NewsCorp Go Boom! July 12, 2011

Americablog States The Obvious And Inevitable..

Multiple Murdoch news entities allegedly broke law - it’s fair to ask whether Fox News was involved as well

We now know that it wasn't just News of the World, but three of Rupert Murdoch's "news" organizations that allegedly broke the law in order to gather information on the British Prime Minister, the Queen, 9/11 victims, and more. Since this problem was not just isolated to one paper, but rather to the Murdoch empire, it's fair to ask whether other properties in the Murdoch media empire also were in any way involved with this alleged behavior. Did anyone at Fox News, for instance, know about this? Did anyone at Fox ever engage in similar behavior?

In other words, what did Fox News know and when did they know it?

Rupert Murdoch’s Reporters Illegally Spied on the British Prime Minister

Last week, when News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks faced down News of the World reporters to explain why the paper was being cashiered, she warned darkly that all would become clear when the full extent of the rot at her company became known. Today another shoe dropped: Reporters for News International's Sunday Times and Sun illegally accessed former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's bank account, legal files, and family medical records.

The Guardian's Nick Davies and David Leigh are reporting that investigators believe Times, Sun, and News of the World reporters and private investigators surveilled Brown ruthlessly for more than a decade, looking at his bank records, attempting to listen to his voicemails, stealing files on him from his lawyers' offices, and gaining access to his children's medical files. They also believe that an unnamed newspaper gained access to his tax records. The papers used the information for hot scoops like this one:

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 that the boy was suffering from cystic fibrosis.

..
And:
What's less clear is if there are any tactical moves that might save Les Hinton, the CEO of Dow Jones, who oversees the Wall Street Journal. Hinton ran News International during the initial, abortive investigations into phone hacking in 2005 and 2006, and assured Parliament—falsely, it is now known—that the practice was limited at News International and that all the culprits had been rooted out. Now Reuters and other news outlets are turning their attention toward Hinton and wondering whether the man in charge of Murdoch's American flagship helped engineer a massive cover-up or was merely galactically stupid.

News of the World is accused of hacking phones of 9/11 victims  Again; gross. The Daily Mail Online.  Excerpts:

News of the World reporters tried to hack the voicemails of dead 9/11 victims, a former New York policeman claimed last night.

He alleged he was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead.
..
The voicemails are likely to have included harrowing messages from distraught relatives desperately trying to contact their loved ones in the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001.
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Under American law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) makes it a crime for American companies to offer corrupt payments to foreign government officials.

If the allegations of payments to police officers are proven, Mr Murdoch could face an American prosecution in his role as deputy chief operating officer the US-listed News Corp.
In 2009, the former Hollywood producer Gerald Green was jailed for six months after being prosecuted under the FCPA for making $1.8m (£1.1m) in bribes to a Thai government official. Butler University law professor Mike Koehler, an FCPA expert, said: 'I would be very surprised if the U.S. authorities don't become involved in this News International conduct.'

He said the FCPA could be invoked because News Corp is an American company and because the alleged payments would have been made in order for the newspaper to make money from the stories obtained.

Brett Pulley, media correspondent for the Bloomberg news agency in New York, said: 'If the fall out were to continue, my goodness, if it were to impact James Murdoch, then we start to talk about it impacting News Corp’s succession plan, so that affects the company globally.'

Leading article: A growing stench of lies and cover-up  **Boom.**  The Independent.  Excerpts:

News International insisted for many years that phone hacking was not a systemic practice at the News of the World. In 2007, when the newspaper's royal reporter, Clive Goodman, was convicted of illegally intercepting the voicemails of Prince William, the company declared that Goodman was a single rogue reporter and that editors had not approved, or even known, what he was doing.
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.. Les Hinton, and the News of the World editor, Colin Myler – have also appeared before Parliamentary committees over the years to stress that phone hacking was the work of a single journalist.

But yesterday the existence was reported of an internal News International dossier, compiled in 2007, indicating that hacking was "more widespread than previously admitted" at the News of the World. In other words, this dossier suggests that senior News International executives may have knowingly misled the public and Parliament when they claimed that phone hacking was a strictly isolated phenomenon. The dossier also apparently indicates that Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor who went on to become the Prime Minister's communications chief, may have authorised the payment of bribes to the police.

.. It now appears that some senior figures at News International may have lied about phone hacking and also suppressed evidence of a criminal conspiracy to bribe police officers. They might also have allowed (Prime Minister)David Cameron to employ Mr Coulson knowing that he had broken the law.


Boom, indeed.