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

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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/wo...g.html?_r=1&hp

[boutons_deux]

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



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...ews-corp/print

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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 anticompe ive behavior go away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/bu...gewanted=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?

[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.

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



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...acks-rupe.html

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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.....

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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/2011/0...tml?view=print

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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/...c314cbc7fd24f1

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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 an’s relationship with former D.C. schools chancellor Mic e 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/...m-agenda-grows

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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

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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/w...slideshow.html

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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-n...ls-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 les, acknowledging that senior management were at fault.


The company is now seeking to settle all the claims.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...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