Ethics, phone tapping and the Murdoch press

[BradK]

That's pretty ridiculous. A lot of the people who have lost their jobs with the closing of the NOTW have only been there a short time and had absolutely nothing to do with all the scandal.

Likewise, why should you cast such an unproven slur on even all our local News Ltd journalists?

By all means be as critical as you like where wrongdoing has actually occurred but don't be so unreasonable as to assume everyone employed by the organisation behaves similarly.

Yeah, fair call - I recognise that my remarks were ridiculous. Just suffering from a great deal of schadenfreude at the moment

But, seriously, I really do hope that Murdoch loses a SIGNIFICANT part of his power. At the very least, he is RUN OUT OF BRITAIN never to return.

I know I haven't actually logged onto the News site since this scandal broke and will not.

Actually Julia, I will offer you a friendly wager that if this whole practice was so widespread (ie. Scotland Yard are saying 12,000 victims this morning, and other newspaper stables - ie. the Mail) then it suddenly just didn't STOP in 2006. If it was so widespread, the jailing of ONE person would not have stopped it. What is going to come out will be that this is just the tip.

In her final speech to NOTW staff, Brooks indicated that within 12 months all will come out. I think that was a bit of a nudge-wink that the **** is absolutely about to hit the fan.

One comparison coming out of Britain - this is the Berlin Wall. They never thought the power of News Corp would be broken, but suddenly ... I really, really, really hopes this spreads to the rest of their company and it gets gutted. Such is the audacity of the Murdoch family.

Even significant News Corp sharefolders are suing Murdoch now because, they say, he treats the company like the 'family candy jar' - using it for his own political and personal ends.

Interestingly, the application of the 'fit and proper' rule which hopefully disqualifies him from the BSkyB bid will give other countries pause for thought. Hopefully it will result in some sort of legal ruling. :

Cheers
Brad

 

[basilio]

Good to see Hugh Grant keeping up the pressure on the British Government to have a full and proper inquiry into the phone hacking debacle.

Do it once, do it right..

Hugh Grant: expand phone-hacking inquiry to cover 'grotesque' press power

Comments echo call made by lawyer for family of Milly Dowler for politicians not to 'let themselves off the hook'



Polly Curtis, Whitehall correspondent


The actor Hugh Grant has called on David Cameron to "be a statesman" and expand the judge-led inquiry into the hacking scandal to include an examination of the "grotesque" power that newspaper proprietors hold over politicians.

His comments echo those made by the lawyer speaking on behalf of the family of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, who said that it wouldn't be right for politicians to "let themselves off the hook" when they set the remit of the inquiries. Grant and the Dowlers both said that according to what the government has revealed so far about the scope of the inquiries, they are "not good enough".

The actor – who has become a high-profile campaigner in the hacking scandal after his own voicemails were interfered with – said he feared that despite the furore around the allegations of widespread hacking by News International journalists, the government had so far not committed to examining the relationship between the media and politicians in the two inquiries they are poised to launch.

Grant told the Guardian: "I'm panicking that despite all the revelations coming out thick and fast, the government, with their history of collusion and obedience to News International, will find a way to make this inquiry insufficient and kick it into the long grass.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/12/hugh-grant-phone-hacking-inquiry

 

[Lantern]

I too will be glad to see the end of NI.

Bradk you'll love this.


Max Mosley bankrolls phone hacking cases against the News of the World
Max Mosley, who won a privacy case against the News of the World after it exposed his sadomasochistic sex life, has been bankrolling a number of phone hacking cases against the newspaper in the civil courts.



Max Mosley has continued his campaign against the News of the World by providing financial backing to claimants whose mobile telephones may have been hacked by Glenn Mulcaire Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Robert Mendick11:42PM BST 09 Jul 2011
Mr Mosley, former president of the FIA, the Formula 1 motorsport body, effectively went to war with the tabloid newspaper after an undercover reporter filmed him engaging in bizarre sexual practices. He sued the newspaper for breach of privacy, winning £60,000 damages in 2008. It now appears he has also won a final battle, having watched the newspaper closed over the phone hacking saga.
Sources have confirmed that behind the scenes, Mr Mosley, 71, who is a multi-millionaire, has continued his campaign against the News of the World by providing financial backing to claimants whose mobile telephones may have been hacked by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator working on behalf of the newspaper.
A source told The Sunday Telegraph yesterday: “It’s true to say that Max has been funding a number of cases. Wealthy celebrities have not needed his assistance but there are a number of cases where the claimants do not have much money and could face losing a lot if News International were somehow to win some of those.
“He has been guaranteeing the court actions go ahead by putting money into an account so if somebody does lose a case against the News of the World, he will pay all the court costs. He has also paid court fees for things like lodging court papers which can be extremely costly.”
It means that claimants have been able to push cases all the way and obtain full disclosure from the news[at]paper group without risking massive legal costs. It is understood that Mr Mosley contacted lawyers working on cases, offering his financial support.

He was accused of engaging in a Nazi-style orgy by the News of the World in 2008. The claim so incensed Mr Mosley, the son of the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, that he pursued the case through the courts.
Mr Justice Eady found that the sex party did not have any Nazi overtones. The scale of the damages was a record for a privacy case, and in many ways set a benchmark for the phone hacking claims that have subsequently followed.
A spokesman for Mr Mosley refused to comment.

Max Mosley bankrolls phone hacking cases against the News of the World - Telegraph

 

[Knobby22]

BSkyB not going ahead. Conservative Prime Minister now joining attacks on the company.

Rumours that US law enforcers checking activities of Newscorp particularly with the 9/11tragedy. The saga continues.

I hope all the media heed this as a warning that lack of ethics and breaking of the law will result in jail terms and massive losses within the company.

Thankfully Australia appears to be much cleaner.

 

[Glen48]

While customers want smut, scandal this will go on. Jurno's are fighting the net for scoops and the large reward paid for a story makes it worth while risking it all for some snooper.
Limit the power of Media ownership and some thing might be done.

This could spell the end of Murdoch and a good one to go short on.

 

[moXJO]

So does Julian Assange go from hero to zero for basically doing the same thing?

 

[Julia]

So does Julian Assange go from hero to zero for basically doing the same thing?

Mr Assange asserts he did not pay for the information he received.
Apparently he considers this to be the essential moral difference.

As a more general point, is it being suggested that no journalist may ever pay for information of any kind?

 

[basilio]

Mr Assange asserts he did not pay for the information he received.
Apparently he considers this to be the essential moral difference.

As a more general point, is it being suggested that no journalist may ever pay for information of any kind?

I think there were a few more differences between Julian Assange and what happened with News of the World and the Murdoch Press.

For a start Wikileaks simply acted as a place for people concerned about a particular corruption or issue to safely and anonymously leave their information. If after carefully checking the information (and making sure they wern't being feed lies..) Wikileaks believed it was in the public interest it was put on the website.

They never bought or paid for anything.


NOTW on the other hand was dominated by a desire to sell newspapers by finding sex and scandal or exploiting the rawest pain of crime victims, terrorist victims or any other suffering. It was also determined to find (or simply make up ..!) any sort of junk on politicians it wished to intimidate. The message was clear. We can get you and we will. Your only hope is to be very, very nice to us..

To achieve these goals they used criminals to bug, bribe or bully their way into peoples private lives.

This was all known but because of the intimidation factor of the Murdoch Press very few people had the courage to make the case clearly and continue making the case. Meanwhile the Murdoch Press lied and lied, continued to bug and bribe and then tried to buy the silence of some of the more notable victims of it's practices.

This upheaval didn't come from a single flash of light. The Guardian newspaper has been relentless in pursuing the truth over a number of years as it became clearer that the NOTW the criminal activities was not isolated or finished. No other papers had the guts to follow this trail. I believe it has been one of the exceptional pieces of public good that has been achieved for a long time and they should be commended for their work.

So what has the result been? A recent Guardian editorial says it well.

News International scandal: The sky falls in

At the start of the month, no senior politician dared defy Rupert Murdoch. Now, all of them have



Editorial
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 July 2011 21.48 BST
Article history

It is a measure of how much has been achieved in this revolutionary week that by the time David Cameron set out details of the inquiry into media and police standards on Wednesday lunchtime, and News Corporation announced it was dropping its bid for BSkyB soon after, both things seemed natural and unavoidable. A wave of public and political contempt is reshaping the landscape. At the start of the month no senior politician dared defy Rupert Murdoch. Now, all of them have. Party leaders united around the terms of the inquiry and the Labour-sponsored Commons debate – itself presaged by the collapse of the deal it had been arranged to condemn.

Yesterday Wednesday brought a drama in four acts. At prime minister's questions Mr Cameron sought unsuccessfully to rid himself of the taint of proximity to the News International executives who oversaw phone hacking, of which more in a moment. In his Commons statement, the prime minister set out the terms of an inquiry into media standards of extraordinary scope and potential. By mid-afternoon, News Corporation pulled the plug on the BSkyB deal: a victory for plurality over the power of a rootless corporation. In particular it was a success for Ed Miliband, whose decision to break with News International has become the definitive act of his leadership so far. Finally, Gordon Brown delivered a powerful speech whose justified moral outrage was only equalled by its divisive consequences in the chamber.

Mr Brown presented himself in retrospect as a white knight who stood up to the Murdoch empire, only to be let down by the timidity of others. Not everything at the time was like that. The Brown government was far from pure in its dealings with the press. But the former prime minister was on firmer ground when he questioned Mr Cameron's record. The prime minister's response raised further significant questions about his slapdash approach to phone hacking and the appointment of Andy Coulson as his media adviser.

In February 2010, this paper ran a story which should have given Mr Cameron pause for thought. For legal reasons it contained only limited details of the News of the World's decision, while Mr Coulson was editor, to employ a private investigator who had served a seven-year sentence for perverting the course of justice and who had been charged with conspiracy to murder. Believing that Mr Cameron should be made aware in private of the full details, the Guardian passed them to his senior adviser, Steve Hilton.

In the Commons, however, Mr Cameron told MPs that the Guardian passed no significant private information about Mr Coulson to his staff. That is incorrect. Second, he suggested that the Guardian had been able to put all the significant facts of the story in the public domain at the time. That is incorrect, too. Third, he claimed that the fact that the editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, did not mention the story to him at two later meetings implied it was not important. That is an evasion: the first meeting followed the private warning and the second took place after Mr Coulson had resigned. Mr Cameron could have been in full possession of the facts, and acted on them, had he chosen to be. Instead he gave Mr Coulson a job in Downing Street.

This matters because at the core of the whole affair lies the shoddy and secret way in which some powerful media groups have dealt with political leaders from both main parties. In this, Mr Cameron may not even be the greatest sinner. But he happens to be the prime minister who must address all what has gone on. He cannot do so properly while he continues to evade the truth of his own past dealings.

The world is changing. Mr Murdoch's spell has been broken. The BSkyB deal is off. The inquiry can lead to a cleaner, more plural, future. Mr Cameron is trapped by his past.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/13/news-international-scandal-sky-falls-in

Three Cheers for the Fabians. Someone has to keep the bastards honest. :)


_________________________________________________________________________

Thee is a good story which outlines just how long The Guardian has been following these events.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/medi...-brought-down-a-newspaper-20110714-1hf5f.html

 

[Knobby22]

Rebekah Brooks arrested - not a surprise. But the police chief resigning??
How deep does the corruption go?

There is starting to be talk of the government falling.

 

[Julia]

The ABC, especially Radio National, can hardly contain their delight at the Murdoch scandal.

Bruce Guthrie, ex-employee of News Ltd, has been wheeled out several times for interviews, again this morning along with Rupert Murdoch's American biographer.
The presenter and these two had the fun of their lives tearing apart the testimony of both Murdochs from last night.

Any enquiry into the media should be just as vigorous in terms of the bias of the ABC as that of the Murdoch owned entities.

 

[sptrawler]

Your spot on Julia, a lot of these so called reporters would be better off turning their skills to writing fiction novels. At least we don't have to put up with Kerry O'Brien anymore, he turned me off current affairs programmes for life, I still can't bring myself to watch them.

 

[Knobby22]

True story: Jeremy Clarkson went to a pre Christmas function at Rebekah Brooks holiday house and Andy Coulson and David Cameron were there.

Reporters asked what happened and Clarkson answered: "A policeman knocked at the door and Rebekah gave him a sack of money, then Rupert Murdoch joined us on a live video feed from his private volcano, stroking a white cat" (jokingly)

Rebekah and Andy are now both under arrest (as I am sure everyone knows).

By the way the News of the World Whistleblower found dead from unknown causes aged 46 and second in charge policeman resigned after the top resigned cop pretty much said he was lying to him and working for Murdoch.

 

[Calliope]

The ABC, especially Radio National, can hardly contain their delight at the Murdoch scandal.

Bruce Guthrie, ex-employee of News Ltd, has been wheeled out several times for interviews, again this morning along with Rupert Murdoch's American biographer.
The presenter and these two had the fun of their lives tearing apart the testimony of both Murdochs from last night.

Any enquiry into the media should be just as vigorous in terms of the bias of the ABC as that of the Murdoch owned entities.

The left are on a feeding frenzy. Their biggest worry is that the furore might blow over. They are counting on it spreading to America.

 

[Knobby22]

True story: Jeremy Clarkson went to a pre Christmas function at Rebekah Brooks holiday house and Andy Coulson and David Cameron were there.

Reporters asked what happened and Clarkson answered: "A policeman knocked at the door and Rebekah gave him a sack of money" jokingly "then Rupert Murdoch joined us on a live video feed from his private volcano, stroking a white cat"

.

Well I thought he was funny!

 

[IFocus]

I am reading the Australian now every day so I can stay fully inform of all the developments.

 

[Happy]

Looks to me that it will be easier for authorities to extract information on sources of information.

Reporters will not be able simply say that they do not want to disclose their sources as it is proven that sources can be illegal.

 

[Julia]

The left are on a feeding frenzy. Their biggest worry is that the furore might blow over. They are counting on it spreading to America.

And they will have all their fingers crossed that, with great good luck, the Greens here in Australia, given their massive power over the government, will see it implicate News Ltd here, despite being totally unable to quote a single instance of suggested impropriety.

Looks to me that it will be easier for authorities to extract information on sources of information.

Reporters will not be able simply say that they do not want to disclose their sources as it is proven that sources can be illegal.

If that ever happens, it will be a pretty sad day. Often information is given to journalists on condition the identity of the source is kept private. The reasons for such a request on the part of the source are obvious.

 

[pixel]

If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed.
If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.

Mark Twain

 

[Calliope]

Julia, you should stop talking crap. It can't be that hard

Jula Gillard on Wednesday:

AUSTRALIANS here look at News Limited and they've probably got some hard questions that they want answered.

The PM on Thursday:

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what are the hard questions News Limited has to answer?

PM: I think it's just once again common sense that people would be asking themselves "could that happen here? What does this mean for us in Australia?" Very simple questions like that.

The PM on Friday:

JOURNALIST: What do you believe are the hard questions that News Limited have to answer?

PM: I dealt with that yesterday.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...hard-question-pm/story-fn72xczz-1226100905301

 

[orr]

Considering the gravitas of the of the exposure of the top level of the 'Met' being open to bribes, the forced en-planting of Coulson by 'News corp' the hushing up the extent of files held by The 'Met' for five years,( 11,000 pgs, 4000 names of those hacked) & we ask to who's Advantage here? The extent of control of this one arm of the Forth Estate. Lets not forget 175 LOCK STEP editors on the misguided misbegotten rampage to Iraq, Please make your argument on fair and balanced there .
And to some this up with some facile bleetings about this being some lefty feel good love in.
Just because campaigning bias of the Murdoch controlled media under pins your World view it doesn't make it right. But cling to it if it's all your capable of and it's all you've got.
If you have time? see below pay particular attention to the FOX hosted Murdoch interview of 2009 .

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-july-19-2011-pervez-musharraf

The following nights has another well researched relevant piece