Submitted By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Britain’s largest weekly tabloid, News of the World, closes today, but not from lack of advertisers or readers. Instead, the Rupert Murdoch led tabloid succumbed to its own excesses amid shocking allegations of interceptions of cellphone voice mails of the families of a murdered 13-year-old girl, servicemen and women slain in Afghanistan, and victims of the 2005 London terrorist bombings. Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator who worked for News of the World, is accused of the electronic hacking.
One of the victims, Graham Foulkes, whose son, David, died in the 2005 London attack, said “Janet and I were obviously having very intimate personal phone calls with friends and family. To think that when you’re at the lowest time in life that somebody, for the sake of a cheap story, is maybe listening to you, it’s just beyond words.”
The outrage from the British public has been complete and has political overtones. Perhaps not too surprisingly, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has been almost alone in not calling for the paper’s editor, Rebekah Brooks, to resign. Murdoch’s News International syndicate was a tireless and enthusiastic supporter of Cameron in last year’s British parliamentary elections. The cozy relationship between Brooks and the PM resulted in Cameron spending the Christmas holiday with Brooks and her family.
Criticism for the PM’s reluctance is growing and Cameron has moved to call for a complete investigation. Cameron is also dealing with the fact that his Director of Communications, Andy Coulson, is a former editor of NOW. Coulson resigned in January citing another scandal as a “distraction,” but the British public is all too aware that Coulson, while editor, was accused of paying police tens of thousands of pounds from NOW funds.
James Murdoch, son of the undisputed guru of sensationalist journalism, said the scandal will result in punishments for the newspaper’s culpable employees. “Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued.” He pledged that “those who acted wrongly will have to face the consequences.” NOW has published for 168 years and is wildly profitable. The closing has real effects on the Murdoch Empire and is the most serious challenge to the what some regard as the voice of conservatism on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Murdoch’s Fox News is a vocal backer of conservative candidates in the U.S. as well, and has faced its own share of criticism in that enterprise.
As for Murdoch, Sr., he seems to realize the gravamen of the situation deciding to fly to London and axe the paper in an attempt to stem the wave of criticism. The mogul may be the victim of his own doing as well. Many newspaper scandals in the past have been ameliorated by the presence of strong and independent boards of directors who act immediately to discharge the offending editors and restore the paper’s image. Not so with Murdoch’s companies, whose boards show a disturbing lack of resistance to Murdoch’s will. Simon Duke, a financial writer for the UK’s “This is Your Money” website puts it this way, “All too often, Murdoch Sr has been able to bend the board to his will with embarrassing ease. The directors all appear to rub along very smoothly; so much so that the 80-year-old has been able to rail-road through a series of deals that, to the outside world, look a lot like pandering to the whim of the chief executive.”
Is this a “Rosebud” moment for the all-powerful tabloid mogul? Only time will tell, but what is beyond doubt is that the drive for sensationalism has shaken to the foundation the once unassailable House of Murdoch.
Sources: This Is Your Money; Washington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
MeMe is certainly not Bdaman, we would not want to confuse the two. One has a conscience and the other does not. But MeMe is for certain not AY. MeMe knows more about the weather than AY.
I’m just sitting back and enjoying the show, Pete.
I think MeMe is probably AY
MeMe,
Actually my keyboard works just fine, but thanks for your concern. Thank you to for telling us who your boss is though . . . or do you just party with the Rupe? You seem like his standard low caliber of associate.
Oh look, Nero want to be. Is the circus still hiring?
MeMe:
This is one of the finest people that I have ever known. Crapheads.
******************
I assume “Crapheads” is the clarification of the first sentence and further defines “people that I have ever known.” If so, it makes perfect sense to me, and I assuredly believe it.
Gene H.,
Are there still letters on your keyboard that don’t work? I bet you are playing with Peter again.
Pete,
Go play with yourself some more. Do you have to clean your keyboard more than 5 times a day? Sticky fingers!
pete,
Do you think? 🙂 Maybe Rupert is doubling down.
kd
call your boss and tell him/her to send someone else, preferably someone with an IQ over 80. I don’t believe me-me is going to work out.
This is another fine mess that people made up. Why, because they do not like successful business models? This is one of the finest people that I have ever known. Crapheads.
Eniobob, Interesting link.
Perhaps Mr. Jenkins was not thinking big enough. Perhaps ‘trouble’ is relative and the benefit Murdoch got from the paper, or the papers more nefarious practices over the years, has been worth any trouble he currently has to deal with.
The actual scandal has roots going all the way back to listening in on the royals phone messages in 2005. A NOW staffer and PI were doing that and got away with it.
The police were being paid in the 2009 incarnation of the scandal, which was wrapped up quickly with no arrests or penalty forthcoming. The people being monitored included politicians and celebrities by all accounts but just which politicians are not named in any of the articles I have read.
I suspect that a lot of info that didn’t make its way into the paper over the last 4 years was funneled upward and used as political capital. I say that because if the spying of 2005 was something Murdoch wasn’t aware of he sure had to be aware thereafter. He could have made it clear that he did not want his paper run that way in 2006 and again in 2009 and fired the folks that OKed the spying and phone tapping.
LK & Eniobob,
Thank you for the follow-up info.
News of the World was not such a steal for Murdoch
It may have made him piles of money, but the News of the World has proved more trouble to Rupert Murdoch than it was worth
Simon Jenkins
guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 July 2011 10.30 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/08/news-of-the-world-rupert-murdoch?intcmp=239
Considering how extensive the hacking was one has to wonder if the list of hacked persons includes those sitting on his own company boards and if the information therefrom is the grease that makes the boards so cooperative.
Murdoch wants to buy British Sky Broadcasting Group too which is the largest pay cable company in Britain and Ireland. The question is still awaiting a vote in the British government. The (Labor) opposition has pledged to force a vote on the 13th to postpone the vote on the acquisition.
From Wikipedia: “Jeremy Hunt, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport.[12] Hunt elected not to refer to the deal to the Competition Commission, announcing on 3 March 2011 that he intended to accept a series of undertakings given by News Corporation, paving the way for the deal to be approved.”
/Hunt was a Cameron favorite appointed to Cameron’s shadow government and later to the position he now holds in Cameron’s government. He gives Murdoch’s plan to acquire Sky a fast track and pass’ up the Competition Commission.\
From Wikipedia: “The Competition Commission is a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom. It is a competition regulator under the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (formerly the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform).
The Competition Commission replaced the Monopolies and Mergers Commission on 1 April 1999. It was created by the Competition Act of 1998, although the majority of its powers are governed by the Enterprise Act 2002.
The Enterprise Act 2002 gave the Competition Commission wider powers and greater independence than the MMC had previously, so that it now makes decisions on inquiries rather than giving recommendations to Government and is also responsible for taking appropriate actions and measures (known as remedies) following inquiries which have identified competition problems.
The Government can still intervene on mergers that involve a specified public interest criterion such as media plurality, national security and financial stability.”
Getting rid of NOW and hoping the controversy will die down and not be more of an issue regarding the Sky News acquisition is a more likely reason for Murdock axing it than his social conscience. You’ve got to wonder if Cameron’s relationship with Murdoch is built on pure politics or if there’s some incriminating info, possibly garnered by illegal means, that Murdoch has on him. Or at least I do.
I also wonder if/how many people his minions have hacked in the US?
“Hunt gives green light to News Corp-Sky deal”
http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2011/03/03/hunt-gives-green-light-to-news-corp-sky-deal/
“Miliband Calls for News Corp. to Drop BSkyB Bid”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-10/miliband-calls-for-murdoch-to-drop-bskyb-bid-over-phone-hacking-scandal.html
“Is this a ‘Rosebud’ moment for the all-powerful tabloid mogul?”
We should all be so lucky. It sure is a nice thought though. The real life personification of the character of an evil and soulless corporate hack, Rupert Murdoch is a villain. He is a combination of Ned Beatty’s and Robert Duvall’s characters in “Network” brought to life. He doesn’t care who suffers or dies or what lies he has to tell so long as it makes money. What is worse, he seems to enjoy being a villain. Even Charles Foster Kane would recoil in disgust from Murdoch.
If even one American is involved in phone tapping, things will be getting very ugly indeed. One hopes it ensnares fox news.
Will the House of Murdoch finally fall….I read that this was the Flagship for numerous of the family empire….
How big was your check from Media Matters for penning this post?
“beyond doubt is that the drive for sensationalism has shaken to the foundation the once unassailable House of Murdoch”
While the tradition of sleazy tabloid journalism has been around on both sides of the Atlantic for many, many years, Murdoch has taken it to uncharted heights. His pernicious power has negatively influenced world wide politics and he is the quintessence of the amoral businessman. We can only hope that this man will pay psychically/financially for his egomania and meanness.