Rupert Murdoch Firmly in the Dock

[Guest fountainhall]

The UK has recently become totally consumed by a very nasty scandal about phone hacking. It started as a result of suspicions that the voicemail function on Prince William’s phone had been hacked some 6 years ago. A year later, it was discovered that “a vast number of public figures” had had their voicemail intercepted. The trail led the authorities to a private investigator who, it seems, had been hired by a Sunday tabloid newspaper, The News of the World (NoW). The paper’s royal editor was arrested; computer records, tapes and files were seized. As a result, both parties were jailed the following year.

 

Then in 2007, prosecutors confirmed the hackings but identified just 8 victims. The newspaper’s editor, Andy Coulson, resigned as editor. Later in the year, the present Prime Minister appointed Coulson as his media adviser.

 

Fast forward to 2009 when The Guardian newspaper revealed that one of the eight victims had been paid £1 million to drop legal action against the NoW and some of its journalists. By September, the police find more suspected victims in the government, military and police, as well as celebrities and the royal household.

 

In 2010, the list of victims continues to grow with more being paid £1 million not to go to Court. By now, Andy Coulson is in No. 10 Downing Street as Director of Communications to new Prime Minister, David Cameron.

 

By January 2011, the scandal mushrooms and Coulson has had to resign and leave Downing Street. The NoW chief reporter and former news editor are now arrested. Then, in recent days, Britain has been outraged to learn that the NoW hacked not only into the voicemails left by a murdered schoolgirl, but also the phones owned by relatives of UK soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The matter is now to be the subject of a parliamentary enquiry as well as a major criminal investigation.

 

The point of relating this shocking tale is that the NoW is one of the stable of UK newspapers which, under its parent company News International, is owned by one of the most right-wing media moguls on the planet – Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch also owns Fox News. Amidst calls from his parent company’s UK head to resign, Murdoch has stood firm. Yesterday, he denounced the revelations as “shocking and deplorable” and promised that his company would “fully and proactively co-operate with the police in all investigations.”

 

But Murdoch knows that his shady business practices are now under a massive spotlight. Several companies including, Ford, Proctor & Gamble, Mitsubishi and Virgin Holidays, have announced they are withdrawing advertising from the NoW. Shareholders are also starting to sell out in droves. So Murdoch will be hit where it hurts him most – his pocket.

 

In parliament yesterday, the scale of the anger at News International -

 

was highlighted when Tom Watson, a former Labour minister, accused it of entering the "criminal underworld" by "paying people to interfere with police officers and were doing so on behalf of known criminals".

 

He said James Murdoch, the tycoon's son, had "personally, without board approval, authorised money to be paid by his company to silence people who had been hacked and to cover up criminal behaviour within his organisation".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/06/phone-hacking-david-cameron-forced-to-act

 

Zac Goldsmith, (a) Conservative legislator, said that Mr. Murdoch was guilty of “systemic abuse of almost unprecedented power” and had run roughshod over Parliament . . .

 

“Rupert Murdoch is clearly a very, very talented businessman — he’s possibly even a genius — but his organization has grown too powerful and has abused that power. It has systematically corrupted the police and in my view has gelded this Parliament, to our shame.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/world/europe/07britain.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

 

Murdoch has walked away from scandals before. This one is likely to prove more difficult.

[Guest fountainhall]

Even more extraordinary! As a result of the scandal, Murdoch's son announced last night that The News of the World will cease to be published after this Sunday's edition. So will end the 168-year history of Britain's largest-selling newspaper with its average sales of 2.6 million and a total weekly readership of 7.5 million. Nice if they could find a similar scandal at Fox News!!!!

[KhorTose]

Nice if they could find a similar scandal at Fox News!!!!

 

But Fox news is fair and balanced. Seriously someone should be hung. I watched Murdoch's son last night deny everything including the payments. i must admit he is smooth and he looked believable. Considering how much your present PM owes to Murdoch will there be a real investigation? Our police going to be prosecuted?

[Guest fountainhall]

Considering how much your present PM owes to Murdoch will there be a real investigation

Not just Cameron - Tony Blair owed Murdoch a great deal after his main tabloid daily The Sun came out for him in 1997. And this may indeed be one reason why Cameron stalled the requests 2 days ago for a full-blown parliamentary enquiry, informing MPs that he would first wait for the police to complete their investigation. But as The Guardian reported a few days ago, the NoW has also been involved in some pretty shady dealings against the police. In 2002 it provided two private investigators with photographers and a van. No problem with that, you'd think. But the PIs were at that time suspects in the murder of their partner, and the object of their investigations was the senior police offer leading the case - Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook.

 

A Guardian investigation suggests that surveillance of Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook involved the News of the World physically following him and his young children, "blagging" his personal details from police databases, attempting to access his voicemail and that of his wife, and possibly sending a "Trojan horse" email in an attempt to steal information from his computer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/06/news-of-the-world-rebekah-brooks

 

It's pretty clear why Murdoch has taken the extraordinary step of closing down the NoW. For months he has been trying to persuade UK legislators that he be allowed to take over the 61% of the UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB he presently does not already own. Alongside Fox in the USA and Star in Asia, 100% ownership will enable him to control a virtual worldwide network. A decision in his favour had been due around now, but clearly that will be delayed whilst he hopes the outrage against him and his companies dies down.

 

My gut feel is that there are more serious evelations still to come!

[Guest fountainhall]

This story is moving so fast, it's difficult to keep up. The Prime Minster's former Communications Director, Andy Coulson, has just been arrested on phone hacking and corruption charges AND NoW's former royal editor Clive Goodson - who was jailed in 2007 for phone hacking - has been re-arrested on suspicion of corruption.

 

The Prime Minister has also held a media conference at which he announced a wide-ranging formal enquiry headed by a High Court judge to look into the entire NoW debacle and to investiage "the ethics and culture of the media." He robustly defended the freedom of the press, but added the tabloid media in particular was virtually out of control in the UK.

[Guest]

I suspect the tabloid media remains out of control in the UK. Printing lies, fabrications and gossip about things that should remain private.

As an example, who footballers sleep with should not be in the newspapers.

 

Anyhow, I expect they will shortly produce a Sunday version of the Sun to satisfy the bottom of the market.

[Guest fountainhall]

And so it goes on and on . . . As the octogenarian Rupert Murdoch flies into London to try and deal with the anger and vitriol being heaped on his News International, the fallout of this nasty affair is likely to go on for quite some time, to get much worse and to spread across the Atlantic. Already The Guardian is reporting that Rupert Murdoch’s son and heir, James, is now much less likely to inherit the empire when his father ether retires or passes away.

 

James Murdoch and News Corp could face corporate legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic that involve criminal charges, fines and forfeiture of assets as the escalating phone-hacking scandal risks damaging his chances of taking control of Rupert Murdoch's US-based media empire.

 

As deputy chief operating officer of News Corp – the US-listed company that is the ultimate owner of News International (NI), which in turn owns the News of the World, the Times, the Sunday Times and the Sun – the younger Murdoch has admitted he misled parliament over phone hacking, although he has stated he did not have the complete picture at the time. There have also been reports that employees routinely made payments to police officers, believed to total more than £100,000, in return for information.

 

The payments could leave News Corp – and possibly James Murdoch himself – facing the possibility of prosecution in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) – legislation designed to stamp out bad corporate behaviour that carries severe penalties for anyone found guilty of breaching it – and in the UK under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 which outlaws the interception of communications . . .

 

media executives believe that with or without an FCPA case James Murdoch has already fatally damaged his chances of taking his father's crown.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/08/james-murdoch-criminal-charges-phone-hacking

 

Yesterday also brought news that the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, the CEO of News International and an acolyte and favoured ‘daughter’ of Murdoch senior, was rejected, an action which the Prime Minster said should have been accepted. Explaining the reason to close the newspaper down, in a heated meeting with NoW journalists -

 

Brooks told staff . . . that the title would have faced two years of upheaval had it remained open, given the forthcoming public inquiries into press standards and the original police investigation into phone hacking . . .

 

In one heated exchange, Brooks was asked directly why she hadn't resigned. She replied that staff would understand in 12 months' time why she had not done so

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/08/rebekah-brooks-confronted-news-of-the-world-staff

 

- the implication being that further serious allegations are in the pipeline.

 

Referring to the need to clean up the cosy relationship between the tabloid press and government ministers, another article in the same newspaper starts –

 

Murdoch and politicians: a special relationship that has only ever worked one way.

British public life is now so corrupt that historians assessing this period will find cabinet papers infinitely less revealing than guest lists , , , This week, people have beheld MPs saying what they actually think about Britain's most obscenely powerful unelected foreign tax exile, and marvelled as if they had seen unicorns.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/08/relationship-only-ever-worked-one-way

 

Worse for Murdoch, his cherished desire to take control of the cash cow BSkyB now looks likely to be delayed for a very long time, possibly years.

 

But then, as yet another article suggests, whilst this scandal has cast the British political establishment in a grim light –

 

we are not alone in this shameful episode. When it comes to politics, power and corruption, everything is bigger in America.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jul/08/news-of-the-world-politics

[KhorTose]

we are not alone in this shameful episode. When it comes to politics, power and corruption, everything is bigger in America.

 

Oh I would love this to be true. If they can find the same thing and shut down Fox News, America would be a far better place.

[Guest fountainhall]

If they can find the same thing and shut down Fox News, America would be a far better place.

Murdoch's US interests may already be in the dock. This from yet another Guardian article (well, it broke the news and so it is understandably going for the jugular -

 

Meanwhile, US law may enter the fray. A former Labour cabinet minister has alerted attention to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes an American company (News Corp) liable for colossal fines if any employee bribes a foreign official (the Met police) even if no one at head office knew.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/08/ed-miliband-broken-omerta-old-monster

[Guest fountainhall]

The non-Murdoch Sunday newspapers in the UK (i.e. all but The Sunday Times) are having a field day with the phone hacking story and all its manifold revelations. There is no doubt that the NoW was killed to keep BSkyB's hoped-for take over on the table. But the Leader of the Opposition has now called for a parliamentary debate on Wednesday to halt progress on the takeover until the results of all the various enquiries are known. Even if the Prime Minister calls a vote along party lines, it seems certain there will be many defections. This will almost certainly delay the takeover, originally thought to be a done deal, by several years and be an enormous blow to the US company, New Corporation's, worldwide expansion plans.

 

Today's Observer newspaper in the UK sums up the general feeling about Murdoch and his illegal wheelings and dealings -

 

The king is dead – long live democracy. With the immolation of the News of the World last week, we saw the end of the pre-eminent political influence of the last three decades in Britain. Rupert Murdoch's pass to Number 10 has been withdrawn; the access code for his editors and senior executives has expired. All the unseen deal-making, fixing, manipulation and bullying . . . have gone.

 

. . . Over more than three decades, the perversion of politics by and for Murdoch became institutionalised, a part of the landscape that no one dared question.

 

Serious crimes were committed and the police covered them up. Corrupt, or at least badly compromised, relationships became the norm and all but a very few politicians looked the other way, telling themselves this was how things were and always would be.

 

It is now time for (the government) to go after Murdoch and perhaps this is the moment to investigate the complex web of tax havens and offshore accounts that News International has used to avoid paying full tax in the past. I'd bet a month's salary that while NI papers have been urging austerity measures on the UK, the company has used every trick in the book to avoid its proper tax burden.

 

The door has shut on Murdoch. Party leaders and backbenchers . . . won't have him back. What we should take from these events is a determination never to let a man like Rupert Murdoch hold such sway in our country again.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/10/rupert-murdoch-phone-hacking-cameron

[Guest fountainhall]

The ferocious attacks on Murdoch's UK Empire just keep coming and have started to affect the US parent company, News Corp.

 

Today there are revelations from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown alleges that when he was No. 2 to Tony Blair, another Murdoch newspaper, The Sunday Times, obtained private medical information about a serious illness to his son, details of his bank accounts and phone messages about a property transaction which could only have been discovered illegally.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/07/11/uk.phone.hacking.scandal/index.html?hpt=hp_p1

 

And this today from The Washington Post -

 

British police said Monday they believe someone is trying to sabotage their investigation into Rupert Murdoch’s News of The World tabloid by leaking distracting details of the inquiry to the media.

 

In an unusual statement, Scotland Yard said a story claiming that police tasked with protecting the royal family had sold personal details about the queen and her closest aides was “part of a deliberate campaign to undermine the investigation into the alleged payments by corrupt journalists to corrupt police officers and divert attention from elsewhere.”

 

. . . So who does Scotland Yard accuse of trying to derail its inquiry?

 

Police have refused to say — although they named News International and its legal representatives as other parties to its information.

 

. . . The fallout could just be beginning.

 

For now, the News Corp. chief appears focused on scrambling to prevent his controversial $19 billion bid for BSkyB from becoming a casualty of the scandal. But questions are mounting about his future and that of his sprawling business empire amid a wave of global outrage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/bskyb-shares-slide-as-uk-regulator-seeking-advice-on-news-corp-bid/2011/07/11/gIQAXzQO8H_story.html

 

The parent company News Corp. is now also firmly in the headlights. The Daily Telegraph is now reporting on a new lawsuit in the US -

 

Lawyers representing shareholders in News Corporation have filed an amended complaint alleging “rampant nepotism and failed corporate governance” at the beleaguered owner of the News of the World.

 

American institutional shareholders, including Amalgamated Bank and the Central Laborers’ Pension Fund, claim that News Corp’s board failed to exercise proper oversight and take sufficient action since news of hacking first surfaced at its subsidiary, News International, nearly six years ago.

 

New York lawyers Grant & Eisenhofer and Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann are seeking to block News Corp from adding Elizabeth Murdoch to the company’s board of directors, and “to put an end to Rupert Murdoch’s use of company assets to serve personal and family agendas, without regard for public shareholders.”

 

In their complaint before the Delaware Court of Chancery, the plaintiffs allege: “These revelations should not have taken years to uncover and stop. They show a culture run amuck within News Corp and a board that provides no effective review or oversight.”

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100010767/shareholders-sue-news-corp-over-news-of-the-world-scandal/

[Guest fountainhall]

With the fans hardly able keep up with the volume of shit now being flung at Murdoch and his cronies, the UK's former Prime Minster Gordon Brown has openly accused News international of -

 

. . . using known criminals to find stories.

 

In an exclusive BBC interview, Mr Brown said he was "in tears" when he heard the Sun (a daily tabloid owned by Murdoch) was to run a story in 2006 revealing that his son, Fraser, had cystic fibrosis.

 

The then chancellor and his wife, Sarah, had believed only medical staff treating their son had access to the records and now fear they may have been accessed illegally.

 

Mr Brown also said he was "shocked" about allegations that the Sunday Times (another Murdoch publication) had used "blagging" to obtain his private financial and property details.

 

"I just can't understand this. If I, with all the protection and all the defences and all the security that the chancellor of the exchequer or the prime minister has is so vulnerable to unscrupulous tactics... what about the ordinary citizen?"

 

Blagging, or "knowingly or recklessly obtaining or disclosing personal data or information without the consent of the data controller", has been illegal since 1994.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14116786

 

Today, senior police officials have accused News International executives of having attempted to obstruct the course of their original investigation into phone hacking in 2005. Murdoch, his son and News International's chief executive Rebekah Brooks have been summoned to appear before a parliamentary committee on Tuesday next week.

[Guest fountainhall]

Murdoch now faces humiliation and his global ambitions a huge road block. Today British Prime Minister David Cameron and his party will back the opposition's motion in parliament for News International to withdraw its bid for the remaining 61% of cash cow BSkyB. Once a man who, like many UK MPs, gladly licked the rear end of Murdoch, Cameron has now disowned the tycoon who lies firmly face-down in the sewer of British public opinion. The parliamentary vote will not be binding on News Intl., but defying parliament risks seeing Murdoch and his companies -

 

ostracised by a political class that once scrambled to bend to his wishes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/12/rupert-murdoch-bskyb-news-international

 

Besides, with various enquiries about the recent scandals likely to take well up to 2 years to complete, Murdoch is now well and truly stuck in a mire of his own making.

 

News from across the pond must be increasingly worrying for Murdoch and his executives. Developments are minor - so far. But the allegations of "criminal" activities from people such as former UK PM Gordon Brown have started ringing alarm bells.

 

Further, to calm investors, Murdoch has offered a US$5 billion share buy back. But as Terry Smith of Tullett Prebon (international investment advisers) argues -

 

News Corp's shareholders may soon have weightier thoughts. They might "justifiably be querying whether Murdoch family control is really in their best interests," Smith reckons. Quite so. Enfranchisement of News Corp's A shares, which don't carry full voting rights, would indeed create more value than a buyback; it would give outsiders more control of the company's direction and that power has a value. That sub-plot is now starting to develop – and a half-hearted buyback is unlikely to stop it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jul/12/viewpoint-news-corp

 

And what might then happen to Fox News . . .?

[TotallyOz]

Cameron has now disowned the tycoon who lies firmly face-down in the sewer of British public opinion.

 

This is the best thing I have read on the Internet in ages! Thank you!

[Guest fountainhall]

CNN and the BBC have just reported that Murdoch has thrown in the towel and withdrawn his bid for BSkyB. CNN is even suggesting that he may be considering closing down News International, his UK operations, in order to concentrate on lessening the damage to his US and Australian interests. This is an unbelievably massive blow to Murdoch's ambition which he has harboured for years.

 

Let's now watch for the US fall-out to develop further. Had the deal gone through, analysts reckon it would have accounted for up to one third of News Corporation's annual profits. Shareholders can now say bye bye to that! This evening, the News Corp. share price, which has fallen more than 15% in the last week, opened up on yesterday's close, but is now falling again.

[Guest fountainhall]

Yesterday saw the first resignation of a top executive of News International, the company’s chief lawyer, Tom Crone, who had been with the group for 26 years. Crone and his colleagues will have been largely responsible for clearing all controversial stories prior to publication in Murdoch’s UK newspapers. I’ll bet he has some juicy stories of his own to tell in due course!

 

Murdoch Junior is also facing a much tougher time. Once the heir apparent, the New York Times is reporting today that whilst he was fighting hard to keep the BSkyB bid on the table, his father and News Corps' COO had already made the decision to kill it, informing Junior only afterwards.

 

As the casualties in the UK continue, the New York Times also reports on increasing pressure on News Corporation in the US, including the first from a Republican Congressman.

 

In a letter on Wednesday, Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, pressed the F.B.I. to investigate whether journalists working for News Corporation newspapers tried to obtain phone records of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as one British newspaper claimed, citing anonymous sources.

 

Mr. King was the first Republican to call for an investigation into the company’s activities. The News Corporation’s chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, is a longtime supporter of conservative causes and Republican politicians . . .

 

New Jersey senator, Frank R. Lautenberg, suggested Wednesday that both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission should examine the case and consider starting a formal investigation. Mr. Lautenberg referred to news media reports that journalists “paid London police officers for information, including private telephone information, about the British royal family and other individuals for use in newspaper articles.”

 

Because the News Corporation is based in the United States, such payments may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids payments to foreign officials. Citing the act’s accounting rules, he added, “If indeed bribes were made and were not properly recorded, this too may be a violation of law.”

 

Several of the lawmakers echoed what Mr. Lautenberg asserted: that “further investigation may reveal that current reports only scratch the surface of the problem at News Corporation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/world/europe/14react.html?_r=1

 

Memo:

To Chairman

From Gaythailand

Don’t let yourself be photographed during your morning jog. It brings images of pitbulls and rotweillers to mind. (Photo: Rex Features in the Daily Telegraph)

[Guest fountainhall]

Now we know that HeyGay is a blogger! He writes for TIME's Swamplands blog under the name Massimo Calabrese.

 

The Hon. Peter King wants the FBI immediately to investigate the fact that an unidentified private investigator supposedly told an unidentified source who in turn supposedly told a reporter for the Daily Mirror that the private investigator was once asked by a News of the World reporter to get call records of 9/11 victims and that the private investigator didn't do it but he presumed that the News Of The World wanted those records so that they could hack into their voicemail.

[Guest fountainhall]

Like a just-opened Pandora’s box, it seems nothing can stop the nasty allegations from pouring out. The latest to comment is, perhaps surprisingly, The Catholic Tablet which has a news story and editorial expressing concerns over a “six-figure” donation made by James Murdoch towards the costs of the Pope’s visit to Britain last year. Just coincidentally, of course, Murdoch Junior was introduced to the Pope during his tour (although, to be fair, other donors were similarly blessed)! A photo appears in the latest edition -

 

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/latest-news.php

 

Interestingly, this link between Murdoch and the Catholic hierarchy goes back some years. Following a donation to a Church education fund in 1997, he received a papal knighthood in 1998 – as a member of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (I guess there isn't one commemorating St. Rupert the Great - yet). Then, in the following year, he made a US$10 million donation to help build Los Angeles Cathedral. Even the UK publication The Catholic Herald is now weighing in with an article headed

 

“Should Rupert Murdoch’s papal knighthood be rescinded?”

 

Is it right that papal knighthoods should be awarded in this way? The honour is supposed to recognise a person’s service to the Church. Certainly, Murdoch’s money has helped the Church; but surely there are many, many faithful Catholics, whose tireless service to the Church goes unacknowledged, who deserve to be honoured much more.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2011/07/08/debate-should-rupert-murdochs-papal-knighthood-be-rescinded/

 

Yet old Rupert is not even a Catholic. He did occasionally attend a Catholic Church, but by his own admission in an interview in 1992 he was not a Catholic convert. “I go to church quite a bit but not every Sunday and I tend to go to Catholic church - because my wife is Catholic, I have not formally converted.”

 

I can not find out if his religious affiliation with the Catholic Church changed following the massive divorce settlement with his second wife. On marrying his mistress from Star TV, Wendi Deng, it was alleged by the website dailyreligious.com -

 

“Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng Want Their Children to Be Just Like Jesus, But Richer.”

 

http://www.dailyreligious.com/?p=42069

 

That site contains a link to another site where we read -

 

When Rupert Murdoch commits his progeny to Christ, he doesn't fool around: Chloe and Grace, his daughters with third wife Wendi Deng, were recently baptized in the river Jordan, at the very spot Jesus is said to have been baptized.

http://gawker.com/5506746/rupert-murdoch-and-wendi-deng-want-their-children-to-be-just-like-jesus-but-richer

 

Slightly odd, perhaps, that the children were six and eight years old respectively. But then, surely an indication that Rupert still takes religion seriously, which is more than can be said of the care he and his Empire exhibit for the families of murdered children.

 

Enough of religious donations, though. Also seeing the light of day is the US$1 million donation given by Murdoch père to the US Chamber of Commerce. This came just months before the the Chamber happened to launch a high profile campaign to alter the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the law which punishes US-based companies for engaging in the bribery of foreign officials. Pure coincidence? One wonders. Did the Chairman see an apocalypse on the horizon? One also wonders.

 

But old Rupert has never been one to take a bit of stick lying down. With investigations now about to take place in the US and Australia in addition to those in the UK, Murdoch has come out fighting – of course, in his own newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. We have, he explains - without interruption or clarification - handled the crisis “extremely well, making only “minor mistakes.”

 

A little nod to Richard Nixon, perhaps???

 

In the exclusive interview, he adds -

 

he wanted to address "some of the things that have been said in Parliament, some of which are total lies. We think it's important to absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public. ...I felt that it's best just to be as transparent as possible."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576445550262237380.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read

 

Oh dear! But of course we have to remember wily old Digger is an octogenarian and is clearly losing some of his marbles.

 

"Integrity"? This from a man whose UK Empire has accumulated over US$2.25 billion in profits over the last 10 years, yet which has paid not one penny in corporate taxation?

 

It's impossible to know exactly how News Corp achieves such tax "efficiency". Despite being a quoted company, and therefore having to file accounts for public inspection, its financial make-up is a baffling web of inter-relationships between subsidiaries spread across the world.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/07/482147.html

 

“Transparent?” Sorry Mr. M, or Sir Order of St. Gregory the Great M, but transparency has never been a virtue your empire has shown much interest in up to now, has it?

 

In the interview, Mr. Murdoch also says damage from the crisis is "nothing that will not be recovered. We have a reputation of great good works in this country." He conceded, however, that he was "getting annoyed. ...I'll get over it. I'm tired."

 

Tired? I’ll bet he’s going to be a whole lot more tired before the effects of this worldwide scandal die down.

 

Postscript: Rebekah Brooks, the Chief Executive who has been with News International for 22 years, has just resigned. When Murdoch arrived in the UK last week and was asked by the media what his top priority was, he gestured to Mrs. Brooks and said: 'She is.' How the mighty are falling! Sir Order of St. Gregory the Great M just lost another extremely large marble.

[TotallyOz]

I am a news junkie and this fall has one one of the greatest things to read in years. It just keeps getting worst for RM. I wonder how far this is going to go?

[Guest fountainhall]

What really staggers me is the number of massive mis-steps RM and his cohorts have made since the scandal broke. All companies, especially those involved with the public, need regularly updated crisis planning. This is even more true when you know you are skating close to legal boundaries, if not actually leaping over them.

 

Had News Intl. not been so full of its own importance, it could have immediately gone into crisis management mode, started apologising, made concessions to MPs, and so on. Now, the tsunami has burst the barriers, News Corp. and News Intl. have only just brought in Edelman's, the world's largest PR company, to work on a rehabilitation plan. But it's too late. When the waters recede, there will be more slime and muck lying around, of that I'm sure.

[Guest fountainhall]

A ditty (with apologies to the limerick form and a nod at the venerable Scottish poet William McGonagall - often called the worst poet in the English language!)

 

A sly broadcasting Fox, as pure as Snowhite,

A newspaper icon, inextinguishingly bright.

Then old Rupert, alas,

That octogenarian ass,

Lost his feel, as he took hands from the wheel,

And in a fearsome affront

The public lambasted the cunt

And covered Dirty Digger in shite.

[TotallyOz]

Here is Larry Flynt's take on the scandal.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/larry-flynt-rupert-murdoch-went-too-far/2011/07/13/gIQA9ifnGI_story.html?hpid=z2

[TotallyOz]

And, his darling Rebekah Brooks has just been arrested in connection with the scandal. She had an interview with the police and when she showed up, they arrested her on suspicion of corruption and phone hacking. This was the lady that Rupert flew to England and made his top priority. Looks like the dominoes keep falling for poor old Rupert.

[Guest fountainhall]

"I blow thru here

The music goes 'round and around

Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho

And it comes out here"

 

Featured in the film "The Music Goes Round" (1936)

(Mike Riley / Eddie Farley)

 

It ain't over till it's over! There's going to be a lot more music a-playing before this soap opera ends, that's certain.

 

And here's the advance trailer for that blockbuster you've all gptta see - Hackgate: The Movie

 

[Guest fountainhall]

The biggest, most powerful figure to date has now fallen. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned following the phone hacking scandal.

 

Britain's most senior police officer has faced criticism for hiring former News of the World executive Neil Wallis - who was questioned by police investigating hacking - as an adviser.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14180043

Anyone want a bet that bet that James Murdoch's the next head on the block?