Rupert Murdoch: Scientologists are ‘creepy, maybe even evil’

This is amazing for two reasons, both fairly obvious:  If Rupert Murdoch thinks you're creepy and may be evil, that is..  An Achievement.  The other;  Is Rupert Murdoch and his News International picking a fight with The Church of Scientology?  That would be, by definition, popcorn worthy!   The Raw Story:

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch weighed in on the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes divorce story Sunday, saying he thinks Scientologists are “creepy” and possibly even evil.



The News Corporation chief urged his Twitter followers to watch the story, which broke on Friday when Holmes announced she was filing from divorce from Hollywood A-lister Cruise, a prominent member of the Church of Scientology.


“Watch Katie Holmes and Scientology story develop. Something creepy, maybe even evil, about these people,” Murdoch said on his Twitter account, @rupertmurdoch.


The fairytale Hollywood couple’s split was revealed when Holmes’ publicist announced that the actress had filed for divorce after five years of marriage, ending an unexpected love story dogged by tabloid rumors.


A spokesman for Cruise said the “Mission Impossible” star was “deeply saddened” by the news, fueling reports that his wife’s announcement had taken him by surprise.


Speculation about why Holmes wanted out has included suggestions she was concerned that Cruise was forcing their six-year-old daughter Suri deeper into the Church of Scientology.


The TMZ celebrity news website has reported that Holmes is seeking sole custody of Suri. Citing unnamed sources, it said she feared “that Tom would drag Suri deep into the church.”

“We’re told the couple had been arguing over Suri — that she’s now of the age where Scientology becomes a significant part of her life,” it said.
Murdoch’s Scientology comment generated a surge of Twitter traffic, prompting another tweet: “Since Scientology tweet hundreds of attacks. Expect they will increase and get worse and maybe threatening.

“Still stick to my story,” he added.


There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Church of Scientology, or from publicists for Cruise or Holmes.


A short time after his Scientology tweet, Murdoch was asked his views on Mormonism — in the spotlight currently as Mormon Mitt Romney takes on President Barack Obama for the White House.


“Mormonism a mystery to me, but Mormons certainly not evil,” the News Corp tycoon replied

By the way: That whole phone hacking scandal unpleasantness..  How's that working out for you?

Former British prime minister challenges Murdoch testimony

How does that old saying go?  "It takes a village of Prime Ministers to spank the ass of a media mogul?"  Something like that..  In any case, pop some popcorn, and let's watch!  Raw Story.  The WHOLE thing!:

Former British prime minister John Major told the Leveson inquiry on Tuesday that Rupert Murdoch demanded he change his policy on Europe, directly contradicting the News Corp. chief’s own testimony.


Major’s challenge comes a day after another former premier,Gordon Brown, also accused the Australian-born tycoon of misleading the inquiry into press ethics.

Major, who was the Conservative prime minister from 1990 to 1997, said he had dinner with Murdoch in February 1997 as part of an effort to get closer to the media baron’s newspapers ahead of elections.

“It became apparent in discussion that Mr Murdoch really didn’t like our European policies, which was no surprise to me, and he wished me to change our European policies,” Major told the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics.


“It is not very often someone sits in front of a prime minister and says ‘I would like you to change your policy and if you don’t change your policy my organisation cannot support you.’”

Major says he told Murdoch there was “no question on us changing our policies.”

Murdoch’s Sun tabloid, Britain’s best-selling daily newspaper, switched its support to Major’s Labour rival Tony Blair shortly afterwards, and Blair went on to win the May 1997 election.

Murdoch told the Leveson Inquiry on April 25 that he had “never asked a prime minister for anything”, as he tried to downplay his papers’ political influence.

On Monday, former Labour premier Brown appeared at the inquiry and denied the media baron’s claim that he had telephoned the tycoon in November 2010 threatening to “make war” on News Corp.

News Corp. said on Monday that Murdoch “stands by his testimony” regarding Brown.

The inquiry, chaired by senior judge Brian Leveson, was set up by current Prime Minister David Cameron last July in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch’s now-closed News of the World tabloid.

Cameron is due to give evidence to the inquiry on Thursday.

Ooh!  Let's check back then!  More fireworks!  More popcorn!  My favorite comment from the Raw Story readers? 

"If a conservative ends Murdoch's empire it may be the irony of the century."



And that irony will be delicious!  And I won't even bitch about it if I gain some weight..

FCC urged to revoke Fox broadcast licenses

Wow.  CREW's picking a HUGE fight.  Now that Rupert's been ruled unfit for stewardship of NewsCorp International in Great Britain, there's a chance he can lose his American television licenses, too.  It'll be interesting to see how the media covers this one..  The Raw Story.   Excerpts:

A Washington-based ethics watchdog is calling on federal regulators to revoke News Corporation’s 27 Fox broadcast licences in the wake of the highly critical report on phone hacking from the UK parliament.



Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) has written to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, calling on the regulator to pull the plug on Rupert Murdoch’s lucrative television licences on grounds of character.


The letter argues that the final report of the UK Commons culture, media and sport committee, which concluded that Murdoch was not fit to run a major international company, had implications for the US regulators that they had now to act upon.


Melanie Sloan, Crew’s director, said that the Murdochs had clearly failed the character test that is embedded within US media law as it is within British. “If they are not passing the character standard under British law, it seems to me that they are not going to meet the character standard in America.”


In their report, the British parliamentarians found Rupert Murdoch was “not a fit person” to exercise stewardship of a major international company. The Commons culture, media and sport select committee also concluded that James Murdoch showed “wilful ignorance” of the extent of phone hacking during 2009 and 2010.


Under FCC regulations, broadcast frequencies can only be handed to firms run by people of good “character” who serve the “public interest” and speak with “candor”. In making that judgment, the FCC is entitled to consider past conduct of media owners, including conduct that does not relate directly to their broadcasting interests, as well as any patterns of alleged misbehaviour.
..

But Crew insisted that as more information emerges about the failure of News Corp to deal with its hacking crisis, federal authorities would eventually be forced to act. The watchdog has also written to the US Senate and House committees on commerce calling for congressional hearings into whether the Murdochs were fit to hold the Fox TV licences. A similar request from Crew last year went unanswered.

And:
Some shareholders are intensifying their calls for a shake-up at the top of News Corp on the back of the British parliamentary report. Change to Win, an advisory group that works with pension funds with over $200bn in assets, called for Murdoch to resign. Senior policy analyst Michael Pryce-Jones said News Corp’s board should meet to form a succession plan immediately. “This is a company in crisis,” he said.



Pryce-Jones said that when he first saw the headlines about the report he had assumed they were talking about James Murdoch. “This is far worse than I had expected,” he said. “The focus is now on Rupert.”
He added: “In any other company James would have have been sacked in July and we’d be preparing for succession. [Rupert] Murdoch clearly can not stay on a CEO and chairman of this company.”


Pryce-Jones said he blamed News Corp’s independent directors for much of what had gone wrong. The directors include top US lawyer Viet Dinh, chief architect of the USA Patriot Act, Joel Klein, the former chancellor of the New York City department of education and Rod Eddington, former chief executive of British Airways. “They have said that they are going to act, but they have done nothing. They need a Plan B. Plan A was apparently to ignore this and hope it would go away,” he said.


The headwinds Rupert faces now just got stronger.

Former News International boss Rebekah Brooks and her husband among six arrested over phone hacking 'cover-up'

I bet this was a "busy phone day" within the Murdoch Publishing Empire..    From The Daily Mail.  Today's highlights and excerpts:

*  Five men and one woman arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice
*  Rebekah Brooks and millionaire husband Charlie held at their Chipping Norton home, which was  being searched by officers
*  Charlie Brooks wrote that yesterday - the first day of the Cheltenham Festival - is his 'happiest of the year'
* News International head of security Mark Hanna among those held
* 23 people have now been arrested under Operation Weeting, the phone-hacking probe

Rebekah Brooks and her racehorse trainer husband Charlie were arrested in dawn raids yesterday by police investigating allegations of a cover-up in the phone hacking inquiry.



The former News International chief executive and her husband – both close friends of David Cameron – were held on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.


They were among six people detained by detectives from Operation Weeting, the inquiry into illegal hacking of voicemail messages.

Mrs Brooks, the former editor of The Sun and the News of the World, has been on bail since last summer when she was arrested on suspicion of phone-hacking and corruption.



That arrest in July was ‘by appointment’ but yesterday the couple were woken by a sharp, unexpected, knock on the front door of their Cotswolds mansion.


The dramatic new police action is hugely embarrassing for the Prime Minister, who was flying to the United States for an official visit to President Obama while his friends and neighbours in the so-called Chipping Norton set were being questioned by police.

Earlier this month Mr Cameron’s links with the couple came under fresh scrutiny over the ‘Horsegate’ revelation that the Met Police had lent Mrs Brooks a retired police horse. He was forced to admit he may have ridden the horse with Mr Brooks, a friend from their Eton days.



Asked about the arrests, a Downing Street spokesman said: ‘The Prime Minister is travelling to Washington. It is an operational matter for the police. You wouldn’t expect him to comment on it.’


Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who was a victim of phone hacking, tweeted: ‘Cameron flees the country as his mates are arrested.’
And:
Court documents released last month allege a cover-up of phone-hacking at the now-defunct News of the World with bosses creating a policy of deleting emails which could be used against it in court. The papers, filed in the High Court, said the policy’s aim was ‘to eliminate in a consistent manner’ emails that ‘could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation in which a News International company is a defendant’.



The number of people arrested in Operation Weeting, which has been running since last January when police reopened investigations, stands at 21. Two other linked investigations – Operation Elveden into corrupt payments to police and Operation Tuleta into computer hacking – have resulted in 26 arrests.


Previous Operation Weeting arrests for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice include Cheryl Carter, a PA to Mrs Brooks.
The Mail also gives great Timeline.  Here's that..

PHONE HACKING PROBE: TIMELINE OF EVENTS AT NEWS INTERNATIONAL



2007: January 26 - The News of the World's royal editor, Clive Goodman, is jailed for four months and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire receives a six-month sentence after they admit intercepting voicemail messages on royal aides' phones. The paper's editor, Andy Coulson, resigns,


2009: July 9 - The Guardian reports that the News of the World's publisher has paid over £1 million to settle cases that threatened to reveal evidence of its journalists' alleged involvement in phone hacking.
Scotland Yard says it will not be carrying out a new investigation into the allegations, but the Crown Prosecution Service announces a review of material provided by the police in 2006.


2010: February 24 - A Culture, Media and Sport Committee report finds no evidence that Mr Coulson knew phone hacking was taking place at the News of the World, but says it is 'inconceivable' that no-one apart from Goodman was aware of it.


May 11 - Mr Coulson becomes head of the new coalition Government's media operation after Mr Cameron enters 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister.


September 5 - The New York Times publishes an article which claims Mr Coulson knew his staff were carrying out illegal phone hacking. The story also raises questions about how vigorously Scotland Yard pursued the case.


2011: January 21 - Mr Coulson announces he is standing down as Downing Street communications chief, saying the claims about illegal eavesdropping under his editorship was making his job impossible.


January 26 - Scotland Yard launches a fresh inquiry into the phone hacking controversy, called Operation Weeting, after receiving 'significant new information' from News International, which publishes the News of the World.


April 8 - News International admits liability and apologises "unreservedly" to a number of public figures whose phones were hacked.


July 4 - The Guardian reports that the News of the World hacked the mobile phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler after she went missing in 2002.


July 6 - Mr Cameron announces a public inquiry into the scandal. Rupert Murdoch describes the phone hacking allegations as 'deplorable and unacceptable' but backs Rebekah Brooks to continue as News International chief executive.


July 7 - News International chairman James Murdoch announces he is closing the News of the World.


July 8 - Mr Coulson is arrested on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption and held for questioning before being released on bail.


July 14 - Former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis is arrested on suspicion of phone hacking, putting Scotland Yard under pressure to explain why it employed him as a PR consultant in 2009-10.


July 15 - Mrs Brooks resigns as chief executive of News International and is arrested two days later on suspicion of phone hacking before being bailed.


July 18 - Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner John Yates stands down following criticism of his handling of a review of the initial probe into phone hacking at the News of the World.
Former News of the World journalist and phone-hacking whistle-blower Sean Hoare is found dead at his home in Watford, Hertfordshire.


July 19 - Rupert and James Murdoch, along with Mrs Brooks, give evidence to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee.


September 6 - The News of the World's former editor Colin Myler and ex-legal manager Tom Crone tell the Culture, Media and Sport Committee they informed James Murdoch in 2008 about an email that proved hacking went beyond a single 'rogue reporter' on the News of the World. Mr Murdoch denies their claim.


November 8 - The BBC reports that the News of the World paid private detective Derek Webb to spy on Prince William, the parents of Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe and a host of other high-profile individuals.


November 14 - The Leveson Inquiry, sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, starts hearing evidence about the culture, practice and ethics of the British press.


December 12 - A lawyer for Scotland Yard tells the Leveson Inquiry it is 'unlikely' that News International journalists erased messages from Milly Dowler's phone three days after she went missing in 2002, contrary to the Guardian's original report in July.


2012: January 6 - Mrs Brooks's former personal assistant, Cheryl Carter, is arrested on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice and questioned before being released on bail.


January 19 - The High Court hears that dozens of celebrities and politicians, including Jude Law and Lord Prescott, have now settled damages claims over the News of the World phone hacking scandal.


January 23 - A report reveals a News of the World journalist told police in April 2002 that they got Milly Dowler's mobile phone number and pin from other schoolchildren.


January 26 - Former defence secretary Liam Fox said attempts were made to hack his phone, though not while he was a government minister, and says he has met with officers from Scotland Yard's hacking inquiry Operation Weeting


January 28 - Four former and current Sun journalists and a serving Metropolitan Police officer are arrested over alleged illegal police payments. Senior Sun employees Chris Pharo, 42, and Mike Sullivan along with former executives Fergus Shanahan, 57, and Graham Dudman, are detained by officers from Operation Elveden. They are later bailed.


February 2 - Labour MP Tom Watson says he has received a letter from Scotland Yard informing him that police are investigating allegations of email hacking at The Times, after the newspaper admitted one of its reporters tried to access a private account. The Times named Lancashire detective Richard Horton as the author of the award-winning NightJack blog in June 2009 after the High Court refused to grant him anonymity. Editor James Harding later told the Leveson Inquiry that one of his reporters - named as Patrick Foster - was issued with a formal written warning for professional misconduct for gaining unauthorised access to Mr Horton's email account.


February 7 - The Metropolitan Police force admits at the High Court that it failed to warn victims and potential victims of phone hacking at the time of its original investigation into the scandal.


February 8 - Steve Coogan and Paul Gascoigne are among 15 phone-hacking damages claims which settle close to trial. The payments mean 54 of the original 60 cases have been settled. Five more are due to be heard later, while singer Charlotte Church and her parents have refused to settle, paving the way for a landmark trial on February 27.
February 11 - Eight people, including five employees from The Sun, a serving member of the Armed Forces, a Ministry of Defence employee and a Surrey Police officer, are arrested in connection with the probe into inappropriate payments to police and public officials.
Police confirm Operation Elveden has widened to include the investigation of evidence uncovered in relation to suspected corruption involving public officials who are not police officers.

February 13 - Trevor Kavanagh, associate editor of The Sun, accuses police of treating the paper's journalists like 'members of an organised crime gang'.
He also tells BBC Radio 4's The World At One that there were concerns at the way evidence passed to the police by the NI's Management and Standards Committee (MSC) was being used.


February 16 - Rupert Murdoch arrives in the UK to take charge of the latest crisis involving one of his titles.


February 17 - Mr Murdoch declares his 'unwavering support' for the Sun's journalists and announces he is lifting the suspensions of all arrested staff.
He also confirms he will begin publishing the top-selling tabloid seven days a week by launching a new paper called the Sun on Sunday 'very soon'.


February 19 - News International announces The Sun on Sunday will be published on February 26 for the first time.


February 27 - Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, the police officer leading the phone hacking investigation, tells the Leveson Inquiry officers have uncovered a 'network' of corruption and evidence suggesting 'culture of illegal payments' at The Sun which appeared to have been authorised at a 'senior level'.


March 1 - Virginia Wheeler, 32, defence editor of The Sun, is arrested on suspicion of paying public officials for information. She becomes the 23rd person to be arrested by officers working on Operation Elveden.


March 6 - It emerges that the Attorney General is looking into concerns that Ms Akers's evidence could have prejudiced any potential trials.

March 13 - Rebekah Brooks and her racehorse trainer husband are among six suspects arrested by detectives investigating phone hacking at News International. They are held on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Stay tuned!  It's going to be a wonderful spring..

Rupert's Hacking Scandal: The Gift That Keeps On Giving..

..British police arrest 5 in tabloid bribery probe  Go little Energizer Scandal; Go!  Yahoo Finance.  Excerpts:

The criminal investigation into British tabloid skullduggery turned full force on a second Rupert Murdoch publication Saturday, with the arrest of four current and former journalists from The Sun on suspicion of bribing police.



A serving police officer was also held, and authorities searched the newspaper's offices as part an investigation into illegal payments for information.
..
Murdoch's News Corp. confirmed that all four were current or former Sun employees. The BBC and other British media identified them as former managing editor Graham Dudman, former deputy editor Fergus Shanahan, current head of news Chris Pharo and crime editor Mike Sullivan. (Systemic, much?)



A fifth man, a 29-year-old police officer, was arrested at the London station where he works.
..
The investigation into whether reporters illegally paid police for information is running parallel to a police inquiry into phone hacking by Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World.

..
"News Corporation made a commitment last summer that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be repeated," it said in a statement. (Read:  Next time, we won't get caught!)

..
Thirteen people have now been arrested in the bribery probe, though none has yet been charged. They include Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of Murdoch's News International; ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson — who is also Prime Minister David Cameron's former communications chief; and journalists from the News of the World and The Sun.



Two of the London police force's top officers resigned in the wake of the revelation last July that the News of the World had eavesdropped on the cell phone voicemail messages of celebrities, athletes, politicians and even an abducted teenager in its quest for stories.
..
As well as investigating phone hacking and allegations that journalists paid police for information, detectives are looking into claims of computer hacking by Murdoch papers.



News Corp. has admitted that the News of the World hacked the emails as well as the phone of Chris Shipman, the son of serial killer Harold Shipman. And The Times of London has acknowledged that a former reporter tried to intercept emails to unmask an anonymous blogger.


Lessee..  Top Murdoch executives, high ranking policemen, Prime Minister Cameron's former Communications Chief, computer and phone hacking..  Sure sounds like "a few bad apples" to me!  Also, I'm sure none of those practices happen over here in the U.S., what with our Librul Meeedeeuh and all..  Happy 2012, Newscorp!  We wish you well!  So..  Much..  Well!

Murdoch blasted on Twitter for anti-Google tweets

BAM!  Oh, the insolence shown to this king among men!  From The Raw Story.  Excerpts:

When News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch attacked Google on Twitter for its opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act, he had no idea what he was letting himself in for.


“Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying,” Murdoch tweeted to his followers.


As Business Insider quickly noted, however, the reaction from the tech community was swift and snarky — and by Sunday even included a Google policy manager.

Journalism professor and author of What Would Google Do? Jeff Jarvis was one of the first — and nastiest — writing, “Google doesn’t pirate and it doesn’t hack dead girls, @rupertmurdoch. I am so happy I pulled my book from you.”
..
And comedian Rob Delaney urged Murdoch, “Sup bro you’re doing great on Twitter nobody thinks you’re a weird asshole or anything keep it up.”
And:
And an editor with the Newcastle Evening Chronicle remarked, “Interesting to see @rupertmurdoch rallying at Google’s copyright infringement. Will remember that next time his newspapers lift our stories.”

My, how the old fartbag's fortunes have turned!  Keep on, keepin' on Skidmark; Your cautionary tale hasn't fully played out.  Now, about that hacking scandal that hasn't gone away..

NewsCorp Go Boom! July 27, 2011

DPP was warned hacking was rife at Murdoch paper  The Independent.  Excerpts:

The former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Lord Macdonald was warned by his own employees as far back as 2006 that there were a "vast array" of News of the World phone-hacking victims.

Lord Macdonald, who has since been hired by the newspaper's owner, Rupert Murdoch, was sent a memo nearly six months before the reporter Clive Goodman and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were convicted, revealing that the charges they were facing related to just a fraction of the potential victims.

However, the hacking investigation was never widened despite pressure on the police and Lord Macdonald, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service at the time, to do so.

In a letter released yesterday, the former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith revealed: "The Director [of Public Prosecutions] and I were aware that the particular cases referred to were not isolated examples." Lord Goldsmith said protocol prevented him from speaking to the police, but this did not apply to the Crown Prosecution Service, which Lord Macdonald led at the time, and whose lawyers briefed him on other victims of hacking.

The Met had to reopen its inquiries into criminality by the NOTW in January this year when it became apparent that police and prosecutors had failed to fully investigate the widespread phone hacking by the newspaper five years ago.

Now it's the lawyers' turn to be sucked into the phone-hacking scandal    The Guardian UK.  Excerpts:

Now it's the turn of lawyers and the legal process to be sucked into the phone-hacking vortex. The Law Society has even suggested justice itself is under threat, implying messages could have been intercepted with the intention of influencing court cases.

Several prominent solicitors fear their mobile phones have been hacked. Some have been formally informed of the risk by police after detectives discovered their numbers among a private investigator's notes.

Graham Shear, of Berwin Leighton Paisner who has represented celebrities such as Robbie Williams and Jude Law, is one of those who has lodged a claim against the News of the World for damages over breach of privacy.

"In January this year I was contacted by senior officers in Operation Weeting [the Metropolitan police inquiry into phone hacking]," Shear said. "They told me that, contrary to what had been said previously, a number of my clients were referred to in documents from [Glenn] Mulcaire's file. My name was among them."

If messages had been intercepted, he said, it would have been a breach of confidential relationship with clients.

The media lawyer Mark Stephens expressed similar anxieties. "I asked [Scotland Yard] if I'd been hacked - they came back to me in 90 minutes and said yes," he told Channel 4 News. "It confirmed my worst suspicions, that I was in Mulcaire's notebook. There is nothing I can do about it, but the important thing is to ascertain which client [was the target] so I can advise them. My concern is for them, not myself."

My favorite Murdoch story to date, courtesy of the Sisters of Sorcha Faal..  Murdoch Threat To Expose Obama As “Christ-Child” Ignites Western Fury  Excerpts:

An amazing report circulating in the Kremlin today authored by the Federal Security Service (FSB) states that the ever-growing scandal in the United Kingdom related to the phone-hacking and police bribery claims being made against the global media empire of the man Time Magazine in 2007 called “The Last Tycoon” is, instead, due to the Australian-American billionaire Rupert Murdoch planning to publish a new book claiming that the American President, Barack Obama, is a “direct-line” descendent of Jesus Christ.

First, he was The Anti-Christ.  Now he's Christ.  Soon, I'm sure, he'll be The Anti-Christ again.  Awesome.  This is why I'll always love What Does It Mean?.  Who else could up the conspriracy ante on the already waaay over the top frenzy that is the Murdoch scandal?

In light of this story, this McCain ad looks a little different, now..

WSJ admits coverage of News Corp hacking scandal was poor  Americablog.  Excerpts:

The Wall Street Journal "could have done a better job" when it published an interview with proprietor Rupert Murdoch in which he said News Corporation had made only "minor mistakes" in managing the phone-hacking scandal, according to the paper's special editorial committee.

The swift decline of UK media titan Rebekah Brooks  Newsday.

Arrest of ex-Murdoch CEO Rebekah Brooks seals plunge from powerful news exec to public villain

NewsCorp Go Boom! July 25, 2011

The Case Against Piers Morgan.  Wow.  I have had a visceral disgust with this douche always.  I find his very presence vomitous and anger inspiring.  Because I never wanted to know anything about him, I only recently found out he was one of Murdoch's minions, editing The Daily Mirror during times of alleged hacking.  How very validated my intuition feels! 

Gawker.  Excerpts:

As British blogger Guido Fawkes noted today, in 2006 former Daily Mirror reporter James Hipwell told the Guardian unequivocally that hacking went on during his time at the paper—which overlapped entirely with Morgan's tenure as editor. "Many of the Daily Mirror's stories would come from hacking into a celebrity's voicemail," Hipwell told the Guardian

..

Hipwell, it should be noted, was fired from the Mirror in 2000 over accusations that he invested in a company whose stock he was promoting in a business column. He was eventually jailed for stock manipulation. Morgan was investing in the same company, but for some reason he didn't get fired.

In January, former member of Parliament Paul Marsden announced that he had been a victim of phone-hacking by a Daily Mirror reporter in 2003—again, during Morgan's tenure—and that he was pursuing a lawsuit against the paper.

Former Daily Mirror reporter Gary Jones was secretly recorded by British police telling private investigator Jonathan Rees—an accused (and acquitted) axe murderer at the heart of the hacking scandal who is accused of everything from voicemail snooping to conducting "burglaries of public figures to steal material for newspapers"—that "some of what he was doing for the Mirror was illegal." Jones was employed by the Mirror as a reporter for the entirety of Morgan's tenure there.

News Corp's James Murdoch under pressure over hacking testimony    Yahoo.  Excerpts:

News Corp executive James Murdoch was under pressure on Monday over his handling of a phone-hacking scandal that has hit the Murdoch family's media empire and could jeopardize his own position at the company.

British police are considering a request from opposition Labor politician Tom Watson to investigate claims the 38-year-old son of News Corp head Rupert Murdoch gave "mistaken" testimony to a high profile hearing in parliament last week.

Separately Labor lawmaker Chris Bryant has written to News Corp's independent directors calling on them to suspend both James and his 80-year-old father for failing to exercise proper corporate control.

And:

News Corp's British arm News International had maintained until then that previously known about incidents of the illegal practice at its News of the World tabloid was the work of a lone "rogue reporter."

However, two former senior figures at its British newspaper arm on Friday disputed James Murdoch's claim at the committee hearing that he had been unaware in 2008 of an e-mail that suggested such wrongdoing was more widespread.

The email related to a 700,000 pound ($1.1 million) out-of-court settlement paid to the head of English soccer's players union and signed off by James Murdoch in 2008, shortly after he took charge of News Corp's European operations.

Murdoch-detector browser add-ons warn you when you’re reading Murdoch-tainted news  BoingBoing.  Excerpts:

Two new browser plugins are here to help you with your Murdoch-detecting needs: Murdoch Block is a Chrome extension that warns you when you’re about to visit a news site controlled by the Murdoch empire and gives you the chance to turn away before the phone-hacking, ethics-lacking propaganda meets your eyes; and Murdoch Alert puts a helpful warning bar at the bottom of your browser whenever you land on a Murdoch-controlled news page.

Fox reporter claims network has covered Murdoch scandal ‘very seriously’  Charlie Gasparino, fresh from CNBC, and already on bended knees..

..“Actually, the coverage on Fox and The Wall Street Journal of the story has been embarrassing for journalism,” The Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington pointed out. “Editorials in The Wall Street Journal — forget Fox, nobody really expects Fox to do this seriously…”

“Fox has covered this very seriously, Arianna,” Gasparino objected.

“The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial is whitewashing what is a very serious scandal that we have not seen the end of,” Huffington continued.

“I think we have covered this well. We have straight news reporters that have covered this all day,” Gasparino claimed.

And:

In fact, the Pew Research Center found that Fox News’ coverage of the Murdoch scandal trailed far behind CNN and MSNBC between July 6 and July 15.

Fox News had devoted less than 30 minutes to the story, while CNN and MSNBC each devoted over 140 minutes.

Report: News Corp UK execs threatened British Members of Parliament  Americablog.  Excerpts:

Lib Dem insiders say NI (News International) officials took their lobbying campaign well beyond acceptable limits and even threatened, last autumn, to persecute the party if Vince Cable, the business secretary, did not advance its case.

..

The accounts are only now coming to light, say sources, because the minister involved feared the potential for damage to the party, which was already suffering a dramatic slide in popularity after going into coalition with the Tories. They chime with reports from senior figures in the Labour party who say that Murdoch executives issued threats to Ed Miliband's office after the Labour leader turned on NI when the news broke that murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked into by the News of the World.

The drips continue.

NewsCorp Go Boom! July 22, 2011

Ohio Democrats to Gov. John Kasich: Donate your News Corp. money to charity  We'll be seeing more of this, I'm sure..  From Raw Story.  Excerpts:

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern sent a letter to Governor John Kasich on Wednesday asking him to give to charity the contributions he received from News Corporation.

..
Redfern noted that Kasich earned $265,000 in 2008 for a program he hosted on Fox News. The CEO of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, also donated $10,000 to Kasich's campaign and said the two have a close friendship. Kasich appeared as a guest on Fox nearly thirty times to promote his candidacy for governor, even allowing him to solicit donations on air.

"Perhaps no public official in America has benefited more, both personally and politically, from News Corporation than you," Redfern wrote in his letter to the governor.

"The tactics of your former employer and major campaign donor were despicable, unacceptable and even inhumane. For that reason, we are calling on you to donate all of your earnings from News Corporation, as well as all of your campaign contributions from News Corporation, to charities of your choosing."

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News ran 'black ops' department, former executive claims  The Telegraph UK.  These allegations must be shocking to non-conspiratards.  Or probably not; yet.

Dan Cooper, who helped launch Fox News as managing editor in 1996, said that a “brain room” carried out “counter intelligence” on the channel’s enemies from its New York headquarters.

He was threatened after it found out he spoke to a reporter, he claimed.

Another former senior executive said the channel ran a spying network on staff, reading their emails and making them “feel they were being watched”.

And:

“Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News,” he wrote. “I knew it also housed a counter intelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.”

..

Mr Cooper said yesterday that he helped to design the high-security unit. “It was staffed by 15 researchers and had a guard at the door. No one working there would engage in conversation.”

And:

Another former Fox News senior executive, who did not wish to be named, said staff were forced to operate under conditions reminiscent of “Russia at the height of the Soviet era”.

“There is a paranoid atmosphere and they feel they are being watched,” said the former executive. “I have no doubt they are spying on emails to ensure no one is leaking to outside media.  (Sounds like Rupert Murdoch is the freedom hater..)

“There is a unit of spies that reports up to the boss about who was talking to whom. A lot of people are scared that they’re going to get sidelined or even that they’re going to get killed.”

 Amid the Murdoch Scandal, There’s an Acrid Smell of Business as Usual  Information Clearing House.  Excerpts:

Long before it was possible to hack phones, Murdoch was waging a war on journalism, truth, humanity, and succeeded because he knew how to exploit a system that welcomed his devotion to the "free market". He may be more extreme in his methods, but he is no different in kind from many of those now lining up to condemn him who have been his beneficiaries, mimics, collaborators, apologists.

As Gordon Brown turns on his former master, accusing him of running a "criminal-media nexus", watch the palpable discomfort in the new parliamentary-media consensus. "We must not be backward-looking," said a Labour MP. Those parliamentarians caught two years ago with both hands in the Westminster till, who did nothing to stop the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq, and stood and cheered the war criminal responsible, are now "united" behind the "calm" figure of Ed Miliband. There is an acrid smell of business as usual.

Murdoch: This scandal has exposed the scale of elite corruption  The Guardian  UK.  Excerpts:

The Tory operation to bury the phone-hacking scandal in spin and official inquiries is now in full flow. On his way back from Africa, David Cameron declared it was essential to get the whole business into perspective, echoing Rupert Murdoch's insistence that his competitors had got up "this hysteria". Today, the prime minister chided Ed Miliband for "chasing conspiracy theories" and claimed it was really Gordon Brown who had been in the pocket of the global media billionaire.

Meanwhile, News International pundits and others with their own reasons to stem the flood of revelations have been loudly insisting that the political clout of Murdoch's corporate colossus has been exaggerated. The hyper-regulated BBC is the real media monopoly, they say, and in any case the current fixation with phone hacking has meant no one is discussing bankers' bonuses and the threat of another financial meltdown. This is a "frenzy that has grown out of control", the Daily Mail complained.

But the real frenzy isn't the exposure of the scandal – it's the scale of corruption, collusion and cover-up between News International, politicians and police that the scandal has revealed. As the cast of hacking victims, blaggers and blackmailers has lengthened, and the details of the incestuous payments and job-swapping between News International, government and Scotland Yard become more complex, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture that is now emerging.

If it were not for the uncovering of this cesspit, the Cameron government would be preparing to nod through the outright takeover of BSkyB by News International, taking its dominance of Britain's media and political world into Silvio Berlusconi territory. But what has been exposed now goes well beyond the hacking of murder victims and dead soldiers' families – or even the media itself. The scandal has lifted the lid on how power is really exercised in 21st-century Britain – in which the unreformed City and its bankers play a central part.

Phone hacking: News Corp hires former US attorney general to fight lawsuits  I'm wondering if the presence of a former Bush Attorney General means members of the Bush Administration might be concerned about exposure of their parts in the scandals that continue to grow and overlap..  The Telegraph UK.  Excerpts:

Judge Michael Mukasey, who served under George W Bush, will work alongside Mary Jo White, a former director of the Nasdaq stock exchange and US Attorney for the highly regarded Southern District of New York.

Both are partners at law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and are regarded as two of the country’s most formidable legal minds.

The independent directors, who are said to have had concerns about the way Rupert Murdoch has handled the phone hacking scandal, have also hired Mark Mendelsohn, a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, who previously worked at the Department of Justice, where he specialised in bringing prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

“The board want to protect themselves and doing that may come at the expense of Mr Murdoch,” said Roland Riopelle of Sercarz and Riopelle in Manhattan, a former federal prosecutor.

The US government confirmed this week that it has begun an investigation of News Corp under the FCPA act, which allows a criminal case to be brought against individual directors if there is evidence of a company bribing foreign officials such as police. It also allows a civil case to be brought if there is evidence of legitimate payments to officials being wrongly accounted for.

Former employees claim James Murdoch misled British parliament

James Murdoch gave "mistaken" testimony to a British parliamentary committee, two senior ex-News of the World executives said on Thursday, the most direct accusation made so far against News Corp's heir apparent in a phone-hacking scandal.

Murdoch said he stood behind his testimony to the committee, which had asked what he knew of a scandal that has forced senior News Corp executives and two senior police chiefs to quit and raised questions over press barons' influence on politicians.

The statement by Tom Crone, the British news group's top legal officer until last week, and Colin Myler, editor of the News of the World tabloid until it was shut down earlier this month, was the first open challenge by former senior executives of Rupert Murdoch's global media empire.

And it won't, rest assured, be the last.