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Nothing like attacking the victims of your vulture-like policies by calling THEM the scumbags.. Anyone else sensing heavy projection issues here? The Sydney Morning Herald:
Rupert Murdoch has labelled victims of phone hacking "scumbag celebrities" after they met the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, during the Conservative party conference.
Mr Murdoch took to Twitter to criticise the talks in Birmingham between Mr Cameron and members of the Hacked Off campaign, the singer Charlotte Church, actor Hugh Grant and a former TV presenter, Jacqui Hames.
Murdoch tweeted: "Told UK's Cameron receiving scumbag celebrities pushing for even more privacy laws. Trust the toffs! Transparency under attack. Bad."
(Your scumbag phonehacking policies? Your tactics aren't transparent, but they are under attack..)
The comments sparked a storm of disapproval, with Mr Murdoch repeatedly asked to apologise for the remarks and remove the tweets. Hames hit back at the head of News Corporation, tweeting: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story eh Rupert. Happy to discuss our concerns with you sometime?" She added: "I've been called worse, but admittedly not by CEO of large multinational corp." Mr Murdoch replied to Hames: "Not referring to these ladies". (I'm sure the "ladies" appreciate your consideration, Poopert..)
Advertisement Thais Portilho-Shrimpton, a journalist and former co-ordinator of the Hacked Off campaign, tweeted that she had set up a meeting "between PM, a former Crimewatch presenter, a singer and an actor", adding: "You must be referring to all".
The former Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris tweeted: "By 'scumbag celebs' do u mean the WPC u put under surveillance, the teen girl yr papers perved over, or the actor u hacked?". He accused Mr Murdoch of being disingenuous and hypocritical. "I was at meeting & unlike yr secret meetngs w/ PMs promoting yr business, the victims went in front door & told media abt it."
Mr Murdoch also engaged with another Twitter user who said: "Scumbags"? And your journalists and executives are what?".
Mr Murdoch replied: "They don't get arrested for indecency on major LA highways! Or abandon love child's".
Terrible and Shocking! Celebrities behaving badly? Whoda thunk? Sooo much worse than supposed journalistic networks routinely lying to their audience.. Poopert obviously doesn't watch The Daily Show.. John Stewart has a partial list for you, ma'am..
Strategic consolidation of remaining power, or the first very visible cracks in Rupert's facade of impervious-ness? Raw Story:
The (U.K.) Telegraph is reporting that media mogul Rupert Murdoch has resigned from the boards of his various newspaper holdings in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Filings with both the United Kingdom Registrar of Companies and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicate the resignations were made within the past week.
Though a News Corporation spokesman called Murdoch’s departure from that company board, as well as NI Group, Times Newspaper Holdings and News Corp Investments, “nothing more than a corporate housecleaning exercise prior to the company split,” there is speculation mounting that it means he and his son James, at one time mentioned as a potential successor, could be on their way out from News Corp entirely.
“James and Rupert have decided that they are not welcome in the UK, and they’re right,” said Claire Enders at Enders Analysis. “There is an enforced emotional withdrawal from these assets because they are no longer useful [in terms of influence].”
Remember: Just because the media's not talking non-stop about Murdoch's scandal(s), doesn't mean that authorities have given up their investigation(s).. We wish Rupert Murdoch well in his future endeavors..
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..
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.
Blaming the minions, eh, Rupert? Things seem to be reaching Critical Mass. Al Jazeera. Excerpts:
Rupert Murdoch blamed News of the World journalists for conspiring to cover up a culture of phone-hacking at the tabloid, saying they hid their activities from his son James and protegee Rebekah Brooks and that he personally was not paying attention.
In a second day of testimony in Britain’s High Court on Thursday, Murdoch painted a picture of a rogue culture at the best-selling Sunday tabloid, in an echo of his company’s now abandoned defence that a single “rogue reporter” was to blame.
“I think in newspapers, the reporters do act very much on their own, they do protect their sources, they don’t disclose to their colleagues what they are doing,” Murdoch told a judicial inquiry into press ethics.
Showing frequent flashes of annoyance as the questioning became more pointed, the media mogul admitted he had not paid enough attention to the News of the World but did not accept that he had allowed a culture of illegality to flourish.
Asked where the culture of cover-up had originated, Murdoch answered: “I think from within the News of the World. There were one or two very strong characters there who I think had been there many, many years and were friends of the journalists.”
“The person I’m thinking of was a friend of the journalists and a drinking pal and clever lawyer and forbade them... to report to Mrs Brooks or to James,” said Murdoch, in a thinly veiled reference to the News of the World’s former top lawyer Tom Crone, who has accused James Murdoch of lying.
“That’s not to excuse on our behalf at all. I take it extremely seriously that that situation had arisen.”
The appearance at the inquiry of a man who has courted prime ministers and presidents for the last 40 years is a defining moment in a scandal that has laid bare collusion between British politicians, police and Murdoch’s News Corp.
On Wednesday, Murdoch had appeared calm and considered, but Thursday’s tone was more hostile as the inquiry’s top counsel Robert Jay ratcheted up the pressure and described the culture of phone-hacking as a “cancer”.
When Jay suggested that the response of News International, the British newspaper arm of News Corp, was a “desire to cover up, not expose”, Murdoch snapped back: “Well, to people with minds like yours,” before quickly adding “I take that back.”
Jay, keeping his cool, assured him: “I’m very thick-skinned Mr Murdoch. Do not worry one moment.”
The comment caused consternation among Murdoch’s legal team in the courtroom, forcing Judge Brian Leveson to ask one of the party to sit down before resuming proceedings.
I do believe there will be several, if not many, individuals who will gleefully tear his testimony apart. And they'll do so in part with videotape of Rupert himself talking about how hands on he is regarding all facets of his news empire. The twin Cultures of Influence and Corruption are too big to be repudiated. Blamed minions will be out for revenge. The politicians and police are in damage mode. The Leveson Inquiry, in hindsight, will be looked at as the acceleration of the demise of the Murdoch Empire
More shoes will be dropping shortly..
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