Murdoch's Scum Credentials All In Order I See

[RedEagle]

I think it's telling that you've got an ex-S*n writer calling for Murdoch being brought into an investigation.

 

The pressure is building on Murdoch. It's going to be interesting if he can use all his PR nous to sway this around and deaden the situation. I would never bet against him.

[clangers]

Liquidation now?

 

Someone on the Today programme mentioned this morning. Didn't really think about it, but it really is the act of an evil genius. I don't believe the Murdochs planned this but they are taking advantage.

 

If it's turns out that they've hacked thousands of people and they're due to pay substantial settlements running into many millions, what better way to avoid the liability than to liquidate? It's pretty clear they'd been considering a seven day scum anyway.

[Phoenix]

Liquidation now?

 

Someone on the Today programme mentioned this morning. Didn't really think about it, but it really is the act of an evil genius. I don't believe the Murdochs planned this but they are taking advantage.

 

If it's turns out that they've hacked thousands of people and they're due to pay substantial settlements running into many millions, what better way to avoid the liability than to liquidate? It's pretty clear they'd been considering a seven day scum anyway.

 

Im pretty sure they would have insurance for this sort of liability.

 

It's more to do with trying to bury alot more stuff which is due to come out. People lose interest if the paper no longer exists

 

They limit any loss of advertising revenue with the launch of sunday s*n.

[Teflon Don]

From Twitter:

 

@billybragg Billy Bragg

Don't worry about NotW journalists. Everyone knows the unemployed get 5 room houses from council and £50k a year in benefits

2 minutes ago via web

[Anubis]

charltonbrooker Charlie Brooker

Starting to wonder if Rebekah Brooks literally owns some kind of nuclear bomb.

 

DRobertPrice Robert Price

by charltonbrooker@

@charltonbrooker last time so many were sacrificed to one ego at least we got a pyramid out of it!

 

frasereC4 Ed Fraser

by Aiannucci

Exclusive: News International official went to data store in Chennai, India and asked if data could be deleted. Request was denied

.

[Mendoza]

http://img28.imagevenue.com/aAfkjfp01fo1i-27147/loc487/78547_ScreenShot007_122_487lo.jpg Edited July 7, 2011 by Mendoza

[Anubis]

This is a good read.

 

What the papers won’t say | The Spectator

 

 

What the papers won’t say

 

PETER OBORNE 9 JULY 2011

 

The omertà of Britain’s press and politicians on phone-hacking amounts to complicity in crime

 

 

Let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that BP threw an extravagant party, with oysters and expensive champagne. Let’s imagine that Britain’s most senior politicians were there — including the Prime Minister and his chief spin doctor. And now let’s imagine that BP was the subject of two separate police investigations, that key BP executives had already been arrested, that further such arrests were likely, and that the chief executive was heavily implicated.

 

Let’s take this mental experiment a stage further: BP’s chief executive had refused to appear before a Commons enquiry, while MPs who sought to call the company to account were claiming to have been threatened. Meanwhile, BP was paying what looked like hush money to silence people it had wronged, thereby preventing embarrassing information entering the public domain.

 

And now let’s stretch probability way beyond breaking point. Imagine that the government was about to make a hugely controversial ruling on BP’s control over the domestic petroleum market. And that BP had a record of non-payment of British tax. The stench would be overwhelming. There would be outrage in the Sun and the Daily Mail — and rightly so — about Downing Street collusion with criminality. The Sunday Times would have conducted a fearless investigation, and the Times penned a pained leader. In parliament David Cameron would have been torn to shreds.

 

Instead, until this week there has been almost nothing, save for a lonely campaign by the Guardian. Because the company portrayed above is not BP, but News International, owner of the Times, the Sunday Times, the News of the World and the Sun, approximately one third of the domestic newspaper market. And last week, Jeremy Hunt ruled that Murdoch, who owns a 39 per cent stake in BSkyB, can now buy it outright (save for Sky’s news channel). This consolidates the Australian-born mogul as by far the most significant media magnate in this country, wielding vast political and commercial power.

 

Every summer Murdoch, now 80 years old, pays one of his rare visits to London, the social highlight of which is the annual News International party. An invitation carries the same weight, say insiders, as a royal command. In the phrase of one of his executives, to turn it down is a ‘statement of intent’.

 

At Murdoch’s side at last month’s bash at the Orangery in Holland Park was Rebekah Brooks, close friend of the prime minister and chief executive of News International. She was also editor of the News of the World in 2002, when Milly Dowler’s phone was apparently hacked by one of the private investigators hired by the newspaper. Mrs Brooks took effective personal charge of Murdoch himself, occasionally leaving her proprietor’s side to hurtle into the throng and recruit the most powerful guests for face-time with the boss. Later she joined Murdoch, News International editors and Gabby Bertin, David Cameron press secretary, for a private dinner.

 

Brooks is already at the heart of one investigation into News International, concerning payments to police officers. She is also deeply implicated in the second, the voicemail hacking scandal known as Operation Weeting. This is now understood to have 70 police officers devoted to it, making it the largest investigation in the Metropolitan Police’s modern history. Yet until recently, Brooks had maintained there was no illegal hacking before 2006.

 

This claim — like so many other News International claims — is now falling apart. Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator imprisoned for hacking that year, is now believed to have targeted Milly Dowler’s phone. This development is seismic. It suggests police could be sitting on an as-yet-unpublished list of victims over an extra four years of Mulcaire’s phone-hacking career.

 

So one point is beyond debate. News International’s leading profit centre, the News of the World, was dependent on a very ugly culture of lawbreaking, hacking and impunity. This freewheeling, ask-no-questions attitude spread to other parts of the organisation, such as the Times and the Sunday Times, both of which used have used illegal or unethical techniques. Even more troubling, when senior News International management were confronted with evidence of wrongdoing, the company made false statements and took actions which prevented key evidence from reaching the public domain.

 

All of this raises the question: what on earth were the British prime minister and his wife doing at the Orangery on that Thursday night? There are those who maintain that David Cameron is little more than a high-grade public relations man. Cameron’s long association with the Murdoch empire, dating from his dreadful decision to hire Andy Coulson — a former editor of the News of the World who resigned after a phone-hacking scandal, and now looks to be in even deeper trouble — unfortunately suggests that the prime minister’s detractors are on to something.

 

When still leader of the opposition, David Cameron came across the PR fixer Matthew Freud, son-in-law of Murdoch, at Rebekah Brooks’s wedding. The two men exchanged an exuberant high-five salute. To this day, the Prime Minister and his wife remain on cheerful social terms with Brooks, who lives barely a mile up the road from the their country home. They have been known to go riding together. All this is too depressing for words.

 

In normal circumstances, such troubling and persistent failures of prime-ministerial judgment would be meat and drink to an opposition leader. But until this week, Ed Miliband had made the pragmatic decision to ignore the phone-hacking story — explaining privately to confidants that he had no choice because the alternative would be ‘three years of hell’ at the hands of the Murdoch press. His recent, panicked call for Brooks’s resignation only serves to highlight his silence on the scandal hitherto.

 

I am told that he has agreed in principle to follow in the footsteps of both Tony Blair and David Cameron and fly round the world to address an annual conference of News International executives. Perhaps he will make his theme the restoration of public decency. In recent weeks Miliband has made a series of speeches about this subject, demanding ‘a greater sense of responsibility and national mission for our country’. Doubtless it was this urgent mission which took him, alongside his shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, and his shadow chancellor Ed Balls, to the Murdoch party.

 

The truth is that Ed Miliband had made his choice very early with the appointment of Tom Baldwin, a former News International journalist, as his spin doctor. This mirrored David Cameron’s appointment of Coulson, another Murdoch high-flyer, to a similar role. For ten years, Baldwin was at the heart of a Times campaign to destroy Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory treasurer. As Ashcroft records in his book Dirty Politics, Dirty Times, illegal techniques were used, though not directly by Baldwin. A private investigator was used to ‘blag’ his way into the Conservative party bank account, while the Times paid £6,000 to a US Drugs Enforcement Agency official called Jonathan Randel for leaked information (the Times insisted the money was simply paid as a ‘research fee’). As a result Randel was sent to jail.

 

Perhaps Baldwin, like his former News International colleagues, doesn’t find phone hacking too shocking. Indeed, one of his first actions as Miliband’s spin-doctor was to instruct Labour MPs to go easy on the scandal. In a leaked memo, he ordered them not to link it to the impending takeover decision on BSkyB. But this was to let News International crucially off the hook. For the key question — and it burns deeper than ever in the light of the Milly Dowler revelations — is exactly whether the owner of News International is any longer a ‘fit and proper’ person to occupy such a dominant position in the British media.

 

This is a question that has almost never been asked. This is partly because of heavy political protection of the kind that was on such vivid display at the Orangery last month. But Murdoch could not have got away with it for so long but for the silence in the British press. The Sunday Mirror is the News of the World’s most direct competitor: one would have expected it to revel in its rival’s problems. Instead it has largely ignored the story — except for an attack on the News of the World on Wednesday — as has Express Newspapers.

 

The Daily Mail, likewise, has written almost nothing. Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief at Associated Newspapers, is rightly regarded as the greatest newspaper editor of his time. But in this case Fleet Street’s moralist has lost his compass: his failure to engage seriously with the phone-hacking story is a most unfortunate blot on a brilliant career. The Daily Telegraph, for which I write, has done better, but the minimum. Only the Guardian, and belatedly the Independent, have covered the story with flair and integrity.

 

This should have been one of the great stories of all time. It has almost everything — royalty, police corruption, Downing Street complicity, celebrities by the cartload, Fleet Street at its most evil and disgusting. One day, I guess, it will be turned into a brilliant film, and there will be a compulsive book as well.

 

The truth is that very few newspapers can declare themselves entirely innocent of buying illegal information from private detectives. A 2006 report by the Information Commissioner gave a snapshot into the affairs of one such ‘detective’, caught in so-called ‘Operation Motorman’. The commissioner’s report found that 305 journalists had been identified ‘as customers driving the illegal trade in confidential personal information’. It named each newspaper group, the number of offences and the number of guilty journalists (see above). But, as the commission observed, coverage of this scandal ‘even in the broadsheets, at the time of publication, was limited’. The same reticence has been seen, until now, over the voicemail-hacking scandal.

 

By minimising these stories, media groups are coming dangerously close to making a very significant statement: they are essentially part of the same bent system as News International and complicit in its criminality. At heart this is a story about the failure of the British system, which relies on a series of checks and balances to prevent high-level corruption. Each one of them has failed: parliament because MPs feel intimidated by the power of newspapers to expose and destroy them; and opposition, because Ed Miliband lacked the moral imagination to escape the News International mindset — until he was forced to confront it all by the sheer horror of the Milly Dowler episode.

 

That leaves the prime minister. He finally woke up to the kind of company he has been keeping on Tuesday when during his Afghanistan visit he declared the Milly Dowler revelations ‘truly dreadful’. David Cameron has repeatedly displayed an inability to make a distinction between right and wrong. The press ought to have stepped into the breach. Unfortunately, we in Fleet Street have forgotten that the ultimate vindication of journalism is not to intrude into, and destroy, private lives. Nor is it the dance around power, money and social status. It is the fight for truth and decency.

 

[Teflon Don]

Meanwhile, over in Ireland....

 

IRISH DAILY STAR: Woman dies after sex with dog #papers #fron... on Twitpic

[RoboRiise]

They are back at work now. Lasted 30 minutes the pricks.

 

 

lol etc.

 

 

I'm not the only one who'd like to fuck her though, am I?

 

Fuck no, I'd bang the shit out of her but it would have to be from behind so that I could pretend she really was Carol Decker. Then I'd make her look over her shoulder when I was on the vinegar strokes and spuff all over her Karen Matthews chin.

[RoboRiise]

World stories are 'not material' to BSkyB takeover decision

 

Stephen Lepitak

Media / UK

 

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport has said that the latest revelations surrounding the News of the World will not affect the announcement by Jeremy Hunt as to his stance over the takeover of BSkyB.

 

 

As further evidence emerges of phone hacking and police bribery for information at the Sunday tabloid, owned by Rupert Murdoch, questions were raised as to the effects that could be had upon the takeover of BSkyB by News International.

 

The takeover cannot proceed without Government clearance, and culture secretary is expected to make an announcement that he will allow it to proceed in the coming days.

 

A spokesperson told The Drum that the current revelations would have no connection to the decision.

 

“The merger has been investigated on the basis of the effect it could have on media plurality. The phone-hacking allegations are very serious, but they are not material to the issue of media plurality,” said the spokesperson.

 

Former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who was one of those who had his phone hacked by the newspaper, has called for the takeover to be blocked after it was revealed that murdered school girl Millie Dowler had her own phone hacked and messaged deleted by an investigator working for the paper.

 

Queries have also been raised following the allegations as to whether the BSkyB will allow the deal to proceed, and could see News Corporation pay even more to complete the takeover, which was initially valued at £7.4bn when first proposed last June.

 

 

Murdoch himself could appear on a three hour prime-time segment being fucked by a Golden Retriever and it wouldn't stop this deal from going through. I doubt very much whether the shocking and untimely death of Jeremy Hunt in a freak lawnmower accident would stop this deal from going through either, although I'd be delighted if that theory was put to the test.

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

News International have allegedly handed over evidence to the police that he made payments to senior police officers for information. No wonder Andy Hyman and his team were so keen to limit the first investigation. It may get tasty if the speculation that James Murdoch authorised those payments is true.

 

It will be interesting to see if Coulson accepts any wrongdoing, and implicates others.

 

Coulson doesn't look any kind of Vic Vega to me, though Murdoch is easily bent enough to be Big Joe, would never have marked Hugh Grant as mr Orange tho

[razor]

This is a good read.

 

What the papers won't say | The Spectator

 

What a great, great article that is.

 

And for those wondering why the Mail / Mirror et al have been quite quiet over the revelations, (as stated in the article), the 2006 report by the Information Commissioner gave a snapshot into the affairs of ONE 'private detective’, caught in so-called ‘Operation Motorman’.

 

The commissioner’s report found that 305 journalists had been identified ‘as customers driving the illegal trade in confidential personal information’.

 

The three columns are "Publication" / "Number of proven transactions" / "Number of journalists using services"

 

 

 

Daily Mail 952 58

Sunday People 802 50

Daily Mirror 681 45

Mail on Sunday 266 33

News of the World 182 19

Sunday Mirror 143 25

 

 

We don't want these to be scrutinised now, do we?

 

They look after eachother, the great British free press. And of course, out of a sense of citizenship and responsibility to serve the needs of the public, Reithian values of "Inform" and "Educate" are at the heart of everything they do.

 

What says you, man in the street? "Ay, I see that slag in Ireland died shaggin' a dog!!!!!"

 

Ah.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I don't know if anybody here watched it, but I thought Ed Miliband's speech this morning was on the money. He's actually leading the opposition, which is a bit of a shock.

[Best Believe It]

I don't know if anybody here watched it, but I thought Ed Miliband's speech this morning was on the money. He's actually leading the opposition, which is a bit of a shock.

 

He's doing really, really well on this. Cameron is attempting to keep up, but he's still trying to absolve himself of any personal links to Coulson/Brooks and trying to avoid being too critical of the Murdoch empire.

[Einch]

I don't know if anybody here watched it, but I thought Ed Miliband's speech this morning was on the money. He's actually leading the opposition, which is a bit of a shock.

 

I'm not impressed one iota by this as it is as clear as day that he is shit scared of Murdoch and will not be willing to go on the offensive in any real of meaningful way. I can understand his plight based on how evidently corrupt the UK is but I can not forgive him for his lack of guts.

 

Do you think the sheep out there are going to see this story as evidence of how corrupt the UK and the West is in general? I spoke to a few colleagues yesterday and they were truly appalled that I thought the UK was corrupt until I drew it out for them on a whiteboard and then they were shocked. They actually got it and were even more appalled by how little they knew of what was truly going on in the country, and world by extension, when they considered themselves "well read" and well informed.

[WaltonRed]

Cameron saying Coulsen is his thing is very dangerous

 

Should the shit really hit the fan or Coulsen turn on him then he'd be fucked

 

I do hope this happens

[Sugar Ape]

Cameron saying Coulsen is his thing is very dangerous

 

Should the shit really hit the fan or Coulsen turn on him then he'd be fucked

 

I do hope this happens

 

The press conference is a joke, every question has been the same, trying to get Cameron to condemn Coulsen and he just keeps repeating himself!

Not enough questions on the BskyB bid. That's where they should be pressuring him, that is what Murdoch really wants and I would love it if the bid fell through because of this.

[RedEagle]

If Clegg or any of the LDs found out their phones were hacked prior the election that could possibly mean Cameron knew their thoughts etc. What do you think would happen then?

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Should never need a particular reason to play this, but seems quite apt.

 

[YOUTUBE]Cj2aQVB7FD4&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I'm not impressed one iota by this as it is as clear as day that he is shit scared of Murdoch and will not be willing to go on the offensive in any real of meaningful way. I can understand his plight based on how evidently corrupt the UK is but I can not forgive him for his lack of guts.

 

Personally, I think taking the lead and calling for the head of Rebekah Brooks and for a new regulatory body is pretty gutsy. Okay, he could have gone of on a Chomsky style attack on the press, but that was never going to happen. What did you expect of him.

[dennis tooth]

I don't know if anybody here watched it, but I thought Ed Miliband's speech this morning was on the money. He's actually leading the opposition, which is a bit of a shock.

 

U stupid penis.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

U stupid penis.

 

On the downside, you've use 'u'. On the upside, you capitalised it.

[Redder Lurtz]

Milliband on Cameron:

 

"His wholly unconvincing answers of what he knew and when he knew it about Mr Coulson's activities undermine his ability to lead the change that Britain needs."

 

He's tried to throw in a strategic message as a soundbite whilst slagging off Cameron for an interview he gave about Coulson. And he's failed miserably. It doesn't even make sense. Milliband is an absolute fucking tit.

[dennis tooth]

To capitalise on a run of exclusives on the phone hacking story from Channel 4 News, the Dispatches material will run as a series of separate reports within the 7pm bulletin. The first will run tonight as a special report. (Thurs 7 July, 7pm).

 

Produced by Blakeway, the team behind previous Dispatches on phone hacking, Tabloids, Tories and Telephone Hacking and Tabloid's Dirty Secrets, the reports provide new insight into how News of the World journalists obtained confidential information from corrupt police.

 

They have been working with Channel 4 News Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies to produce this new material. In recent weeks, Andy Davies revealed the secret police operation set up to investigate computer hacking, known as Operation Tuleta and details of other conduct concerns that the police had raised with News International.

 

Following this week's new allegations, the Metropolitan Police have told Channel 4 News that in 2003 officers met the former editor of the News of the World, Rebekah Brooks, over claims that a police officer was shadowed by journalists from the paper. The allegations - exclusively revealed by Channel 4 News on Tuesday - involve a surveillance operation during a crucial murder investigation which implicated private investigators who had alleged links to News International.

 

Jay Hunt, Chief Creative Officer, Channel 4: "This was always set to be an explosive Dispatches which would shed new light on this incredible story. By airing this material as part of the 7pm programme, we can get it to the audience faster, and capitalise on the clear affinity between our news and current affairs brands."

 

Martin Fewell, Deputy Editor, Channel 4 News says: "Channel 4 News' Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies has really made his mark on this story - revealing previously undiscovered police investigations and complaints against News International. Working with Blakeway has enabled us to dig further into these areas away from the rolling and relentless pace of this story."

 

Fiona Stourton, Executive Producer, Blakeway Productions says: "Having made two successful revelatory Dispatches on the phone hacking story for Channel 4, Blakeway Productions was immersed in a third production when the story came back into the headlines. Our broadcast date was a few weeks away and yet it was clear that we needed to get to air as quickly as possible to inform the current debate. Channel 4 news has provided that opportunity and it's great to be working together with Andy Davies to get our new information out right now

 

Should be worth a watch I shall not be able to view it.

[dennis tooth]

Personally, I think taking the lead and calling for the head of Rebekah Brooks and for a new regulatory body is pretty gutsy.

 

So are you going to credit Cameron for doing the same now? Ridiculous, you have no moral valustion of such issues but yeah your grammar is decent, your grammar has no moral value either.