Rupert Murdoch and the Corruption of the British Media

[Douglas Caddy]

MP's bid to recall Murdoch rebuffed

The Independent

By Theo Usherwood

Friday, 29 July 2011

Labour MP Tom Watson said his attempt to recall Rupert Murdoch and his son James to give more evidence to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee over phone-hacking has been voted down.

Mr Watson revealed the rebuff by his colleagues at a news conference after the committee met today to discuss its next steps in its investigation of the scandal.

Further written evidence has to provided by August 11. The committee will then decide which witnesses to recall.

MPs will write to law firm Harbottle & Lewis to see whether it can provide further evidence about the extent of the phone-hacking scandal now that News International has relaxed the confidentiality clauses in its contract.

Chairman of the committee John Whittingdale said: "We have considered this morning the evidence we received last week from Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks and subsequent statements by certain individuals have raised questions about some of the evidence we have received.

"As a result of that, we are going to write to ask for further details from various areas where evidence is disputed.

"We are writing to Colin Myler, Tom Crone and Jon Chapman. We are also writing to James Murdoch to follow up on a number of questions which he promised us further information on last week."

Mr Whittingdale said it was highly likely James Murdoch would be recalled to give evidence to the committee but he wanted to receive written evidence first.

"I think the chances are that we will reissue to take oral evidence but before doing so I want to get the answers to the detailed questions that we have," Mr Whittingdale told a news conference in Westminster.

He said the letters to Crone, Myler, and Chapman asked them to detail exactly what they dispute about the evidence provided to the committee by the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks.

He said Crone and Myler's claims to the committee two years ago that an email headed "For Neville", a reference to the News of the World's chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, was not of any significance now was "directly contradictory" to the statements they gave last week.

"There is no question that Tom Crone and Colin Myler appeared before the committee to give oral evidence and told us they had discovered no evidence that anyone else beyond Clive Goodman had been involved," he said.

"We are now told, we understand from a statement issued to the media, that they had drawn James Murdoch's attention to the significance of the 'For Neville' email. It appeared that when they appeared before us that they didn't think it was significant but they now suggest it is."

Mr Watson said Myler and Crone had been "tricky witnesses" in the original inquiry but the committee was now looking into the cover-up of the phone-hacking scandal.

He said: "What we have got is a flat contradiction between James Murdoch's evidence by two very senior executives (Myler and Crone) in the company."

Mr Whittingdale added: "Obviously we want to see the responses that they send to the letters that we are writing, but Tom Crone and Colin Myler and Jon Chapman have all said that they dispute the evidence given to this committee by James Murdoch.

"We want to hear exactly how they dispute that. I suspect it very likely that we will want to hear oral evidence. If they do come back with statements that are quite plainly different from those given by James Murdoch, we will want to hear James Murdoch's response to that.

"The chances are that this may well involve oral evidence from him as well."

He said it would have made no difference whether the Murdochs or Brooks had given evidence to the committee on oath. The select committee was looking into whether it had been misled but was not concerned with an entire investigation into phone-hacking, he added.

Earlier, a friend of the mother of the murdered schoolgirl Sarah Payne said she was "absolutely devastated" after being told she may have been targeted by a private investigator who hacked phones on behalf of the News of the World.

Sara Payne, who worked closely with the Sunday paper to campaign for tougher child protection laws, previously said she had not been told she was a victim of phone hacking.

But her friend Shy Keenan revealed that Scotland Yard this week told her that her contact details were found in notes compiled by private detective Glenn Mulcaire, who was jailed over phone hacking in January 2007.

Former News of the World editor Ms Brooks, who became close friends with Ms Payne during the paper's campaign, said the latest allegations were "abhorrent".

It is believed that the evidence found in Mulcaire's files relates to a phone given to Ms Payne by the News of the World so she could contact her supporters, the Guardian reported.

Ms Brooks said in a statement: "For the benefit of the campaign for Sarah's Law, the News of the World have provided Sara with a mobile telephone for the last 11 years. It was not a personal gift.

"The idea that anyone on the newspaper knew that Sara or the campaign team were targeted by Mr Mulcaire is unthinkable. The idea of her being targeted is beyond my comprehension."

A source close to News of the World staff said it was understood that Ms Payne's phone did not have voicemail until 18 months ago.

Ms Payne wrote a column for the final issue of the News of the World on July 10 after it was closed amid growing political and commercial pressure over the phone hacking scandal.

Describing the paper as "an old friend", she said it became a driving force behind her campaign for a "Sarah's law" to give parents the right to find out if people with access to their children are sex offenders.

News International, which owns the tabloid, which was forced to close in the wake of the scandal, said it was taking the matter very seriously, was deeply concerned and would cooperate fully with any potential criminal inquiries.

The latest revelation, which comes following allegations the paper illegally accessed the voicemails of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, 7/7 victims' relatives and grieving military families, will ratchet up the pressure on the publishing company and its embattled head James Murdoch.

Mr Murdoch has faced growing scrutiny about his governance in the wake of the scandal, but yesterday reports suggested he been unanimously backed by the board of BSkyB to remain in his role as chairman.

The broadcaster, which is partly-owned by News Corp, News International's parent company, is expected to formally announce its show of support today following lengthy discussions between directors yesterday.

The board meeting was the first since News Corp abandoned a takeover bid for BSkyB because of the hacking furore.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone-hacking inquiry: unanswered questions

The PCC is not a 'regulator' and has no effective ability to investigate or to apply meaningful sanctions

Editorial

guardian.co.uk,

Friday 29 July 2011 21.27 BST

Another week, another resignation. Today it was the turn of Lady Buscombe, the chair of the Press Complaints Commission, to step down from her role overseeing self-regulation of newspapers. This departure had an air of inevitability about it. The November 2009 PCC report into phone hacking was a risible document which was almost wilfully blind in its inability to see the significance of publicly available evidence or to ask searching questions of the appropriate people. Earlier this month the PCC withdrew that report, belatedly accepting the obvious: that it had gullibly accepted the News International "one rotten apple" explanation of behaviour at the News of the World. But by then the damage had been done. It was apparent then – and has become even more so since – that the PCC is not a "regulator" in any accepted sense of the word. It has no effective ability to investigate or to apply meaningful sanctions. The 2009 report was, as we warned at the time, "dangerous to the press" because it would call into question the credibility of self-regulation itself. Thus it has proved.

The PCC is now advertising for a new chair to step into Lady Buscombe's shoes. Since it is unlikely that the PCC will survive the inevitable scrutiny of Lord Leveson's forthcoming inquiry this is, on the face of it, not the most attractive job in the world. But the PCC does serve a useful role as a mediator and its code of practice remains a good set of practical and ethical guidelines. So it is right that the PCC continues its work while the industry, and others, decide on the regulatory framework which will replace the PCC.

At the end of a week in which Lord Leveson put more flesh on the bones of how he intends to proceed this autumn, there remain some very troubling questions about how Andy Coulson came to be appointed to his role at No 10; what sort of vetting was involved; and what access he had to sensitive information, given his relatively low security clearance.

People in line for highly sensitive jobs are vetted to find out anything compromising which could make them vulnerable to blackmail or other forms of undesirable influence. Given the criminal cases and press coverage relating to Coulson's period as editor of the NoW, David Cameron's determination to bring him to Downing Street looks extremely puzzling. Why was he not put through the sort of routine vetting procedures to which his predecessors and successor were subjected? Which ministers or officials approved the decision to give him only a cursory security check? Given his lack of clearance, what information did he have access to and which sensitive meetings did he attend? We now know that News International had evidence in 2007 that Coulson had knowledge of illegal payments to police officers. Did that report have the potential to make him vulnerable to external pressure?

These are important questions – and we hope that Lord Leveson will see it as his duty to ask them, for otherwise this will remain an unexamined aspect of this affair. The prime minister has, with some justification, boasted of his commitment to transparency over his relationship with powerful media figures. But on this issue he is curiously coy. More worrying is the refusal of public servants to come clean about the questions – including Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood, the Downing Street permanent secretary, and Craig Oliver, the current head of communications. The series of questions posed by the Guardian to Downing Street this week are relatively straightforward and could, in the spirit of openness, be answered perfectly simply. It is not the role of public officials to deflect, or block, awkward questions or to protect politicians from embarrassment. Nor should these same officials attempt to limit the terms of reference under which Lord Leveson could, and should, consider these issues at the heart of government

[Douglas Caddy]

What now for Rupert Murdoch?What does the future hold for News Corp and the Murdochs?

Rupert's biographer Michael Wolff and commentator Roy Greenslade discuss the damage done

By guardian.co.uk,

Friday 29

July 2011 21.15 BST

Could the hacking scandal be the end of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp? Michael Wolff, author of The Man Who Owns the News, a biography of Murdoch, and media commentator Roy Greenslade talk about about the man, the media empire and what happens next. Emine Saner listens in.

Roy Greenslade: As bad as things appear to be, Rupert Murdoch could be seen to be a tremendously beneficial owner of media in Britain. He's poured money into the Times and the Sunday Times, and kept them afloat when few other people would have done so. He launched satellite TV, increasing the range of channels available to everyone. This must surely be something to appreciate about the man.

Michael Wolff: If you like the direction, reach and power of "big media", you can hardly find someone who has been more beneficial than Rupert Murdoch. The downside, however, is to use it to further his own interests, create a power base, an independent state of his own. Murdoch loves newspapers. But one of the reasons he has loved newspapers is they can be very powerful and they give him a power he can use.

RG: Isn't it always the case that small media, if it's successful, is going to become big media? We would say in terms of business, if we believed in capitalism, that branching out is a natural consequence. So Murdoch, as a newspaper owner, gains power, and we know there's this amazing reciprocal relationship that goes on. He uses his political power to further his business interests, and he uses his business interests to further his political power. The point is, is there any proof that his use of political power has had any effect on the democracies of Australia, Britain, the United States? Especially the US, where it seems he has very little political clout.

MW: Let's take the present presidential election cycle, in which you have a list of candidates in the Republican party. [You look] at these people and think, "how did they get here? These are the strangest group of national candidates ever assembled, how did this happen?" The answer, most obviously, is because of Fox News. It has two million viewers who want to be entertained by politics, who need exaggerated figures to entertain them. You can only be a viable Republican if you speak to the Fox audience. They demand exaggerated figures, therefore we have conservatives who are unelectable in America.

RG: Is that not a failing of politics? Is it politicians who are being lured – and this would be true in Britain – into the idea that this man has more power than he really has?

MW: I absolutely believe that. Both here and in the US, at any point, politicians could say "no, you're not powerful, you just have the illusion of power and that's what everyone is falling for". But that's a bit of dialectic here – whether power is real or it's an illusion. I think this is a unique moment – you can call it an Emperor's New Clothes moment – of re-evaluation of what power means.

RG: You've spent time with Murdoch, and over the years so did I. I've also met – and suffered under – other media moguls, most particularly the late, unlamented Robert Maxwell so I am able to contrast them as people. Murdoch is quite a nice guy when you meet him. He is quite gentle, he rarely raises his voice. I found him quite sociably liberal, though clearly a rightwinger. As a person, he is not without charm. He really likes journalists, he likes the gossip.

MW: I think you can even go so far as to say the man has a fundamental amount of integrity. He is guided by a set of clear interests, principles and a worldview, and mostly he doesn't deviate from it. Having said that, fundamentally the problem is that Rupert Murdoch doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about anybody outside of his sphere. He is connected only to specific things – his family, which is good, you feel a warmth. He is a victim to these emotions as much as any father. And he cares about his company. But beyond that …

RG: We balance between Rupert being a good thing for keeping newspapers going and yet at the same time, having accrued that power, has misused it. Is it not possible to conceive that this crisis would lead to a rebalancing, or are we really seeing – as I believe – the disembowelment and end of News Corp altogether?

MW: Let's just deal with the newspapers. We are seeing the end of newspapers and this has given a weapon, within News Corp, to those who have been saying, "What do we have these papers for? We have all this capital tied up in low- or often no-growth businesses." They have the upper hand now. I think that's one of the reasons why the newspapers will go; also the newspapers are incredibly tainted and I don't see how the Murdochs can go on running a business in the UK any more. As for News Corp as a whole, the best-case position is to say, "if we get rid of the newspapers and we get rid of the Murdochs, we have a healthy company". I think it may be too late for that.

Emine Saner: What happens to the rest of the family? Is this also the end of the Murdoch dynasty?

RG: James has been found wanting in this whole affair. He wasn't around when it happened, but he was sent in to clean it up and he used a toothbrush.

MW: I've spent time with James. He is intelligent, but he is the son of a rich man and that's his dominant characteristic – he is impulsive, entitled, arrogant, he listens to nobody. What that means, ultimately, is that he is incredibly immature. His father is too old; he is too young.

RG: Do you think there is a real split in the family?

MW: I'm just picking up on what I hear and obviously there is an enormous amount of friction. At some point it naturally becomes every man for himself.

RG: The performance in front of the select committee was extraordinary. I kept thinking, is he acting? Is he pretending he's not hearing, that he's faltering and doddery in order to confuse the committee?

MW: I've been telling people this for several years now. This man is 80, and he's an old 80. In all the time I spent with him, this is the behaviour that I saw. He can't hear. There are a whole range of cognitive references he can't deal with – dates, names, mid-term memories, abstractions. He can deal with things right in front of him. That's why he's very good on the phone with newspaper editors.

ES: Where does he go from here?

RG: He retires to a nice Los Angeles ranch, I guess, Ronald Reagan-style.

MW: One of the better sources I have, with access to News Corp, said the fear inside the company is that Rupert will not see 82 as a free man

[Douglas Caddy]

David Cameron faces growing pressure over Andy Coulson hiring

Labour leadership demands answers about Andy Coulson's access to national security documents inside No 10

By Robert Booth and Patrick Wintour

guardian.co.uk,

Friday 29 July 2011 19.57 BST

David Cameron is facing growing pressure this weekend over his hiring of Andy Coulson after the Labour leadership demanded to know if the former News of the World editor ever saw documents inside Downing Street that should have been available only to staff with the highest level of security clearance.

Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, is writing to the prime minister seeking answers. He will also ask if Cameron was consulted over the decision not to seek the highest level security clearance for Coulson and if Coulson attended any meetings of the national security council and/or the cabinet.

No 10 has refused to answer the same questions posed by the Guardian this week after it emerged Coulson was not put forward for rigorous "developed vetting", a process involving detailed interrogation by trained investigators aimed at uncovering lies and anything that could make an official susceptible to blackmail.

Throughout the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed Coulson's former newspaper, the Metropolitan police and News Corporation, Cameron has stressed there have been no complaints that Coulson broke the rules while working as his director of communications.

Coulson was granted 'security clearance' when he entered Downing Street in May 2010, which allowed him access to secret papers. This is one level below "developed vetting", which the Cabinet Office has said Craig Oliver, the current Downing Street spokesman, is currently undergoing alongside Coulson's former deputy, Gaby Bertin.

The Guardian has told Downing Street it understands that on at least one occasion Coulson did attend a meeting of the national security council, which is sometimes attended by the chief of the defence staff and heads of the intelligence agencies. Downing Street has refused to say whether he did or not. It also declined to say whether Coulson attended meetings relating to Afghanistan, UK military, counter-terrorism, briefings on terror threats, and discussions with foreign leaders and generals where highly classified information may have been aired.

Late Friday the prime minister's spokesman referred to previous statements which he said "detailed why the Permanent Secretary decided not to have Andy Coulson and others Develop Vetted in May 2010 - and underline that No10 and the Government have careful and rigorous procedures to ensure secret material is handled appropriately."

On Wednesday the spokesman said he did not intend to go into further detailed questions. "To repeat, vetting is about access to paperwork, not meetings." That appeared to contradict the Cabinet Office's earlier explanation that Coulson did not require direct vetting as he did not attend cabinet, the cabinet's crisis committee – Cobra, – or national security council meetings. The Guardian told Downing Street it understood that, "officials and advisors without high-level security clearance are regularly excluded from discussions about highly sensitive issues, including intelligence. That would seem to suggest that the level to which an individual is vetted is highly relevant."

Cameron's spokesman responded on Thursday afternoon: "Fundamentally you seem to refuse to accept that there were good reasons that had nothing to do with phone hacking why a number of special advisors, including Andy Coulson, were not Develop Vetted in May 2010 ...

"There is no suggestion that Andy Coulson, or anyone else, had access to the most secret papers. Nor is it the case that decisions were taken about his vetting status because he had resigned from the News of the World [in the wake of the police investigation into phone hacking at the Sunday tabloid]."

The Guardian replied on Thursday evening: "Our readers will be bemused, at best, by your refusal to address the issue of whether Andy Coulson attended any meetings at which highly classified information was discussed. More sceptical readers may conclude that you are reluctant to disclose information that could prove inconvenient in some way."

The Guardian has asked Downing Street to focus on three key questions: did Coulson ever attend a meeting of the national security council?; did Coulson at any time have unsupervised access to information designated top secret or above?; and which ministers or officials were informed of the decision not to vet Coulson to the highest level? It invited Downing Street to address the questions directly, but the latest statement from No 10 did not do so

[Douglas Caddy]

New police investigation will probe computer hacking

The Independent

By Matt Blake, Crime Correspondent

Saturday, 30 July 2011

Scotland Yard is to expand its inquiries into illegal news-gathering techniques at News International by launching a full-scale investigation into computer hacking, The Independent understands.

In the latest twist in the long-running phone-hacking scandal, the Metropolitan Police is assembling a new squad of detectives to look into claims that the News of the World stole secrets from the computer hard drives of public figures, journalists and intelligence officers.

Since March, officers have been carrying out Operation Tuleta, a scoping exercise into the covert use of "Trojan horse" computer viruses – which allow hackers to take control of third-party computers – following allegations made in a BBC Panorama programme.

Now, following complaints from public figures who believe they were targeted by the private investigator Jonathan Rees, who worked for the NOTW and other newspapers, the Met is to scale up its inquiries. So far only two full-scale investigations, Operation Weeting into alleged phone hacking by the NOTW private investigator Glen Mulcaire, and Operation Elveden into the NOTW's alleged bribery of police officers. Operation Tuleta is being staffed by detectives from the Specialist Crime Directorate.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: "Since January 2011 the MPS has received a number of allegations regarding breach of privacy which fall outside the remit of Operation Weeting, including computer hacking. Some aspects of this operation will move forward to a formal investigation. There will be a new team reporting DAC Sue Akers. The formation of that team is yet to take place."

A Scotland Yard source told The Independent: "This started as an exercise to investigate the very serious allegations made by Panorama and enough evidence of criminality exists for there to be a successful prosecution. We understand that the hacking of computers by the NOTW covers a much wider period than the three months initially alleged by the BBC programme."

The new investigation threatens to drag other newspaper groups into the scandal. In March, Panorama alleged that, in 2006, Alex Marunchak, then the editor of the Irish edition of the NOTW, hired a private investigator to hack into the computer of a former British Army intelligence officer, Ian Hurst. It was alleged that emails and documents from Mr Hurst's hard drive were hacked, along with correspondence between him and a number of people including IRA agents. Among those whose emails were allegedly stolen is Greg Harkin, a former journalist on The Independent.

According to the BBC, the Sunday tabloid was trying to find out if Mr Hurst or Mr Harkin knew the whereabouts of Freddie Scappaticci, the man alleged to have been "Stakeknife", the British Army's most important undercover agent in the IRA. In 2003, newspapers were speculating about the identity of Stakeknife and several claimed he was Mr Scappaticci, who became the IRA's No 1 assassination target and was placed under a secret protection scheme.

A year later, Mr Hurst and Mr Harkin wrote a book about Stakeknife with more information about his alleged identity and activities within the IRA. Because of concern about the safety of Mr Scappaticci – who has always denied being the spy – a High Court injunction prohibited the publication of details of his appearance and whereabouts.

Any computer hacking by the NOTW could have broken the injunction and, potentially, endangered the safety of Mr Scappaticci and his British handlers. Mr Marunchak has denied any involvement in computer hacking.

Under the terms of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, computer hacking is a more serious crime than phone hacking. "Unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate commission of further offences" can carry heavy fines and a jail sentence of up to five years.

A spokesman for News International declined to comment.

How it is done

A "Trojan horse" is a virus that infiltrates a computer and allows the attacker to remove the entire contents of hard drives, steal passwords and read emails.

It most commonly masquerades as valuable and useful software available for download on the internet or through an email link. The attacker often disguises it in an email pretending to be from someone the victim knows.

Once the computer is infected, the attacker has complete control and can turn it on or off remotely from anywhere in the world.

It will scour the owner's hard drive for any personal and financial information before sending it back to a thief's database.

[Douglas Caddy]

Martin Hickman: This marks an explosive development in the scandal

The Independent

Analysis

Saturday, 30 July 2011

The expansion of Operation Tuleta from a "scoping exercise" to a full-blown investigation will open a new and explosive instalment in the phone-hacking scandal.

For a start, detectives are likely to investigate more egregious news-gathering techniques than phone hacking: computer hacking, burglary and "blagging" personal data.

Some of the targets of these techniques had more to lose than their privacy. While vile and disgusting, the alleged eavesdropping of Milly Dowler, war widows and Sara Payne did not endanger life and limb. The alleged targeting of ex-intelligence officers with knowledge of IRA informers could have.

Tuleta may also draw other titles and newspaper groups into the scandal. It is likely to focus on the activities of Jonathan Rees, a private detective who worked for News International and the Mirror Group. While police investigated Mr Rees over the murder of his business partner Danny Morgan in 1987, they bugged his office and recorded his conversations with reporters.

Mr Rees was acquitted of murder in March, but soon after fresh claims were made about his work for newspapers. Several of his reported victims such as Jack Straw and Peter Mandelson asked police if they had been targeted. That pressure may have persuaded Scotland Yard that the best way to end this scandal once and for all is to investigate all the "dark arts", not just phone hacking.

[Douglas Caddy]

July 29, 2011

2007 Letter Clearing Tabloid Is Under Scrutiny

The New York Times

By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

LONDON — When a Parliamentary committee first confronted The News of the World with charges of phone hacking in 2007, the paper’s owners produced a reassuring, one-paragraph letter from a prominent London law firm named Harbottle & Lewis.

The firm had been hired to review the e-mail of the tabloid’s royal reporter, who had pleaded guilty to hacking the cellphone messages of royal household staff members. The letter said senior editors were not aware of the reporter’s “illegal actions,” which helped convince lawmakers that hacking was not endemic at the tabloid.

That letter has taken on new significance since it emerged in recent weeks that those e-mails, while not pointing to wider knowledge of hacking, did contain indications of payoffs to the police by journalists in exchange for information. The circumstances behind the writing of that single paragraph are being examined as part of criminal and Parliamentary inquiries into whether the tabloid’s parent company, News International, the British subsidiary of the News Corporation, engineered a four-year cover-up of information suggesting criminal wrongdoing.

In interviews, two people familiar with both the contents of the e-mails and the discussions between the executives and the law firm provided new details about the possible payoffs. The two people also indicated that both News International and the firm were aware of the information when the reassuring letter was written, yet defined their task as only addressing the hacking issue.

In one e-mail, from 2003, the paper’s royal reporter, Clive Goodman, complained to the top editor, Andy Coulson, about a management push to cut back on cash payments to sources, saying he needed to pay his contacts in the Scotland Yard unit that protects the royal family. In another e-mail, Mr. Goodman said that he did not want to go into detail about cash payments because everyone involved could “go to prison for this,” according to the two people who described the e-mail’s contents.

The two people also said that in the exchange of e-mails, Mr. Goodman requested permission from Mr. Coulson to pay £1,000 for a classified Green Book directory, which had been stolen by a police officer in the protection unit. The book contains the private phone numbers of the queen, the royal family and their closest friends and associates — a potentially useful tool for hacking.

In the years since the letter was written, various revelations have confirmed that phone hacking was endemic at the tabloid. Evidence disclosed in the past several weeks of widespread payoffs to the police have given rise to a second, and potentially more potent, front in the scandal.

Both Harbottle & Lewis and News International took notice of the e-mails to and from Mr. Goodman containing those initial indications of payoffs in 2007, according to the two people knowledgeable about the events. News International’s chief lawyer set them aside for a second look, and they were among the e-mails retained in the files of the law firm. Yet they were not turned over to the police until last month, and no hint of their existence made its way into the firm’s single-paragraph letter four years ago.

The two people familiar with internal discussions between News International and the firm, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the criminal investigations, said company executives urged Harbottle & Lewis to write a letter giving News International a clean bill of health in the strongest possible terms.

The firm had been hired to defend the paper after Mr. Goodman sued, claiming his dismissal over phone hacking was unfair because it was widely known that others were doing it, too. The firm was asked to examine 2,500 e-mails involving Mr. Goodman to defend against his claim that superiors knew about his hacking.

The correspondence between the company and the firm over framing the letter does not make reference to the e-mails on police payments, a source familiar with the exchanges said, but it does reflect “huge anxiety” about the wording.

The final version of the letter, dated May 29, 2007, sent by the firm’s managing partner to Jon Chapman, who was head of the legal department for News International, read: “I can confirm that we did not find anything in those e-mails which appeared to us to be reasonable evidence that Clive Goodman’s illegal actions were known about and supported by both or either of Andy Coulson, the editor, and Neil Wallis, the deputy editor, and/or that Ian Edmondson, the news editor, and others were carrying out similar procedures.”

The company rejected earlier drafts by Harbottle & Lewis that were not as broad, according to the two people with access to the correspondence. One of them said that lawyers on both sides seemed to struggle to find language that said the review had found no evidence of wrongdoing.

“They wanted to bury those e-mails, and they wanted Harbottle & Lewis to give them a letter to indicate there was nothing incriminating in the file,” said one of the people who reviewed the exchanges. “They knew exactly what they were doing.”

But a former News International official familiar with the matter said that Mr. Chapman was expected to testify to a Parliamentary committee that the discussion over the letter had nothing to do with the e-mails suggesting police payoffs and only with finding a way for the firm to say it had looked into Mr. Goodman’s allegations about hacking and had found no evidence.

The former official noted that neither Mr. Chapman nor the firm’s lawyer who reviewed the e-mails are criminal attorneys. Mr. Chapman is expected to testify that while he noticed the e-mails in question, he did not realize that paying the police was a criminal offense, the former official said. He is expected to testify that Mr. Goodman’s e-mail mentioning prison seemed to him to be in jest.

Like Mr. Chapman, Harbottle & Lewis has been asked to give its account to a select committee of Parliament, and it has said it will cooperate as long as the police say its participation will not harm the criminal investigation. News International recently released the firm from its client confidentiality obligations so it can talk to the authorities. While it is unclear what the firm’s opinion on the e-mails was in 2007, client confidentiality would have prevented it from unilaterally reporting them to authorities.

Mr. Goodman, who was rearrested this month on suspicion of paying police officers for information, did not return a call requesting comment. Lawyers for Mr. Coulson, who was arrested this month on suspicion of conspiring to hack phones and bribe the police for information, have said that they have told him not to answer questions in the midst of a criminal investigation.

News International discovered the e-mails indicating police payoffs as it was responding to lawsuits filed by phone hacking victims and inquiries from the police. As the company assembled its defense team, a law firm it hired retained Lord Ken Macdonald to advise the News Corporation board on whether the e-mails were evidence of a crime and needed to be turned over to the police.

Mr. Macdonald had overseen the office that prosecuted Mr. Goodman in 2006. But back then, he had not seen the trove of e-mails reviewed by Harbottle & Lewis, since they were never reported to the authorities.

Once Mr. Macdonald saw the e-mails in May, it took him between “about three minutes, maybe five minutes” to conclude that it was “blindingly obvious” that they were evidence of criminal wrongdoing, he told a select committee of Parliament.

Mr. Macdonald advised the News Corporation board to immediately turn the e-mails over to the police, a move that set off the current investigation into the payments made to the police by journalists at The News of the World.

The company then trawled through other documents, including its cash authorization records, and found 130,000 pounds’ worth of payments to a group of officers over several years, according to officials with knowledge of the inquiry. Included within those records was documentation of a thousand-pound cash withdrawal around the date of Mr. Goodman’s e-mail concerning his purchase of the Green Book from a police officer, according to one person with knowledge of the investigation.

Ravi Somaiya contributed reporting.

[Douglas Caddy]

July 29, 2011, 5:13 pm

New York Post Employees Told to ‘Preserve’ Documents

The New York Times

By JEREMY W. PETERS

Employees of The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s irreverent and hard-charging city tabloid, were told Friday to keep any documents they may have that pertain to the kind of illegal activity that has led to numerous arrests and a widening investigation at the News Corporation’s British newspapers.

The paper’s editor, Col Allan, told employees in an e-mail late Friday afternoon that the instructions were being made out of an abundance of caution, not because any illegal acts had been uncovered. Lawyers for News Corporation asked that employees be told they should preserve any such documents or files because of the investigations in London, he said.

“As we watched the news in the U.K. over the last few weeks, we knew that as a News Corporation tabloid, we would be looked at more closely. So this is not unexpected,” he wrote. “I am sorry for any inconvenience caused by this directive. However, given what has taken place in London, it is necessary for us to take this step.”

News Corporation officials would not comment on the matter.

Though Mr. Allan and News Corporation lawyers were adamant that the directive did not indicate that anyone at The Post had broken the law, the move shows just how concerned the company is that it could face a wide-ranging investigation in the United States.

The notice appears to be limited to The Post. Journalists at Mr. Murdoch’s other New York-based newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, did not receive similar instructions.

The memo from Col Allan read:

By now, you have received an email from News Corporation’s in-house legal counsel to preserve and maintain documents.

All New York Post employees have been asked to do this in light of what has gone on in London at News of the World, and not because any recipient has done anything improper or unlawful.

As we watched the news in the U.K. over the last few weeks, we knew that as a News Corporation tabloid, we would be looked at more closely. So this is not unexpected.

I want to stress that your full and absolute cooperation is necessary and you are expected to comply with this direction from our legal department. At the same time, please know we understand and take very seriously your concerns over the protection of legitimate journalistic sources. While we have instituted this hold, we do intend to protect from disclosure all legitimate and lawful journalistic sources in accordance with the law.

I am sorry for any inconvenience caused by this directive. However, given what has taken place in London, it is necessary for us to take this step.

Let me say how grateful I am for the hard work and terrific reporting all of you do here each and every day. The New York Post has a proud history. We will also have a proud future.

Thank you for your professionalism and full cooperation in this matter.

The memo from News Corp. Legal read:

Dear New York Post Colleagues,

As you have undoubtedly seen, there have been press accounts of inquiries into whether employees or agents of News Corporation or its subsidiaries have (a) accessed telephone and/or other personal data of third-parties without authorization, and/or ( made unlawful payments to government officials in order to obtain information. As you also know, these stem from the actions at The News of the World in London, as well as unsourced, unsubstantiated reports in one London tabloid.

Starting today, all employees must preserve and maintain all documents and information that are related in any way to the above mentioned issues.

Please know we are sending this notice not because any recipient has done anything improper or unlawful. However, given what has taken place in London, we believe that taking this step will help to underscore how seriously we are taking this matter.

Here is what is required of you:

Any documents pertaining to unauthorized retrieval of phone or personal data, to payments for information to government officials, or that is related in any way to these issues, must be retained.

Please note that the term “documents” should be construed in its broadest sense, including but not limited to: written material, graphs, charts, files, e-mail, text messages, instant messages, any content in social media, voicemail, tape recordings, microfiche, video and film, handwritten notes, draft documents, memoranda, calendars, card files, appointment books, and the like whether in hard copy or on computer databases, hard drives, desk tops, laptops, thumb drives, disks, backup tapes, or any other storage medium, and regardless of whether the document is located on a company-issued or personal device. It also includes all copies of the same document.

The term “related in any way” should also be applied broadly. If you have any doubt whether a document should be preserved, you should err on the side of preserving it.

You do not need to collect relevant documents. However, if relevant documents are destroyed or otherwise made unavailable, it may prevent the New York Post from protecting its interests and subject you and individual officers or employees of the New York Post to severe sanctions. Any destruction of such documents or information, inadvertent or otherwise, should be reported to the Legal Department.

In sum, effective immediately, and until further notice, you and your staff must comply with the following directive: do not destroy, discard, alter or change any potentially relevant documents as defined above, even if such documents or materials would otherwise be routinely discarded or destroyed in the ordinary course of your business.

Finally, we understand your concerns over the protection of legitimate journalistic sources. We intend to protect from disclosure all legitimate and lawful journalistic sources in accordance with the law.

If you are unsure of the nature or extent of your responsibilities, or if you are aware of additional personnel to whom this memorandum should be sent, please contact Genie Gavenchak in News Corporation’s Legal Department.

[Douglas Caddy]

Shake up at News of the World

Sean Hoare quits Sunday People to join Singh

By Jessica Hodgson Media

Guardian,

Tuesday 5 June 2001 12.54 BST

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2001/jun/05/thepeople.newsoftheworld

News of the World editor Rebekah Wade has ordered a shake-up of the newsroom.

Phil Taylor, the news editor who made a rare picture byline appearance in last week's paper with an exclusive story about TV star Michael Barrymore, has become associate editor.

He will have a new role as the paper's Mr Fix It - essentially in charge of the paper's buy-ups and special investigations.

It is believed he clinched the deal after rivals tried to poach him.

Neville Thurlbeck, the investigations news editor, has been promoted to news editor while veteran Greg Miskiw, responsible for the "Sophie Tapes" and "For Sarah" campaign, also gets a promotion to become assistant editor of news and investigations.

Showbiz columnist Rav Singh has been promoted to assistant editor - it is believed he has upped his salary to £100,000-plus after the Express tried to poach him.

Mr Singh, who used to work at the Sun's Bizarre desk, is expanding his team after poaching Sean Hoare, the showbusiness editor of the Sunday People.

Edited July 30, 2011 by Douglas Caddy

[Douglas Caddy]

FBI’s News Corp. 9/11 Probe Moves Forward

By Patricia Hurtado, David Glovin and Greg Farrell - Jul 29, 2011

Bloomberg

The FBI is in the initial stage of a probe of News Corp. (NWSA) as investigators evaluate whether U.S. charges can be brought over claims employees hacked into a rival’s website and sought access to phone records of victims of the 9/11 attacks, a person familiar with the matter said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will let Scotland Yard take the lead on a parallel investigation already under way in Britain, said two law-enforcement officials familiar with the matter.

The bureau isn’t planning to mount an aggressive investigation into allegations that News Corp.’s payments to U.K. police officers a decade ago violated a U.S. overseas bribery law, said the officials, who didn’t want to be identified because they aren’t allowed to discuss the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation.

“If the conduct largely relates to payments made to the U.K. police, it is quite probable that the U.S. would defer to the strong enforcement regime in the U.K.,” said Angela Burgess, a partner at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in New York. “If there are U.S. victims or a greater U.S. nexus, a broader U.S. investigation is more likely.”

In the U.S., Manhattan federal prosecutors have joined the inquiry into allegations that News Corp.’s American marketing arm hacked a password-protected website at Floorgraphics Inc., an attorney for Floorgraphics said.

FBI Questions

William Isaacson, a lawyer at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP who represented Floorgraphics at a 2009 civil trial against News America Marketing In-Store Services, said two Manhattan prosecutors participated in his July 18 interview by the FBI. In its lawsuit, Floorgraphics, now based in Hamilton, New Jersey, claimed News America employees hacked into its website in 2003 and 2004.

“They wanted to know what the case was about,” Isaacson said in a telephone interview. One of the prosecutors identified by Isaacson works in the office’s public-corruption unit, while the other works in the complex-fraud unit, according to a personnel directory in the federal courthouse in Manhattan.

Allegations of phone hacking at the now-closed News of the World newspaper in the U.K. have led to the arrest of at least 10 people, including Rebekah Brooks, a former chief executive officer of News Corp.’s News International unit, and ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who was Prime Minister David Cameron’s press chief until January.

Scandal Fallout

The furor led to News Corp.’s dropping a takeover bid for British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc and prompted Cameron to start an inquiry.

The FBI is pursuing a claim that News Corp. reporters unsuccessfully tried to get a former New York police officer to obtain phone records of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

U.S. investigators are attempting to identify any victims, evaluating whether there is enough evidence to bring any federal charges and if the alleged crimes in the U.S. took place too far in the past to be prosecuted, said the person familiar with the probe related to the Sept. 11 attacks, who declined to be identified because the matter isn’t public.

The probe into the illegal phone records access is in the most preliminary stage, the person said.

News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch told U.K. lawmakers last week that he has “seen no evidence of these allegations.”

News Corp.’s New York Post told employees to retain files related to any attempts at unauthorized access to third-party data, or illegal payments to government officials in an effort to obtain information, according to a memorandum reproduced on The Poynter Institute’s Romenesko Web site.

Federal Probe

Teri Everett, a spokeswoman for News Corp., didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment on the memorandum or the federal probe of the company.

Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan, declined to comment on a U.S. investigation. Alisa Finelli, a Justice Department spokeswoman, also declined to comment.

Bharara’s office regularly investigates allegations of white-collar crime that cut across state and international borders.

Suzanne Halpin, a spokeswoman for Wilton, Connecticut-based News America, declined to immediately comment on the participation of Manhattan prosecutors in the Floorgraphics probe.

Isaacson said he fielded questions from two Manhattan assistant U.S. attorneys and an FBI agent in what appeared to be a preliminary inquiry. His phone interview with the prosecutors and FBI agent came on the same day that press reports appeared about the Floorgraphics lawsuit, he said.

Floorgraphics Lawsuit

In its lawsuit, which was tried in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, Floorgraphics accused News America Marketing of stealing business by hacking into its secure website 11 times from October 2003 to January 2004 and through other means. At the time, Floorgraphics sold floor advertising in grocery stores.

At the trial, a News America Marketing lawyer acknowledged that his client’s computers were used to access Floorgraphics’ site. Six days into the trial, News America Marketing entered into what its lawyer called a “series of business arrangements” with Floorgraphics, part of which involved a $29.5 million payment and an agreement to buy Floorgraphics’ assets, according to court records.

Floorgraphics agreed to dismiss the case.

“This site was available to hundreds, if not thousands, of Floorgraphics retailers, representatives of consumer packaged goods companies and Floorgraphics employees,” Halpin, the News America Marketing spokeswoman, said in a statement last week.

‘Employee Movement’

“There is considerable employee movement within this industry, and we believe it was someone with an authorized password” who was using a News America Marketing computer, she said. “News America Marketing condemns such conduct, which is in violation of the standards of our company.”

This month, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg for New Jersey called for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the possibility that payments to U.K. police could be considered a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids U.S. companies from paying bribes to officials of foreign governments. On July 15, Holder confirmed the existence of an “ongoing investigation.”

‘A Stretch’

Some lawyers question whether the law, used primarily to punish bribes to obtain business, would apply to paying police officers for information.

“The FCPA is not a global statute governing all corrupt activity in the world,” said Steven Peikin, a former federal prosecutor now at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.

“It would seem to me that if you’re paying off a police official to obtain information, that would be a stretch,” he said. “It’s not the heartland of conduct that the FCPA was intended to reach.”

The Floorgraphics civil case is Floorgraphics v. News America Marketing In-Store Services Inc, 04-cv-03500, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey (Trenton).

To contact the reporters on this story: Patricia Hurtado in New York at pathurtado@bloomberg.net; David Glovin in New York at dglovin@bloomberg.net; Greg Farrell in New York at gregfarrell@bloomberg.net .

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net

.

[Douglas Caddy]

Miliband 'went to News International parties'

The Independent

By Sam Lister

Saturday, 30 July 2011

Labour leader Ed Miliband attended a string of News International parties and held talks with former chief executive Rebekah Brooks, records released today showed.

Mr Miliband also had a series of meetings with the editors of the News of the World and the Sun, Labour confirmed.

The party leader met Mrs Brooks, who was forced to quit two weeks ago over the phone hacking scandal, on September 15 for a "general discussion".

Sun editor Dominic Mohan was also at the London meeting but held separate discussions with Mr Miliband in February as well as at Labour's party conference last autumn.

Mr Miliband attended the News International annual summer reception in 2010 and this year as well as the organisation's party at the Labour conference.

Two days before it emerged the mobile phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler was hacked by a private investigator working for the News of the World, shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander attended a social event in the Cotswolds with Mrs Brooks and Mr Hinton as well as Richard Wallace from the Daily Mirror.

The party was hosted by Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth and her husband Matthew Freud in Burford on Saturday, July 2.

Mr Alexander also met the couple in London at a "social" event on December 20, the document reveals.

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Shaun Woodward met Mrs Brooks on Boxing Day. It emerged earlier this month that Prime Minister David Cameron, who succeed Mr Woodward as MP for Witney after he quit the Tories and defected to Labour, also had a social engagement with Mrs Brooks on December 26.

Mr Woodward also met up with Mrs Brooks in France on June 11 this year and visited Mr Hinton on October 9 in the United States of America.

Tessa Jowell, shadow Olympics minister, also attended the party although she declared the date as July 3. The bash, held at Burford Priory, reportedly started on Saturday evening and continued until noon the next day.

Ms Jowell also met the couple at social events in London and Oxfordshire on December 1, Christmas Eve and Boxing Day.

Ed Miliband had previously released a list of the meetings he had held since taking the top job last September but today's records date back to May and cover all the party's senior politicians.

They show Mr Miliband has attended more than 50 meetings or receptions with proprietors, editors and senior media executives, including senior figures from the BBC, ITV, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Observer, The Times and The Guardian.

It follows the release by Government of all ministerial contacts with senior media executives. That showed Chancellor George Osborne had met executives of News Corporation companies on 16 occasions since the coalition Government took power.

It also emerged that News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch was the first senior media figure to meet Jeremy Hunt after he was appointed Culture Secretary in May last year - though this was before Mr Hunt was given responsibility for deciding on the failed BSkyB bid. PA

[Douglas Caddy]

Lawyers 'furious' over criticism in hacking scandal

Law firm to 'explain its position' to police after Murdoch accuses it of making a 'massive mistake'

The Independent

By James Hanning and Matt Chorley

Sunday, 31 July 2011

Senior lawyers at royal solicitors Harbottle & Lewis are "furious" at the way they have been blamed by Rupert Murdoch and others in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, The Independent on Sunday has learned. They will meet the Metropolitan Police to explain their position "in the next few days".

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, said the prominent London law firm had made a "massive mistake" when it gave the publishers of the News of the World a clean bill of health as to whether there was more illegality to be uncovered at the company at that time.

It is believed that Mr Murdoch also criticised the lawyers in a private meeting with Milly Dowler's family earlier this month, when he apologised for the newspaper hacking their dead daughter's mobile phone and deleting text messages, giving the family false hope that she might still be alive.

Harbottle & Lewis declared in May 2007 that there was no "reasonable evidence" that senior News International staff knew about the illegal activities of former royal reporter Clive Goodman. They had been called in by the Murdochs and asked to examine as many as 2,500 emails sent by the reporter, who was jailed in January 2007 for hacking phones belonging to aides of Prince William.

News International (NI) has used the Harbottle letter of exoneration as a shield to fend off allegations that it covered up the widespread nature of illegal activities which continued to be practised by News of the World staff.

It later emerged that the emails did contain evidence of illegal payments to the police, though seemingly not of hacking. When NI recently obtained a second opinion on the emails from Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, he concluded within minutes that there was possible evidence of criminal activity and advised NI to call the police. James Murdoch later told MPs that they relied on the letter to "push back" against fresh allegations of hacking.

The Murdoch claims have infuriated Harbottle & Lewis so much that some senior figures at the firm are understood to have discussed taking legal action for defamation. The firm was initially barred from explaining its position because of client confidentiality, but NI later lifted this restriction. Harbottle will now speak to the police and the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. A source close to the firm confirmed it "actively asked to be released from the obligations of privilege".

Yesterday, The New York Times (NYT) reported that both NI and Harbottle were clearly aware of the contents of the emails when the exculpatory letter was written. According to the paper, in one email Clive Goodman warns that those involved could "go to prison for this".

Despite this, the Harbottle letter makes no reference to payments to the police.

The letter was commissioned after a threat from Goodman to sue NI for unfair dismissal on the grounds that senior executives knew about the phone-hacking. There was, according to The NYT, citing sources familiar with the incidents, "huge anxiety" about the precise wording. NI urged the law firm to write a letter giving it a clean bill of health in the strongest possible terms. Jon Chapman, NI's head of legal affairs, reportedly rejected two earlier drafts as being insufficiently broad. One person familiar with the correspondence is reported to have said that the lawyers involved seemed to struggle to find language that said the review had found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Another Harbottle source added: "If we made any mistakes, we will hold our hands up, but we are extremely keen to protect our reputation and we will vigorously challenge any suggestion that we were in any sort of cahoots with News International."

Tomorrow, Labour leader Ed Miliband will attempt to step up pressure on the coalition about its role in the hacking scandal. Mr Miliband will send letters to David Cameron, George Osborne, Jeremy Hunt, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable asking about the Government's links to News International, the handling of the BSkyB bid and the employment of Andy Coulson.

"The signs are that David Cameron still does not get it," said Ivan Lewis, Labour's culture spokesman. "A tangled web of their own making will not go away until they and their Cabinet colleagues give full and frank answers to legitimate questions."

But Labour's hopes of further capitalising on the scandal appear hampered by the release of details of a string of meetings and social events attended by senior party figures with News International bosses.

Mr Miliband met NI editors and executives, including the former chief executive Rebekah Brooks, 12 times after the general election.

In all, Labour frontbenchers, including Douglas Alexander, Tessa Jowell and Shaun Woodward, met News International in some form 60 times since May 2010.

[John Simkin]

BBC Website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14356458

Prime Minister David Cameron and his senior colleagues must "come clean" over their dealings with the Murdoch family, Labour has said.

The party has sent letters to Cabinet ministers, containing more than 50 questions it claims have still not been addressed by the coalition.

It comes in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.

They ask what discussions key ministers had with the Murdochs about their attempt to take full control of BSkyB.

The bid collapsed following intense pressure at the height of the hacking revelations.

Labour has demanded Mr Cameron reveals "the dates, nature and content of the discussions" he had with James or Rupert Murdoch as well as ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks about the deal.

The party is also attempting to keep up the pressure on Mr Cameron and his colleagues about Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor who then worked as Downing Street communications chief for two-and-a-half years.

The letter calls on the Prime Minister to reveal if he spoke to Mr Coulson following his arrest.

Shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis said: "The signs are that David Cameron still does not get it.

"David Cameron and George Osborne treated warnings about Andy Coulson with contempt and failed to put a proper distance between themselves and senior News Corp executives during the consideration of the BSkyB bid.

"A tangled web of their own making will not go away until they and their cabinet colleagues give full and frank answers to legitimate questions."

It has previously been reported that Mr Cameron had 26 separate meetings with executives from Mr Murdoch's companies since last May's election.

[John Dolva]

Murdoch’s empire is not invincible

Thursday, July 21, 2011 By Peter Boyle

The headline on the final issue of Rupert Murdoch’s News Of The World, “Thank You & Goodbye”, provoked speculation of suitable rejoinders like “Piss Off & Good Riddance!” and more colourful expressions of the same sentiment.

There’s a global celebration at the political storm that continues to beset the Murdoch corporate media empire. And there seems no end in sight with former NOTW editor Rebekah Brooks arrested for alleged phone hacking and bribery of police officers — even though there is speculation that this arrest is a device to minimise the flack for the British police.

See also:

WikiLeaks vs News Ltd: Jail Murdoch, not Assange

Murdoch scandal: Hypocritical warmongers exposed

Watching Murdoch crisis so much fun

'WikiLeaks ammendment' gives ASIO too much power

Of course, we know that Murdoch’s empire is still alive, powerful and malignant. But it is good to know that the empire is not invincible.

Last year, Forbes listed Rupert Murdoch as the 13th most powerful person in the world. And he certainly behaved like he was, routinely granting audiences to prime ministerial hopefuls from Australia to Britain who believed that he, rather than the electors, held the key to winning government.

People like Murdoch really do think they rule the world. There is an objective basis to this — never before in human history has there been such a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of such a small minority.

In an article in the June Monthly Review, “The Internationalization of Monopoly Capital”, John Bellamy Foster, Robert W McChesney and R Jamil Jonna said: “Inequality, in all its ugliness, is, if anything, deeper and more entrenched.

“Today the richest 2% of adult individuals own more than half of global wealth, with the richest 1% accounting for 40% of total global assets.

“If, in the ‘golden age’ of monopoly capitalism in the 1960s, the gap in per capita income between the richest and poorest regions of the world fell from 15:1 to 13:1 — by the end of the twentieth century, the gap had widened to 19:1.

“From 1970 to 2009, the per capita GDP of developing countries (excluding China) averaged a mere 6.3% of the per capita GDP of the G8 countries (the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, and Russia).

“From 2000 to 2006 (just prior to the Global Financial Crisis), this was only slightly higher, at 6.6%. Meanwhile, the average GDP per capita of the fifty-eight or so Least Developed Countries (a UN-designated subset of developing countries) as a share of average G8 GDP per capita declined from 1.8% in 1970, to 1.3% in 2006.

“The opening decade of the twenty-first century has seen waves of food crises, with hundreds of millions of people chronically food-deprived, in an era of rising food prices and widespread speculation.”

The Murdoch empire controls a huge 70% of print media in Australia and if Foxtel’s $2 billion bid for Austar is successful, it will give News Corp a pay-TV monopoly in Australia.

In Britain, even with the closure of the NOTW, Murdoch still controls big circulation newspapers such as The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times. News Corp still owns 39% of the television network British Sky Broadcasting.

In the US, Murdoch owns Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, the rabidly reactionary Fox News Network and the New York Post, among many other smaller media outlets.

With media domination like this it is no wonder that many people believed Murdoch’s empire to be invincible. But it is not.

Every one of these corporate empires depends on the workers it employs — and exploits — to get anything done. Without the daily slog of their employees these corporate emperors can do zilch.

We saw a little revolt even from the NOTW staff as they prepared the final issue.

The July 11 Age said: “Sacked News of the World staff appear to have fired a parting shot at their former editor Rebekah Brooks, disguising mocking messages in the crossword of the tabloid’s final edition.

“Brooks, now the chief executive of News International, reportedly brought in two loyal proofreaders to sanitise Sunday’s final edition of any jibes directed at her following the newspaper’s spectacular demise during the phone hacking scandal.

“But they failed to detect the not-so-cryptic clues that appear to savage her in the crosswords on page 47.

“Among the clues in the paper’s Quickie puzzle were: ‘Brook’, ‘stink’, ‘catastrophe’ and ‘digital protection’.

“The Cryptic Crossword appears to go even further, including the hints ‘criminal enterprise’, ‘mix in prison’, ‘string of recordings’, and ‘will fear new security measure’.

“Another clue was ‘woman stares wildly at calamity’, with suggestions it refers to a photograph of Mrs Brooks as she left the News International headquaters in east London on Thursday after staff were told the paper would be shut down.”

A small and belated protest, perhaps, but it is a reminder of the real potential power of the workers to bring down even the biggest of corporate empires that rule the world today.

[John Dolva]

A scandal rooted in union-busting

Socialist journalist Eamonn McCann explains how the assault on newspaper unions helped pave the way for the scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

July 28, 2011

Strikers and their supporters march against Murdoch's union-busting

NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD Michael Delaney died after being run over by a truck in east London on a Saturday night in January 1987. An inquest jury found that he had been a victim of unlawful killing. But nobody has ever been prosecuted.

Michael had been among trade unionists picketing the News International plant at Wapping against the sacking of more than 5,000 workers and the de-recognition of unions. The dispute lasted almost a year.

The Metropolitan Police worked in coordination with News International executives throughout. Police attacks on the picket lines were a regular occurrence. Saturday nights--when it was vital for the company to ensure that its prize asset, the News of the World, reached the shops--saw particularly brutal confrontations. In at least one instance, mounted police cavalry-charged directly into the pickets to clear a path for truckloads of copies of the News of the World.

Anyone wondering how the Murdochs and the Met developed a relationship so close it eventually became scandalous--that's how. Anyone wondering how the "newsroom culture" which facilitated phone hacking developed--here's how.

Murdoch's line at the time was that the print unions had been destroying the newspaper industry through overstaffing, signing in "ghost workers," falsely claiming for overtime and general skiving. Thus the need for a midnight flit from the company's King's Cross office to purpose-built premises at Wapping.

The dodgy activities of some print workers were of little importance to Murdoch. What irked him was union organization, specifically, the print unions' ability to defend members. Getting rid of a bolshie father or mother of chapel (shop steward) was no easy matter. But the myth of Murdoch saving the industry from union malpractice has persisted.

The day the move to Wapping was announced, journalists met in the King's Cross newsroom. "Refusniks" argued that journalists' rights and standards would be shredded if they collaborated with management in destroying the printers' organization. Others maintained the printers brought their problems on themselves.

The key speech came from Sunday Times editor Andrew Neill who made an impassioned plea for journalists to save the papers. The Wapping move was a done deal: if the journalists didn't go along, the papers would collapse.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

MR. NEILL has been among those commenting on the current debacle who have been anxious to make the point that, say what you like about Murdoch, he did save the newspaper industry back in the 1980s. I suppose he can hardly say anything else.

Journalists discovered as they walked into Wapping that, individually, they too were now on their own. One story from the last fortnight has been of sports reporter Matt Driscoll, sacked in 1987 while on sick leave for depression arising from humiliation heaped on him by the then-editor Andy Coulson.

An employment tribunal heard how representatives of News International visited him at home while he was ill in a way which deepened his anxiety.

That would not have happened if the newsroom had been unionized. Reporter Charles Begley has recalled being ordered to dress up as Harry Potter for a conference at the News of the World in 2001--the paper wanted to capitalize on the boy wizard's commercial potential. Begley's humiliation was excruciating.

That wouldn't have happened either in a unionized newsroom.

Former News of the World showbiz reporter and whistleblower Sean Hoare, who died last week, described for Panorama the pattern of bullying and the relentless demand for exclusives no matter how they'd been obtained. He had had nobody on the paper to turn to--which wouldn't have been the case in a unionized workplace.

The absence of any organized expression of the distinct interests and concerns of journalists meant management priorities could be imposed at will. Journalists were hired on short-term contracts, typically of a year or six months. There was no need for any sacking procedure. Anyone who didn't prove as malleable as the Murdochs, Brooks and Coulsons demanded would be cast adrift when their contract expired. The result was, as phone-hacker Glenn Mulcaire has put it, "fear all the time."

That wouldn't have happened if the National Union of Journalists had been on hand.

The assault on the right to union representation has been central to the development of the ethos which generated the scandal. The reason this aspect hasn't been front and center in coverage is that to acknowledge the necessity of trade unionism would be to take discussion of the issues which arise down a path where, even today, few want to go.

First published at the Belfast Telegraph.