Rupert Murdoch and the Corruption of the British Media

[Douglas Caddy]

Rupert Murdoch: News Corp's great dictator on the brink

He was as combative, up against it and past his prime as 2011's other fallen tyrants. This was likely his last shareholders' meeting

By Michael Wolff

guardian.co.uk,

Sunday 23 October 2011 08.00 EDT

Under normal circumstances, Rupert Murdoch doesn't have much patience for the annual shareholders' meetings that are required by law of American public companies. He regards them as a farce, because they cannot change the outcome in a company where a voting majority is secure, and as an exercise in liberal corporate law designed to put him personally on the spot.

Still, his handlers, whose job is, in part, to protect him from himself, have long made him train for these meetings as though he's going into a presidential debate. Without rigorous practice, he is quite liable to not pay attention and appear quite bewildered, or pay too much attention and explode in fury, or worse, truthful exasperation.

"He's going to keep asking me why there are no women on the board," Murdoch once told me as his PR aide, Gary Ginsberg, was trying to cajole him into a practice session. "He wants to make sure I don't say, 'because they talk too much.'"

The fine line at News Corp has always been between Murdoch's almost deadset insistence that he be able to treat the company as his private preserve, and his handlers' (lawyers, CFOs, press people) more straightforward understanding that it is, in fact, a public company.

On this basic issue, push could not have come more to shove than at Friday's meeting. The fundamental sham of a public company – one run first and foremost by and for the Murdoch family, and countenanced by one of the famous quiescent corporate boards in American business – was being challenged by long-oppressed but newly galvanised shareholders.

It was a recognisable Murdoch in the midst of it all – as combative, determined, up against it and past his prime as the year's other fallen dictators. His hearing is shot and he won't admit it; thus he somehow seems to answer off-point (his handlers are allowed to mention his hearing issues, but there is a lot of prepping so that he can anticipate the questions). His mind wanders and he has to forcibly refocus; hence his pauses. But he remains sharp as a tack when he feels impatient or personally under fire.

Stephen Mayne, his long-time Australian gadfly antagonist, played his part, and Murdoch seemed almost relieved to play his. They've been doing this for years. Of course, there was Tom Watson, the British MP, whom Murdoch seemed to tolerate – if just barely – as an obvious publicity-seeker. And the various others whom he surely believed he had effectively dismissed, both by his own tartness and by closing down the meeting early.

In some sense, it rather seemed that Murdoch just regarded this as shareholders – those dumb sons-of-bitches – doing what shareholders always do: complain into the wind. Just a little more so, with a little more security, with the company having to retreat to a fortified room behind the Fox gates (rather than the usual junky theater in mid-town Manhattan where they ordinarily conduct the meeting) – and with Murdoch himself having to offer a bit more self-justification than he might be used to.

There was nothing really to indicate Murdoch might suspect that more had changed this year than at any time in the past, that his company would not be able to run as a private entity any more, that the forces set in motion would mount, not subside, and that, likely, this would be the last annual meeting over which he would preside.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: James Murdoch to face MPs again

James Murdoch, the executive chairman of News International, is to give evidence for a second time to a parliamentary investigation into phone-hacking.

Daily Telegraph

2:10PM BST 24 Oct 2011

Mr Murdoch will appear on November 10.

The announcement came after Mr Murdoch's predecessor Les Hinton was grilled by video-link by the cross-party Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

Mr Hinton, the most senior casualty of the hacking scandal so far, told MPs there was ''no reason'' why Mr Murdoch should resign from his post at News International (NI).

A close lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch who had worked with the News Corp chief for more than 50 years, Mr Hinton quit as CEO of the company's Dow Jones subsidiary in July as the scale of hacking which took place under his watch at NI-owned News of the World became apparent.

Mr Hinton acknowledged that some of the evidence previously given to the committee by NI executives, when they insisted that hacking at the Sunday tabloid was limited to a single rogue reporter, had turned out to be ''not accurate''.

But he challenged MPs' suggestions that this meant executives had been ''untruthful'', insisting that events had become clear only over the past couple of years and the full picture of what happened was still not known.

And he told them: ''I see no reason why James Murdoch should resign.''

James Murdoch took over responsibility for News International from Mr Hinton when he moved to the US in December 2007 to head News Corp's recently-acquired Dow Jones operation, including the Wall Street Journal.

While the bulk of alleged phone-hacking is believed to have happened during Mr Hinton's time in charge, the crucial £425,000 out-of-court payment to Professional Footballers Association chief Gordon Taylor - sparked by the emergence of the "for Neville" email, which proved that hacking went beyond a single reporter - took place after he had left.

Mr Hinton acknowledged that he had seen a letter in 2007 in which former News of the World (NoW) royal correspondent Clive Goodman said that knowledge of phone-hacking was widespread on the paper.

Goodman was complaining about his dismissal for gross misconduct after being jailed for eavesdropping on the phone messages of the royal household, and was threatening to take the company to an employment tribunal.

Mr Hinton, who had already agreed a £90,000 pay-off to the reporter, said he was advised that NI was likely to lose any tribunal, and therefore agreed a further £153,000 - bringing the total payment to Goodman to £243,000.

"I acted upon the view that we would most likely or probably lose and, rather than go through that process, it was better for the company to get ahead and get it behind us," said Mr Hinton.

But he said a "pretty thorough" internal investigation found no basis for Goodman's claims about widespread wrong-doing at the News of the World.

He denied misleading the committee at a previous appearance in 2009 when he said there was "never any firm evidence provided or suspicion provided" of more than one NoW reporter being involved in hacking.

"I didn't regard Mr Goodman's letter as evidence," said Mr Hinton. "They were allegations made by an employee who had been dismissed because of gross misconduct.

"We acted, I think, very responsibly to what Mr Goodman had claimed and at the end of it, we discovered no basis to what he was claiming, so I think therefore my statement is valid."

But he accepted that events had "evolved quite significantly" since that point and told MPs: "I think it is clear that, based on events over the last 12 months or so, that some of the answers you were given were not accurate - whether calling them 'untruthful' is the appropriate word, I don't know."

During the 70-minute evidence session, Mr Hinton repeatedly said he could not remember details of events in the phone-hacking scandal.

Committee member Tom Watson sarcastically congratulated him: "You're not doing badly, Mr Hinton. You have only said you can't remember seven times so far. In 2009 you used it 32 times."

Mr Hinton refused to discuss details of the severance package agreed with News Corporation when he quit in July, though he said he no longer had a company car, office space or any employment from the company.

He said he had not been interviewed by police or by Viet Dinh, the News Corp board member who is leading an internal investigation, about the hacking scandal.

[Douglas Caddy]

Les Hinton: I was right to say phone hacking was not rife

Former News International executive stands by his statement to parliament in 2009 despite having seen Clive Goodman letter

By James Robinson

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 24 October 2011 10.02 EDT

Les Hinton, one of Rupert Murdoch's key executives when phone hacking was taking place at the News of the World, has defended his decision to tell MPs two years ago there was no evidence the practice was rife.

Appearing before the culture, media and sport select committee via satellite from the US, the former chairman of the News of the World's UK parent News International said he had been right to tell parliament in 2009 that hacking was restricted to a single reporter.

It has subsequently emerged that when Hinton gave that evidence, he had seen a letter sent in 2007 by the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman, which alleged hacking was widely discussed at the title during news meetings.

"I don't think I'd regard Mr Goodman's letter as evidence of anything," Hinton told MPs on Monday. "They were accusations and allegations."

Hinton insisted that the company "reacted very responsibly" to Goodman's letter, which resulted in an enquiry by Harbottle & Lewis that found no evidence to support the reporter's claims.

Challenged about why he had told the same committee in September 2009 that NI had found nothing that indicated a "suspicion" of hacking – a phrasing that Paul Farrelly, the MP questioning Hinton, said should have encompassed the Goodman letter. In response, Hinton insisted his statement of two years ago had been "valid".

Hinton, who was executive chairman of NI until 2007, appeared to suggest he had not overseen two separate external investigations into the hacking allegations, by law firms Burton Copeland and Harbottle & Lewis, but had delegated them.

He also repeatedly said he struggled to recollect events which happened up to four years ago. That prompted Labour MP Paul Farrelly to jokingly compare Hinton to a mushroom. "You seem to have been kept in the dark by a lot of people," Farrelly said.

[Douglas Caddy]

Murdoch Sons Drew Opposition in Votes

The Wall Street Journal

By RUSSELL ADAMS

October 25, 2011

The re-elections of Rupert Murdoch's sons, James and Lachlan, to the board of News Corp. drew heavy opposition at the company's annual meeting last Friday, with about one-third of voting shares that were cast going against the pair, according to a securities filing on Monday.

The voting tallies released on Monday reflect the level of discontent among shareholders. some of whom took the opportunity of Friday's meeting to voice their displeasure at the elder Mr. Murdoch and other directors. Above, Rupert Murdoch and his son, James, in London in July.

James Murdoch, News Corp.'s deputy chief operating officer, received 433 million votes in favor of his re-election as a director but about 232 million, or 34%, of the votes were cast against him. About 224 million votes, or about 33% of the total, were cast against the re-election of his brother Lachlan, according to the filing. Roughly 91.8 million votes, or about 13% of those cast, went against Rupert Murdoch, the company's chairman and chief executive.

News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.

The Murdoch family and Saudi investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal together control nearly half of the voting shares of News Corp. The prince expressed support for Rupert and James Murdoch as recently as July.

Excluding their stakes, the vote against James Murdoch represented about 75% of the votes cast. On the same basis, the votes against Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch represented about 30% and 72%, respectively, of the votes cast.

A News Corp. spokesman declined to comment on the tallies.

James Murdoch has come under fire in recent months for his role in News Corp.'s response to allegations that journalists at the company's now-defunct News of the World newspaper in Britain intercepted voice messages in pursuit of scoops.

The scandal, which resulted in more than a dozen arrests and multiple criminal investigations, also elicited calls for an overhaul of the News Corp. board, which some shareholders say lacks the independence to provide proper oversight.

The voting tallies released on Monday reflect the level of discontent among shareholders. some of whom took the opportunity of Friday's meeting to voice their displeasure at the elder Mr. Murdoch and other directors.

Other directors whose independence has been questioned by shareholder advisory groups also drew significant opposition.Andrew Knight, who used to work for the company, drew 214 million votes against, while Natalie Bancroft, a member of the family that sold control of The Wall Street Journal to News Corp., drew 222 million votes against her re-election.

Write to Russell Adams at russell.adams@wsj.com

[Douglas Caddy]

James Murdoch's future under threat

News Corp shareholders lodge protest vote against James and Lachlan Murdoch following media company's annual meeting

By Dominic Rushe

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 24 October 2011 18.28 EDT

James Murdoch's future at News Corporation looks increasingly precarious as shareholders delivered a damning verdict on his tenure amid widespread criticism of his handling of the hacking scandal.

Following a contentious meeting in Los Angeles last week News Corporation shareholders lodged a massive protest vote against James and his brother Lachlan Murdoch.

A majority of independent shareholders voted against the re-election of chairman Rupert Murdoch's sons James and Lachlan Murdoch. James Murdoch received the largest vote against his re-election at 35%.

James, 38, faces a second grilling in the Parliament next month over phone-hacking at The News of The World, one of News Corp's UK newspapers. Some 34% of shareholders voted against Lachlan Murdoch 40.

After subtracting the shares controlled by Rupert Murdoch, 67% of the votes went against James Murdoch and 64% against Lachlan, said Julie Tanner, assistant director of News Corp investor Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS), who last week called for Rupert Murdoch to step down as chairman after the "extraordinary scandals" at the company. "Shareholders are saying loud and clear that this board has failed as a group," she said.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer, proved far more popular with investors, receiving 86% of votes, although a sizeable number of shareholders, representing 12 million votes, abstained.

The votes are a particular embarrassment as Murdoch went into the meeting with at least 47% of voting shares on his side, thanks to the family's control of the company's voting shares and the support of their largest outside shareholder, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal.

Thanks to the Murdoch's controlling share interest the company defeated attempts to throw the Murdochs and others off the board from major shareholders including the giant Californian pension funds CalPERS and CalSTRS, the Church of England and Hermes, the BT pension fund.

A combative Murdoch faced hostile shareholders at the company's meeting in Los Angeles on Friday and said News Corp was dealing with the situation. While he acknowledged the seriousness of the hacking scandal Murdoch described attacks on News Corp as "unfair" and said the company was the "stuff of legend."

Shareholder critics called for the Murdochs to step down at the meeting and criticised the pay deals of the company's top executives.

The firm delayed releasing the results of the ballot until late Monday. Father Seamus Finn of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, who attended the meeting, said: "The vote clearly demonstrates a profound lack of confidence in this company's leadership."

Earlier Les Hinton, former chairman of News International, which runs the company's UK newspapers, had defended James Murdoch saying he saw no reason why he should resign his position.

Michael Wolff, Murdoch biographer and author of The Man Who Owns the News, said it was now inevitable that James Murdoch would leave.

"James will probably go by himself, that's what everybody will be waiting for. I wonder too if Lachlan will step off the board. But could this drag on for another year? Yes."

Wolff said the size of the vote against Murdoch's son had created "a very difficult family moment."

Chief operating officer Chase Carey received strong support from the company's shareholders, garnering 91% of the votes cast. Former New York city school Chancellor Joel Klein collected 96% of the votes cast.

Natalie Bancroft, scion of the family that sold Dow Jones to News Corp, also received a huge vote against, as shareholders called for greater independence on the News Corp board.

Tanner said the votes against the Murdoch sons and Bancroft showed shareholders were serious about wanting more independence at News Corp. "The overwhelming influence of the Murdoch family is not acceptable anymore," she said.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: book publishing executives targeted

Agent who worked with Linda McCartney and publisher of Katie Price autobiography told they may have been under surveillance

By Dalya Alberge

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 25 October 2011 08.38 EDT

The police investigation into phone hacking by the News of the World has now spread to the publishing world, with a high-profile agent and a celebrity book publisher targeted.

Peter Cox, who worked with the late Linda McCartney, and John Blake, who has worked with Katie Price and Jade Goody, have each been told by the police that they appear to have been targeted by illegal surveillance.

Cox told the Guardian he was "stunned" to learn from the Metropolitan police's Operation Weeting that someone had been eavesdropping on him: "It's a little like coming home to find your place has been burgled, the same sort of feeling, invasion of privacy. Unless it's actually happened to you, it's difficult to explain."

Angered by what he describes as a "violation", he added: "I'm quite interested in suing the hell out of them." Both men regularly worked on high-profile books. One project was particularly sensitive because it involved royalty, a source revealed.

Police from Operation Weeting have now shown Cox handwritten notes reproduced from his own calls. For legal reasons, his lawyers have advised him against revealing details. He said: "It's difficult for me to say anything, but it was about one specific project … which had major serial potential … Those were the days when a big serialisation was worth a good six figures plus national television advertising."

His suspicions had been raised some time previously when journalists from various papers tried in vain to discover the contents of audiotapes of McCartney in his possession. Cox co-authored a book with the former Beatle's wife.

Cox's stable of authors includes Michelle Paver, whose books have so far sold 3.5m copies worldwide. Yesterday, he warned publishing colleagues that they too could have been targeted over any books of commercial interest to the News of the World, particularly if rival papers had acquired serialisations. He advised: "Agents and publishers should check if they had any projects that [could be] of competitive significance, especially to the News of the World."

Blake, a publisher of celebrity books and a former journalist on the Sun, appeared more sanguine. He was "surprised, not shocked" to be contacted by the police: "I was vaguely flattered in a pathetic way."

Asked why News of the World journalists might have hacked into his phone, he said: "We deal with a lot of people they might be interested in." His authors have included Katie Price, the glamour model turned writer, and Jade Goody, the late reality television star, and this week he launches a book by mercenary Simon Mann.

The two men are the latest in what is thought to run into thousands of phone-hacking victims. The revelation that the phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been hacked by the News of the World led to confirmation last week that her family will receive £2m in compensation, with Rupert Murdoch personally donating a further £1m to charity.

On being told of the publishing development, Mark Lewis of Taylor Hampton, solicitors for the Dowler family, said: "It comes as no surprise that the police have started to notify people in all walks of life … If a story was good enough to go in a book, it would be good enough to go straight into a newspaper. Agents and publishers were obvious targets."

A spokeswoman for News International, which also publishes the Times, declined to comment, saying only: "We are co-operating fully with the police

[Douglas Caddy]

James Murdoch a 'dead man walking' following shareholder vote

Although News Corp has been performing well, the drip-drip of the phone-hacking scandal has taken its toll on the boss's son

By Dan Sabbagh

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 25 October 2011 15.30 EDT

Forty-eight months ago, James Murdoch's eventual assumption of the top job at his father's News Corporation seemed only a year or two away. But even his close allies now concede that he is unlikely to take over when Rupert Murdoch, 80, steps aside, after it emerged that a majority of the company's non-family shareholders voted against his re-election to the board on Monday evening.

Chase Carey, the firm's president who runs its Fox television and cable channels, and who won the support of 78% of independent investors and is now described as being "lined up" to take over eventually, as James Murdoch contends with the personal fall out from the phone-hacking crisis that closed the News of the World and shareholder vote that saw him win the backing of only 42% of non-family investors.

The disparity in voting demonstrates the popularity of Carey, who is well known among the firm's Wall Street investors, while those close to the younger Murdoch say he will now have to spend "five years or whatever it takes" proving himself in the US before he can hope to run the business that his father built up when he inherited an Adelaide newspaper in the early 1950s.

Despite the vote result, Rupert Murdoch's 38-year-old son is determined to hang on at the company, and is in the process of relocating to New York. He was re-elected to the board with the help of the Murdoch family's 40% bloc vote, but now has to endure further questioning by MPs on 10 November and another vote at the end of that month, this time to re-elect him as director of BSkyB, where he is chairman.

The News Corp shareholder vote was also a rebuff to Murdoch's elder brother, Lachlan. Of non-family shareholders 64.5% voted against his reappointment, although unlike the former, Lachlan Murdoch is no longer an executive at News Corp, and is instead acting-chief executive of Australian broadcaster Channel 10.

Their sister Elisabeth Murdoch, who runs News Corp's UK TV production arm Shine, chose not to stand, a decision that at least means that she was spared a protest vote, although she remains a family outsider, having already fallen out with her father and siblings over the handling of the hacking crisis.

Friends say James Murdoch will need to appear before parliament as both contrite and in control of current events, in contrast to Les Hinton, his predecessor as chairman of News Corp's UK subsidiary News International, who when recalled on Monday repeatedly told MPs he "didn't remember" what had happened at the NoW when he was in charge and when phone hacking was alleged to have taken place in the period running up to 2006.

MPs want Murdoch to explain why his recollection of the circumstances surrounding the £725,000 settlement paid to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, differ from Colin Myler, the final editor of the NoW, and Tom Crone, the paper's chief lawyer.

Murdoch says he cannot recall being shown the critical "for Neville email", which implied that phone hacking at the paper was not restricted to a single "rogue" reporter. Some insiders argue that he is now a "dead man walking" because he has to contend with a drip-drip of revelations about the scale of hacking in the period prior to the arrest of Clive Goodman, the former royal editor who was later jailed. Murdoch's position as a family member means that he is under no immediate pressure to leave, but the issues that News Corp has to face, including several potential criminal trials of former NoW staff, means he is at risk of slow-motion damage – what one insider described as a "tragic choreography".

The allegations stem from the period before he joined News Corp from BSkyB in December 2007. But the pressure on him has mounted because News International failed to launch a thorough internal investigation – and because the company did not begin turning over large volumes of information to the police until last winter, more than a year after the first allegations that phone hacking went wider than Goodman first surfaced in the Guardian in July 2009.

What frustrates News Corp is that for all the problems stemming from phone hacking, the firm has been performing well financially, with operating profits up 13% to $4.9bn (£3bn) last year. But the strongest performing units, the Fox broadcast network and the Fox cable channels, are run by Carey, while Murdoch's units in Europe and Asia have either been the source of problems such as hacking, slower profit growth for Sky Italy or heavy investment, where €1.15bn has been spent buying a 49% stake in Sky Germany.

Murdoch also has to win the support of City investors to remain as a director of BSkyB. A year ago, he won 98% of the votes, and at the height of the phone hacking crisis won the backing of the satellite broadcaster's board after the abortive bid for BSkyB.

But some City investors are preparing to vote against him, such as Aviva, which opposed his appointment last year and is expected to do so again.

Some believe that News Corp's problems stem, in part, from its shareholder structure, which is designed to entrench the Murdoch family's control at a company that had a $29bn turnover last year.

The company has voting and a larger amount of non-voting shares, which means Rupert Murdoch controls 40% of the votes but a total economic interest of about 12%.

Prof Charles Elson at the University of Delaware, who specialises in corporate governance, said: "What you are saying is that you – the management – are brighter than the shareholders. That's the problem with dual-class shareholder structures; these kind of things are going to happen."

But James Murdoch still has some influential supporters. Rich Greenfield, a Wall Street analyst with BTIG, said: "If you don't like the Murdochs, you shouldn't invest in News Corp." He added that it was pointless to discuss whether James Murdoch should take over the company until such time as his father has signalled he intends to step down.

[Douglas Caddy]

News Corp shareholders urge Rupert Murdoch to heed 'unprecedented investor dissent'

News Corporation’s board members may have survived a shareholder vote, but they do not appear to have silenced angry investors.

Daily Telegraph

By Katherine Rushton, Media, telecoms and technology editor

9:37PM BST 25 Oct 2011

Rupert Murdoch successfully saw off a vote to strip him of his join chairman and chief executive role, but still faces shareholder pressure

The Local Aurthority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), which represents 54 members with combined assets of more than £100bn, has renewed calls for a board overhaul in response to “unprecedented investor dissent”.

Ian Greenwood, chairman of LAPFF, said a swing of support away from News Corp board members, demonstrated by voting at its annual general meeting last Friday, showed "a clear desire for change" amongst shareholders.

"The level of investor opposition to certain board members is even higher than many had expected. Therefore the board needs to move swiftly to institute genuinely independent representation.

"News Corp would also benefit from a clear separation of powers at the head of the company," he said.

A string of powerful institutional investors had been calling for Rupert Murdoch’s combined chairman and chief executive role to be split and for his sons, James and Lachlan Murdoch, to be ousted from the board, inthe run up to News Corp’s annual general meeting last Friday.

Mr Murdoch successfully saw off the shareholder revolt, helped by the fact that his family controls 40pc of voting rights.

However, the full breakdown of voting rights, published late on Monday evening, has laid bare how the company’s annus horribilis has shaken shareholder confidence in every member of its board and sparked fresh anger amongst investors.

The proportion of votes cast against his son James, the deputy chief operating officer of News Corp once regarded as Rupert’s heir apparent, more than tripled to 34.9pc. Lachlan Murdoch also suffered a severe loss of support, as the percentage of votes against him grew tenfold to more than a third of all cast.

Rupert Murdoch, chief executive and chairman, was opposed by 14pc, up from just over 2pc in 2010, and infuriated investors at the meeting with his abbrasive attitude.

But the biggest surprise of the vote was arguably a swing of support away from those board members who are not part of the Murdoch family.

The number of votes against Viet Dinh, who is leading an internal investigation into the News of The World phone-hacking scandal, soared from 4m to nearly 95m.

[Douglas Caddy]

The Independent has informed me that I have exhausted my 20 free articles for the month of October and must pay $6.95 if I wish to continue to copy its future articles for the remainder of month. I do not wish to incur this expense.

So where practicable, I shall use excerpts from its articles dealing with the hacking scandal until November 1, when hopefully, I shall be awarded the opportunity to copy 20 articles for that month for reproduction in this topic.

The Independent for October 26, 2011 carried the following articles:

1) Headline: “Police in plea to hacking inquiry.” “The Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service today urged the judge in charge of the inquiry into phone hacking to make sure it does not affect the criminal investigation running alongside of it…..The judge decided today that the inquiry will start November 14. Its first part will look at the culture, ethics and practices of the press and its relationship with the police and politicians.”

2) Headline: “Exclusive - Met finds secret phone at centre of NI hacking.” “Specialist detectives from the Metropolitan Police have discovered the existence of a secret mobile phone within News International’s east London headquarters that was used in more than 1,000 incidents of illegal hacking. The Independent has established that the phone, nicknamed ‘the hub’, was registered to News International and located on the News of the World’s news desk. Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan Police hacking inquiry, has evidence that it was used illegally to access 1,150 numbers between 2004 and 2006. Weeting officers regard the existence of the phone over two years as significant new evidence, showing that the phone hacking was carried out within the paper’s newsroom.”

[Douglas Caddy]

Steve Jobs: Fox News 'A Destructive Force In Our Society'

www.huffingtonpost.com

First Posted: 10/26/11 07:46 AM ET Updated: 10/26/11 10:10 AM ET

Steve Jobs told Rupert Murdoch that Fox News was a "destructive force in our society," according to the blockbuster biography of the late Apple CEO.

Poynter was the first to uncover Jobs' blunt words about the network in Walter Isaacson's new book. Isaacson writes that, after speaking at a News Corp. retreat, Jobs unloaded on Murdoch:

"You're blowing it with Fox News," Jobs told him over dinner. "The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you've cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you're not careful." Jobs said he thought Murdoch did not really like how far Fox had gone. "Rupert's a builder, not a tearer-downer," he said. "I've had some meetings with James, and I think he agrees with me. I can just tell."

This was part of Jobs' apparent love of tough talk with other powerful people. He also told President Obama that his economic policies would rob him of a second term.

Nevertheless, Jobs was a close collaborator with Murdoch, working with him on the mogul's iPad newspaper The Daily.

[John Dolva]

I suppose he's using axis in a sense of pivotal or demarcation rather than alliance which seems to imply an interplay seeking mutual dominance which strikes me as a bit too esoteric in the context rather seeking a balance or ability. ie he is a conservative with a heart that seeks to be assuaged and therefore needs to deny the fundamental incompatibility of capitalism and morality though while he is right that Rupert could be better I doubt he can. Sure it'd be great if he did but I think he has dug himself in too deep.

[Douglas Caddy]

Headline: “The Body arms herself for PR fightback”

The Independent.co.uk

By James Hanning

October 30, 2011

[excerpt]

The Australian model Elle Macpherson has engaged the services of a top PR firm in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. She is seeking to minimise unfavorable press criticism, notable in Australia, over her dealing with Rupert Murdoch.

In 2006 a court found that her phone had been hacked by News of the World, but unlike the four other proven victims, excluding the royal princes (Max Clifford, Sky Andrew, Gordon Taylor and Simon Hughes), she has taken no legal action.

Critics have long suspected that she came to an out-of-court settlement with the paper and point out that in the five years since the scandal, there were around 30 mentions of Macpherson (dubbed The Body) within it, of which all were either neutral or favorable.

[Douglas Caddy]

Detectives hunting Milly Dowler's killer had phones hacked, Leveson Inquiry hears

Police officers investigating the disappearance of the schoolgirl Milly Dowler had their mobile phones hacked during the inquiry, Surrey Police has revealed.

Daily Telegraph

By Mark Hughes, Crime Correspondent

2:41PM GMT 31 Oct 2011

A lawyer for the force told the Leveson inquiry that “a number of Surrey Police officers themselves were victims” of phone hacking shortly after the investigation began in March 2002.

Previously it was known that journalists at the News of the World had hacked the mobile telephone of the missing 13-year-old.

But this is the first time that it has been confirmed that detectives working on the case were also victims of phone hacking.

John Beggs QC, counsel for Surrey Police, told Lord Justice Leveson: “My instructions are that it is very likely that a number of Surrey Police officers themselves, at the time of launching the Milly Dowler investigation in March nine years ago, were themselves victims of hacking.”

Earlier this month Surrey Police admitted that they learned that Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked by the Sunday tabloid in 2002 but did not act.

Mr Beggs did not reveal whether the force also learned that their own officers had been hacked or whether this has since come to light during Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan Police’s investigation into phone hacking.

He was speaking as the Surrey Force made an application to become a core participant in the Leveson inquiry, which will look at the culture and ethics of the press.

Mr Beggs argued that the force should be allowed “core participant” status in light of the criticism the force has faced following their admission that they knew about Milly Dowler’s phone being hacked.

The force made the admission in a letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee.

The force’s then Chief Constable Mark Rowley said that officers became aware in April 2002 that someone from the News of the World had accessed the missing girl’s voicemail after someone on behalf of the Sunday newspaper phone the police operation room.

However Mr Rowley said that a formal investigation was not launched. He said: “At that time the focus and priority of the investigation was to find Milly who had then been missing for over three weeks.”

Mr Rowley’s letter said that an inquiry is looking into why no formal investigation was launched. He also revealed that the information that the News of the World had accessed Milly Dowler’s voicemail in 2002 was npot passed to the original Scotland yard phone hacking investigation in 2006. The reason for that is also being investigated.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: Milly Dowler police investigation may have been targeted

Lawyer for Surrey police tells Leveson inquiry there is evidence officers' phones were hacked

By James Robinson

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 31 October 2011 12.19 EDT

Several police officers who investigated the disappearance and murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002 may have had their phones hacked, a lawyer for Surrey police has told the Leveson inquiry.

John Beggs QC, for Surrey police, told a Leveson hearing into the culture, practices and ethics of the press at the high court on Monday there is evidence that officers were targeted.

The force is itself under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission after it failed to tell Scotland Yard one of its officers allegedly passed information about the Dowler investigation to the press.

The revelation in July that Dowler, who was 13 when she was murdered by Levi Bellfield, had her phone messages intercepted on the instructions of News of the World journalists prompted a public outcry and led to the closure of the paper.

It was not previously known that Surrey police may also have had their own mobile phones targeted. The claim was made during a hearing to determine how the inquiry will proceed when witnesses begin giving evidence in two weeks' time.

Beggs said: "My instructions are that it is likely that a number of Surrey police officers themselves were victims of hacking at the time of the launch of the Milly Dowler investigation, in March nine years ago. I don't want to develop that any further."

Surrey police on Monday applied for so-called "core participant" status at the Leveson inquiry. That would give them the right to give evidence to the inquiry, which is expected to be completed within a year.

The force has been criticised after it conceded it knew Dowler's phone had been hacked at the time of its original inquiry but failed to act on this information.

Two media organisations that did not originally ask for the same status – Trinity Mirror and Telegraph Media Group – also applied to be core participants on Monday along with the National Union of Journalists.

The NUJ is concerned that members called as witnesses could be asked to reveal information obtained from confidential sources during the course of the inquiry.

The inquiry also heard from the Metropolitan police and the News of the World's owner News International. They expressed fears that Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World could be prejudiced by the inquiry as its hears evidence about what took place at the paper.

Leveson dismissed those fears. "I am concerned to protect the integrity of the investigation and I'm also concerned to protect the rights of those who may by subject to further proceedings," he said.

He added the inquiry would reach conclusions on whether hacking at the paper was "condoned, encouraged, authorised, required" at a senior level or whether "there was a lack of supervision which permitted this culture" to flourish among more junior members of staff. He said this could be done without publicly identifying the individuals involved

[John Dolva]

Headline: "The Body arms herself for PR fightback"

The Independent.co.uk

By James Hanning

October 30, 2011

[excerpt]

The Australian model Elle Macpherson has engaged the services of a top PR firm in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. She is seeking to minimise unfavorable press criticism, notable in Australia, over her dealing with Rupert Murdoch.

In 2006 a court found that her phone had been hacked by News of the World, but unlike the four other proven victims, excluding the royal princes (Max Clifford, Sky Andrew, Gordon Taylor and Simon Hughes), she has taken no legal action.

Critics have long suspected that she came to an out-of-court settlement with the paper and point out that in the five years since the scandal, there were around 30 mentions of Macpherson (dubbed The Body) within it, of which all were either neutral or favorable.

Interesting. That was/is not all that was/is a kind of union between the Murdochs and the Packers. It's had some ups and downs over time but the ties do determine what is news. And afa as news in Oz goes it's basically the PacKers or Murdoch and the patriarchs are both pretty vicious and they would only be so if they were secure in their impunity (I think).