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.
Here is the link to the previous Murdoch discussion:
Café Whispers 
Cameron govt in strife
“Jeremy Hunt today stands accused of misleading Parliament over his dealings with the Murdoch empire, an offence which would trigger the Culture Secretary’s immediate resignation.
Mr Hunt appears to have misled the Commons on three occasions in his handling of News Corp’s takeover bid of BSkyB.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-hunt-on-the-brink-as-he-is-accused-of-misleading-parliament-7687530.html
It’s going to get tougher for the old fella.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/if-this-was-tough-rupert-murdoch-wait-till-the-us-inquisition-starts-7687500.html
Miglo
After the 163 pages of emails this should be fun for Cameron
“The Sunday Times reported that Brooks, who is under investigation by Scotland Yard for her alleged role in the phone-hacking affair, was ready to disclose text messages and emails between herself and Cameron. The move could be embarrassing for the prime minister, who is believed to have been in regular contact with Brooks by text when she was NI chief
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/29/david-cameron-no-deal-murdoch
David Cameron: No ‘grand deal’ with Murdochs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17886023
Of course Cameron didn’t do a deal with the old foreigner…..
and I’m still a size 8!
Pip, I'm going to tap your phone. :twisted:Wotsa matter Migs??
Migs, I’m going to hack into your computer
You know damn well what’s the matter. 😦
I’m storming off to bed. Again. 😦
Murdoch wouldn’t try to organise an early election… oh yes he would, through his trusty editors.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/voters-flee-desperate-julia-demand-election/story-fn7x8me2-1226342135899
It must be true, after all the ionformation comes from he findings of the exclusive Herald Sun/Galaxy Poll.!
Get the ball rolling on chances for a new PM
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/get-the-ball-rolling-on-chances-for-a-new-pm/story-e6frezz0-1226342080109
FINE
Storm off then …
Did you hear, Migs…. my team won the Showdown 😆
Pip
no doubt Miglo dreamt about it all night long
I suppose if you are going to hack the phones of prominanet people, you may as well start at the top. And this hacking in Murdoch’s beloved ( well lately beloved ) Scotland.
“Lord McConnell, the former first minister of Scotland, has begun legal action after evidence emerged suggesting that his and his children’s phones may have been hacked by the News of the World.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/29/first-minister-hacking-legal-action
Don’t worry Australia you have Murdoch’s assurances it didn’t happen here, he said so at Leveson, really. And to really reassure you, the last major comment by Hartigan before he suddenly retired was
“The review’s findings provide the strongest possible support for News Limited’s assertion that its editorial staff have not commissioned the kind of illegitimate surveillance or payments that have come to light in the UK,”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-14/news-limited-review-finds-no-phone-hacking/3665422
newltd papers in Australia have read ruperts tweet, and are acting accordingly
VOTERS are demanding an early federal election
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/voters-flee-desperate-julia-demand-election/story-fn7x8me2-1226342135899
TomR
No you have it wrong “Murdoch says” he doen’t direct his editors, but if you want to know his political stance than read the Sun , ( and the australian, and the tele, courier mail, adelaide now, the mercury, the herald sun, news.com, , sky news and the abc) (and the other 171 papers, fox news………..)
Rupert Murdoch
✔
@rupertmurdoch
Dramatic, slimy events in Australian politics. Country desperately needs election to get fresh start.
28 Apr 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Should be:
@Darklordmurdoch
Dramatic, slimy events in my own media empire. Country desperately needs me to resign, selloff my papers and me to tell the truth about my puppet Abbott so the country can get fresh start.
And I’m 25, not a grey hair in sight and I’m rich, rich rich, I tell you!
Nas’ hopefully it will come to pass!
a little off topic, and has probably been asked, and answered, before, humour me……is it possible to have like buttons?
I wish there were, Ian. Silly bugger that I am I’ve actually looked for them at times.
And what’s so silly about that, you might ask.
I designed the blog site. 😦
If I disappear for a few months it’s because I’m trying to find out if I can add like buttons.
Who’s the wise guy who asked?
is it possible to have like buttons?
Migs is still working on something to LIKE first, then the buttons will come 😉
Tom, I’m fussy. 🙂
Yet you barrack for Port
Curious
Oh, I should be more specific. I HAVE TASTE.
I HAVE TASTE of defeat 😉
Tom, did I forget to mention? Perhaps during your indefinite banning you’d be so kind as to look for some like buttons for me. Pip’s going to have some spare time up her sleeve as well. Feel free to use her.
Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the football result. 😳
So the UK is not the only country the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act may apply
“But the events in Britain and the resulting scrutiny have begun to take a toll on the broader empire, according to at least a dozen people familiar with the company, including several former News Corporation executives.
A former News Corporation subsidiary, a Moscow-based billboard company called News Outdoor Russia, is the subject of an F.B.I. inquiry into whether the company bribed local officials to advance its business. The findings of that investigation could prove a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to a person briefed on the inquiry. News Corporation sold the company in July to a bank controlled by the Kremlin.
The potential for a billion dollars in fines related to a violation of the corrupt practices act could dwarf the economic downside of anything related to the lawsuits in Britain, said Behnam Dayanim, a regulatory lawyer based in Washington. “It may be the single most feared corporate criminal statute out there today,” Mr. Dayanim said. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/business/media/hacking-scandal-starts-to-hem-in-rupert-murdochs-empire.html?_r=1&hp#
And from the same article, the phone hacking has had other cost affects on pther sections of News
“The hacking scandal has delivered a blow to News Corporation’s push into the potentially lucrative education sector, a project prized by Mr. Murdoch. In November 2010, News Corporation paid $360 million for a 90 percent stake in Wireless Generation, an education technology company based in Brooklyn that specializes in interactive learning tools.
In August, Wireless Generation lost its $27 million no-bid contract to develop educational software for New York schools. Thomas P. DiNapoli, the New York State comptroller, said the state rejected the contract “in light of the significant ongoing investigations and continuing revelations with respect to News Corporation.”
And this from same article problems in Turkey
“In Turkey, News Corporation, which already operates several Turkish television stations, is one of three bidders for the country’s second-largest media group, Sabah-ATV, which is valued at $700 million to $1 billion. A deal would add to its portfolio of international pay TV stations, which includes Sky Deutschland in Germany and Sky Italia in Italy.
But the bid could face regulatory opposition in Turkey as a result of the scandal. “They’re persona non grata right now as a bidder on assets,” said a person familiar with the company’s plans who did not want to publicly criticize News Corporation.”
Sue, what a tragedy for poor old Rupert!
Thanks for the links Sue.
Thankfully the ol’ foreigner slipped up on his attempt to enter the education industry; he’s “re-educated” more than enough nations already !
Pip
further in that article there is a discussion on the “value” of the shares in news. the value being held up by a “share buy back” of rupert. the commentators were non too impressed by that maneuver.
UK Labour leader Ed Miliband was on fire in parliament last night:
In a dramatic exchange in parliament, opposition Labour party leader Ed Miliband asked Mr Cameron why he had not started a probe into Mr Hunt, who was responsible for impartially overseeing the bid.
“The prime minister is defending the indefensible and he knows it. Protecting the culture secretary’s job… and we all know why,” Mr Miliband told Mr Cameron, who sat next to Mr Hunt throughout the raucous session.
“The culture secretary has to stay to protect the prime minister. The prime minister has shown today he is incapable of doing his duty, too close to a powerful few, out of touch with everyone else,” Mr Miliband said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-01/cameron-in-crossfire-as-murdoch-pressure-mounts/3981644
PM Cameron has generally let these phone hacking investigations and media ethics inquiries run their course…I give him credit for that…but keeping Hunt on damages his credibility.
Cameron should come clean about his dealings with the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks and other Murdoch empire minions…he seems a decent enuff fella…not unlike some my Tory mayor grandfather knew…
he could shrug off the yoke of Murdoch oppression by being totally honest with the people…
if not, it will haunt him throughout his leadership.
A bit of courage goes a long way.
N’
From The Guardian:
News Corp case shows a cap on media ownership is the way forward
The lessons from the Leveson inquiry are clear: the hold on our media of proprietors like Murdoch must be restricted
Claire Enders and Chris Goodall
guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 April 2012
In the past few days an impressive political unanimity has been developing behind the view that Britain needs to reintroduce clear limits on media ownership and define what plurality means. The UK dismantled most of the specific rules governing who can own media companies in 2003, and in all but a few cases the competition authorities were left with complete autonomy.
Indeed, only a last-minute amendment to the Communications Act allowed governments to intervene to protect plurality. Without that protection, the full takeover of BSkyB would have proceeded with no check whatsoever, even though it enlarged the scale and scope of News Corporation, already the largest media company in the UK and, indeed, the world.
The concept of plurality remains entirely undefined in law. To date Ofcom and other bodies have largely assumed that plurality is entirely about the media providing a wide range of news and opinion to citizens. In the UK, News Corp controls over 35% of newspaper circulation and most news on commercial radio and BSkyB, and has significant financial muscle. An increase in this scale and scope could have detrimental effects on all News Corp’s competitors, and thereby on British democracy.
But the UK should not only impose clear restrictions on the maximum share of news provision held by one proprietor. (This should be in addition to conventional competition rules that stop one business monopolising single markets of newspapers, books or TV). Steps should also to be taken to ensure that no one company can exert the level of economic control over the entire media sector that would have been possessed by the combination of BSkyB and News Corp’s other UK businesses, including a large publisher and a major film studio.
Media companies such as News Corp are the funnel through which almost all forms of entertainment or news must go. he BSkyB takeover would have made the merged company a gatekeeper of unparalleled influence. This would be at a time when its relative ability to decide what gets through the media bottleneck, and at what price to the citizen, is growing sharply as the BBC’s income is reduced and other media face revenue erosion.
UK media businesses, including computer games and book publishers as well as TV, radio and press, have revenues of about £32bn a year. The enlarged News Corp would have had about 20% of this total, roughly twice as much as the BBC, its nearest rival.
The simplest way to ensure plurality in the UK would be a clear limit on the share of all media revenues held by one company – 15% seems reasonable, but an open debate is needed. Jeremy Hunt, the beleaguered culture secretary, has himself argued that with the convergence of digital media, we should cease looking at plurality in a single market but look across the whole landscape, from newspapers to social media.
More here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/30/cap-media-ownership-lessons-leveson
And to think we have one paper cities.
N’
Nas’ after reading those comments, I’m say that all countries should introduce more stringent media ownership laws and laws similar to Canada wrt no lying when reporting the news and very onerous penalties if the law is flouted.
Had we had those laws in place the government would be streets ahead in the polls and voters would know how fortunate this country is.
Sue @ 7.14am,
Pip
further in that article there is a discussion on the “value” of the shares in news. the value being held up by a “share buy back” of rupert. the commentators were non too impressed by that maneuver.
That’s funny, I noticed this afternoon that News shares had risen .19c
Nas’ thanks for the link. Interesting times.
Jane… Had we had those laws in place the government would be streets ahead in the polls and voters would know how fortunate this country is.
Wilkie earnestly making his second announcement today insisting that foreign aid not be lowered.
Another dig about a government honouring it’s promises.
Also on the Drum an article from IPA spruiker, Chris Berg
Convergence Review is clever, subtle … and worrying
Sorry but I don’t provide links to Liberal spruikers, paid by big vested interests,
who use the ABC to do business.
Rupert Murdoch ‘not fit’ to lead major international company, MPs conclude
Select committee also says James Murdoch showed ‘wilful ignorance’ of extent of phone hacking at News of the World
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/01/rupert-murdoch-not-fit-select-committee
All three executives (hinton, myler, crone) now face the prospect of being called to apologise before parliament, in a constitutional move that has not been used for almost half a century.
The report could prove especially damning for Myler, who is only five months into his editorship at the New York Daily Post.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2012/may/01/select-committee-report-james-rupert-murdoch#start-of-comments
Tom Watson MP: “Everybody in the world knows who is responsible for the wrong-doing at News Corporation. Rupert Murdoch. More than any individual alive he is to blame, morally the deeds are his, he paid the piper and called the tune. It is his company, his culture, his people, his business, his failures, his crimes, the price of profits and his power.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2012/may/01/select-committee-report-james-rupert-murdoch#start-of-comments
And more Watson from above
Watson says there was an extensive cover-up of rampant law breaking at News International. “The two men at the top, Rupert and James Murdoch, must now answer for that.”
And this from above
Watson says he is disappointed by some other members of the committee who “didn’t feel inclined or confident” to hold the most powerful to account.
“In the view of the majority of the committee members, Rupert Murdoch is not fit to run an international company like BSkyB,” he says.
“Many hacking victims have still not been informed of what was done to them, Rupert Murdoch has not said his last apology to the families of murdered children.”
Sue, I think “wilful blindness” is a legal term…
Pip, you’re correct. It’s a legal term where a person deliberately puts himself in a position of being unaware of the facts, thus avoiding liability.
Sue, by rights Rupert Murdoch should have to sell off his share of BSkyB, for a start,
All power to Tom Watson MP.
Thanks Min… a bit like “plausible deniability” ?
Where have we heard that lately…
I wonder how his editors in australia are going to report this, if at all. but fairfax should have fun.
it will be interesting to see it picked up in USA
cnn and others will love it
I should add that when used as a defence this usually fails, as the court would use the reasonable person test ie. that a reasonable person should have known.
Pip, basically the same thing.
Fairfax are right onto it..now headlines in the SMH.
Min I was thinking of a couple of specific instances much closer to home. 😯
New York Times
British Panel Finds Murdoch Unfit to Lead Media Empire
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/world/europe/murdoch-hacking-scandal-to-be-examined-by-british-parliamentary-panel.html?_r=1&hp
Thanks Sue.
I hope Bob Brown is watching the news tonight, along with the ALP and Greens
The report a bit tougher to clean up than the shaving foam pie in the face.
This from the live reporting
“The report also calls on News Corp to waive legal privilege to crucial Burton Copeland legal advice that has so far been withheld.
Mensch says that it is “quite right. We call on News International management and standards committee to release Burton Copeland from privilege at once so we can have transparency to ensure there is nothing further being concealed.”
Sue there’ll be some celebratory driinks in some quarters tonight.
Care of Pollbludger
Tom, here he is on the 26th, trying to pass the buck…
Murdoch suspects phone hacking cover-up
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3489910.htm
Tom R
classic tweet
And the worst of the report by the MPs cannot be disclosed, YET. When the legal action is completed this part of the report will be fully disclosed
“Some of the most biting criticisms in the CMS Committee’s report are of the behaviour of News of the World journalists in 2002, who hacked the phone of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler. The MPs call the paper’s activities “indefensible”, “grotesque” “astonishing” and “brazen”, in a unanimously-agreed section.
But the report makes it clear that NoW staff directly interfered with the police investigation, and attempted to “bounce” Surrey police into providing material for their “exclusives”.
“The attempts by the News of the World to get a scoop on Milly Dowler led to a considerable amount of valuable police resource being redirected to the pursuit of false leads.
“Impersonating members of a missing girl’s family; besieging an employment agency; falsely asserting co-operation with the police; falsely quoting the police; and, according to their own account, obtaining Milly Dowler’s mobile telephone number from her school friends are hardly the actions of a respectful and responsible news outlet
But the report draws back from detailing the full extent of the NoW’s misbehaviour in the Dowler case”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/01/milly-dowler-hacking-rebekah-brooks
News .com have “forgotten ” to include MURDOCH NOT FIT to lead international company, and “surprisingly” have gone with “uk lawmakers” instead of the more specifice UK MPs in the story. Oh and it was all the executives fault. But if you want to know more information go to Sky news
http://www.news.com.au/top-stories/uk-lawmakers-say-news-international-execs-misled-them-over-phone-hacking/story-e6frfkp9-1226344202067
TYPICAL BULLY REACTION——-LIKE TO GIVE IT BUT CANNOT TAKE IT
Unfortunately senior management at New.com owe their jobs and continuing employment to that same guy who is not fit to lead a company.
What I still don’t get is why the ABC continues to suck up to News Ltd.
Tele has the story but no comments
lunalava
i suppose you could put that to Mark Scott or how about the new Chair
I suppose The Drum will need to have Jo Hildebrand on tonight to laugh off the comments, an eg possibly
‘what would you expect of the labor lefties like watson. have you seen this guy, i
ld say he thinks he is a white knight, but have you seen the size of him hahahhahahhahhaha’
the drum then will need an ipa guest, then for a “balance” richo/ latham/ or any abc journalist, how about annabelle crabb she likes to do the apologetic angle
These guy get $800 per appearance on the Drum, that’s $800 of my taxes wasted, I blame Julia Gillard, after all according to Can Do Cambell she is responsible for the shootings in Queensland
New Details Emerge in Report on Murdoch Papers
“Dotted through its 121 pages are references to sealed documents and an audio tape which contain possibly unrevealed names of those involved in illegal acts, a potentially explosive impending legal judgment, significant areas under review by Scotland Yard and a file of evidence gathered by the company that the panel of lawmakers behind the report has said may have been instrumental in covering up phone hacking.
The most prominent issue, discussed extensively during the rolling news analysis of the report, is a file of evidence compiled in 2006 by a law firm for the Metropolitan Police on behalf of News Group Newspapers, a subsidiary of Mr. Murdoch’s British arm, News International. According to written evidence provided by the law firm, BCL Burton Copeland, the file contained “information and documentation” related to investigations of a reporter, Clive Goodman, and a private detective, Glenn Mulcaire. The two men were jailed in 2007, the first indication of the wider scandal.
News Group has refused to waive the law firm’s legal obligation to keep its work confidential. In the report and in a news conference announcing it, lawmakers called on the company to allow the details to emerge, and with them perhaps the anatomy of what Mr. Murdoch has himself described as a “cover-up.” The file may have been “used by people at News International to perpetrate a falsehood,” the report says, apparently referring to efforts, until recently, to limit scrutiny to Mr. Goodman and Mr. Mulcaire.
But an continuing legal battle over the fees will be decided by Britain’s Supreme Court, the report said, and the judgment may free Mr. Mulcaire to reveal his view from the center of the scandal. Five judges will hear the case over two days beginning next Tuesday, according to the court. Fresh names of those involved could also emerge, the report says, from confidential documents in civil suits related to Mr. Mulcaire’s work that have been kept under seal while police investigations continue.
Detectives have been handed, the report details, an audio tape of a July 2009 conversation between two former News of the World reporters which implicates a “news desk executive” in illegality.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/world/europe/new-details-deepen-british-phone-hacking-scandal.html?_r=1&hp
I thought Conservative MP Louise Mensch sounded sycophantic when describing Rupert Murdoch this morning…kinda sad that after all the revelations that demonstrate what a morally bankrupt empire Murdoch runs this Tory feels the need to put a spanner in the works and in turn spruik Rupert.
Some backround info on Louise Mensch:
Phone hacking scandal
On 19 July 2011, in the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Mensch took part in the questioning of James and Rupert Murdoch over the News of the World phone hacking scandal.
Political blogger Bagehot in the The Economist whilst admitting he had not previously been impressed named Mensch as the “surprise star” of the hearing saying her “sharp, precise, coolly scornful questions” contrasted with her “waffling, pompous” fellow committee members.
Mensch later faced criticism for incorrectly claiming during the committee that Piers Morgan had written in his autobiography about conducting phone hacking while he was the editor of the Daily Mirror.
When challenged on CNN by Morgan, Mensch cited the protection of parliamentary privilege and refused to withdraw the allegation. However, she also refused to repeat it outside parliament, as it would leave her vulnerable to unlimited civil damages from Morgan.
She later apologised to Morgan, admitting that she had misread a newspaper report about the book.
Three days later Mensch received an email alleging that she had taken a controlled substance with Nigel Kennedy at Ronnie Scott’s club in Birmingham in the 1990s while working as a press officer for the EMI record company.
Mensch publicly released the email and admitted the allegations were “highly probable”, but said she would not be deterred from asking further questions about phone hacking.
She has also criticised media outlets for repeated questions about whether she has had plastic surgery.
(wikipedia)
Sadly, media empires and tabloids in general can put alot of pressure on people investigating them…
fear can change outcomes…
force some people to say things they normally wouldn’t…
let’s hope Mensch could be herself.
Didn’t Tom Watson say that some of his committee members were put under pressure?
This is one reason I detest stupid, ill-thought-out drug laws…they can lead to authorities being blackmailed, controlled.
Anyway, it’s quite possible Mensch playing the apologist and applauder of Rupert Murdoch has more to do with her ideological beliefs…apparently she is a fan of Thatcher…and we know what Rupert did for her:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Mensch
N’
Nasking
Mensch was the one who apologised to M during the committee hearing, for possibly having to leave early too pick up her kids .
We also know that committee members were followed by private investigators, watson is pursuing that. so more may be revealed
Sue,
Thnx for the link to that NY TIMES story:
They are analyzing evidence handed to them by the celebrity publicist Max Clifford in the matter of a settlement he reached with Rebekah Brooks, then chief executive of News International, after he had initiated legal proceedings against the company in 2009. Ms. Brooks, a close confidant of the Murdoch family, has since been arrested for police questioning twice, on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and obstructing the course of justice.
And Scotland Yard is also investigating a claim that “three employees” of Mr. Murdoch’s companies commissioned surveillance on Tom Watson, an activist member of the parliamentary committee, the report details.
Officers will also, it said, question “former employees of the News of the World” on the subject of the illegal interception of the voice-mail messages of a missing schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, who was subsequently discovered murdered in 2002.
——
The game is afoot
N’
I thought it odd that during the last period of the GW Bush administration Murdoch’s empire should be permitted to buy the Dow Jones…considering the power and influence Murdoch and his team already had by way of newspapers, television, book publishing, advertising, sports, social networking etc etc…
it seemed irresponsible to me. Not what you would expect from a country that supposedly thrives on diversity…and in the past has been wary of vertical and horizontal integration practices:
In May 2007, Murdoch made a $5 billion offer to purchase Dow Jones. At the time, the Bancroft family, who had owned the Dow Jones for 105 years and controlled 64% of the shares at the time, firmly declined the offer, opposing Murdoch’s much-used strategy of slashing employee numbers and gutting existing systems.
Later, the Bancroft family confirmed a willingness to consider a sale. Besides Murdoch, the Associated Press reported that supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and Internet entrepreneur Brad Greenspan were among the other interested parties.
In 2007, Murdoch acquired Dow Jones, which gave him such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s Magazine, the Far Eastern Economic Review (based in Hong Kong) and SmartMoney.
(wikipedia)
——–
As globalisation marches ever onwards…so does the reach of the Murdoch empire shadow.
Speaking of New World Order.
N’
From Lateline:
EMMA ALBERICI: There was a unanimous view by the committee formed about three particular individuals – that being Les Hinton, the former executive chairman of News International; Tom Crone the lawyer; and Colin Myler, the editor of the News of the World. Do you expect them now, having been accused of misleading the parliamentary committee, do you expect there, potentially, to be charges of misleading… contempt of the parliament?
JAMES HANNING: Well, we’re in uncharted waters here. We’re supposed to have the mother of Parliaments just over the road here, but actually our committee system is not that well-formed. They’ve only been beefed up in the last 20 years or so. So… and I don’t remember a report ever finding three people guilty of misleading it. So there is going to be, you know, there is going to be a motion put before the house. Now, nobody quite knows what that could lead to. People are saying, well, they could be thrown in the tower, I don’t think they will do that, but who knows where it could lead?
EMMA ALBERICI: Because at least one of those three gentlemen now doesn’t even live in the UK.
JAMES HANNING: That’s right. Well, I’m not sure where Les Hinton lives now, but certainly Colin Myler is working in New York – but I think what’s particularly damaging about this report is what it says about Les Hinton, because Les Hinton, as Lisa’s report says, he’s worked with Rupert Murdoch for 50 years. He’s been… this report has found that he misled parliament. That’s pretty bad, and are we to believe that he kept Rupert from all this? Maybe that was his job to keep Rupert from all this, but it doesn’t look very good, it really doesn’t.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3493344.htm
UK parliament, police, journos…no longer eyes wide shut
N’
And to think most of us are lucky if we get a generic email reply:
Politicians of all stripes beat a path to Murdoch’s door
Tony Wright
July 16, 2011
http://www.theage.com.au/…/…-door-20110715-1hi4f.html
At least Julia seems to have given the manipulating and demanding know-it-all the cold shoulder once in power.
N’
Pip
“The charge of “wilful blindness” and “wilful ignorance” is referred to four times in the MPs’ report into phone hacking and has been instantly picked up by legal experts as one of the most damning findings.
The allegation – levelled at Rupert and James Murdoch as well as the directors of News International and its parent News Corporation – is particularly pointed, as it reflects language in the US Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act.
After the phone-hacking scandal and its associated revelations, News Corporation is facing an investigation in the US under the FCPA, which punishes US firms that are found to have bribed foreign officials.
Analysts in the US believe the MPs’ findings will not help News Corp. ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/01/phone-hacking-report-wilful-blindness
“Murdoch hits back at MPs who say he’s unfit to run company”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/unjustified-murdoch-hits-back-at-mps-who-say-hes-unfit-to-run-company-20120502-1xxsu.html#ixzz1thK6RoMM
What’s he gunna do , have them followed, hack their phones and emails? Pointless, been done already
Nas’ @ 12.57pm, there’s not much difference between covering the boss’ arse, and covering one’s own.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/government-claims-coverup-in-slipper-affair-20120502-1xyg2.html#ixzz1tiSqcWti
Nas’ @ 1.07pm, your link to the Tony Wright article came up as unavailable, but it’s still on Google search here:-
http://www.theage.com.au/national/politicians-of-all-stripes-beat-a-path-to-murdochs-door-20110715-1hi4f.html
I thought this was interesting,
The rotten apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
errors and omissions excepted.. this is Wikipedia
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Murdoch#section_1
under Melbourne Herald
under 1930s and after
Sue @ 3.23pm, those terms aren’t viewed favourably by the law…. 😆
Nick Clegg: big questions over Rupert Murdoch’s fitness to run News Corp
Deputy PM throws weight behind MPs’ report into phone-hacking scandal, which said Murdoch was not fit to run a big company
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/02/nick-clegg-rupert-murdoch-fitness?newsfeed=true
Get ready for the big “Rupert Murdoch is not a fit and proper person” pile-on
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2012/05/02/get-ready-for-the-big-rupert-murdoch-is-not-a-fit-and-proper-person-pile-on/
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4289442/Wacky-lolcat-pet-pictures-are-web-hit.html
The NBN is going to cramp Rupert’s style and he would not be happy, which is evident when examining ltd news articles over the time since the NBN was announced.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/foxtel-scores-but-faces-new-challenge/story-e6frg9tf-1226327241893
Look out Senator Conroy…..
Pip & Min, the Emperor isn’t the only one afflicted with wilful blindness, there is an epidemic of it in the msm. Hopefully, it won’t be long before they”re immunised.
He’s not fit to run a chook raffle, Pip.
Nice to see that the”quality media” is doing the right thing. It has been reported, however, that tonnes of sand have been delivered to the offices of the “quality media”.
Oddly, several ABC staff, notably current affairs hosts Chris Uhlmann and Enema, sorry Emma Alberici, were also seen entering the offices and emerging later shaking sand out of their hair.
Several board members and Mark Scott, were also seen entering the building and later emerging with sandy hair.
Later, large bags of sand were also delivered to the ABC.
Semi loads of sand were also delivered to the offices of shock jocks, Anal Jones, Ray Hadley and others. Jones was later reportedly rushed to hospital where he was treated for a mysterious ailment. It is believed that Mr Jones’ ears, nose and throat were clogged with sand.
Ray Hadley was more fortunate, he was given first aid by the cleaning lady, using a dustpan and hearth brush.
We understand that she wasn’t too happy about having to haul him out of a large pile of sand where he was lodged head first! She is alleged to have told him that if he kept it up, he could *unprintable* do his own vacuuming!
At the same time in Canberra, a man with a large tip truck full of sand was also seen entering the offices of the LOTO and shadow cabinet ministers, and a staff member of sporting goods firm patronsed by the LOTO was seen to enter his offices with a large selection of what can only be described as red budgie smugglers.
And to further compound the mystery, Tony Abbott has arranged for a first aid team, specialising in sand related injuries to the head, to be on hand.
Cleaning staff are said to be muttering angrily in the corridors outside the opposition offices.
Watch this space for more developments!
The Punch is an Australian opinion and news website owned and run by News Limited, the Australian holding of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
(wikipedia)
Hmmm…
I was wondering why such a dopey and reductionist article would find its way onto that blog:
A bogan’s revenge: 10 signs you’re an inner-city tosser
4. You dress-up your love of TV as something intellectual or ironic
If you ticked “yes” to this, there’s a good chance you studied media or cultural studies at University. In which case you can probably talk about whether or not Bart Simpson fits the Nietzschean ideal.
3. You use unnecessarily large words
A really good wanker will find a use for obtuse, dichotomy, paradigmatic, Latin words, figurative and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in daily conversation.
http://www.thepunch.com.au/…/
Seems to me these points reveal the poster has some bigtime hangups…and possibly an inferiority complex.
Language is there to be used…I guess we could all go back to grunting and pointing…but even Tony Abbott and John Howard would find that rather limiting…even though they seem to heart a media corporation that produces stereotyping, tribalistic claptrap like this article.
Still, we all see through the BS…they might act like they prefer to get down and dirty with the regular folk…but I’m sure News Ltd columnists love to be spoilt and pampered like any employee working for an elite organisation…one that props up the richest of the rich…run by one of the richest of the rich…Dear Leader Rupert.
And speaking of spoilt…how many of them get a free ride and handy spruiking courtesy of our public broadcaster? Nothing like valuable taxpayer dollars being used to promote the career of a Murdoch empire minion…or twelve:
http://www.northweststar.com.au/…/2457626.aspx
And:
http://www.theage.com.au/…/…acked-20120209-1rtdl.html
And:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3228058.htm
And:
search.abc.net.au/…/search.cgi
Nice gig if ya can get it.
Still, I guess Rupert must be crying poor now thanks to all those phone hacking-related compensation payments…needs the ABC to help launch his hacks…let’s get out the bagpipes and play a mournful song…whilst we scroll through Murdoch and News Corporations’ meager assets:
en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_assets_owned_by_News_Corporation
Ironic ain’t it that News Ltd accuse PM Gillard and the government of the politics of envy…yet in their ongoing propaganda effort to win over the so called “battlers” votes they don’t mind throwing out the odd article that attempts to pit Australians against one another…providing shallow definitions of both suburban and city folk…and anyone else vs uni graduates…
and with Rupert and team attempting to park themselves in the “elite-free zone” they also sound like they have one almighty chip on their shoulder.
You’d think Rupert as he sits in his plush homes and offices visited by all kinds of influential people…being chauffeured around in his big black car…going to parties on super rich fckers yachts…playing golf like the best of toffs…and pontificating by tweets and newspapers from his high chair in New York would have brushed off the chips.
But I imagine the politics of division is worn as comfortably by our opportunistic Rupert as his sleazy tabloid cardigan..all keeping him nice and warm during the cold winter winds of the UK storms…
and those chips on his shoulder are merely manufactured stripes and bars…representing his achievements in the War on Unions…the War on Taxes…the War on Terror…the War on Secularism…the War on News Corporations’ competition…the War on educational institutions that empower…the War on smartening up rather than dumbing down…the War on a secure, well-paid workforce…the War on cleaner energy bar nuclear energy.
Blow that funky bagpipe white boy:
News Corp admits ‘serious wrongdoing’ but says MPs’ personal attack unjustified
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/uk-lawmakers-say-news-international-execs-misled-them-over-phone-hacking/story-e6freuy9-1226344305976
It was highly partisan all right – his defenders, the Tories were the recipients of his very favourable press reports!
Those who didn’t defend the old devil were the victims of his bad press.
A very clever deduction, Rupert! .
UK media analyst questions assault on Rupert Murdoch
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-02/uk-media-analyst-questions-assault-on-rupert/3985584?section=business
Updated May 02, 2012 14:51:00
Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers names 52 linked to hacking probe
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/rupert-murdochs-news-group-newspapers-names-52-linked-to-hacking-probe-16153448.html
Thnx for the info and links Pip. Top job.
N’
Nasking @ 12.03pm, did you know og means boy in Gaelic? 🙂
After that lament here’s a little something to liven things up.
MediaIs Tom Crone Rupert Murdoch’s John Dean?
Comparisons with Watergate raise worrying prospects for News Corporation, writes Rodney Tiffen
http://inside.org.au/tom-crone-rupert-murdoch-john-dean/
Pip and Nas
great links. i did n0t know about murdoch and kerr,about says it all really.
pip @7.20
ii thought the same as the writer in hiss conclusion. murdoch gambling on the lawyer. about as confident as abbott saying when we beat labor they will do the right thing and support us in the senate
and cops just love it when all the crooks combine to blame one of their own.
that’s when the evidence suddenly appears, well for a deal.
Pip,
verrry interesting article re: equating Crone with Watergate’s Dean.
I will absorb it tonight.
More bedtime reading…reminder from Feb this year:
Untangling Rebekah Brooks
Vanity Fair
Rebekah Brooks was running the News of the World at 31, and Rupert Murdoch’s entire British newspaper empire at 41. A virtual member of the Murdoch family, close to Prime Ministers Blair, Brown, and Cameron, she relished her power—until the phone-hacking scandal took her down. Talking to Brooks’s former colleagues and friends, Suzanna Andrews uncovers the woman wrapped in the enigma, the keys to her meteoric rise, and the latest object of her incandescent ambition.
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/02/rebekah-brooks-201202
A Descent into the Maelstrom
Sue wrote: and cops just love it when all the crooks combine to blame one of their own.
that’s when the evidence suddenly appears, well for a deal.
Sue,
Indeed. My great great grandfather Rubin was a copper/bobby…they often get their man…woman…organisation…
even if it takes awhile.
N’
“RUPERT Murdoch’s media empire is facing a challenge on a new front in the phone-hacking scandal.
A US Senate committee has opened direct contact with British investigators in an attempt to find out whether News Corp has broken American laws.
‘I would like to know whether any of the evidence you are reviewing suggests that these unethical and sometimes illegal business practices occurred in the United States or involved US citizens,” Senator Rockefeller writes. The development adds to the potential dangers facing News Corp, a publicly traded company with its headquarters in New York.
The committee could convene Senate hearings and subpoena News Corp witnesses and documents, although as yet there is no talk of doing so.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-senate-probes-murdoch-dealings-20120503-1y1r4.html#ixzz1tqQNpoAt
And this is to the point
“In a scathing attack on the Murdoch company, Senator Rockefeller writes: ”In a democratic society, members of the media have the freedom to aggressively probe their government’s activities and expose wrongdoing. But, like all other citizens, they also have a duty to obey the law. Evidence that is already in the public record clearly shows that for many years, News International had a widespread, institutional disregard for these laws.”
Senator Rockefeller also asks for any details emerging from the Leveson inquiry that indicate whether any News executives based in New York were aware of illegal payments made by the News of the World to police and other public officials.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-senate-probes-murdoch-dealings-20120503-1y1r4.html#ixzz1tqQxel4m
From the US, an interview with the Guardian
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8890-rupert-murdoch-in-unprecedented-firestorm-as-uk-panel-finds-him-unfit-to-run-global-media-empire
Sue,
Thnx for the links.
You pasted the following from the useful article by Pilkington in The Age:
Senator Rockefeller also asks for any details emerging from the Leveson inquiry that indicate whether any News executives based in New York were aware of illegal payments made by the News of the World to police and other public officials.
—–
I believe there needs to be a thorough investigation here into the relationship between News Ltd reporters and other staff and the police and other public officials.
I’ve noticed that both SKY NEWS and News Ltd seem to get inside information very quickly…sometimes before the findings are released or police action takes place.
Paul Murray on Sky last night made some bold statements about fraud charges being brought (I think I heard him say) related to union officials based on his police sources. Bold statement based on inside info.
N’
Nasking
And what bloody well annoys me, is Labor people saying there has been no hacking in Australia. It only makes me think, what deals have you done with old Murky.
But look how many years it took for the UK to wake up, and they were only startled awake by gross abuse.
Sue,
I agree. The Murdoch empire tabloid culture and many of its wild west style approaches have been a part of many of their newspapers and news programs worldwide…
so why wouldn’t those underhanded illegal practices have spread here too.
It’s a pattern of media behaviour.
N’
Anybody who believes it isn’t happening here, is naive to the nth degree, my guess is, these practices were initiated and honed here, before being exported with Murdoch to the UK the US.
Ian, you may well be right. Murdoch cut his teeth in Australia and learnt a few tricks from his old man.
.
Well, boo hoo! Just like his protegé, Rupert can dish it out, but he can’t take it.
Ian, you can count on that. After he got his paws on The News in Adelaide, he started his long and inglorious career manipulating public opinion.
One occasion has stuck in my mind. There was an election campaign running and Murdoch published a graph upside down to discredit Labor.
The most disturbing feature of the Murdoch/News Ltd control of print media here in Oz is how deeply into our national consciousness it goes. That 70% ownership of print media is not only of national newspapers, or at a state level, but of community newspapers too. That suggests a deeply devious and carefully thought out strategy and explains why whatever message Rupert Murdoch wants sent out reaches the vast bulk of Australian voters and impacts on local, state and national elections.
Great new post about the cursed Murdoch’s stranglehold on Oz by Ad Astra over at TPS http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2012/05/05/Julia-Gillard-can-defeat-Tony-Abbott-in-2013-But-how-does-she-neutralize-Rupert-Murdoch.aspx.
Indeed Patricia,
the Murdoch empire is a propaganda machine…a very tricky one…but nonetheless a propaganda machine.
I also recommend Ad astra’s insightful post:
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/
N’
Ad Astra’s great post reminded me of this I wrote last year when Tom Watson was getting under way with the UK enquiry into phone hacking. Please bear with me if I repeat myself here! That Greek word, Areopagitica. is pronounced with each vowel enunciated with equal stress. John Milton used it as the title of his pamphlet championing press freedom. I remember being deeply moved as a teenager when I was introduced to Milton’s oratory and his championing of free speech.
Remember! “True Liberty Is When Free-born Men Speak Free!”
John Milton’s Areopagitica,
Crying freedom for the press
Back in 17th century England,
Resisted monarchy’s excess.
His tract was a mighty weapon
In democracy’s progress.
We are the beneficiaries
Of his most eloquent address.
But we ‘free-born’ are complicit,
As we watch and acquiesce
While that freedom is abused
With a brazen shamelessness.
We encouraged one man’s ambition
To buy up, control, possess
As property our thoughts in print,
And we applauded his success.
We shared profits with this behemoth
Who now destroys our happiness,
By publishing news of our world,
Writ as he commands it be expressed.
This threat of global tyranny,
Warns us it’s time to re-possess
What for him is now a licence
To break all rules and decency transgress.
Our precious freedom so perverted
Has caused democracy’s regress.
Let’s use our laws while we still can,
Redeem ourselves, and truly free the press.
http://polliepomes.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/remember-true-liberty-is-when-free-born-men-speak-free/
The police in the UK now doing the right thing:
Retired Met detective arrested over bribes
A former Metropolitan Police detective was arrested yesterday by police investigating illegal payments to public officials by journalists from Rupert Murdoch’s News International.
The 57-year-old man, who served in Scotland Yard’s special operations command whose responsibilities include counter-terrorism, was arrested at his Surrey home at 6.30am on suspicion of misconduct in a public office.
The retired officer is the 27th person to be arrested by officers from Operation Elveden, the Yard’s investigation into alleged bribes paid by journalists to police officers and public servants including civil servants and members of the military.
The Yard said the man, who was being questioned at a south-west London police station while a search of his home was carried out, was not involved in the original investigation into phone hacking by the News of the World in 2006.
The force refused to disclose the rank held by the officer when he retired or in which part of the special operations command he had served.
The latest arrest was based on information provided by News Corporation’s management standards committee – the body set up to investigate allegations of wrongdoing inside NI titles, including The Sun. Eleven current and former staff at The Sun, including its royal editor, have so far been arrested.
http://www.independent.co.uk/…/…-leveson-7712389.html
I’m proud of the police who did not allow themselves to be bought…and/or used by the Murdoch empire to push their own profiteering propaganda agenda.
N’
Nas, there’s one thing a good cop hates and that’s a rogue cop. They’ll want to nail this bloke to a prison cell.
So true Migs, so true.
————
Seems protecting Murdoch and austerity measures haven’t done much for the UK Tories…nor the Lib Dems being in bed with the Tories:
David Cameron is under intense pressure to change the course of his government after suffering a severe electoral defeat that saw Labour chalk up gains across the country, and Ken Livingstone run Boris Johnson closer than expected in the London mayoral contest.
The prime minister’s hopes that the elections would represent a chance to turn the page on a catalogue of errors since the disastrous budget were dashed as the Conservative right immediately called on their leader to be more assertive over his Liberal Democrat partners.
Ed Miliband, seizing control of 32 councils across the country, claimed Labour was back on the people’s side, but promised he would work hard every day to win the electorate’s trust. His aides, delighted by a strong showing in Scotland and southern England, admitted Labour had benefited from Tory abstainers as well as converts.
Senior Liberal Democrats warned that another set of resultslike Friday’s would spell the end of the party as an independent nationwide force.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/…/local-elections-drubbing-pressure-cameron
Predictably some Tories knee-jerkly call for more Righty policies…but acting like a bunch of backward looking tosspots will only serve to demonstrate how archaic, old school tie, homophobic, xenophobic and mean-spirited the party can be.
Cameron needs to be courageous as tell it as it is re: Murdoch and the empires’ UK approach to doing business.
He could end up being seen as a born again hero.
Rather than a lame duck.
N’
Nas’, I suspect that there’s too much buried murk for Cameron to dare open that particular grot hole.
British Government Seeks Special Status at Hacking Inquiry
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/05/world/europe/british-government-seeks-special-status-at-hacking-inquiry.html?_r=1
Phone hacking: blind, wilful… and that’s just the select committee
There is real criminality to be investigated: but if MPs want to be a part of press regulation, they cannot make their interventions so openly partisan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/06/phone-hacking-blind-wilful-select-committee?newsfeed=true
“Cameron’s secret summit with News Corp
The previously undisclosed meeting in November 2009 also shows how Mr Cameron was being assiduously courted by News Corp executives beyond the Murdoch family, as the company was gearing up for its bid to take over BSkyB.
George Osborne and William Hague were also present at the talks, The IoS understands.
The secret meeting shows the extent to which Mr Cameron was engaging with News Corp executives, as well as the media tycoon himself, his son, James, and Mrs Brooks.
The meeting brought together Mr Aznar, a centre-right elder statesman in Europe inside the Murdoch circle, with a British prime minister-in-waiting who had just won the seal of approval from the media tycoon.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ios-exclusive-revealed–camerons-secret-summit-with-news-corp-7717644.html
“The revelation raises difficult questions for the Prime Minister over whether he knew about Mr Coulson’s financial interests.
Crucially, Mr Coulson was in possession of the shares when he was among those advising Mr Cameron over the PM’s decision to hand responsibility for News Corp’s bid to take over BSkyB to Jeremy Hunt in December 2010, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.
Mr Coulson’s shareholding means that he stood to gain financially from News Corp’s planned takeover of the digital broadcaster, because Rupert Murdoch’s company would have seen its stock soar.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ios-exclusive-coulson-owned-news-corp-shares-while-at-no-10-7717645.html
From an article on Mark Lewis
“Rupert Murdoch told the Leveson inquiry under oath that British media abuses went beyond voice-mail interceptions by journalists at Murdoch’s British newspapers. In a witness statement, he said News Corp had turned over evidence of ”suspected illegality” to the US Justice Department and London police.
This comes at a time when Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the major US Senate committee, has written to Lord Justice Leveson asking if he has uncovered any evidence of questionable practices by News Corp in the US.”
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/the-man-who-took-on-the-murdochs-20120506-1y705.html#ixzz1u8Fd5fww
Sue, that’s quite an admission by Rupert, and he may well be thinking he’ll be praised for being so honest. 😯
Leveson inquiry: Martin Clarke, Russell Middleton, Brendan Gilmour appear
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/09/leveson-inquiry-martin-clarke-live?newsfeed=true
• Met: certainty on Dowler voicemail deletions not possible
• Sally Dowler’s ‘false hope’ moment was on 24 March 2002
• Dowler family and Met discussed deletions last year
• Guardian welcomes modified Met statement on voicemails
• Mail Online publisher warns against tighter restrictions
• Would put Mail Online at ‘commercial disadvantage’ in US
• Mail Online has received 205 legal complaints in three years
Detectives ran criminal record checks on Labour politicians
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/detectives-ran-criminal-record-checks-on-labour-politicians-7720685.html
Five questions for Andy Coulson at the Leveson inquiry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/09/questions-andy-coulson-leveson-inquiry?CMP=twt_fd
The former News of the World editor is to give evidence as No 10 comes under scrutiny over his security vetting
Good heavens, Sue. Fancy tory politicians engaging in corrupt practices. Who woulda thunk it?
Hmmm, Pip. “Specific” must be the new tory buzz word.
Jane, they’re all reading the same instructions…
from The Tories book of Weasel Words.
Who needs dope to forget when you’ve got the mind of a media baron?:
Murdoch has �selective amnesia�: inquiry
May 11, 2012 – 12:47AM
Brisbane Times
Rupert Murdoch may have been suffering “selective amnesia” when he claimed he forgot a key lunch with Margaret Thatcher, the Leveson inquiry has heard.
The media mogul’s evidence about the 1981 meeting at Chequers, which took place shortly before his takeover of The Times newspaper was cleared, could also raise wider questions about his integrity.
Robert Jay QC, counsel for the inquiry, highlighted the issues on Thursday as he opened its third module – dealing with relations between media figures and politicians.
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Referring to Murdoch’s statement last month that he had “no recollection” of the event, Jay said: “One does at least have to question whether this is selective amnesia. Mr Murdoch told us in evidence that he did not enjoy frequent encounters with Baroness Thatcher.
“The acquisition of the Times and its associated titles must have been one of the most important in his commercial life.
“This was a time of heightened emotion. Could an intimate lunch at Chequers really have been forgotten?
“Human recollection is notoriously patchy and unreliable, we all know that. The fact that I, for example, would be 100 per cent certain of being able to remember an event such as this occurring 30 plus years ago is not going to assist you in coming to a conclusion either way.”
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/murdoch-has-65533selective-amnesia65533-inquiry-20120511-1yg2q.html#ixzz1uWFwX2xK
Perhaps Mrs. Thatcher was a boring old thing…barely worth remembering?
Don’t know why they made a film and some TV series about her then?
N’
From Faux News:
Murdoch voices support for Israel in speech at Jewish museum dinner
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/10/murdoch-voices-support-for-israel-in-speech-at-jewish-museum-dinner/#ixzz1uWHsBSes
He went on to voice support for Israel in the face of a nuclear threat from Iran.
“Many people seem more worried about an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities than about what would happen if we allow Iran to build nuclear weapons,” Murdoch said. “When weak friends suggest that Israel may be part of the problem, we do nothing to encourage the peacemakers – and everything to embolden the warmakers. So when the prime minister of a democratic Israel says that he fears Iran means what it says and intends to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, I will not second guess him from the safety of New York.”
————————————————–
I wonder if that’s Rupert’s way of saying:
“I’d really dig it if you attacked Iran…my cable and paytv news services and papers could really use a boost.
If I mention New York and nukes in the same breath do you think it’s enuff fear-mongering to bring even the left-wing Israel supporters on side?
You know my friends are the same ones who told me to use my media power to promote the Iraq War and the Lebanon bombing.
And has that done wonders for Israel’s security? Hardly any extreme Islamic recruitments these days. And the world cherishes Israel. Was cost effective. And it made Iran so much weaker. Your relationship with the states on your borders couldn’t be better. And the added bonus is the cheap oil I predicted.
Trust me. I’m an emperor who has mini-naps”
N’
Not surprising:
Rupert Murdoch’s most senior executive Chase Carey has leapt to the media mogul’s defence over the controversial UK phone hacking scandal.
The News Corporation chief operating officer and president lashed out at a UK parliamentary committee’s finding that Mr Murdoch is not a fit person to run a major international company.
His comments came as News Corp revealed the bill for the phone hacking scandal has hit $US167 million ($A166.81 million).
Mr Carey said Mr Murdoch, News Corp’s chairman and chief executive, had the support of the board.
“The select committee delivered hard truths most of which we openly acknowledge,” Mr Carey said during News Corp’s third quarter results presentation on Thursday.
“However I flatly reject the report’s notion that Rupert is unfit to run a major media company as unjustified in many people’s opinion, including my own.”
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/…/News-Corps-Carey-backs-Murdoch-U5TGV
For some reason I got to thinking of Meyer Lansky defending longtime friend Lucky Luciano.
Still, at least these guys in News Corp only use media machine guns.
Empires don’t have to be built using violence and shifting illegal booze these days.
Lucky got into the wrong business.
N’
Jane,
Indeed.
Howard was teflon…he got tossed…
Murdoch and Abbott think they are teflon…
they are…toxic.
Soon to be tossed methinks:
Watching Rebekah Brooks interrogation at the Leveson Inquiry.
No flaming red hair for this performance… a much tamer reddish brown now.
Butter wouldn’t melt…
Pip
it’s lunch time at leveson.
Brooks should have realised she was in trouble when Jay started smiling at her and Leveson got his answer.
Who is leading who? As Brooks said earlier, she was responding to her readers, but ended conceding that in fact it was she that was leading her readers down the path of her own ideals.
Pip
laugh time
“The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman has compiled a handy guide to text speak for David Cameron:
David Cameron has been revealed by Rebekah Brooks to sign off some of his texts LOL, in the belief the acronym means “Lots Of Love”. She told the Leveson Inquiry she has explained to him it actually means “Laughing Out Loud”. In fact, they’re both right and they’re both wrong, as it means both. Here, to help both of them, is a list of other popular acronyms and what they absolutely don’t mean, tempting though it might be for them to believe otherwise if Cameron happened to use them:
ROFL: Rebekah, On For Lunch?
FFS: Freud Fixed Shenanigans
FFS: Fuck! Farewell Sky
WTF: Was Tony Funnier?
OMG: Oh, Murdoch’s Gorgeous
IMHO: Is My Horse OK?
Sue, Brooks is wearing a Mary Poppins outfit, very twee white collar, neck to ankle dress, her flaming red hair has been toned down to brown, anyone would think she is trying to create an impression of a prim, highly ethical pillar of society.
She still reminds me of James Murdoch,…. it’s the eyes…
lol Sue. 😆
WSJ version of events
Brooks Faces U.K. Media Ethics Inquiry .
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304203604577397700187854094.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Brooks got support from Cameron after News exit
http://www.smh.com.au/world/brooks-got-support-from-cameron-after-news-exit-20120511-1yilf.html
Not impressed by Levenson’s approach at the end…felt like he was helping Brooks to justify her actions:
Leading question
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_question
If you ask me Brooks seemed almost grateful dealing with Leveson and him providing excuses for her…having been put the wringer by Jay.
I noticed this article from the past:
Miliband mulls MPs’ demands to remove hacking-inquiry judge
Labour leader shares concerns over impartiality of Lord Justice Leveson after revelations that he attended parties at the home of Elisabeth Murdoch
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/miliband-mulls-mps-demands-to-remove-hackinginquiry-judge-2319555.html
You have to feel confident a judge is impartial. I’m not convinced…particularly watching close-up on Ipad.
More here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Justice_Leveson
Furthermore,
Rebekah Brooks complained of trivial info put to her about relationship with Murdochs. Got a taste of her own medicine. Irony. Tabloid-like speculation annoyed the precious editor of a tabloid.
She looked very stressed when discussing BSKY-b bid…Fred Michel…the campaign to out local pedas that led to riots…Osborne and Hunt.
The ethics inquiry tonite demonstrated why ownership of media should be limited…and not extend to cross-ownership…sports, cable/paytv etc.
Btw, amazes me these condescending toffs run papers trusted by the working class. One good recording of how they really feel about their readers would end the pretence…the working class are a meal ticket.
Also thought it pathetic that Brooks felt they needed to cater to readers so much…mentioned case of Mirror and NOT IN MY NAME campaign…how they lost readers. So much for doing the right thing. Obviously attracting readership at any cost was priority for Brooks and News International. Gawd forbid they had guts and revealed the stink behind the war. Keeping the readership uninformed…until no other option. How could the readership change their view if not offered up alternative info by a propaganda-like machine?
N’
More here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18032676
Handy summary and tweets.
N’
Nas, something tells me Brooks has a guardian angel looking after her. Or maybe Rupert’s mate in Downing Street. 😦
Min, I listened to much of Ms Brooks answers last night and she was very careful with her answers, inclined at times to be annoyed, but interestingly she managed to not dump on either Rupert Murdoch, [why would she?], or PM Cameron and
that’s a pretty neat trick under the circumstances.
After a couple of hours I found it difficult to take her very seriously.
Like her bosses, she had great clarity in some instances and in others didn’t know, couldn’t remember.
She quite often padded her answers with information not relevent to the question asked, and when she was asked to come back to the question, she would say she was putting some context into her answers.
All in all, vey clever, seemingly very confident and very well rehearsed.
Nas’, I agree with your take on Leveson; and also Brooks reactions when questioned about BSkyB. The high-handedness in judging others showed the power that is wielded with such self-assurance, and Brooks attempts to make it look as if she really cared did not impress.
The answers about turning against Gordon Brown…. it had been decided much earlier that News would support Cameron and the Tories, and the opportunity to announce the change of sentiment came when Gordon Brown did not speak about the Afghan war enough to please News.
What a crock.
Pip
Leveson did ping her on her conversation with george osborne. she couldn’t remember much it was a dinner with 3 couples, so it was probably an off the cuff statement.
leveson: it is not mr jay saying the conversation was about the “issues” paper, you in your statement paragraph….. said, the conversation was about the issues paper”
also on same matter by leveson: why is it you can say it was just probably a passing remark, but on the other hand you are quite specific that the conversation was for 3 minutes.
also pip, i had a read about when they were talking about the vigilantes.
brokks was leading a campaign to name pedophiles, so apparently ran lists of names in the sun paper.
trouble was some of her readership confused peadatrician with pedophile and graffittied the doctors house.
the latest from tom watson
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/
“Diana, Princess of Wales’ former lover Hasnat Khan has revealed that police believe his phone may have been hacked in the months before the inquest into her death.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/13/diana-lover-phone-hacking-hasnat-khan
“George Osborne entertained Rebekah Brooks for a weekend at his country residence as Rupert Murdoch was planning to take over BSkyB.
Also present for the weekend at Dorneywood, the chancellor’s grace and favour residence in Buckinghamshire, was Brooks’s friend, Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, who at the time was working as David Cameron’s director of communications inside No 10.
the Dorneywood meeting was one declared by Osborne as having taken place with Brooks in September 2010
Murdoch plan to take full control of BSkyB first broke in June 2010,”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/12/george-osborne-brooks-murdoch-bskyb
“Mr Coulson was in the driving seat over his controversial appointment, the former News of the World editor called the bluff of the Tory leader and George Osborne by refusing to sign a confidentiality clause as part of his appointment.
The move reveals for the first time the desperation of Mr Cameron, then Leader of the Opposition, and Mr Osborne, to win over the Murdoch empire as they manoeuvred to secure a general election victory.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ios-exclusive-revealed–how-coulson-called-camerons-bluff-7742363.html
Sue and Pip,
Thnx for the valuable info and links.
Tom Watson post…and Osborne-related stuff very useful.
Oh what a tangled web has been woven.
N’
Diana, Princess of Wales’ former lover Hasnat Khan has revealed that police believe his phone may have been hacked in the months before the inquest into her death.”
Sue,
How low can they get?
N’
“Uncertainty remains over aspects of Mrs Brooks’s evidence to the inquiry on Friday. In July last year, The IoS revealed that Mrs Brooks and Mr Cameron met at a drinks party in an Oxfordshire manor on Boxing Day 2010. A week later, sources close to the Prime Minister confirmed that they had met at that party at the house of Mrs Brooks’s sister-in-law, Annabel Brooks. It came only three days after Mr Cameron and Mrs Brooks had dinner with James Murdoch on 23 December. On Friday, when Mrs Brooks was asked whether she had met the Prime Minister on Boxing Day, and whether she had had a conversation with him, she said she might have seen him across the room, but that “No, I don’t think there was a conversation”. However, a fellow guest at the party has confirmed to The IoS that the two definitely spoke to each other on at least two occasions that evening.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ios-exclusive-revealed–how-coulson-called-camerons-bluff-7742363.html
Sue,
they take the public for mugs.
The authorities are being played.
N’
Nasking
“Sue,
How low can they get?”
Well as only a couple of hundred people have been informed and thousands have been hacked and the email hacking and cash for police are not finished……and hacking in the USA……..
I would say “low” has got a way to go yet.
Nasking one thing I have noticed with the Murdoch aligned testimony, is that Murdoch is so pissed with the Cameron govt, that Murdoch will destroy Cameron.
Just last Friday the only email available on Brook’s blackberry was one that caused problems for Cameron. All other emails, ie her work emails, were held by News International. Add to that the Michel emails all 176 pages all very damaging.
I couldn’t care less about Cameron or Blair as they have played and obeyed Murdoch’s rules, it is just a demonstration of the power of his wrath.
Sue, Murdoch hasn’t seen nuthin’ yet. The Yanks will draw and quarter him.
Nasking
It’s follow the money time
“The controversy over Jeremy Hunt’s dealings with Rupert Murdoch’s empire took a bizarre twist last night after it emerged he held a meeting with one of the mogul’s former drivers to discuss his alleged role in illegal payments to police.
Paul Maley, who worked as a News International chauffeur for four years until 2009, is preparing extraordinary evidence for the Leveson Inquiry in which he is expected to reveal a 40-minute encounter with the Culture Secretary.
Mr Maley told Mr Hunt during the meeting last September that he handed more than a dozen packages containing cash to police officers while working for the company.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2143502/Murdoch-driver-I-told-Jeremy-Hunt-cash-drops-Met-police-Hyde-Park-tennis-courts.html#ixzz1umzwsKPk
Do we have enough comfy chairs to watch the fun, Migs?
Sue, they must still be excavating the hole. Every day in every way, things get worserer and worserer for the Empire. Aaawww! How sad. Bwwwahahahahahahaha!
I’m off to buy some quick lime. Even at that depth, certain corpses still reek to high heaven.
I think this is to do with the brief case, left in the public garage, found by workers and handed into police, then hubbie claiming a “friend” had left it for him to collect.
“Rebekah Brooks to learn if she will face charges over phone-hacking scandal.
Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive, will be told on Tuesday if she is to be among the first people to face criminal charges over the phone-hacking scandal.
Brooks and hubbie and “with four others, including News International’s head of security, Mark Hanna, and a driver Rebekah Brooks used. A sixth non-journalist, Cheryl Carter, Brooks’s former PA, was arrested in January also on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/14/rebekah-brooks-cps-decision-criminal-charges
Cu, I wonder if old Murdoch is still going to pamper her.
Watson book calls Murdoch empire a “shadow state”
by FP Staff May 15, 2012
…So why did it take so long for the phone hacking and other questionable activity to blow up? Put simply, according to the book, everyone – politicians, police, celebrities – feared offending Murdoch and his News International.
Scotland Yard, whose public affairs office employed 10 former News International employees, repeatedly dragged its feet in investigating phone hacking, according to the book.
News of the World dispatched private investigators to probe the personal lives of attorneys working for its alleged victims and established a secret team to dig into the private lives of members of the parliamentary Culture Committee when it was investigating the newspaper, the book states.
Watson and Hickman reportedly wrote “Dial M For Murdoch” in less than six months. So the rush to publish while the story is still unfolding may explain many tortuous and narrative-numbing sentences filled with facts, figures, dates and names.
But “Dial M For Murdoch” has the urgency of a police blotter and is useful, both for those tracking the story daily or for readers interested in learning more.
The book also highlights the role of journalism in a celebrity-obsessed society; the value we still place in our privacy in the age of Facebook friending; and the dangers of out-sized corporate power and influence.
“Rupert Murdoch was not running a normal business, but a shadow state,” the authors state.
(Editing by Peter Bohan)
http://www.firstpost.com/world/watson-book-calls-murdoch-empire-a-shadow-state-309154.html
Indeed.
When we have our entire law enforcement and political system back working in the public interest…and the shadow over our societies have shrunk substantially…then for awhile we may breathe somewhat easier…and place our focus elsewhere.
———————–
“I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged.”
― Sherlock Holmes
——————-
N’
When we have our entire law enforcement and political system back working in the public interest.
Add media.
N’
From Ad astra @ The Political Sword:
I agree with your contention that journalists don’t seriously challenge Abbott. I wonder is it because many journalists feel insecure as newspaper circulation falls and advertising revenue dips, leaving them wondering how long they will have a job. So they dare not risk losing a job with News Limited, which supports Tony Abbott, or risk not getting a job with News Limited if their paper fails. It is said: ‘There are only two types of journalist in Australia: those employed by News Limited, and those who may soon be looking for a job with News Limited.’ It’s a rough approximation but useful working hypothesis.
——
My reply:
Could well be Ad.
Part of the reason we need a strong, diverse public broadcaster…and various other media companies for alternative views. One reason I subscribe to Crikey. When it comes right down to it journos, researchers etc. are gonna have to make a living…and we’re all going to have to contribute to that.
I just wish more people would subscribe to the alternative news’ sites rather than the same old stuff.
The problem lies with the fact that News Corp has so much revenue coming from its various tentacles…sports, paytv/cable, movies, The Sun, advertising, Fox shows…the list is extensive…
it provides them with enuff money to keep expanding and in turn promoting their wares to larger and larger audiences…
how can smaller media organisations hope to compete?…particularly when the more money you have the more staffers you can afford to pay to scan the blogosphere and other media and take, mutate the ideas and styles of others.
Politicians allowed this disastrous situation to occur.
It’s as bad as permitting a few HUGE investment banks to go poorly regulated.
Or those huge Hollywood studios way back when who owned all the stars…and production, distribution and exhibition points.
The balance is out.
Money and political influence and market dominance seem to make the world go around.
N’
Leveson is going to make statement at 2pm uk time.
Now when brook’s appeared before leveson she claimed, she only has access to her pa’s desk diary, and that news ltd had all other documents. it makes you wonder if she has skipped around possible perjury. oh well, will have to wait.
Les Hinton hits back over MPs’ phone-hacking report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/14/les-hinton-hits-back-phone-hacking-report
Ex-News International boss says culture committee ‘misread’ his evidence and made ‘unsupportable leaps in logic’
Gee Mr. Hinton, that’s exactly what “News” has been doing for half a century.
Sue, not long to wait now – an hour to go…
#pressreform
“A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself.” – Joseph Pulitzer, 1847 – 1911.
http://pressreform.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/leveson-inquiry-module-3-day-5-press.html?spref=tw
How Rebekah Brooks worked the Murdochs, even as she worked for them
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/11/rebekah-brooks-worked-murdochs?CMP=twt_gu
Brooks was chief architect of the very nexus of press and political power the Leveson inquiry is struggling to uncover
http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/hearings/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-15/rebekah-brooks-charged-with-perverting-the-course-of-justice/4013094
You mob don’t like Murdoch much, do you?
“much” is on the generous side
leveson was on about the Michel emails. He wants parlt to back off and let him do his job. some in parlt wanted jeremy hunt minister in charge of bskyb bid to start explaining now!
Campbell said that while Rupert Murdoch is “fundamentally right-wing” he also liked to back winners, which influenced the decision of The Sun to back Labour in 1997.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/05/14/alistair-campbell_n_1514399.html
What I ask is: What did he see in Blair…or know? Or want?
In February 1996, after former US Republican Party political strategist and NBC executive
Roger Ailes left America’s Talking (now MSNBC), Murdoch called him to start the Fox News Channel. Ailes worked individuals through five months of 14-hour workdays and several weeks of rehearsal shows before launch, on October 7, 1996.
FNC saw a large jump in ratings during the early stages of the Iraq conflict. By some reports, at the height of the conflict Fox News had as much as a 300 percent increase in viewership, averaging 3.3 million viewers daily.
(wikipedia)
Record Viewing Figures for Sky News And BBC News
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011…ecord-audience
The BBC News Channel and Sky News saw record viewers during the riots the BBC News Channel was watched by 13.1 million beating the previous record of 8.8 million,
SKy had 9.28 million beating its highest viewing figures since the 2003 Iraq war,
———–
War…was it good for?
N’
BSkyB launches Sky News Arabia:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/06/bskyb-launches-sky-news-arabia
N’
#Murdoch: “I only met Blair 2-3 times a year. Spent most of our time debating euro – I turned out to be right” http://t.co/eXfATWAi #Leveson
N’
Rupert Murdoch
Blair was reported to have been supported by Rupert Murdoch, the founder of the News Corporation organisation.
In 1995, while leader of the Opposition, Blair disclosed in the Commons register of interests that he was a guest of Murdoch when he flew to meet him in Hayman Island.
In 2011 Blair became Godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch’s children. Apparently Blair was ‘robed in white for the ceremony’
(wikipedia)
A job well done I take it.
N’
Nas, I love these links you’re coming up with.
But some of them leave me traumatised. 😉
Migs,
imagine how many in Iraq were left traumatised…and dead…and wounded…and homeless.
Good viewership and readership tho.
In the period between September 2002 and April 2005, Blair and Murdoch are documented speaking 6 times; three times in the 9 days before the Iraq war, including the eve of the 20 March US and UK invasion, and on 29 January, 25 April and 3 October 2004.
(wikipedia)
KERCHING KERCHING KERCHING
N’
On Amanpour Tony Blair’s Director of Communications Alastair Campbel repeats his oddly timed & desperate assertion that George W Bush had never met Rupert Murdoch and asked Blair ‘what’s he like?’
More here:
http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/15/2695/
Why would Bush need to? Daddy and son Bush had an INSIDE MAN:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes
Roger Eugene Ailes (born May 15, 1940) is president of Fox News Channel, chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, as well as Rudy Giuliani’s first mayoral campaign in 1989.
In 1987 and 1988, Ailes was credited (along with Lee Atwater) with guiding George H. W. Bush to victory in the Republican primaries, and the later come-from-behind victory over Michael Dukakis. Ailes scripted and (with Sig Rogich) produced the “Revolving Door” ad, as well as all of Bush’s broadcast spots in the primary and general-election campaigns.
Days after the 9/11 attacks, Ailes gave President George W. Bush political advice indicating that the American public would be patient as long as they were convinced that Bush was using the harshest measures possible.
The correspondence was revealed in Bob Woodward’s book Bush At War. Ailes lashed out against Woodward, saying “Woodward got it all screwed up, as usual,” and “The reason he’s not as rich as Tom Clancy is that while he and Clancy both make stuff up, Clancy does his research first.”…Ailes refused to release a copy of the memo he sent to the President.
(wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes
WHAT IF THEY CREATED A WAR AND EVERYONE WATCHED?
N’
Nas’,
Migs,
imagine how many in Iraq were left traumatised…and dead…and wounded…and homeless.
and imagine how many innocent babies have been, and wil be born with hideous deformities caused by the depleted uranium that rained down over their country…
and how many Iraquis have had, and will have cancer from the same cause!
Indeed Pip.
The creators, manufacturers of that war have a great deal to answer for:
APRIL 26, 2012
SHARE ON FACEBOOK SHARE ON TWITTER SHARE ON GOOGLE MORE SHARING SERVICES
39
The Children of Fallujah
The Hospital of Horrors
by ROBERT FISK
The pictures flash up on a screen on an upper floor of the Fallujah General Hospital. And all at once, Nadhem Shokr al-Hadidi’s administration office becomes a little chamber of horrors. A baby with a hugely deformed mouth. A child with a defect of the spinal cord, material from the spine outside the body. A baby with a terrible, vast Cyclopean eye. Another baby with only half a head, stillborn like the rest, date of birth 17 June, 2009. Yet another picture flicks onto the screen: date of birth 6 July 2009, it shows a tiny child with half a right arm, no left leg, no genitalia.
“We see this all the time now,” Al-Hadidi says, and a female doctor walks into the room and glances at the screen. She has delivered some of these still-born children. “I’ve never seen anything as bad as this in all my service,” she says quietly. Al-Hadidi takes phone calls, greets visitors to his office, offers tea and biscuits to us while this ghastly picture show unfolds on the screen. I asked to see these photographs, to ensure that the stillborn children, the deformities, were real. There’s always a reader or a viewer who will mutter the word “propaganda” under their breath.
But the photographs are a damning, ghastly reward for such doubts. January 7, 2010: a baby with faded, yellow skin and misshapen arms. April 26, 2010: a grey mass on the side of the baby’s head. A doctor beside me speaks of “Tetralogy of Fallot”, a transposition of the great blood vessels. May 3, 2010: a frog-like creature in which – the Fallujah doctor who came into the room says this – “all the abdominal organs are trying to get outside the body.”
This is too much. These photographs are too awful, the pain and emotion of them – for the poor parents, at least – impossible to contemplate. They simply cannot be published.
There is a no-nonsense attitude from the doctors in Fallujah. They know that we know about this tragedy. Indeed, there is nothing undiscovered about the child deformities of Fallujah. Other correspondents – including my colleague Patrick Cockburn – have visited Fallujah to report on them. What is so shameful is that these deformities continue unmonitored. One Fallujah doctor, an obstetrician trained in Britain – she left only five months ago – who has purchased from her own sources for her private clinic a £79,000 scanning machine for prenatal detection of congenital abnormalities, gives me her name and asks why the Ministry of Health in Baghdad will not hold a full official investigation into the deformed babies of Fallujah.
More here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/26/the-hospital-of-horrors/
Speakers for the damaged and dead unite.
N’
From Crikey:
Sun misses a great ‘gotcha’
We’re not saying news of “British beauty” Rebecca Black being thrown into a Dubai jail “accused of having naked s-x in the back of a taxi” isn’t a great yarn. Or that today’s Sun front-page screamer isn’t a cracker:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/05/16/crikey-says-sun-misses-a-great-gotcha/
But we just thought news of another Rebecca (Rebekah) was a bit more interesting. As Paul Barry writes from London of Brooks’ dramatic charging overnight:
“How her old paper, The Sun, would have loved the story, had it not been one of theirs who may be heading for the slammer. How could they have resisted reprising the famous headline that greeted the sinking of the General Belgrano all those years ago?”
Gotcha, indeed.
———————
Who woulda thunk it?
N’
From Crikey’s Pure Poison:
Stephen Mayne made the case over a year ago in Crikey:
Why ACMA should force Lachlan Murdoch off News Corp board
Given that Lachlan Murdoch is now exerting clear influence over Ten Network Holdings as acting CEO and a substantial shareholder, why aren’t the regulators examining the question of his ongoing directorship of News Corporation?
…
Lachlan Murdoch personally owns 50% of DMG, owner of the Nova radio network which operates in all metropolitan markets and reaches 53% of the Australian population. So how can he also be acting CEO of Ten and a director of News Corp, the largest newspaper publisher in Australia with 70% of the market?
Now the international online activist group Avaaz.org has taken things a step further by lodging a formal complaint with ACMA. It will be instructive to see how this complaint about a member of Australia’s media elite is handled.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2012/05/16/will-acma-act-on-lachlan-murdoch/
AVAAZ PETITION HERE:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/australia_investigate_lachlan_murdoch/?cUcEAbb
Seems like father like son.
Incrementally building an empire.
C’mon Lachlan get real! This is our democracy too.
N’
Leveson inquiry: Jack Straw gives evidence – live
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2012/may/16/leveson-inquiry-jack-straw
From Leveson inquiry via Guardian link above:
10.54am: Straw denies that the discussions to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was influenced by Rupert Murdoch or his newspapers. “It would have been disgusting were it true,” he says.
Straw was foreign secretary at the time of the invasion. He is asked about the three telephone calls between Murdoch and Blair in the runup to war.
Straw says he was vaguely aware of them at the time, but emphasises the speed of events in those weeks.
“Frankly who Mr Blair was talking to on the telephone was neither here nor there, unless it was about getting support for the [EU] second resolution.”
He adds that it was certainly important to have newspapers onside, but that it was never part of his discussions around the war.
————
“Rupert & Tony probably just chatted about the EU sucking bigtime, the weather, food, ailments, babies…war just never came up…why would it?”
(sarcasm alert)
And they wonder why the people have lost trust:
From Leveson Inquiry via Guardian:
10.49am: Straw says that from 2007 to 2009 he and Rebekah Brooks “made arrangements” to sit together on the train from Oxfordshire to London after they realised they were regularly on the same journey. Straw was justice secretary and Brooks was editor of the Sun at the time.
“We would talk about what was in the papers. We’d gossip about personalities, and that sort of thing. We weren’t nattering the whole journey,” he says.
Straw stopped these journeys with Brooks in 2009.
————–
“Crikey! Imagine running into you here”…”let’s spend the trip together, gossing daily”
(sarcasm alert)
N’
Jonathan Holmes with a reality check on the Rebekah Brooks’ charges:
Ferguson’s report contained another nugget that only the more assiduous followers of the saga would already have come across. In 2002, while Rebekah Brooks was editor of the News of the World, the police reopened an investigation into the brutal murder, back in the 1980s, of a man who’d been the business partner of Jonathan Rees, one of the more thuggish private eyes employed by Fleet Street papers. Rees was the main suspect.
By 2002, Rees was serving a seven year sentence for conspiring to plant cocaine on an innocent woman and get her sent to prison, because she was involved in a custody battle with one of Rees’s clients.
Another major client of Jonathan Rees was the News of the World, and in the 1990s a certain Alex Marunchak, one of that newspaper’s most senior journalists, was running a business from Rees’s premises.
The policeman who was conducting the murder inquiry, and his wife, and their children, soon found themselves under surveillance. His wife – also a police officer – told Sarah Ferguson:
I saw a van at the end of my driveway parked up and what was I suspect a camera lens looking back … However hardened you are as a police officer, when you become part of the case and your children are involved, it’s hard to actually explain how frightening that is.
The detective got his colleagues to stop the van on the freeway. The driver turned out to be Alex Marunchak.
Called to Scotland Yard and accosted with these facts, the editor of The News of the World seemed untroubled. Sarah Ferguson reports:
By all accounts Rebekah Brooks offered no explanation. All she had to say was that Marunchak was a great reporter doing great work for the paper.
Not only did Alex Marunchak continue to work at a senior level for the News of the World, on his release from prison Jonathan Rees was again hired by the paper.
Just one example of the culture of impunity, the sense that the rules did not apply to them, that seems to have surrounded News International’s newspapers in those years. And the flip-side of that brazen lack of caution was the fear that they were able to instil in policemen, and politicians, and public officials.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-16/holmes-rebekah-brooks-not-for-humbling/4015174
The entire article is worth reading.
As Holmes aptly reminds:
She was the editor of The Sun when it was apparently shelling out many tens, and perhaps hundreds of thousands, of pounds to policemen, and army officers, and officials up and down the Whitehall hierarchy.
She was the CEO of News International for some of the years when it obstinately, and in the face of mountains of evidence already in its own possession, insisted that one rogue reporter had been engaged in a practice which, it now seems, was routine and widespread.
——————-
Indeed.
N’
N’
Murdoch is ‘evil’, former editor tells Leveson
Sir Harold Evans, editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981, described his former employer Rupert Murdoch as “evil incarnate” in his evidence yesterday to the Leveson Inquiry.
In 1981 a number of groups were vying to take over The Sunday Times but Mr Murdoch’s bid was favoured because “he was the man to take on the unions”, Sir Harold said. Sir Harold was involved in a management takeover bid and believed the Murdoch proposal would go before the monopolies commission but the deal went through in three days.
He told the inquiry that Mr Murdoch met former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ahead of the takeover, despite the businessman’s denials that talks took place. “There was a meeting on 4 January and Mrs Thatcher did a secret deal with Mr Murdoch,” he said. “It was ridiculous to suggest you can’t go to the monopolies commission for the most important newspaper takeover in British history,” he added. “In three days a newspaper merger went through and it went through on falsehood and false figures.”
Sir Harold feared Mr Murdoch’s arrival in England would have a deteriorating effect on tabloid journalism. The pair almost resorted to “fisticuffs” over a row about editorial content during a dinner at Sir Harold’s home.
Relations became even more strained as they clashed over the stance of the paper on Mrs Thatcher’s policies. “Mr Murdoch was constantly sending for my staff without telling me and telling them what the paper should be.”
Mr Murdoch told one journalist his leader columns were too long and insisted he should be “attacking the Russians more”.
Sir Harold said that eventually he resigned because he was “absolutely disgusted, dismayed and demoralised by living in a vindictive, punitive atmosphere”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/…/…-leveson-7763811.html
No surprises there.
N’
No Nas’, no surprises, it confirms what is already in front of us.
And they never will give up on world domination
“Rupert Murdoch’s News International titles — The Sun, Times and Sunday Times — could be spun off into a trust
The move, prompted by the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World, would allow Mr Murdoch’s media empire to restart its bid to take over broadcaster BSkyB. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/9276418/News-International-newspapers-could-be-spun-off-into-trust.html
Sounds as though the News International Board are about to do a James Hardie.
Sue, from your link,
The plans are in their infancy but News Corp is understood to be serious about ridding itself of assets it sees as fatally contaminated by the phone hacking scandal.
The rot begins and ends at the top with the lust for power.
Sue, from your link,
The trust would work along the lines of a proposal put forward last year for Sky News if BSkyB had been taken over by News Corp. A separate board would manage the business at arms’ length from News Corp, effectively creating a firewall between the two.
It is understood News Corp would consider providing backing for up to 10 years to fund the newspaper trust.
A joint venture with a media partner could involve a tie-up with a company such as German publisher Axel Springer. The final option would involve a direct sale for as much as £800m to £1bn. The timescale for any of the actions is understood to be three to five years.
This is a classic case of the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“News Corporation remains firmly committed to our publishing businesses, including News International, and any suggestion to the contrary is wholly inaccurate,” Rupert Murdoch, Chairman & chief executive of News Corporation, said. “Publishing is a core component of our future.”
Sue & Pip,
thnx for the info. Top work.
The Dark Empire is getting desperate.
They’ve always been sneaky…trying to avoid consequences…worm their way into more ownership and profits and influence.
N’
I shoulda put this here:
MAY 19, 2012 @ 10:50 AM
In the BRISBANE TIMES:
Hacking saga turns into a marathon
Ravi Somaiya
May 19, 2012
Ms Brooks, who will appear in court on June 13, will most likely not be the last to face prosecution, the police and prosecutors said.
There are three current police operations, Scotland Yard confirmed: Operation Weeting, which is examining illegal voicemail interceptions, currently employs 95 officers and staff members and has made 22 arrests; Operation Tuleta, which is looking into computer hacking, employs eight and has made three arrests; and Operation Elveden, which is exploring illegal payments by journalists to public officials, employs 29 and has made 28 arrests.
”It is difficult to give an end date,” said a police spokesman. ”We follow the evidence and it’s impossible to say where it will lead. It’s safe to say it will last years.” A police budget for all the investigations extends into 2015, and anticipates that the cost will reach £40 million ($64 million) in total.
Besides Ms Brooks, another closely watched figure is Andy Coulson, the former editor of News of the World who later became Mr Cameron’s director of communications.
Mr Coulson was arrested but there has been no decision on whether to charge him.
If it is proven that those in Mr Murdoch’s employ conspired to pay public officials to further business interests, experts say he could be at risk of sanctions in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Even a small fine would threaten to bring the scandal across the Atlantic, and increase political pressure on Mr Murdoch
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/hacking-saga-turns-into-a-marathon-20120518-1yvvp.html
N’
Graydon Carter on News Corp. in Vanity Fair’s New Rupert Murdoch eBook: “The Notion of ‘a New Low’ Is in Fact Bottomless”
by Vanity Fair 10:30 AM, MAY 18 2012
Just on the heels of former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks’s being charged by Scotland Yard for obstructing justice, Vanity Fair has released a new, updated e-book detailing the fall of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire…
Perhaps the central revelation of the phone-hacking scandal is that, when it come to News Corp., the notion of ‘a new low’ is in fact bottomless,” writes editor Graydon Carter in a new introduction. “No matter how the story ends in some technical or legal sense, Murdoch has been irreversibly reduced.
The influence he has wielded in Britain, whether through backroom threats or the public power of his newspapers, is effectively at an end. And despite all efforts to contain it, the scandal’s impact is being felt everywhere Murdoch does business.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2012/05/vanity-fair-rupvanity-fair-rupert-murdoch-ebook-the-master-mogul-of-fleet-street
N’
Nas’, thanks for the links.
Despite the obvious threats of an eager US to collar him, Murdoch will fight to the death to win.
“And despite all efforts to contain it, the scandal’s impact is being felt everywhere Murdoch does business.”
Except in Australia it seems, where Ltd News still carries on deceiving,lying and exaggeratting without letup whilst constantly (and successfully) averring it is not News Corp.
Here’s a timeline:
en.wikipedia.org/…/Timeline_of_the_News_Corporation_scandal
Another:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/…/phone-hacking-what-happened-when
N’
Again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_News_Corporation_scandal
Mobius, this little story really annoyed me
The powerful spin of Abbott’s wrecking ball May 19, 2012
Opinion
Lenore Taylor
“Two senior journalists now working for The Sunday Times arranged for an MP investigating the hacking scandal to be put under surveillance, The Independent can reveal today.
news editor James Mellor agreed that Tom Watson be tailed for days in the mistaken belief he was having an affair with a female politician.
News International later described the surveillance as “inappropriate”. However, it kept the men on when the News of the World closed and they are now employed at The Sunday Times, Mr Mahmood as investigative reporter and Mr Mellor as deputy news editor. News International, which says it has “zero tolerance” of wrongdoing, declined to say if either had been disciplined.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/journalists-who-stalked-hacking-mp-still-employed-by-murdoch-7771337.html
news editor James Mellor agreed that Tom Watson be tailed for days in the mistaken belief he was having an affair with a female politician.
Sue,
what a load of bollocks eh?
News International is a criminal organisation.
It looks after its crims.
Tries to take down its enemies in one way or another.
N’
The UK media and political system is starting to look like a joke…at the expense of the people…and justice…and a fair-go for the many.
How conned the UK people have been…spat on as tho the aristocracy still ran the place…treated like mugs…taken for one big ride:
Boris Johnson’s former aide takes PR job with News International
Guto Harri intends to use the post to ‘combat hysteria’, but move may reignite claims of Murdoch-Tory links
Hélène Mulholland
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 May 2012
A key former aide to Boris Johnson, the London mayor, has been appointed as head of News International’s communications team to help the beleaguered media company restore its reputation in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.
The decision to appoint Guto Harri, a former BBC political correspondent who had served as Johnson’s director of external affairs for four years until less than two weeks ago and was widely seen as the Tory mayor’s most trusted adviser, will surprise many at a time when the close relationship between senior Tories and News Corporation has become a source of embarrassment for David Cameron.
Harri confirmed that he had turned down offers from a “luxury manufacturing company and a large public affairs firm” in favour of working for News International, a company he praised as delivering “first class journalism” and whose staff, he believes, have been unfairly tarnished because of a “few rotten apples”.
Harri, a Welsh speaker born in Cardiff, said he was “totally reconciled” that his move to News International, after four years with Johnson, would be seen in the media as “part of an irresistible geometrical pattern” between the Conservatives and News International.
Harri’s appointment at News International comes five years after he narrowly missed out on becoming David Cameron’s director of communications when the then Tory opposition leader opted to give the job to Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World. Coulson quit the Downing Street post last year amid pressure about phone hacking at the newspaper on his watch.
AND:
Speaking just before flying to New York on Sunday evening for a two-day visit to company headquarters, Harri dismissed the findings of the Commons culture and media select committee, which concluded this month that Rupert Murdoch was “not fit to run an international company”, as a “political point-scoring exercise” by the Labour members on the committee.
Harri, who is expected to meet Murdoch during his trip, said: “If he’s not fit to run a company than I’m sure the board or the shareholders would have something to say about that, and they didn’t. Share prices went up that week and the board gave its unanimous support for him.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/20/boris-johnson-aide-news-international
—————–
An apologist for Rupert…
an appropriate start for Harri…
crawling.
With a smug, self-satisfied look.
I recall the Blairites having the same approach…the same look. And Coulson. And Rebekah. And…
N’
LET’S PARTY ‘TIL WE DROP:
Parties hosted by News Corp. and the family of Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch were considered “a great treat” for U.K. politicians, former Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said today.
“If you ask anybody, if they’re honest, would they like to go to a great party, the answer is yes, but importantly, is this my only chance to have a conversation with the prime minister?” Jowell told the inquiry today in London. “It is a great treat, but it doesn’t actually impinge on the way we make decisions.”
Elisabeth’s Wedding
Jowell was responsible for overseeing a change in media- ownership rules, conducted while Tony Blair was prime minister, which made it possible for companies like News Corp. to expand. She said she declined an invitation to the wedding of Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, while the review was under way.
The current culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is under investigation by a parliamentary watchdog over meetings with media companies. E-mails produced as evidence at the Leveson inquiry showed conversations between a former Hunt aide and a News Corp. lobbyist that shared confidential information on a review of the company’s attempt to purchase British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc. (BSY)
The aide, Adam Smith, and the lobbyist, Fred Michel, are scheduled to testify at the inquiry later this week.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-21/murdoch-parties-were-great-treat-for-politicians-jowell-says
————–
Comforting to know our pollies and media across the world are being entertained so well…being given a chance to let their hair down…
let their integrity down…
let the public down.
WHO LET THE FOX OUT?
N’
BTW,
it was good and courageous men like Tom Watson wot won us the war against the NAZIs.
Not crawlers…and those cowered in the corner.
N’
Doesn’t surprise me:
Murdoch asked Blair to call me off, says MP
Karen Kissane
May 23, 2012
LONDON: The Labour MP Tom Watson last night told the Leveson Inquiry he had heard Rupert Murdoch had asked Tony Blair to ”call him [Watson] off” the phone-hacking inquiry.
Mr Watson said he could remember perfectly a phone call giving him the news in late 2010 or early last year from the former prime minister Gordon Brown. ”It’s not something a backbench MP would forget easily,” he said.
Both Mr Murdoch and Mr Blair have previously denied such a call and Mr Brown has said he cannot remember it. But Mr Watson said there were concerns ”this committee was being more troublesome than they thought”…
Mr Watson said he was subjected to surveillance on behalf of the now-closed News of the World. He told the inquiry last night that a former reporter at the paper, Neville Thurlbeck, told him the surveillance was set up to find material to fuel ”an alleged conspiracy to blackmail members of the committee”.
He said a former News of the World reporter, Mazher Mahmood, commissioned a private investigator to trail Mr Watson in the false belief that Mr Watson was having an affair.
Mr Watson said he had been contacted by about a dozen MPs who had told him of their ”sense of fear” and experiences of intimidation by tabloid newspapers.
He said the MPs talked mainly of News International papers and came from ”both sides of the house, all the main parties … [and] the minor parties as well”.
In other developments last night, MPs were due to debate whether three News International executives should be referred to the privileges and standards watchdog of the House of Commons for allegedly misleading Parliament.
(with The Guardian)
http://www.smh.com.au/world/murdoch-asked-blair-to-call-me-off-says-mp-20120522-1z3gr.html
Sounds like something you’d expect in the former East Germany…or Soviet Union. The UK?
N’
LOL…this funny coming from a top executive in the Stasi-like News Corporation:
Fox News Chief Roger Ailes: Jon Stewart Told Me ‘He’s A Socialist,’ ‘Wouldn’t Do Well Without Fox’
Posted: 05/22/2012
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/22/roger-ailes-jon-stewart-ohio-unversity_n_1535866.html
——–
Beware of Jon Stewart…he might be a Socialist hacking your mobile phone messages…hiring men to follow you…get some dirt on you.
BWAHAHA…
N’
Thanks Gerrym but I’m not really into shopping on line. 🙄
From the Independent:
Thanks again for the tweets. I missed parliament today; it sound like the great Abbott unhinging
Whoops, was watching tele whilst posting and didn’t copy properly…
Okay, this from The Independent:
Speaking in a debate before the referral – agreed by MPs without a vote – the committee’s chairman John Whittingdale, called for the misleading of a parliamentary committee to “bear profound consequences”.
Mr Bryant, a former member of the committee, said he believed the case would prove to be “one of the most flagrant examples of a contempt of Parliament in history”.
He told MPs: “It is not just that it was one person at one time, it was not just that it was one organisation for a brief period of time, it’s that a whole series of people systematically, repeatedly lied so as to protect themselves, to protect their commercial interests and to try and make sure they didn’t end up going to prison.”
Messrs Myler, Crone and Hinton deny misleading the committee.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rupert-murdoch-executives-face-sanctions-over-hacking-lies-7778902.html
N’
Now for a laugh
News of the World were hacking their own people
Andy Coulson – editor News of the World
Ian Kirby – political editor News of the world
Jon Craig – chief political editor Sky news
and how did that happen, well they all left messages for a Cabinet Minister, Clarke and his Assistant, Pawlby
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/23/andy-coulson-voicemails-charles-clarke-hacked
Hacking phone calls to Cabinet Ministers, now you would think that could be a problem
Sue,
how very Stasi of them.
N’
nasking
i hope all murdoch employees, get the heebie jeebies
Hi Nasking. Thanks for your comment re CT and KJ, as well as your expression of disapproval re the saboteur. Have dealt with it in Miglo’s absence. So don’t be a stranger there any more.
I have to be careful not to get caught up in the Murdoch thread! Popped over seeing your gravatar. But it’s given me an excuse to exhume this from dead files! Would that the man himself had expired! I fear we will have him with us for another couple of decades!
News Ltd Defends Its Proprietor
What’s this talk of media bias?
We at News are honest, pious,
We meet our readership’s desires.
Yes, some are climate change deniers.
That’s why Greenies, fans of Gaia’s,
Sneer as if we were pariahs!
Pacifists who promote ceasefires
Say we collude with arms suppliers.
We can always claim ‘ultra vires’
If a politician enquires
Into why this or that transpires.
Anyway they’re just leftie liars.
We just report, as Rupert requires.
‘Cos we know he’s the man who hires
Only journos whom he admires.
We also know of those he fires
On each new paper he acquires.
Don’t hope for this to change when he expires.
We will survive. Just look how well he ‘sires’
And know, this man we’ve helped build these empires
Plans to be the first whom not even death retires.
So much was revealed at Leveson yesterday. It is so shocking, that our media that is not Murdoch aligned (that is going to be hard to find) should now take stock of the way the “sleaze of wapping”, the worst of the UK Murdoch model, is now dominant in Australia.
Our politicians should study the evidence and then look at themselves and truthfully consider how the same is happening here.
For starter have a look at the editorial in the Guardian
Jeremy Hunt – Minister for Murdoch
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/24/jeremy-hunt-minister-murdoch-editorial
From the UK:
In a day of new revelations at the Leveson Inquiry, which heard evidence from both Mr Hunt’s special adviser Adam Smith and the News Corp lobbyist Fréd Michel, it emerged that:
* Mr Hunt may have misled Parliament over a statement he made claiming he had had no contact with Mr Michel other than official meetings. Messages released by the inquiry revealed he had texted him on at least three occasions, including one which read: “When consultation over we can have coffee like the old days.”
* More than 1,000 text messages were exchanged between News Corp and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport during the bid process, including 257 from Mr Smith to Mr Michel.
* Mr Michel admitted Mr Smith had given him regular updates on the “timings” and “process” of the bid, but said this did not amount to a “running commentary” of the Government’s thinking.
But the most damaging revelation was the emergence of the memo from Mr Hunt to the Prime Minister on 19 November 2010, in which he made clear his support for the Murdoch empire’s ambition to take full control of BSkyB.
It also suggests Mr Hunt was aware News Corp was plotting a “Wapping mark 2” by uniting UK print, internet and TV interests – potentially fatally undermining its competitors. In it he wrote: “Essentially what James Murdoch wants to do is to repeat what his father did with the move to Wapping and create the world’s first multiplatform media operator available from paper to web to TV to iPhone to iPad.”
He added: “It would be totally wrong to cave into the Mark Thompson [BBC Director General]/Channel 4/Guardian line that this represents a substantial change of control given that we all know Sky is controlled by News Corp now anyway.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-knew-hunt-would-back-bskyb-bid-7786255.html
The rot in the floorboards of UK society increasingly exposed.
When do we begin here?
N’
Cheers Patricia.
Sue, thnx for the link…from it:
There are three obvious questions that flow from this new evidence. The first – for Mr Hunt – is why he so recklessly defied the advice of his officials to intervene with Downing Street over a matter in which he not only had no role, but had been positively warned to stay clear of. The paperwork turned over to Leveson clearly shows Hunt’s bias towards the bid before he assumed responsibility for it. He showed virtually no interest in the counter-arguments once he was running the process and will have to explain the voluminous insider back-channel contacts between his office and News Corp.
News Corp must answer questions about the “son of Wapping” plan that has now been revealed by the memo. Throughout the bid its executives denied any plans to bundle together its newspapers, digital and TV offerings, companies, platforms and content. Sometimes it suited News Corp to claim that Sky was an entirely separate company. At others the argument was reversed (and duly adopted by Mr Hunt): Sky was controlled by News Corp, anyway, so there was no real proposed change of control. But it now seems apparent that there was, indeed, a well-advanced plan to bring the Murdoch platforms and content into one unity. Leveson should ask to see those plans.
Finally, there are ever-more delicate questions for Mr Cameron. Why, knowing that Mr Hunt was privately lobbying on behalf of the bid, did he think it was appropriate to appoint him to run it, given that Mr Cable – with different sympathies – had just been forced to step down over the appearance of partiality? And what is he going to do about Mr Hunt, who is due to give evidence to the inquiry next week? Mr Hunt has been shown to have defied his officials’ advice and to have run the bid (under the ministerial code he has to take responsibility for Mr Smith) against a background of clandestine contacts having made his own position clear in advance. Had it not been for the Leveson inquiry we would have been kept in the dark about what went on. We are, daily, getting a fuller picture, and it is not an edifying one.
——————-
Seems to me that the top Tories were willing to contribute to a plan that would eventually wipe out media diversity…and create a monopoly.
Why would pro-business politicians be willing to support anti-competitive behaviour?
N’
Pushy bloke this James Murdoch:
James Murdoch ‘furious’ over plans to block BSkyB takeover bid, Leveson inquiry told
Karen Kissane
May 25, 2012 – 5:55AM
The Conservative minister overseeing the Murdoch bid to take over satellite broadcaster BSkyB warned the Prime Minister that James Murdoch was furious over the government’s handling of it and “if we block it, our media sector will suffer for years”, the Leveson inquiry heard last night.
Secretary of state and minister for media Jeremy Hunt wrote a memo to Prime Minister David Cameron in November 2010 in which he said it would be wrong to “cave in” to objections that the takeover would give one media outlet too much power.
He warned that James Murdoch was “pretty furious” that another minister, Liberal Democrat Vince Cable, had referred the bid to media regulator Ofcom for scrutiny.
“He doesn’t think he will get a fair hearing from Ofcom,” Mr Hunt wrote. “I am privately concerned about this because News Corp are very litigious and we could end up in the wrong place in terms of media policy…”
http://www.smh.com.au/…/…iry-told-20120525-1z8bb.html
A PATTERN OF BEHAVIOUR?:
The day James and Rebekah revealed the arrogant Murdoch way of business
There was a telling lack of judgment on display when James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks burst into the Independent to berate me
http://www.guardian.co.uk/…/james-murdoch-rebekah-brooks-simon-kelner-independen
AND:
Mark Scott responds to Murdoch’s attack on public broadcasting
In a frontal attack on public service broadcasting James Murdoch has described the BBC as a threat not only to independent news but also to innovation and the growth of creative industries. Murdoch said that the existence of a government funded broadcaster was “a threat to pluralism”.
friendsoftheabc.org/mark-scott-responds-to-murdochs-attack-on-public-broadcasting
AND:
On 28 August 2009, Murdoch delivered the MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, in which he attacked the BBC and UK media regulator Ofcom calling the BBC’s expansion “chilling” and “In this all-media marketplace, the expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision, which are so important for our democracy.”
The BBC chairman, Sir Michael Lyons officially responded, “We have to be careful not to reduce the whole of broadcasting to some simple economic transactions. The BBC’s public purposes stress the importance of the well-tested principles of educating and informing, and an impartial contribution to debate in the UK.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Murdoch
————–
Bit of a hypocrite I reckon. Considering his plans to expand the Murdoch empire.
Not big enuff obviously:
List of assets owned by News Corporation
en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_assets_owned_by_News_Corporation
Hmmm…
N’
Nasking
If only our msm would pay attention to the depth of corruption of the evil Murdoch empire in the uk, they may actually realise what they are promoting for Australia. When I read about Hunt possibly misleading the parliament, i thought of the paul hogan line
“now that’s what i call a “……….. misleading of parliament. Abbott and the people who constantly praise him should be ashamed.
There were so many articles written just on the 2 leveson witnesses last night, i felt that even the media was surprised at the depth of infiltration by murdoch into the governance of the uk.
Governments around the world, should re-evaluate all and any contacts with News Ltd. and remove the “ministers and potential ministers for murdoch” out of any areas of influence.
Governments around the world, should re-evaluate all and any contacts with News Ltd. and remove the “ministers and potential ministers for murdoch” out of any areas of influence.
Sue,
agree.
They should be treated like the mafia.
N’
Nasking
a great parallel, the mafia considering the new legisaltion the govt will introduce for who can work on our borders.
Murdoch has shown the Brits the level of control he demands, and for what…….money and power. So the parallel again who and how much power should one individual family hold.
Unfortunately, Sue they realise only too well, but they don’t give a toss. They’ve completely bought into the corruption, just like the Liars Party.
Leveson Inquiry next week
Monday all day Tony Blair
Tuesday Michael Gove and Theresa May
Wednesday Ken Clarke and Vince Cable
Thursday all day Jeremy Hunt
Click to access Witness-List-28-31-May-2012.pdf
Tom Watson: Blair and Brown should come clean over the News of the World
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown should come clean about their relationship with executives at the News of the World, claims Tom Watson, the deputy chairman of the Labour Party and leading phone hacking campaigner.
The outspoken member of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, which investigated the scandal, said that the former Prime Ministers should “take responsibility” for any contact they had with the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks.
He said that Blair and Brown should reveal all communications they had with the defunct paper and release all their private emails so that he can clear the air.
The MP for West Bromwich East made the comments in an interview published in the June edition of the monthly magazine Prospect.
He said: “Gordon Brown can speak for himself but I very clearly feel that he should take responsibility for the relationship, just like Tony Blair and David Cameron.”
He went on to call for Brown and Blair to “reveal all contact, including private emails” to clear the air.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/9284784/Tom-Watson-Blair-and-Brown-should-come-clean-over-the-News-of-the-World.html
——————–
I reckon Kevin Rudd and others like Bill Shorten and Tony Abbott should too…in regard to their relationship with Murdoch and News Ltd.
Same goes for unionists.
Any Laborite and unionist who does not is a traitor to their cause…and letting the Australian people down.
N’
David Cameron defends Jeremy Hunt’s handling of BSkyB bid
Prime minister says culture secretary acted impartially after he took over responsibility for decision
Andrew Sparrow, political correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 May 2012 12.01 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/25/david-cameron-jeremy-hunt-bskyb?CMP=twt_fd
Nas’ @9.30pm, fat chance, I’m afraid.
Pip @10.00pm, you scratch my back………?
At Poll Bludger, Susan Winstanley suggest buying this weekend’s Australian “as a keeper”. I second that. If there’s anything other than an anti whatever Murdoch & his paper don’t like rant in there, it’s hard to find. Sort of like having a copy of the Voelkischer Beobachter to show the young ‘uns in years to come.
Groan.
Nothing like having political leaders terrified of the media. Cowering.
Where are the FDRs and Harold L. Ickes of this world?
———-
Blair ‘chose not to fight UK press’
May 28, 2012 – 8:39PM
Former British prime minister Tony Blair says he made a strategic decision not to take on the power of the media during his time in office.
Testifying at a press ethics inquiry on Monday, Blair, who was prime minister between 1997 and 2007, said he feared the battle would be so immense that it would prevent his Labour government from getting anything else done.
The 59-year-old was giving evidence at the Leveson inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press as it turned its radar on the links between politicians and the media.
Blair was to be asked about his close relationship with Rupert Murdoch through which he received the backing of the influential Sun tabloid.
The former prime minister, who is godfather to one of the media mogul’s children, said it was inevitable that top politicians and senior media executives would have a close interaction, but it was important to stop the relationship from becoming unhealthy.
Blair said the biggest problem in the British press was the blurred lines between news and comment in some papers, whereby reporting stopped becoming straightforward journalism and instead became an “instrument of political power”.
“You certainly do fear the power being directed at you,” Blair told the inquiry.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/blair-chose-not-to-fight-uk-press-20120528-1zf5l.html
N’…Shakes his head.
And hence the Abbott puppet having its strings pulled by the Murdoch and other right wing media here. He will be their perfect clueless acquiescing toy for as long as he’s in power and they are salivating at the thought of it so are attempting to engineer an election sooner rather than later.
And will Australia be the better for it? Of course not, it will be terrible.
Too true Mobius, too true.
And the woman PM who stands up to the Murdoch empire and does the hard yards getting policy after policy thru gets little praise from the electorate…
Plus ce change…
N’
Blair on ABC24 Talking about crossing the line.
Tom Watson MP
Response to Tony Blair’s comments at Leveson
May 28th, 2012
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2012/05/response-to-tony-blairs-comments-at-leveson
Pip, I hope all goes well with J’s operation. Please pass on our best wishes.
From Nasking’s link which needs to be repeated often, as we have seen the evidence of what happens when a Prime Minister doesn’t follow Rupert’s rules…..
a “huge and sustained attack”.
Blair feels power of Murdoch press
May 28, 2012 – 10:24PM
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/blair-feels-power-of-murdoch-press-20120528-1zf5l.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Thanks Migs, she’s finally gone to bed with the grand plan to get up at 6am to have some breakfast because she doesn’t have to start fasting till 6.30am.
She doesn’t know what time she goes in to surgery and last time it was late afternoon and she’d been fasting all day…. not popular in our household – we like our tucker!1
Pip, hope everything goes OK.
Damn. Now I’m hungry.
I don’t have to fast.
Thanks Cu, I passed on your best wishes. 🙂
Thanks Migs, I passed on your good wishes too. 🙂
A joker on Twitter referred to the Newspoll result as a “Thommo bounce” 😆
Pip. it is hard to read what is going on. I expected Thomson to peter out after today.
I hope it is not a lull before the storm. Even Tweed has disappeared. Maybe their gloating has tired them out.
Pip, tell J that from the moment she starts fasting I myself will be settling into a feeding frenzy. I will not be ridden with guilt. I eat only to torture her.
That will come as no surprise to her, she has a very clear understanding of
Port supporters !!
I just told her what you said and i can’t repeat what she said… I’m a lady !!
Cu, I haven’t been following much today, but somewhere I heard something about Abetz… I’m hoping he slipped on a banana skin!
2 Party Preferred: ALP 46 (+1) L/NP 54 (-1)
Typical choice of photo by The Australian…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/newspoll-shows-julia-gillard-edging-tony-abbott-as-preferred-pm/story-fn59niix-1226370575432
Talking about crossing the line.
I wonder if any journo there was dumb enough to ask ‘what line is that?’ Or is it just when Gillard says it, they act all oblivious?
Oddly, Pip. I didn’t mind that picture, leggy though it was. I think the faces said it all. Abbott is seriously worried and Julia is not. The story content was astonishingly straight for the Oz. Could it be they’ve been told to get real, come to terms with the fact that even after doing their worst the PM is still there and her government is showing the world how to run an economy?
Blair, now a Middle East peace envoy, said he feared the battle would be so immense that it would prevent his Labour government from getting anything else done.
Pip,
interesting that Blair was worried that a battle with the press would prevent him from getting anything else done…
but he didn’t mind joining the battle for Iraq that his mate Murdoch pushed for…regardless of sexed-up evidence…regardless of the amount of soldiers and Iraqis killed…regardless of all those Brit people protesting in the streets…regardless of ministers attacking him and resigning…regardless of the cost to the budget…
anyone else see an inconsistency here?
N’
In any fair political contest with a balanced media, Abbott and the Coalition would be flopping around way behind in any polls and with the people.
That he and the opposition need the assistance of a rabid right wing media (including the ABC) constantly beating the government and Gillard, along with incessantly wheeling out lies, deceits and exaggerations in a stream of negativity the likes of which this country has never seen, says a lot about just how infelicitous and incompetent the party is, exemplifying their unfitness to rule in any capacity.
Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson detained on perjury charges
http://local.stv.tv/glasgow/103888-former-news-of-the-world-editor-andy-coulson-arrested-on-perjury-charges/
In our dreams ME !
Can you imagine it..an online poll:
Given Tony Abbott’s lack of policies and ineffectiveness as LOTO will you still vote for him to be Prime Minister?
And that’s just a very mild one. But that’s exactly the sort of polling which has been a consistent feature of all msm aimed at the Labor government.
“News International could be facing more than 500 civil claims for damages from alleged victims of News of the World phone hacking”
“high court in London on Friday, Mr Justice Vos also ordered News International to “preserve” the company iPhones of two senior executives and their email contents
access to the iPhone emails is related to allegations of concealment over phone hacking”
“Friday’s order made by Vos adds a fresh layer of intrigue to the phone-hacking saga as iPhones were not available in the UK until November 2007, nine months after News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire was jailed for phone hacking.
“There is evidence suggesting that senior executives at News International which have company iPhones which were heavily used during the period. Our primary concern is the preservation of these iPhones and the email accounts that relate to them,” David Sherborne, counsel for phone-hacking victims, told a case management conference on Friday.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/01/phone-hacking-news-international-500-claims
Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has lambasted Rupert Murdoch before Britain’s media ethics inquiry, claiming the media mogul lied under oath to the inquiry and saying a Murdoch tabloid had undermined the war effort in Afghanistan.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/rupert-murdoch-lied-under-oath-to-inquiry-says-gordon-brown-20120612-206k4.html#ixzz1xWmTtqSb
It just keeps on getting better and better (or worst and worst, depending on how you look at these things)
Better and better in my books 😉
ltdnews continues to assiduously limit the news on this story.
This page will close shortly and we can continue our Murdoch discussion in the Media Watch pages.
This has been a good topic though and I’ve enjoyed reading the great comments. I’m sure I’ll continue to read great comments on Murdoch in our media pages. 🙂
I wonder if there are any diary entries in Australia, which would note phone calls from Murdoch to Howard. Afterall Howard committed Australia to that war before he took it to the parliament and the people.
“Campbell wrote that on 11 March 2003, a week before the Commons vote in which MPs voted to deploy British troops to Iraq, Murdoch intervened to try to persuade Blair to move more quickly towards war. “[Tony Blair] took a call from Murdoch who was pressing on timings, saying how News International would support us, etc,” Campbell wrote. “Both TB and I felt it was prompted by Washington, and another example of their over-crude diplomacy. Murdoch was pushing all the Republican buttons, how the longer we waited the harder it got.” The following day, 12 March, he wrote: “TB felt the Murdoch call was odd, not very clever.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/15/rupert-murdoch-tony-blair-iraq-alastair-campbell
Sue, another example of Rupert running interference in serious political matters.
What’s Rupert’s Game In Scotland?
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/whats-ruperts-game-in-scotland/151/
This may get a new life
“Glenn Mulcaire ordered to reveal who gave phone-hacking order
Mulcaire must now pass potentially incriminating details – including who at the News of the World allegedly instructed him to hack phones, the journalists he is alleged to have passed intercepted messages to, and how victims were allegedly targeted”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/04/glenn-mulcaire-ordered-reveal-phone-hacking
More Murdoch, this time across the Atlantic
“The editor of the New York Post, Col Allan, may be forced to undergo a courtroom cross examination about his conversations with Rupert Murdoch after a judge ruled that he could not invoke editorial privilege to avoid answering questions.
Sandra Guzman, who claims she suffered from discrimination and harassment before she was fired in September 2009.
Part of her case concerns the Post’s publication of a cartoon in February 2009 that appeared to liken President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee.
Guzman, who is black and Puerto Rican, objected to the cartoon and sent an internal email of complaint that was leaked to outside blogs.
The cartoon also stimulated a public outcry about it being racist and prompted Murdoch to make a formal apology.
Guzman wants to know what Allan said to Murdoch about that apology. Did he tell Murdoch he disagreed with the decision to apologise? What did Murdoch say to Allan?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/jul/04/new-york-post-rupert-murdoch