint Eastwood as its mayor. The Murdoch estate, roughly the size of a small European principality, stretches through rolling hills and valleys.

    If the conspiracy theorists are right, it would have been here or at a local resort he sometimes uses for such conferences that the word went out – it’s Tony’s time now. This is not entirely fanciful. Indeed, Murdoch let it be known within News after dining with Abbott late last year that he liked the Liberal leader and what he represented. Perhaps he merely amplified this in California. Maybe he went further and that, in turn, fuelled the budget and carbon tax coverage.

    Either way, it certainly wouldn’t have been a direction. That’s not Murdoch’s style. It would more likely have been an observation expressed by him or a lieutenant during or after dinner or at a coffee break between sessions. His editors, better than most at reading the wind, would have noted the boss’s latest leanings and applied this knowledge at the first opportunity – many of them would have arrived back in Australia the morning of the budget lock-up. Of course, it would be open to an editor to ignore the boss’s preferences, but as I discovered, that can sometimes come at a cost.

    Either way, it seems increasingly apparent that Labor and the Greens are going to be facing a largely hostile popular press between now and any election. Bob Brown clearly senses this and I suspect Julia Gillard does too. Meanwhile, it looks just as obvious that Tony Abbott has Rupert Murdoch in his corner. No wonder the Liberal leader has a spring in his step – the News boss is not in the habit of backing losers.

    Bruce Guthrie is a former editor of The Age, The Sunday Age and Herald Sun, and is the author of Man Bites Murdoch.

    http://www.smh.com.au/national/mogul-in-the-corner-20110521-1exun.html#ixzz1tCLldA00
    ——-

    It seems Julia Gillard is one of the few leaders who does not kowtow to the Dark Lord of the media.

    Not that the bulk of the propagandised, misinformed and gullible public give her credit for that.

    N’

  363. Nasking,
    Either way, it seems increasingly apparent that Labor and the Greens are going to be facing a largely hostile popular press between now and any election. Bob Brown clearly senses this and I suspect Julia Gillard does too. Meanwhile, it looks just as obvious that Tony Abbott has Rupert Murdoch in his corner. No wonder the Liberal leader has a spring in his step – the News boss is not in the habit of backing losers.

    It’s very apparent alright!

    The strangled guffaws could be heard around the world, right back to little old Oz, where almost on a daily basis the Murdoch papers shove their proprietor’s commercial interests down our throats.

    The relentless attacks on the national broadband network in News Ltd’s national daily The Australian and other of its capital city tabloids is not without an eye on protecting the patch of Foxtel, SkyNews and Fox Sports.

    The assaults on the Finkelstein findings and on the recommendation for a News Media Council are certainly something News Ltd has shared with other media organisations, including this one, but News has very much been to the forefront on that political campaign.

    It is notable that Tony Abbott’s Coalition is in step with News Ltd in its opposition to a statutory media regulator, a privacy law and the broadband network in its current proposed form.

    I think we’re entitled to know what backroom discussions, private drink sessions, winks or nods have taken place, if any. As Paul Keating once observed of Rupert Murdoch: ”You can do a deal with him without ever saying a deal is done.”

    He doesn’t have to ask prime ministers for favours. They understand implicitly what’s required.

    http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/politics/winds-turn-against-murdoch-influence-20120426-1xnv1.html

  364. “Max Mosley: ‘News International has blackmailed MPs and others. Leveson must hear the truth’

    Mr Mosley, who is a former president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, said: “They [the Murdochs] simply don’t care as long as they can sell a few newspapers.”

    He believes the Murdochs and their newspapers have suborned Parliament. “If I’d been a senior politician, they would never have published that story,” he said. “They would have come to me with some of the pictures and said: ‘You know, we’ve been given this story, but, you know, don’t worry Max, we’re not going to publish it’ – but leaving, of course, hanging in the air what would happen if you did anything to annoy them.”

    He believes this is what happened to several politicians. “That’s exactly what I think has gone on and I believe they have done this to a number of people, some of them on the record”
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/max-mosley-news-international-has-blackmailed-mps-and-others-leveson-must-hear-the-truth-7685315.html

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