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
@GeneH, you’re like a stupider Doctor Evil.
Agree with Elaine. Bush was the front for Cheney. By the end of Bush’s presidency, they were no longer friends.
@GeneH, you do realize that the report is in thousands of pounds, don’t you? So the Guardian is short by 1000 associate editors or 47 million pounds. That changes your argument from being merely dopey to ridiculous. Why don’t you try again.
Now Elaine….The Real Puppet Masters son, aka Son of Flubber…..W’s Dick….was veep……The Dick you are referring to was only in his cabinet…..but then again….he could have had syphilis and still suffered the drip….
Blouise,
“I firmly believe that history will show Bush I to be a machiavellian monster in the worst sense of the word.”
Was George W. really president? Who knew? I thought Darth Dick, the fearless quail hunter, was truly the man in charge…the one who was pulling all the strings.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/michele-bachmann-raises-42-million-scores-max-donation-from-koch-pac.php Bachmann gets max from the Koch brothers. I remember when Murdoch literally ran into my daughter in a NYC restaurant two years ago. I wrote about it on the blog. Would have never guessed he would fall like this.
Blouise,
Yes, but somebody has to do it lest misrepresentations and lies are left unburned and undried by the sunlight of truth. Lies are a fungal rot on the crops of the collective unconscious. They can only do their damage in the moist darkness of deception. I merely turn the cut grain. As BiL was fond of saying, “one lives to be of service”. 😉
Gets better….Hinton the CEO of DJ resigned today…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/rupert-murdochs-protege-rebekah-brooks-resigns-as-scrutiny-of-news-corp-intensifies/2011/07/15/gIQArimfGI_story.html
Thanks for the notification, Blouise. I had missed that and so had my filters (so far, but I’m sure they’ll scrape it eventually). That is huge news.
Gene H.,
Doesn’t it get rather tiring having to explain the obvious?
The resignation of Rebekah Brooks is huge.
Mike and AY,
I despised Nixon but the two Bush presidents make him look a tad less awful. I firmly believe that history will show Bush I to be a machiavellian monster in the worst sense of the word.
OS,
That was some fine groveling by Les Hinton. The only thing left out of his letter to Rupert was the implied “please don’t have me killed in my sleep” line or perhaps the “mercy on your faithful servant” line. I love the smell of fleeing rats. It smells just like burning ship.
Except you cited no valid source, kderosa. Just a blog entry talking about the BBC that links to an article in the Belfast Telegraph about pre-scandal anti-trust concerns the EU already had about the BSkyB deal. Not only is the blog post opinion on the article and not the article proper, it says nothing about sources of ad revenues. It is quite clear though from the BT article that it was the BBC and Channel 4 that were raising the anti-trust issues back in December of 2010. The BBC is not the Guardian. This is not 2010.
You apparently have no concept of how trusts works either. The Guardian could operate sans ad revenue as long as the trust can fund their operations. Also, I think your idea of “bleeding money” is just as unrealistic as the definitions you so like to make up for words. A £46,748 ($75, 362) loss after taxes on an operation the size of the Guardian is quite easily manageable by a trust the size of The Scott Trust. The trust’s interest income alone can cover loses like that (as the report indicated) and can for the foreseeable future. All the trust has to cover for their operational shortfall is the equivalent of one associate editor’s salary.
This is still a story about corporate criminal activity no matter how you try to mischaracterize it as free speech or anti-trust or government conspiracy.
Cite a source that says the Guardian’s ad revenues are 1) primarily governmental and 2) that the newspaper is dependent upon them.
The bottom line is you are simply lying, both directly and through material misrepresentation of the facts, to try to make News Corp. look like the victim here when they are in fact the alleged criminals. If you’re so sure of their innocence, then you shouldn’t mind an investigation and a trial, now should you?
AY McGovern was the peace candidate.
Breaking news: Les Hinton has resigned from the WSJ. More are falling on their swords. Time to get out of town one jump ahead of the sheriff, I suppose.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/les-hinton-chief-of-dow-jones-resigns/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/15/995041/-Another-Murdoch-resignation:-Les-Hinton-of-Wall-Street-Journalresigns?via=blog_1
@GeneH, that report shows the Guardian being nearly bankrupt and bleeding money since their advertising revenue doesn’t cover their expenses. So, yeah, they are highly dependent on their advertising revenue, which the source I cited, claims to come primarily from the government.
“Nixon was far more liberal and honest.”
AY,
I remember Nixon well, he certainly was a crook and a proven liar. I just said he was far more honest than “it”.
Mike Spindell said on Rage Against The Machine
1, July 15, 2011 at 3:06 pm
In response to jonathanturley on 1, July 10, 2011 at 9:52 am:
“That was Nixon’s answer to Watergate … maybe kderosa is a Nixonite.”
Blouise,
Nixon was far more liberal and honest.
I think for the most part you are correct….but I still recall Nixon standing in front of the camera shaking his head and saying something like this “I am not a crook” then awhile later he resigned…
But hey….I worked on the Nixon campaign for the single issue that he was going to end the Vietnam Conflict…..I was too young to know about all of the other stuff going on and we did not have as “Liberal” of a press at the time…there were just somethings not talked about….The Speaker of the Houses Press Secretary was a good friend of the family….and I remember lots of story’s.. that is the one reason I worked on his campaigns, the I reformed and rebelled and went to the other side…..
“That was Nixon’s answer to Watergate … maybe kderosa is a Nixonite.”
Blouise,
Nixon was far more liberal and honest.