NewsCorp Go Boom! July 16, 2011

“We are sorry” says News Corp boss Murdoch  "Dear World:  I am so, so sorry I got caught.  Terribly, terribly sorry..  that I got caught.  Now Fuck off and go away.  Was that nice enough?"

Chair of Dow Jones, close Murdoch ally, quit today. And, it’s crisis PR time.   I didn't think Hinton and Brooks would resign not only on the same day, but during the first real week of this newly international scandal?  That's huge, and not a good sign at all for anyone left..

Murdoch hit by FBI 9/11 hacking inquiry  The Independent(with video)  Excerpts:

The investigation into criminal behaviour by journalists at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp crossed the Atlantic yesterday as the FBI opened an inquiry into claims that the News of the World tried to hack the phones of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

As News Corp's shares slid in New York and legal problems threatened to engulf the rest of his media empire, Mr Murdoch launched a vigorous defence of his own handling of the scandal and of the conduct of his son, James.

The FBI opened the inquiry after sustained pressure from both Republican and Democrat politicians, who expressed outrage at the claims that 9/11 victims could have been among the NOTW's targets. The FBI is following claims first made in the Daily Mirror at the start of this week that NOTW journalists contacted a former New York police officer, now working as a private investigator, and offered to pay him to retrieve the phone records of those killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks. Police sources said the investigation is at a preliminary stage.

Phone hacking: Murdoch paid US anti-bribery law lobbyists  The Guardian.  Excerpts:

Rupert Murdoch donated $1m to a pro-business lobby in the US months before the group launched a high-profile campaign to alter the anti-bribery law – the same law that could potentially be brought to bear against News Corporation over the phone-hacking scandal.

News Corporation contributed $1m to the US Chamber of Commerce last summer. In October the chamber put forward a six-point programme for amending the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, a law that punishes US-based companies for engaging in the bribery of foreign officials.

Progressive groups in the US have speculated that there is no coincidence in the contemporaneous timing of the Murdoch donation and the launch of the chamber's FCPA campaign, which they claim is designed to weaken the anti-bribery legislation. "The timing certainly raises questions about who is bankrolling this campaign – if it's not News Corporation who is it?" said Joshua Dorner of the Centre for American Progress action fund.

Ilyse Hogue of the monitoring group Media Matters said the donation was in tune with Murdoch's track record. "Time and again we've seen News Corporation use their massive power and influence to change laws that don't suit them. The proximity of this contribution and the chamber's lobbying campaign at least should raise eyebrows."

Murdoch Has Blood on His Hands  Information Clearing House.  Excerpts:

Nailing Rupert Murdoch for his employees' phone tapping or bribery would be a little like bringing down Al Capone for tax fraud, or George W. Bush for torture. I'd be glad to see it happen but there'd still be something perverse about it.
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In this video, Murdoch confesses to having used his media outlets to support the Iraq War and to having tried to shape public opinion in favor of the war. That is the very definition of propaganda for war.

The propaganda is, also by definition, part of the public record. Although that record speaks for itself, Murdoch has not been shy about adding his commentary. The week before the world's largest anti-war protests ever and the United Nation's rejection of the Iraq War in mid-February 2003, Murdoch told a reporter that in launching a war Bush was acting "morally" and "correctly" while Blair was "full of guts" and "extraordinarily courageous." Murdoch promoted the looming war as a path to cheap oil and a healthy economy. He said he had no doubt that Bush would be "reelected" if he "won" the war and the U.S. economy stayed healthy. That's not an idle statement from the owner of the television network responsible for baselessly prompting all of the other networks to call the 2000 election in Bush's favor during a tight race in Florida that Bush actually lost.

Murdoch's support for the Iraq War extended to producing support for that war from every one of his editors and talking heads. It would be interesting to know what Murdoch and Blair discussed in the days leading up to the war. But knowing that would add little, if anything, to the open-and-shut case against Murdoch as war propagandist. Murdoch had known the war was coming long before February 2003, and had long since put his media machine behind it.

It is in America that Rupert Murdoch faces ruin  The Telegraph.  Excerpts:

We’ve been waiting a long time, but now the moment of reckoning is here: American journalists, long maligned by their British colleagues as boring and earnest, can finally take their revenge.

American newspapers have featured the News International meltdown on front pages since the story broke. American websites have posted every new development, as it breaks.

Gawker.com cheerfully writes that News International is “besieged by a strange and unfamiliar phenomenon called 'bad publicity that can’t just be ignored’”.

I wonder if Rupert and his minions are astonished at the level rage-into-action their actions have provoked.  The event has exploded from "scandal," to "international criminal corporatism," all within the month of July!  Politicians from across opposing aisles and common people alike are lining up to voice their disgust, with what is looking more and more like systemic behavior, not limited to just murder victims and 9/11 families.  All the wrongs will begin to exposed, as The Wronged never forgot.  The investigations will go deeper, overlap, and the shoes will continue to drop, every revelation adding to the damage. 

Will Rupert's creation survive, or die?  If the latter, will death come in the form of one as yet unknown, spectacular revelation, or will NewsCorp International bleed out from the 1000 cuts it is now receiving?