News Corp. News Corp Shuts News of the World Amid Hacking Furor

[Winehole23]

News Corp. Shuts News of the World Amid Hacking Furor

Jul. 7 2011 - 12:10 pm


By JEFF BERCOVICI
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jeffbercovici/files/2011/07/300px-Newsoftheworld.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newsoftheworld.jpg)



Rupert Murdoch (http://www.forbes.com/profile/rupert-murdoch)‘s furious critics are getting a sacrificial offering, but not the one they’ve been demanding. Facing calls for the firing of Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News Corp (http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/CIAtAGlance.jsp?tkr=nwsa&tab=searchtabquotesdark).’s UK newspaper division, Murdoch has instead elected to shut down News of the World (http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/News-Of-The-World-This-Sunday-Last-Ever-Issue/Article/201107116026230?lpos=UK_News_Top_Stories_Header_0&lid=ARTICLE_16026230_News_Of_The_World%3A_This_Sun day_Last_Ever_Issue), the Sunday tabloid whose practice of obtaining information through illegal cell phone hacks is at the center of a rapidly-spiraling scandal with vast implications for the British press, and even the British government.


The last issue of News of the World will appear Sunday, announced James Murdoch, Rupert’s son and heir apparent, and chairman of News International.Any advertising revenues the final issue generates will be donated to charity. That amount is not likely to be much: Major marketers have been pulling their advertising from the paper in droves (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14059572) in an attempt to distance themselves from the scandal.


News of the World was founded in 1843; Murdoch acquired it in 1969. With a circulation of 2.6 million, it’s News Corp.’s most profitable U.K. paper (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/richardfletcher/8619220/Is-it-time-for-Rupert-Murdoch-to-sell-the-News-of-the-World.html), according to the Telegraph. But Michael White, an assistant editor for the Guardian — the paper whose reporting has been keeping the hacking story in public view — believes the company can hold onto all those profits (http://twitter.com/#%21/MichaelWhite/status/88996968931672064) and even reduce costs in the same stroke by transitioning NotW’s readership to a new, Sunday edition of the Sun.


Even so, scrapping NotW is a sure sign the Murdochs are fearful the continuing stream of hacking revelations is on the verge of derailing their takeover of British Sky Broadcasting Group. Although Prime Minister David Cameron has said the two issues are separate, Jeremy Hunt, the government secretary overseeing the regulatory approval process, has indicated that it may be necessary to postpone its conclusion (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303544604576429790509155806.html). Meanwhile, Ofcom, a separate regulatory agency, has made noises about revoking News Corp.’s broadcasting license in light of the pattern of wrongdoing.
http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffbercovici/2011/07/07/news-corp-shuts-news-of-the-world-amid-hacking-furor/

[RandomGuy]

In case anybody missed it, here are a couple of the things that the newspapers investigators have done:

Bribed police for information. (Illegal)
Hacked into the voicemail on a cell phone of a missing 12 year old, found dead shortly thereafter to get the anguished calls of the relatives.
Hacked into the voicemail of the victims of the bombings a few years ago for similar reasons.
Hacked into the cell phones of dead soldiers in Afghanistan, thumbing through address books and calling relatives' unlisted numbers.

Among other things.

I am a bit shocked that Murdoch shut down the paper. He always seemed like a total scumbag, and axing the paper seemed somewhat decent.

Of course, all the innocent people at the paper now are out of a job in the middle of the worst austerity measures in over a generation in Britain. I guess he gets a slight upgrade from total scumbag to mere asshole.

[Th'Pusher]

Murdoch should fire Roger Ailes while he is cleaning house.

[boutons_deux]

Surprising that Murdoch caved like an Obama, but good riddance to absolute rubbish (UK's top-selling "newspaper").

[Winehole23]

And you said there was no justice in the world.

[Winehole23]

Nor anything influenced by ethics and morality.

[Spurminator]

The only News of the World worth a shit...

http://www.queen-world.com/discos/news.jpg

[boutons_deux]

institutional UK "justice" will probably "settle" with Murdoch, since this debacle is far from over.

Murdoch wants BskyB, so he sacrifices NOTW.

Fox Repug Network is the same garbage as NOTW. Roger Ailes got his lie-and-slander career going under Repug Dickhead Nixon, a perfect indictment of both men.

[SnakeBoy]

Dammit! I guess I'm not getting my free Hannah Montana sticker now.

[xeromass]

Hacked into the voicemail on a cell phone of a missing 12 year old, found dead shortly thereafter to get the anguished calls of the relatives.They also erased some of those messages to make place for more anguished calls and in process made family believe that the girl is still alive. Possibly also tampering with investigation.


I am a bit shocked that Murdoch did that. He always seemed like a total scumbag, and axing the paper seemed somewhat decent.I might be a cynical bastard but I think that this canceling the newspaper deal will in the end show him as an even bigger scumbag. There is the whole takeover thing, in general it would be best to quiet down the affair as soon as possible and also - can victims now possibly sue Newscorp directly or are they screwed?

So why not shut down the paper, add a Sunday edition to some other property of his and show a middle finger to everyone. Sly move, easy way out.

[RandomGuy]

They also erased some of those messages to make place for more anguished calls and in process made family believe that the girl is still alive. Possibly also tampering with investigation.

I might be a cynical bastard but I think that this canceling the newspaper deal will in the end show him as an even bigger scumbag. There is the whole takeover thing, in general it would be best to quiet down the affair as soon as possible and also - can victims now possibly sue Newscorp directly or are they screwed?

So why not shut down the paper, add a Sunday edition to some other property of his and show a middle finger to everyone. Sly move, easy way out.

I think that is the ultimate concern for Murdoch. Given his past indifference to ethics and fairness, I don't think it too far of a cynical stretch to say that the primary motive for the shutdown was fiscal. He said as much in its statement, i.e. the paper had become untenable.

Intrepreting the shutdown as indicative of some crisis of conscience on the part of Murdoch is not realistic, IMO.

[boutons_deux]

"Murdoch" and "conscience" on the same page? GMAFB

[boutons_deux]

Police suspect a Murdoch executive deleted ‘millions of emails’

London police are investigating the possibility that an executive working for Rupert Murdoch's News International deleted "millions of emails" in an attempt to thwart a phone hacking probe, reports said Friday.

On two separate occasions, a senior executive is thought to have erased "massive quantities" of messages, according to The Guardian.

One of the massive deletions may have happened in January, just as police were launching "Operation Weeting" to look into charges that reporters at News of the World hacked voicemails.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/08/police-suspect-a-murdoch-executive-deleted-millions-of-emails/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

Murdoch Named PATRIOT Act Architect to Mop Up Paper's Eavesdropping Scandal; 'News of the World' to Close

Now the scandal is boomeranging back to New York, engulfing the top executive at the largest-circulation newspaper in the United States, the Wall Street Journal.

To clean up some of the mess, Murdoch has called upon the talents of former Bush administration Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh, whose views on privacy are enshrined in the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, and Joel Klein, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's union-bashing former schools chief, known for his phony claims of test-score gains.

But here in the U.S., an unseemly tale is unfolding about the steady unraveling of ethics at the Wall Street Journal since Murdoch's purchase of the paper and the appointment of Les Hinton as its CEO.

Coverup by Wall Street Journal Chief?

In January 2007, during an earlier blip of the News of the World hacking scandal, Hinton, then executive chairman of Murdoch's News International operation, assured British lawmakers that he had conducted a thorough investigation of the scandal and determined that only Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter assigned to cover the royal family, was involved.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/151552

====

I place News Corp as corrupt and evil as Monsanto and BigPharma.

[boutons_deux]

Dedicated with great affection to all of our ST Fox Repugs Propaganda network lovers:

Murdoch's American Sins: Less Sensational, But More Dangerous

In the U.S. of A., it's a different story, and it cannot be understated. Here, Murdoch's sins were less sensational -- but more important, arguably a matter of life and death on some stories. With his most audacious move, the invention of the Fox News Channel, Murdoch and his minions created a vortex of misinformation and emotion draped in an American flag that changed a nation's politics for the worse. That affects a lot more people than phone hacking, no matter how heartless that was.

Murdoch had help from brilliant, cynical aides on both sides of the pond. In England, it was the massively ethically challenged, wild-eyed redhead Rebekah Brooks; in America, it is the frumpy and grumpy Roger Ailes, the only man to run the Fox News Channel since it was launched in the mid-1990s. As recent documents have shown, Ailes -- who learned the American conservative politics of middle-class resentment at the foot of the master, Richard Nixon -- was long involved in a scheme for a conservative TV counterweight to the so-called "liberal media." But it took the arrival of Murdoch years later to execute the plan with the vision that a conservative cable news network could make millions in profits while wielding influence on a scale that a "Headless Body in Topless Bar" newspaper could only dream of.

But Ailes and Murdoch -- with a typical disregard for the consequences -- created a monster as their FNC grew in popularity over the course of the 2000s. They held onto to their millions of viewers by playing to their emotions, and to what they felt was true about America -- regardless of whether it was actually true. Over the years, misinformed Fox viewers wielded more and more clout over a directionless Republican Party that in turn drove the U.S. body politic, with disastrous consequences.

You want examples?

etc, etc

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-bunch/murdochs-american-sins-le_b_892938.html?view=print

[Winehole23]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/8629180/Rupert-Murdochs-News-Corp-could-face-100m-bill-for-US-investigation-into-police-payments.html

[Winehole23]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/todays-paper/Paper+scandal+could+hurt+BSkyB+deal/5081752/story.html

[Winehole23]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/2011/07/11/phone-hacking-9-11-victims-may-have-had-mobiles-tapped-by-news-of-the-world-reporters-115875-23262694/

[MannyIsGod]

The use of the word hacking is a pretty big misnomer here. In my opinion anyway. This was more of taking advantage of stupid company employees and incredibly poor passwords on these systems than it was actually exploiting a computer security problem or over coming a computer security system that hacking implies.

If any of you have 0000, 1234 etc etc as your passwords then you're ripe for this.

[boutons_deux]

Hacking here obviously means "cracking" into someone's phone, or sniffing someone's over-the-air cell phone transmissions (which I think are mostly clear text, unless you buy an encrpyted phone and service). IIRC, it was OTA sniffing that caught Prince Charles and Diana cooing with their lovers.

brute-force attacking (weak) passwords is cracking into a private space, in this case by a corporate hired criminals.

[MannyIsGod]

Yeah - technically its "hacking" but its such a basic form that most people don't think of. I just think the term hacking has changed to mean something more advanced than what this is and I think it gives the wrong idea of what is wrong here.

Just a personal opinion/observation.

[boutons_deux]

hacker original was someone, mainly non-malicious hobbyists, who liked to "hack" up stuff to see how it worked, make it work differently, new uses, but it has taken on the pejorative sense of illegal intrusion, of cracker (like a vault, safe cracker)

[boutons_deux]

Why Rupert Murdoch Love$ God: World's Biggest Sleaze Mogul Also Getting Rich from Christian Moralizers

So are religious moralizers and others writing about religious and/or “moral” themes prepared to enrich the Murdoch “ media juggernaut” forever while Rupert Murdoch further corrupts UK, American and Australian politics while his companies trade in human misery for profit by hacking murder victim's phones, paying off the police, elevating smut to a national sport and even hacking the phones of killed soldiers’ families?

You bet!

Rupert Murdoch is one of America’s number one publishers of evangelical and other religious books, including the 33-million seller Purpose Driven Life by mega pastor and anti-gay activist Rick Warren. Murdoch is also publisher of "progressive" Rob Bell’s Love Wins.

Rick Warren, Rob Bell and company helped Murdoch fund his tabloid-topless-women-on-page-3 empire, phone hacking of murdered teens and Fox News' spreading "birther" and "death panel" lies about the president. They helped Murdoch by enriching him. And these weren’t unknown authors just lucky to get published anywhere, they could have picked anybody to sell their books.

Do the religious authors making their fortunes off Murdoch wear gloves when they cash their royalty checks? Do they ever dare look in the mirror?

The authors publishing with Murdoch serve a religious market so fine-tuned to grandstanding hypocrisy and moralizing, that, for instance, my novels about growing up religious (Portofino, Zermatt and Saving Grandma) will never be sold in the thousands of CBA member (Christian Bookseller’s Association) bookstores because – horrors! – my books have profanity and sex in them!

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/151585

[TDMVPDPOY]

lol hope he goes to jail...

lol wanker hates his own country cause its run by wankers not smart like him...

[TDMVPDPOY]

lol hope he goes to jail...

lol wanker hates his own country cause its run by wankers not smart like him...

[Wild Cobra]

Hacking here obviously means "cracking" into someone's phone, or sniffing someone's over-the-air cell phone transmissions (which I think are mostly clear text, unless you buy an encrpyted phone and service). IIRC, it was OTA sniffing that caught Prince Charles and Dians cooing with their lovers.

brute-force attacking (weak) passwords is cracking into a private space, in this case by a corporate hired criminals.
Hacking is much more generic than that. At least it used to be. I used to be proud to be called a hacker, but now the term is thought of only one way.

[boutons_deux]

Murdoch has withdrawn his bid to buy controlling interest of BskyB

[Winehole23]

The government signalled its intentions to derail the bid. It was the only thing Murdoch could do. Not only did he lose his political backing, his backers now stand against him, including David Cameron.

[Winehole23]

Murdoch is toast and his son James may face charges. Retirement can't be too far off.

[boutons_deux]

Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal Finally Acknowledges Its Publisher’s Role In Hacking Scandal

It took an entire week, but the Wall Street Journal newsroom finally got around to informing readers that the newspaper’s publisher, and longtime Rupert Murdoch confidant, Les Hinton plays a starring role in the unfolding phone-hacking scandal in Britain.

Indeed, since the long-simmering phone-hacking story re-ignited last week amidst allegations of criminal conduct and a corporate cover-up, Hinton has stood at the epicenter of the News Corp. scandal in terms of how Murdoch’s company in recent years misled the public, as well as members of Parliament, with regards to how Murdoch’s News of The World tabloid apparently hacked citizens’ voice mails. Routinely. (The hacking took place while Hinton oversaw the tabloid.)

Hinton is now CEO of the Dow Jones Company and publisher of Murdoch's Wall Street Journal and is facing growing pressure to explain his previous claims about how the illegal hacking had been limited in scope. (It was not.) And that’s why the Hinton angle has been aggressively pursued by global news organizations. (Just not by Murdoch’s Journal.)

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107110006?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MediaMattersForAmerica-CountyFair+%28Media+Matters+for+America+-+County+Fair%29

[Winehole23]

[/URL]
“Les [Hinton] will be sacrificed to save James and Rebekah,” one person familiar with the company said. “It happened on Les’s watch,” another added: “James was not even a director of News Corp at the time.” [URL]http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c43aca6-ab18-11e0-b4d8-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1RpOt4DAC (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c43aca6-ab18-11e0-b4d8-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1RpOt4DAC)

[boutons_deux]

Trouble For Murdoch: Feds Collecting Billions In Fines, Sending Executives To Jail For Corruption Abroad

Over the last several years, the United States Department of Justice has aggressively prosecuted U.S. companies involved with corrupt activities abroad, collecting billions in fines and sending executives to jail. These legal actions, pursued under the auspices of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, could spell trouble for Rupert Murdoch.

In 2008, Siemens paid over $1.6 billion in disgorgement and fines to settle alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act. The SEC complained alleged that “Between March 12, 2001 and September 30, 2007, Siemens violated the FCPA by engaging in a widespread and systematic practice of paying bribes to foreign government officials to obtain business.” [SEC]

Former KBR chairman and CEO Albert Stanley was accused of making illicit payments to Nigerian officials to obtain contracts. In 2008, Stanley pled guilty to “conspiracy to violate the FCPA” and other charges. He agreed to face up to seven years in jail and pay $10.8 million in restitution. [Department of Justice]

Last year, Filmmaker Gerald Green and his wife Patricia were sentenced to six months in prison and fined $250,000 after they were found guilty of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Greens bribed a Thai tourism official to secure a contract with the Bangkok film festival. [ABC News]

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011/07/11/265932/murdoch-fcpa-record/

[Winehole23]

Phone-tapping scandal?

[ChuckD]

Hopefully, this is like Arab spring for Murdoch trash media properties, and they fall like dominoes.

[Winehole23]

Depends on what the various bureaus did in the various countries. Guilt by association is a bitch, tho.

[ElNono]

Were the bribes fair and balanced?

[boutons_deux]

Any see any of this scancal on Fox Repug Propaganda network?

I read something about a caller who asked and fox person said on air "I'm not touching it" :lol

[boutons_deux]

Shareholder Lawsuit: Phone-Hacking Scandal Damaged News Corp.'s Image

A group of News Corp. shareholders led by Amalgamated Bank has sued the media company claiming several of its business decisions, as well as the recent phone-hacking scandal at News of the World, have adversely affected shareholder interests.

The lawsuit claims, among other things, that "News Corp executives are ... grossly overpaid, ensuring their loyalty to Murdoch and his personal initiatives," later stating that Murdoch is "larding the executive ranks of the Company with his offspring."

Among the lawsuit's complaints: the company's purchase of Elisabeth Murodoch's Shine Group has harmed the shareholder value; the board as it is comprised has numerous conflicts of interest; and the phone-hacking scandal has hurt the company's reputation and investor value.

"In sum, these acts will cause a direct harm to News Corp shareholders by diluting their ability to influence the Company through the exercise of the shareholder franchise because a greater percentage of the Board will be completely beholden to Rupert Murdoch's wishes," the lawsuit, filed Friday, stated in part. "In contemplating, planning, and/or affecting the foregoing conduct, Murdoch and the other Defendants were not acting in good faith toward News Corp shareholders, and breached or will breach their fiduciary duties owed to them. As a result of these actions, News Corp shareholders have been and will be damaged."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107110018?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MediaMattersForAmerica-CountyFair+%28Media+Matters+for+America+-+County+Fair%29

[boutons_deux]

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

News Corp Targeted Former PM Gordon Brown: Hacked Police, Medical Records; Obtained Bank Information

The latest revelations in the widening News International scandal are simply stunning. “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” is apparently as true now as it was in Shakespeare’s day. The idea that a news organization would have the audacity to target a head of state a Cabinet member and later PM over a decade, as News International papers the Sun and the Sunday Times did with Gordon Brown, and not with the usual tools of invective and gossip, but via the theft of personal information, raises the scandal to a whole new level.

It’s bad enough to monitor cell phone calls. The state of cell phone security is a disgrace, as our Richard Smith points out. One of my clients (a media company!) refuses to discuss deals or corporate strategy on mobile phones for that very reason. Per the Guardian, the decade-long campaign against Brown included:

Repeatedly obtaining data from his bank account

Hacking into his accountants’ computer to get his tax fiilngs

Fooling his attorneys into providing details from his legal records

Purloining family medical records (which led to the publication of information about Brown’s ill infant son)

Suborning a police officer to scrape national police computer records

Several issues bear noting:

There is no way to pretend this sort of lawbreaking and invasion of privacy was not News International policy. This took place at two separate papers, the Sun and the Sunday Times.

There is also no way to pretend that Rebekah Brooks’ fingerprints are not all over this. From the Guardian:

In October 2006, the then editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks, contacted the Browns to tell them that they had obtained details from the medical file of their four-month-old son, Fraser, which revealed his cystic fibrosis.

This appears to have been a clear breach of the Data Protection Act, which would allow such a disclosure only if it were in the public interest. Friends of the Browns say the call caused them immense distress, since they were only coming to terms with the diagnosis, which had not been confirmed. The Sun published the story.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/07/news-corp-targeted-former-pm-gordon-brown-hacked-police-medical-records-obtained-bank-information.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capi talism%29

[RandomGuy]

Phone-tapping scandal?

Yup. They were tapping phones of people as well.

Legal (I think), but highly questionable.



Britians surveillance state routinely taps people's phones much like their CCCTV captures people.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1576937/Phones-tapped-at-the-rate-of-1000-a-day.html

It was probably this capability that was bent by the corrupt police.

First came to light when it was revealed that News of the World tapped the phones of the Royals:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2010/09/05/royal-phone-tapping-scandal-taints-cameron.html


Now even the Prime Minister is taking heat for the weekend piece in The New York Times Magazine detailing how two News of the World staffers—a reporter and a private investigator employed by Britain’s largest paper—hacked into the phones of British royal family aides. Clive Goodman, a reporter, and Glenn Mulcaire, an investigator working for the paper, obtained PIN codes to access the voicemail inboxes of royal aides, and News of the World used the messages to run stories about Prince Harry’s personal life in 2006. A Scotland Yard investigation has revealed that Mulcaire potentially hacked into the phone messages of more than thousands of people. The article details that then-editor Andy Coulson “actively encouraged” phone hacking and the newsroom was “out of control” under his leadership. Coulson resigned from his post but denied involvement in the hacking, although sources now say “even the office cat” knew. British PM David Cameron went on to hire Coulson as his communications chief, saying “I believe in giving people a second chance.” Now that it seems the hacking was much more extensive than believed, Cameron must choose whether or not to stand by his man.

Read it at The Guardian
September 5, 2010 6:01 AM

This has been roiling for months.

People didn't get all that upset when it was just the politicians or the royal family, but the details of everything else pushed it over the edge.

[ChuckD]

The thing is, the Murdoch properties had flat coerced, bribed and terrorized civil servants and government officials. When blood is in the water, you'll see what you see now; everyone coming forward in a feeding frenzy to bring down their former oppressors. Newscorp is totally on the defensive.

[TDMVPDPOY]

he better come up with some bullshit health problems to avoid court time...

[TDMVPDPOY]

whats the difference between this clown and the wikileaks founder? same offences or difference? wikileaks dont think did any hacking besides released classified information while the other is hacking to get its own material while bring down a whole force of corruptive cops...

[LnGrrrR]

whats the difference between this clown and the wikileaks founder? same offences or difference? wikileaks dont think did any hacking besides released classified information while the other is hacking to get its own material while bring down a whole force of corruptive cops...

The target, mostly. Wikileaks targeted the government, whereas News of the World is targeting grieving members of the public.

One could also say that the info gleaned by the Wikileaks release is of more import to the public than tabloid material.

Edit: Note, if the tapping scandal was about bringing down corrupted cops, I doubt you'd hear this much of an outcry. I think the outcry is mostly due to the tabloid stuff.

[TDMVPDPOY]

Edit: Note, if the tapping scandal was about bringing down corrupted cops, I doubt you'd hear this much of an outcry. I think the outcry is mostly due to the tabloid stuff.

certainly they try to shift the blame of the fiasco to the corrupt cops to get the blame, then the conduct of these writers how it got its information...whether its public or not, there was news the got inside information about medical records of ex-PM gordan browns son or someshit....i think it extends more to every figure thats newsworthy, not just ur local important news making the headlines....

[boutons_deux]

Reuters Ponders Why Hollywood Remains "Largely Silent" On Murdoch Hacking Scandal

July 12, 2011 11:56 pm ET by Media Matters staff

In an article headlined "Hollywood gloats, silently, over News Corp scandal," Reuters contemplated why "the U.S. entertainment industry is watching from afar -- more spectator, than participant" as questions continue to emerge about the Murdoch hacking scandal and whether it extended into the U.S:

Bryce Nelson, professor of journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, attributed the reluctance to speak out in Hollywood to the power of Fox "in movies and television and in running tabloids that can get sensational material on people in the entertainment fields."

Said another industry source; "Murdoch touches everybody in some way, so nobody is standing up" to speak publicly.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107120048?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MediaMattersForAmerica-CountyFair+%28Media+Matters+for+America+-+County+Fair%29

====

Murdoch's scumbags are exactly mimicking the illegal activities of J Edgar Hoover. Nobody in Congress would stand to JEH, because they knew (perhaps were told by him) JEH had dirt on them (or if he didn't, he'd slander and destroy them anyway). Today's FBI can tap or snoop just about anybody anytime, esp any war protesters or dissenters for any reason, without a warrant.

[boutons_deux]

News Corp-Funded ‘U.S.’ Chamber Leading Campaign To Weaken Key Anti-Bribery Law

stepped up enforcement of the FCPA has not escaped the notice of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has reportedly received millions of dollars in funding from News Corp. The Chamber is now leading a high-profile campaign to weaken the landmark anti-bribery law.

On October 27, 2010, the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform held a summit at which it released a white paper outlining the Chamber’s suggestions for weakening the FCPA. After its 2010 summit, the Chamber began actively lobbying Congress to weaken the FCPA. In March of this year, the Chamber’s ILR hired marquee talent, former Bush administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey, to aid in its push to weaken the law.


http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/13/266015/news-corp-chamber-weaken-fcpa/http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/13/266015/news-corp-chamber-weaken-fcpa/

[TDMVPDPOY]

HOLLYWOOD WANKERS ARE SCARED cause newscorp dont it own fox or whatever its called

[boutons_deux]

News owns (20th Century) Fox and a bunch of fan, tabloid celebrity/paparazzi mags, and produces a lot of TV shows. You don't want to be target of Fox or want to work for Fox, then STFU.

Not surprising. That's exactly how UCA runs its subsidiary, the US govt.

That's also how Monsanto silences scientists and researchers who try to expose the dangers of Monsanto chemicals and GM seeds (Monsanto sics PIs on them to slander them), while also running systematic revolving door between Monsanto and US govt.

[boutons_deux]

Mired In Scandal, News Corp Seeks New York State’s Signoff For $27 Million No-Bid Contract

Yet while these shocking allegations continue to come out, the state of New York is preparing to finalize a $27 million no-bid contract to Wireless Generation, an education firm specializing in testing that is owned by News Corp itself. As the acquisition was announced, Murdoch said he sees a “$500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs.”

The story of how News Corp landed the no-bid contract begins in November 2010. That month, Murdoch’s mega-corporation purchased Wireless Generation, which is based in Brooklyn. That also conspicuously happened around the same time as New York City schools chief Joel Klein announced that he’d be leaving to join News Corporation.

:lol :lol :lol

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/14/268598/news-corp-911-contract/

[boutons_deux]

Murdochs Resist Calls to Appear Before Parliament

LONDON — A British parliamentary panel said Thursday that Rupert Murdoch and his son James had refused to testify next week about the phone hacking at their beleaguered British media outpost, while Rebekah Brooks, its chief executive, had agreed to appear, even as police arrested one more former employee.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/world/europe/15hacking.html?_r=1&hp

[boutons_deux]

Les Hinton sacrificed, but the worst is yet to come for News Corp

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/15/1310767399511/Les-Hinton-and-Rupert-Mur-007.jpg

The problem for Murdoch is that every time he ditches a key executive, the flames of scandal flick ever closer to him.

The problem for News Corp now is that, at every stage, its attempts to contain this story have failed. The decision to close the News of the World was motivated in part to save the chief executive of NI, Rebekah Brooks: that decision bombed and Brooks resigned on Friday.

In London, James Murdoch oversaw the response to the hacking scandal. He approved the £700,000 hush money paid to Gordon Taylor, the former chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association – a decision he has blamed on poor advice. (The legal director of News International, Tom Crone, was one of the executives of News International to leave this week.)

Carl Bernstein, the former Washington Post reporter whose revelations helped depose a US president, says it is evident to him the events of the past week "are the beginning, not the end, of the seismic event".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/15/les-hinton-news-corp/print

[boutons_deux]

Troubles That Money Can’t Dispel

Time and again in the United States and elsewhere, Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation has used blunt force spending to skate past judgment, agreeing to payments to settle legal cases and, undoubtedly more important, silence its critics. In the case of News America Marketing, its obscure but profitable in-store and newspaper insert marketing business, the News Corporation has paid out about $655 million to make embarrassing charges of corporate espionage and anticompetitive behavior go away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/business/media/for-news-corporation-troubles-that-money-cant-dispel.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Actually, $665M is nothing compared to the $20B+ BigPharma has paid over the years for their drugs and devices killing and maiming 100s of 1000s of people.

But marijuana is a schedule 1 drug? :lol

[Winehole23]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14194623

[Viva Las Espuelas]

Whoops

[RandomGuy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14194623

NoW whistle-blower Sean Hoare found dead in Watford

A former News of the World journalist who made phone-hacking allegations against the paper has been found dead.

--------------------------------------------

:wow

Suicide or.... murder?

DUN DUN DUN!!

Conspiracy theorist thread tying this to the moon landings or 9-11 in 3, 2, 1....

[Winehole23]

"dramatic look"

[JoeChalupa]

Rupert looked shocked today. Many times he just sat there with a dumbfounded look on his face after being asked a question. Now the redhead is getting drilled.

[leemajors]

Rupert looked shocked today. Many times he just sat there with a dumbfounded look on his face after being asked a question. Now the redhead is getting drilled.

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/07/19/protester-hacks-rupe.html

[boutons_deux]

Nixon's people called in "plausible deniability".

Rupert and Rebeka gonna say they had no idea why $600M+ in hush and settlement money was paid out, must have been only a couple bad apples, like Abu Ghraib.

[TDMVPDPOY]

did anyone watch the enqiury from the british mps.....

they shouldve attacked rup murdoch with more questions, dude was struggling to answer with just some of the basic questions...

i think if the american govt does push for a enquiry, his going to crack it and cant handle the pressure...

lol pie thrower.....

[boutons_deux]

Vicioius, rude, cheap-shotting bully whining about being counter-punched.

Take it like a man you wish you were, Bill-o, you work for a corrupt company.

Bill O'Reilly: News Corp Being Attacked By 'Vicious' Opponents Exploiting Hacking Scandal

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/20/bill-oreilly-news-corp-be_n_904258.html?view=print

[boutons_deux]

With Brooks arrested, tabloid insiders open up

With their former boss under arrest, tabloid reporters are beginning to reveal secrets of what it was like to work in Rebekah Brooks' newsrooms.

Disguises, bullying, lies dropped into copy — all were part of the pressure-cooker atmosphere that prevailed

the paper under Brooks was marked by "ruthlessness and misogyny."

"The reporters who were prepared to subject themselves and others to the most ridicule were the ones earmarked for success,"

routinely participating in overnight stakeouts while at the Sun, something he said was rare at other papers he had worked for.

ther tabloids were just as hungry for scandal and celebrity, but they tended to rely on "great contacts, rather than covert operations."

, hours after the fall of the twin towers, Begley was stunned to be chewed out by News of the World management for not wearing his costume. He said he was then ordered to attend the next news meeting in full Potter regalia.

"We were expected to childishly objectify women. So blonde-haired women were described as 'beauties' and generously chested women 'looked swell', whether they'd wanted the attention or not."

Faking facts was also part of tabloid life under Brooks

"Anyone mentioning ethics or refusing to be cooperative with dubious practices would have been effectively exiled by the news desk and labeled as 'flaky.'"

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hcrTrBb4iIH_3hHaSkGSsMaz952w?docId=e245328a8 6b449679cc314cbc7fd24f1

[boutons_deux]

Scrutiny on Murdoch’s School Reform Agenda Grows

Last November, shortly after hiring Klein, News Corp. acquired [1] Wireless Generation, an education technology firm that had worked closely with Klein during his tenure as chancellor on two projects: ARIS, a controversial [2] (and buggy) data system that warehouses students’ standardized test scores and demographic profiles; and School of One [3], a more radical attempt to use technology to personalize instruction, reorganize classrooms, and reduce the size of the teaching force.

The acquisition put Klein, who was set to supervise Wireless Generation, in an awkward position vis a vis city ethics regulations. The Times reported [1]:

Conflict-of-interest rules set strict limits for city employees, both during and after their tenure, which could make Mr. Klein’s transition a tricky one. City employees are never allowed to disclose confidential information about the city’s business dealings or future strategy, and they cannot communicate with the agency for which they worked for one year after they leave. The rules also bar them from ever working on matters they had substantial involvement in as city employees.

It seemed unlikely Klein would be able to fully follow those mandates when, in May, the city Department of Education renewed its contract [4] with Wireless Generation, asking the company to provide testing materials and software. Last month, New York State moved to award Wireless Generation a $27 million no-bid contact to create a state student data-tracking system similar to ARIS—despite the fact that many New York City principals have decided not to use the $80 million software, which doesn’t track helpful day-to-day information on attendance, behavior, or homework completion.

Aware of the media titan’s relationship with former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, education reporter Alexander Russo tried to find out if Murdoch had donated to StudentsFirst [8], Rhee’s PAC. The group’s goal is to act as a political counterweight to teachers’ unions.

“After two days of emails and phone calls -- they must have been freaking out behind the scenes trying to figure out what to do -- a Rhee spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny the Murdoch money,” Russo wrote [9].

http://www.thenation.com/print/blog/162201/scrutiny-murdoch-school-reform-agenda-grows

[boutons_deux]

It’s official – Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp brought its illegal hacking operation across the Atlantic and to the United States.

Bloomberg is reporting that back in 2009 – NewsCorp admitted during a trial that it did indeed hack into the secure website of an American marketing rival. On 11 different occasions – NewsCorp subsidiary “News American Marketing” – broke into the website belonging to Floorgraphics Incorporated and stole business. The case was dismissed after NewsCorp agreed to hand over 29.5 million as part of a settlement deal. So now that we know hacking was rampant at NewsCorp in the UK – and it also took place in the United States – is it REALLY that far-fetched to believe Fox News was up to the same shenanigans? With the FBI on the case – we should find out soon enough.

http://www.truth-out.org/news-thom-hartmann/1311262990

[boutons_deux]

If the New York Post actually covered the News Corp. scandal

Slide show: Imagining a month of front pages from a world where Murdoch didn't own America's feistiest tabloid

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/07/23/new_york_post_hack/slideshow.html

[boutons_deux]

News International Ordered Mass Deletion Of E-Mails Nine Times

Senior MPs want to question further one of News International’s technology suppliers, after the firm responsible for overseeing its day-to-day emails revealed that hundreds of thousands of them had been deleted on a total of nine occasions from the newspaper publisher’s server since May last year.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-news-international-ordered-mass-deletion-of-e-mails-nine-times/

[Winehole23]

The British newspaper arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has agreed to settle a string of legal claims over phone hacking, after victims said the company had admitted its management knew about the practice and tried to cover up.


Murdoch's News International had for years claimed that the hacking of voicemails to generate stories was the work of a single "rogue" reporter who went to jail for the crime in 2007.


However, under a wave of damning evidence last year it finally admitted that the problem was widespread, sparking a scandal that has rocked the company, the British press, police and the political establishment.


On Thursday, lawyers for victims who have reached settlements said their agreements were based on News Group Newspapers, publisher of some of News International's titles, acknowledging that senior management were at fault.


The company is now seeking to settle all the claims.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/19/us-newscorp-hacking-compensation-idUSTRE80I0OW20120119?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71

[boutons_deux]

"settled"

no jail for anyone

New Corps pays (tax deductible), guilty individuals pay nothing.

[Winehole23]

at least they admitted guilt, allegedly