NewsCorp Go Boom! July 18, 2011

Rebekah Brooks arrested by hacking police  Inevitable, but bullshit nonetheless if this development keeps her from answering questions in front of a Parlimentry committee on Tuesday..  From BBC. Excerpts:

Ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks has been arrested by police investigating phone hacking and bribery at the News of the World.

The 43-year-old was arrested by appointment on Sunday on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and on suspicion of corruption.
..
Our correspondent added: "It's certainly the most extraordinary development. Rebekah Brooks is incredibly close to the most powerful people in the UK - the current prime minister, the previous prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. More or less every senior person of influence within Britain."

He said it could now potentially jeopardise her appearance at the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee on Tuesday, where she is due to answer MPs questions on the hacking scandal.

"I would assume having been arrested it's now almost impossible for her to appear. It's very difficult for MPs to ask her questions that wouldn't be seen to be impinging on the police investigation," he added.

From Gawker: 

Reports about the arrest are conflicting: Some accounts hold that Brooks was notified of the arrest on Friday and turned herself in to the police station at noon today by appointment, but her spokesman (spokesman!) says Brooks was at the station for questioning and didn't know she would be arrested.

Brooks is due to testify in front of a parliamentary committee on Tuesday; it's unclear if that hearing will still take place. Indeed, MP Tom Watson is speculating that Brooks didn't confirm her attendance at the hearing until after making her appointment to be arrested—allowing her to avoid answering questions from parliament by citing "an ongoing police investigation." The New York Times' Don Van Natta, Jr. (who yesterday broke news of Scotland Yard's complicity in the scandal) tweets about a source who says, ominously that the timing of the arrest "helps her more than hurts her... [and h]elps the Met, too."

Roger Ailes Met With Gov. Haley Barbour Three Weeks Before 2010 Elections  Also from Gawker.  Excerpts:

Add Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to the list of GOP pols that Fox News CEO Roger Ailes schmoozes with. According to records obtained by Gawker under the Mississippi Public Records Act, Barbour met with Ailes at News Corporation's New York headquarters for an hour on October 14, 2010—just three weeks before the midterm elections in which Barbour played a major role.

During the 2010 election cycle, as confidence in the Republican National Committee and its chairman Michael Steele waned among GOP regulars, Barbour and the RGA became de facto leaders of the Republican Party. Until recently, Barbour was widely considered a potential contender for the GOP nomination in 2012. Ailes has claimed that he was "totally surprised" when he learned that News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch had decided to give $1 million to the RGA. The subsequent meeting between the two men raises questions about how insulated Ailes—who used to pick Richard Nixon's ties and plotted to launch a White House funded GOP propaganda network with Watergate felon H.R. Haldeman—was from the decision to fund the RGA.

Roger Ailes and the words "naive," "insulated," "out of the loop," and "innocent" have never, and will never truthfully be paired..  He is none of those things, so of course, this scandal will continue to grow.

More Trouble in Murdochworld  Information Clearing House.  Excerpts:

Rupert Murdoch's troubles keep piling up.

On Friday, Labor leader Ed Miliband called for a break-up of the Murdoch empire saying, "I think he has too much power over British public life.....We’ve got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20 percent of the newspaper market....I think it’s unhealthy.”

Miliband has a good grasp of public sentiment, which is why his personal approval ratings have soared in the last few weeks. His comments reflect a fundamental change in attitudes about media ownership following revelations about Millie Dowler, the 13-year old murder victim whose phone messages were hacked by investigators employed by Murdoch. The public now understands that the concentration of media has led to terrible abuses that need to be corrected. As the phone hacking investigation widens, the effort to revise media ownership rules is bound to gain pace.
And:
Well, first of all, there's the question of criminal wrongdoing. Is there proof? This is from Reuters:



"News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was warned by police in 2002 about serious malpractice and possible illegal activities by reporters at a newspaper she edited, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday....


"As early as 2002 senior police officers at Scotland Yard met the now chief executive of News International and informed her of serious malpractice on the part of her newspaper staff and criminals undertaking surveillance on their behalf," Brown told parliament on Wednesday." ("Police told News Corps Brooks of malpractice: Brown, Reuters)


Okay, so who knew the phone hacking was going on and how high up the chain of command does it go? All the way to Murdoch?

And:

2008, Cooper wrote on his website that David Brock (now head of Media Matters) had used him as an anonymous, on-background-only source for an Ailes profile he was writing forNew York magazine. Before the piece was published, on November 17, 1997, Cooper claims that his talent agent, Richard Leibner, told him he had received a call from Ailes, who identified Cooper as a source, and insisted that Leibner drop him as a client--or any client reels Leibner sent Fox would pile up in a corner and gather dust. Cooper continued:



“I made the connections. Ailes knew I had given Brock the interview. Certainly Brock didn’t tell him. Of course. Fox News had gotten Brock’s telephone records from the phone company, and my phone number was on the list. Deep in the bowels of 1211 Avenue of the Americas, News Corporation’s New York headquarters, was what Roger called the Brain Room. Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News. But unlike virtually everybody else, because I had to design and build the Brain Room, I knew it also housed a counterintelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.” ("Has Roger Ailes Hacked American Phones for Fox News?" Leslie Savan, The Nation)


If Savan is right, then the other major media are probably involved in similar activities. But doesn't that suggest that media is not really a "watchdog of power" at all, but rather a threat to the public interest? After all, no one knows how this information is being used. It could be that ownership is using the information to blackmail politicians or to eliminate political enemies. Is that why so many congressmen have decided not to run for another term in the 2012 elections, because someone in the media has dirt on them that would turn them into the next Anthony Wiener or John Edwards?

And finally..

"...widening revelations of the phone-hacking scandal show, News Corporation is not an ordinary commercial enterprise. Through his journalists and gossip columnists and the network of former and current police officers and law enforcement officials on his payroll, Rupert Murdoch has been operating what amounts to a private intelligence service. And the threat of personal exposure—on the front page of the Sun or Page Six in the Post—gives News Corporation a kind of leverage over inquisitive regulators or troublesome politicians wielded by no other company on earth.
..
Repeat: "Rupert Murdoch has been operating what amounts to a private intelligence service."

Scotland Yard Chief Resigns Amid Phone Hacking Scandal  Talking Points Memo.  Excerpts:

London'a police commissioner resigned his post on Sunday, just a few hours after a former executive for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp was arrested in connection with the News Of The World phone hacking scandal.

Sir Paul Stephenson, chief of the Metropolitan Police Force, also known as Scotland Yard, announced his resignation in a press conference and explained that the media coverage of the scandal "not only provide[s] excessive distraction both for myself and colleagues, but [is] likely to continue for some time."

Stephenson and the police services have been in the spotlight in the wake of allegations that officers accepted bribes from reporters for Murdoch's News Of The World tabloid -- reporters who have been accused of hacking into the phone records of murder and terrorism victims, celebrities, and public officials. Scotland Yard has also been criticized for botching the initial investigation into News Of The World phone hacking in 2006. Two people were convicted then, but recent revelations suggest the scandal was far more sprawling then the initial investigation found.

Stephenson himself has also been criticized for his decision to hire Neil Wallis, who was arrested last week in connection with the scandal, as a public relations adviser for Scotland Yard.

Neutering the corrupted officials from using their influence and connections will prolong the length of the scandal.  Rebekah Brooks getting arrested and probably not testifying before Tuesday's committee is proof of that.  Individual efforts at self preservation will ultimately kill Murdoch's collective empire.

David Cameron had deep ties to discredited News Corp execs  Boom!  Americablog.  Excerpts:

What exactly was happening? It's odd that the PM had extended a privilege to the News Corp executive that was not even extended to senior members of his team. Certainly a ruthless media that could discredit the opposition could be extremely valuable for a politician. Very curious.

The scale of private links between David Cameron and News International was exposed for the first time last night, with the Prime Minister shown to have met Rupert Murdoch's executives on no fewer than 26 occasions in just over a year since he entered Downing Street.

Every day, more damning revelations and larger implications, all still so early into this event.  The Bigger Picture is sure to shock the masses, eh?