Rupert Murdoch and the Corruption of the British Media

[John Dolva]

It has suddenly become very trivial. I wonder why? I'd keep in mind the implications of the Crikey article, and John Pilger of course, And Robertson in the long term. It's also time to bone up om Fairfax. (imo), Whitlam, ... A lot of this started downunder.after all

[Douglas Caddy]

Rupert Murdoch and son James expected at Leveson inquirySun and ex-News of the World owners likely to be among newspaper proprietors called to give evidence over press ethics

By Lisa O'Carroll

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 3 April 2012 13.01 EDT

They are likely to be called to the Leveson inquiry alongside other newspaper owners, as well as Rebekah Brooks, David Cameron and Tony Blair. Photograph: PA

Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch are expected to appear at the inquiry into press ethics within weeks after Lord Justice Leveson announced he would be calling in newspaper owners to give evidence between now and the middle of May.

Lord Rothermere, owner of Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers, is also expected to be asked to testify under oath.

So too is Eygeny Lebedev, the son of the Russian proprietor of the Evening Standard, Independent and the cut-price i. It is believed all three proprietors have been pencilled in for the week beginning 23 April.

Aidan Barclay he son of media-shy Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, owners of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, is also to be called.

The newspaper owners are expected to be grilled about their relationship with politicians including David Cameron and past prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, including details of their specific meetings, correspondence and telephone calls.

Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, has been confirmed as a witness for the next module of the inquiry which is examining the relationships between the press and politicians.

Tom Watson, the Labour MP who led the calls for an investigation into phone hacking, has applied to be a core particpant in the next stage of the inquiry as has Brooks and Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat MP who led the Hacked Off campaign for an inquiry into press standards last July.

David Cameron, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown will also be called before Leveson, who is expected to discuss their relationship with the Murdochs, Rothermeres and Barclays in the runup to general elections.

Leveson did not mention the Murdochs by name, however their appearance will generate worldwide interest.

The last time Murdoch and his youngest son James appeared in front of British authorities was in July when they were summoned to answer questions at a parliamentary committee investigating phone hacking.

In an extraordinary day of testimony, Rupert Murdoch declared it "the most humble day of my life" and told MPs how sorry they were to the victims of the News of the World phone hacking.

Newspaper owners will give evidence over two weeks.

"During the week commencing 23 April, I apprehend that we will be calling some proprietors or media owners and other evidence crossing modules," said Leveson. He said more proprietors would be summoned on the week commencing 8 May.

That week Leveson will return to the Guardian's story last July about voicemail interceptions of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler that led to a public outrage over phone hacking which prompted the closure of the News of the World.

The Guardian reported that the murdered school girl's phone had been hacked and her voicemails deleted by News of the World, giving rise to a "false hope" moment for her distraught parents.

It has since emerged that the voicemails may have been deleted automatically by the telephone companies. Surrey Police are investigating the matter and told Leveson that it will submit its findings to the inquiry at the end of May.

Leveson said on Tuesday that the time was coming to "simply draw a line" under the matter which he will return to on the week beginning 8 May.

[Douglas Caddy]

News Corp shareholders renew call for Rupert Murdoch to step downCalls for Murdoch to be replaced are reignited following James Murdoch's resignation from British pay-TV giant BSkyB

By Dominic Rushe in New York

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 3 April 2012 11.47 EDT

Shareholder activists have renewed their call for Rupert Murdoch to quit as chairman of News Corporation, as the company faces fresh turmoil with the resignation of his James Murdoch as chairman of its British pay-TV giant.

Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS), which allied a massive vote against Rupert Murdoch, his sons and several of his appointed directors last year, calls for him to be replaced with an independent director.

In last year's vote, James Murdoch emerged as the least popular director with shareholders: 67% of the votes not controlled by the Murdoch family went against him.

This year's resolution, filed shortly before James Murdoch stepped down at BSkyB, says the phone-hacking scandal has placed News Corp in peril. It reads: "This pervasive and continuing scandal has led to an erosion of public confidence, helped to scuttle a critical business acquisition, and threatened the journalistic reputation and viability of News Corporation's UK publications. It also has made clear the need for independent board leadership to steer the company through a process of reform," says the resolution.

Julie Tanner, assistant director at CBIS, said Rupert Murdoch had to take responsibility for News Corp's continuing woes following the hacking scandal at his UK newspapers that has led to dozens of arrests and the closure of the News of the World.

"This is a situation that has to be dealt with from the top. This company has a long history of corporate governance concerns and it is no surprise that it has been unable to deal with this scandal as it has happened," she said.

Tanner said James Murdoch's resignation at BSkyB, which is controlled by News Corp through its 39.1% stake, was not enough and that it was unacceptable that he was staying on as a nonexecutive director at the broadcaster. "He should be removed," she said.

Rupert Murdoch and News Corp's chief operating officer Chase Carey issued a statement after James Murdoch's resignation in which they praised his work at BSkyB and said they looked forward to "James' continued substantial contributions at News Corporation."

Michael Wolff, author of Murdoch biography The Man Who Owns The News, said there was now immense pressure on James to resign from News Corp. "But he hasn't shown much inclination to go," he said. "James is worried the company will sell him out. What's going on now is that James wants to stay out of jail."

Father Seamus Finn, shareholder activist at Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, said shareholders were concerned by James Murdoch's ongoing problems and his recent resignations from board positions at Sotheby's, GlaxoSmithKline and now BSkyB.

Finn clashed with Rupert Murdoch at last year's AGM. "You're suggesting I'm a very bad person," Murdoch told Finn when the investor quizzed him about the hacking scandal.

"I can see that he wants to protect his son but this goes way beyond anything that shareholders can swallow," said Finn.

[Douglas Caddy]

April 3, 2012

James Murdoch Steps Down From British Broadcaster

The New York Times

By JOHN F. BURNS

LONDON — BSkyB, the British satellite broadcaster partly owned by the News Corporation, said on Tuesday that James Murdoch had resigned as chairman to shield the company from the phone hacking scandal engulfing his family’s British newspaper group.

BSkyB said Nicholas Ferguson, the deputy chairman, had been named to succeed him.

Mr. Murdoch will continue to hold a seat on the board. But by relinquishing his position as the head of BSkyB, one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative television properties in the Murdoch stable, Mr. Murdoch, 39, appeared to be shedding one of the most important portfolios in the newly focused role assigned to him only weeks ago.

At that time, the News Corporation announced his resignation from oversight of the company’s British newspapers and said he would concentrate on overseeing the company’s television operations outside the United States.

Resigning Tuesday from what was his last major executive role in the British media, Mr. Murdoch — who has faced increasingly tough scrutiny of his handling of the hacking scandal at two tabloids — also appeared to step back from a career that had made him one of Britain’s most powerful media figures.

“I am aware that my role as chairman could become a lightning rod for BSkyB, and I believe that my resignation will help to ensure that there is no false conflation with events at a separate organization,” Mr. Murdoch wrote in a letter to the BSkyB board. The letter appeared to acknowledge investor concerns that damage inflicted by the hacking scandal could eventually undermine the wider $50 billion Murdoch conglomerate.

Among media commentators and market analysts on both sides of the Atlantic, Mr. Murdoch’s resignation renewed speculation that his longer-term prospects in the News Corporation — the company his father built and where he was considered the heir apparent — had plummeted.

For months, independent shareholder groups have been calling for his resignation from both the BSkyB board and the board of the News Corporation, where the Murdoch family has relied on the power vested in it by the company’s dual-class voting structure to protect him. Some of those groups saw his BSkyB resignation as a signal to renew pressure for his removal from any executive responsibility at the News Corporation, where he remains a board member and deputy chief operating officer.

“This ups the pressure on him to resign from News Corporation,” said Michael Pryce-Jones, a spokesman for CtW Investment Group, a shareholder activist group in Washington, who said discontented shareholders would not wait for the News Corporation’s next annual meeting in six months to renew their push for James Murdoch’s ouster.

The BSkyB resignation, he said, might have had more credibility several months ago.

A similar view was voiced by many analysts in Britain. Steve Hewlett, a media commentator for the BBC, said Mr. Murdoch’s quitting as head of Britain’s most powerful pay-TV company, a side of the News Corporation’s operations where he has built a formidable reputation for expanding operations and profits, signaled that his wider ambitions at the company were probably spent. “The prospect of his succeeding his father, you would have to say, are even less likely today than they were yesterday,” he said.

But others saw such assessments as premature.

Rupert Murdoch, 81, has already said his immediate successor as News Corporation chairman, if he were suddenly unable to continue in the post, would be Chase Carey, the company’s current president. That formulation has left open the possibility that a member of the Murdoch family — possibly another son, Lachlan, if not James — would ultimately take over.

Analysts in Britain said they believed that the immediate trigger for James Murdoch’s resignation as the BSkyB chairman was linked to the expected release within weeks of a report on the phone hacking scandal by a House of Commons select committee. Based on the questioning during the hearings last year, it is thought likely that the report will be highly critical of Mr. Murdoch for what some committee members described as incomplete and misleading testimony.

Through months of scrutiny, Mr. Murdoch has insisted that he was kept in the dark about the systematic wrongdoing at the tabloids, and has denied claims by other senior figures in the newspaper operation that they warned him of the breadth of the problem. Confronted with company e-mails that suggested that he knew more than he had acknowledged, he continued to deflect blame but apologized for not pressing his own inquiry sooner.

His prospects of escaping the spotlight appear to be further diminished by the likelihood that both he and his father will be among the media proprietors who will be called within weeks to testify before a separate judge-led inquiry into the scandal and its ramifications.

On top of this, Britain’s regulator for the communications industry, Ofcom, said last month that in light of the revelations of wrongdoing at the tabloids it was stepping up its investigation into whether BSkyB met the “fit and proper” person standard applied to the holders of broadcast licenses in Britain. Analysts have said that a ruling against BSkyB would be less likely if James Murdoch was no longer chairman.

The News Corporation owns about 40 percent of BSkyB’s stock and had hoped to acquire more.

But as the hacking scandal gripped the nation last July, the family bowed to pressure from leading politicians, including Prime Minister David Cameron, and announced that it was withdrawing a $12 billion bid to buy complete control of the broadcaster. The move was seen as a major setback to the Murdoch family’s ambitions to establish themselves as the most powerful force in global broadcasting. Last summer, BSkyB announced a pretax profit for 2010-2011 of $1.7 billion, up 16 percent from the previous year.

As the News Corporation’s deputy chief operating officer, Mr. Murdoch still oversees lucrative international channels like Star TV in Asia, Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. The company’s fast-growing Star India business also reports directly to him.

Amy Chozick contributed reporting from New York, and Julia Werdigier and Alan Cowell from London.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 3, 2012

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that the Murdoch family, rather than News Corporation, owned 40 percent of BSkyB’s stock.

[Douglas Caddy]

Rupert Murdoch's American media immunity

The paradox is how little interest, until now, the US press has taken in the scandals engulfing the tycoon's News Corp empire

By Michael Wolff

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 4 April 2012 10.03 EDT

Even as his British media empire seems close to collapse, Rupert Murdoch has seemed 'untouchable' in his adopted home of the United States.

Last week, PBS aired a Frontline documentary, more then six months in the making, about Rupert Murdoch's phone-hacking scandal. The big budget film, hosted and reported by Lowell Bergman, one of the pre-eminent US investigative journalists, broke no news nor offered new perspectives about the affair. Rather, the show – the first US documentary to delve into the Murdoch scandals – gave a diligent, if somewhat flat-footed account of events that came to a head last summer, for an audience that, the producers seemed to assume, had missed most of the story.

In the same week, the BBC and the Australian Financial Review, opened up an entirely new chapter in the ever-expanding chronicles of News Corporation's scandals: NDS, a News Corp subsidiary company that developed encryption technology for pay TV outlets, had allegedly mounted a long-term effort of piracy and hacking in an effort to undermine its competitors. News Corp's Australian arm has denied the allegations.

Here's the thing: Murdoch's empire may be under siege in one of the most riveting business tales of our time – featuring wounded celebrities, a dynastic family drama, and toadying at the highest levels of government – but American journalism has been mostly absent from the story. At best, it has been a sidelined presence, late to the game, and generally confused about how to get ahead of events happening in another country. This is, arguably, the best thing Murdoch has going for him: in the US, the seat of his company and the main motor of his fortunes, he has been able to hide in plain sight.

So, why the disconnect? In a universe of equal-access global information, how can such parallel worlds comfortably exist? In the world abroad, almost everything is coming apart for Murdoch: his top executives, including his son, face possible imprisonment, his businesses face dismemberment, his reputation is in ruins. In the world at home, he remains the largely untouchable chief executive of one of the most influential companies in the nation. Within the US business and journalistic community, there is no real sense that he is even vulnerable – precisely, or circularly, because it would require a US outcry to bring him down. And the business and journalistic communities, which would have to lead that outcry, haven't begun to stir.

Many journalists, including Bergman, make the technical point that without an instance of phone-hacking on US soil, there is no smoking gun. Last summer, a spurious report in a second-tier British tabloid suggested that Murdoch reporters might have hacked the phones of 9/11 families, which would have provided an emotional gotcha. But without that, well … shrug.

Still, while this lack of jurisdiction might change the legal direction of the story, it ought not to change the journalistic view. The UK evidence trail reaches ever-more perilously close to Murdoch, the big kahuna. And such pursuit of such a personality is the sport of journalists, isn't it?

What's more, the constant revelations in the UK, and now Australia, reflect on the ethos of the whole company, most of which operates in the U.S.: News Corp. has built itself by an aggressiveness that defines its character and actions. The smoking guns seem limited only by one's imagination.

And yet, nothing: not a single US news outlet has meaningful advanced the investigation of Murdoch and his company.

The one significant contribution from the US media came more than 18 months ago when the New York Times ran a Sunday magazine piece about the scandal. The Times' attention furthered the story in Britain, and demonstrated the power of US media interest. But in fact, the Times mostly regurgitated what the Guardian had already reported.

At one level, the conundrum for journalists is Murdoch himself. He lives here; he makes most of his money here; he is a business superstar here. But he has never cut the kind of figure – nor been the object of such obsession – that he has in Australian and the UK. In the US, he owns largely anodyne entertainment and sports assets, rather than newspapers (the obstreperous New York Post is a local extravagance, and the Wall Street Journal is his reach for respectability); the exception is Fox News, but Roger Ailes is correctly perceived as its mastermind, and Murdoch as its more remote proprietor. While Murdoch is a figure of respect and even awe in the media community, he has never much captured the interest of people outside it.

Still, that ought to be a journalistic opportunity: to take the shadow figure and bring him into the light. But unless you are singularly committed, it is hard to take on power until its hold begins to loosen – and it hasn't, quite. At least not in the US.

This may have been Murdoch's annus horribilis, but News Corp's share price has advanced by 30% over the year – the ultimate sign of public faith and corporate solidity. (For a business story of this complexity and magnitude, the logical outlet to cover it would have been the Wall Street Journal. Alas.)

From a journalistic standpoint, it is hard, or ought to be hard, to ignore the sense of drip-drip inevitability. In London, there are three fronts: the original hacking charges at the News of the World; investigation of police bribery at the Sun; and possible charges of obstruction of justice (that is, the alleged cover-up). The latter most directly threatens Murdoch's son, James. Many of Murdoch's senior-most managers have been arrested – and not yet charged. While the lack of charges seems to be interpreted in the US as a signal of weakness in the allegations, it more likely reflects the process of British law: plea bargains occur before indictment.

In other words, some of the arrested subjects are likely bargaining and getting ready to testify against each other and those above. If the dominoes begin to fall, that will increase pressure on the US Justice Department to act under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. And now, with the NDS story, allegations of scandal reach by another vector into the uppermost levels of the company: anything to do with pay TV strikes close to Chase Carey, the chief operating officer, and presumed "Mr Clean" alternative to people named Murdoch.

Of course, to truly report this story, you need sources inside the company at a high corporate level. It is a testament to the kind of aggressive loyalty that Murdoch has cultivated at News Corp (which has, arguably, been at the root of so much of the companies' feral behavior), that few American reporters have such sources. Omerta rules.

And so the story has unfolded from the far ends of the empire, with the New York journalists working in close proximity to the company's center of power woefully out of the loop – though it is they who, if they wanted to, could buttonhole Murdoch on the pavement.

Still. Hollywood seems suddenly roused. Judging from the shocked and outraged calls I've gotten in the days since Frontline acquainted PBS viewers with the basic details of this long-in-progress, slow-motion downfall of the most powerful man of our time, maybe, finally, the story has reached us. And is ripe.

• This article will not be open for comments for legal reasons

[Steve Knight]

Jesus Cheristo!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/05/sky-news-hacking-emails-canoe-man?newsfeed=true

Sky News admits hacking emails of 'canoe man'

Broadcaster says accessing of emails of John Darwin, who faked own death, was authorised by executives and in public interest

Dan Sabbagh, Nick Davies and Robert Booth

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 April 2012 12.38 BST

Sky News has admitted that one of its senior executives authorised a journalist to conduct email hacking on two separate occasions that it said were "in the public interest" – even though intercepting emails is a prima facie breach of the Computer Misuse Act, to which there is no such defence written in law.

Gerard Tubb, the broadcaster's northern England correspondent, accessed emails belonging to John Darwin, the "canoe man" accused of faking his own death, when his wife, Anne, was due to stand trial for deception in July 2008. The reporter built up a database of emails that he believed would help defeat Anne Darwin's defence; her husband had pleaded guilty to seven charges of deception before her trial.

The same reporter accessed the email accounts of a suspected paedophile and his wife in an investigation that did not lead to any material being published or broadcast, according to a statement sent to the Guardian by Sky, which is part-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Both instances of hacking were approved by Simon Cole, the managing editor of Sky News.

John Ryley, the head of Sky News, said the broadcaster had "authorised a journalist to access the emails of individuals suspected of criminal activity" and the hacking in both cases was "justified and in the public interest". Ryley said the broadcaster's decisions required "finely balanced judgment" and they were "subjected to the proper editorial controls".

The broadcaster said it stood by Tubb and that there were instances when the broadcaster believed breaking the law was justified to produce a news story of public interest. It cited the example of a Sky News journalist buying an Uzi machine gun in the UK.

Darwin faked his own death in 2002, "going missing" after he was last seen paddling out to sea in a canoe. He secretly flew to Panama, where he was later joined by his wife, only to return to Britain in 2007.

Walking into a London police station in December 2007, he declared: "I think I may be a missing person", but later that month both he and his wife were charged with fraud after it emerged that they had been photographed in Panama with an estate agent and that Anne Darwin had cashed in her husband's life insurance policy.

He pleaded guilty to seven charges of deception and a passport offence in March 2008, leaving his wife to face six charges of deception and nine of money laundering at a trial due to begin four months later.

At around this point, Sky News said, Tubb discovered that John Darwin used the identity of a friend, John Jones. According to the broadcaster, Tubb conducted an internet search to reveal a Yahoo email account in the name of John Jones and, in the belief that Yahoo accounts were "notoriously weak at the time", the journalist was confident he could gain access with his existing background knowledge. He then sought permission to access the emails, an investigation that led him on to further email accounts.

In the first week of July 2008, Sky News said executives met Cleveland police officials and handed over "pertinent" emails. Anne Darwin was found guilty in the trial that followed shortly afterwards, and was sentenced to six and half years in prison; John Darwin was sentenced to six years, three months.

Shortly after, Tubb produced a story for Sky's news channel and website in which he quoted from emails that had been written by John Darwin to his wife and to a lawyer. A web story, still on Sky News's site at the time of writing, said the channel "has uncovered documentary evidence" that demonstrates "conclusively why John Darwin came back to Britain".

Making only a minimal effort to hide the basis of the story, Tubb's report said Sky News had "discovered an email" from John to Anne dated 31 May 2007, in which he says changes to visa regulations meant he could no longer stay in Panama, where he was hiding on a tourist visa. The report cited evidence from several emails between the couple, including a "final email" from Anne that was not, "as suggested in court", evidence of a "massive row" between them, an email that Tubb said had been "handed to the police by Sky News".

The story displayed a picture of "John and Anne Darwin's masterplan", showing a detailed diagram that had apparently been produced by Darwin, and claimed to have obtained detailed financial accounts prepared by Darwin. In another story, published in November 2009, Tubb quoted directly from an email written by John Darwin to his wife in 2007, explaining that their property in Panama had been valued at $1m and adding: "You're a filthy rich gringo". But a link to copies of the couple's emails is now dead.

Intercepting emails is an offence under the Computer Misuse Act, and there is no public interest defence written in law. Theoretically, however, any email hacking charges would have to be brought at the discretion of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, which could weigh up whether any intrusions could be justified. The role of the CPS in this area is untested, and Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, told the Leveson inquiry in February that he intended to issue guidance to clarify the issue.

Danvers Baillieu, a specialist internet lawyer with Pinsent Masons, said that while there was no public interest defence "it doesn't mean that a jury would convict a person, or a judge would punish them, because there is usually a discretion in such cases". However, he added that "the difficulty for news organisations is the question of where do you draw the line: would it be legitimate to break into somebody's house who is suspected of committing a crime? The issue with computer offences is that people can do it from their offices, and believe it is a lesser offence than any other type of intrusion."

Sensitivities at Sky News are running high because the broadcaster's parent, BSkyB, is subject to a "fit and proper" investigation being conducted by the communications regulator, Ofcom, in the wake of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. However, that investigation is focused on News Corporation's shareholding, and the continuining directorship of James Murdoch, who stepped down as chairman on Wednesday and who was executive chairman of News International.

Cleveland police said the force did inquire about the provenance of the emails at the time, and said it continued to do so. A statement said: "Cleveland police has conducted an initial review into these matters and can confirm that enquiries are ongoing into how the emails were obtained."

Tubb declined to speak to the Guardian. Cole is on leave, and forwarded inquiries to the Sky News press office.

Ryley said Sky News had asked the law firm Herbert Smith to conduct a separate review of staff email records and payment records in the light of "heightened interest in editorial practices". However, the broadcaster said that because Tubb's email hacking had been sanctioned, his work had not come up as part of that exercise.

Ryley said there were "no grounds for concern" regarding any of its other journalists, and that Sky News believed there were rare occasions when tensions could arise between the law and responsible investigative journalism.

Tubb's authorised email hacking contrasts with another example of a potentially illegal email access, conducted by Patrick Foster while he was employed by the Times. Foster accessed emails belonging to the anonymous police blogger Nightjack to out him as a serving Lancashire police officer, Richard Horton, but his actions were not authorised by any executive.

A story naming Horton was later published by the Times, but the editor, James Harding, said he was not made aware of the unauthorised email access until after the newspaper had begun a court battle to allow the police officer to be named, which it won. Harding said if he had been aware of the hacking previously he would have disciplined the journalist and told him to drop the story. "I squarely do not approve of what happened," the editor told the Leveson inquiry in February.

[Douglas Caddy]

News of the World closure triggers £244m write-off

News Group Newspapers says charges arising from paper's shutdown could rise further

By Mark Sweney

guardian.co.uk,

Thursday 5 April 2012 08.35 EDT

The closure of News of the World has so far triggered charges of almost £250m, with its publisher admitting that the final total could well be significantly more.

News Group Newspapers, the parent company of the Sun and now-defunct News of the World, said that write-offs arising from paper's shutdown have hit £244m – but admitted that tens of millions in legal fees could just be the tip of the iceberg.

NGN said that it has made a £160m non-cash write-off on the value of the "publishing rights" for News of the World, which was closed last July in response to the phone-hacking scandal, in its financial results for the year to 3 July.

In addition, NGN has taken a £55.5m charge relating to redundancy and restructuring costs and legal fees, and after sign-off on the financial documents filed to Companies House on 30 March this year notched up another £5.1m.

Costs for claimants' legal fees and damages as at 30 March this year hit £23.6m, with the company admitting that the final cost may or may not be significantly higher than the amounts stated.

"The company is subject to several ongoing investigations initiated in 2011 by regulators and various governmental authorities after allegations of voicemail interception, inappropriate payments to public officials and other related matters," NGN said in a statement in the financial results.

"The company is fully co-operating with these investigations, but is not able to estimate the ultimate outcome or cost associated with these investigations."

NGN also reported that a 17% rise in operating profits before execeptional items in the year to 3 July to £103.6m. Revenues remained almost flat year on year at £654m.

Most of the £244m in charges were incurred for the current financial year, because the News of the World shut on 10 July. However, the unit did take the exceptional charge of £23.7m in respect of hacking claimants' legal fees in the year, reducing reported operating profits to £81.7m.

The publisher of the Sun and the News of the World said its editorial staff costs were £48.9m, down slightly year on year, with the average number of journalistic staff employed 575.

Director remuneration rose 60% year on year from £3m to £4.8m, with compensation for "loss of office" to an unspecified individual or individuals totalling £1.2m.

During the year NGN changed how it manages the licensing agreement for the publishing rights and titles for the Sun and the News of the World.

The rights had existed in a separate subsidiary, News 2026, in an agreement that was supposed to exist from 1 July 2010 until 30 June 2022.

However, less than a year into the deal on 10 June 2011 – a month before the decision to close NoW was taken as the phone-hacking scandal engulfed the company – NGN decided to repurchase the rights for the two newspapers at a cost of £720m.

The closure of NoW led to a non-cash writedown in the value of the rights by £160m, which means that the notional value of the Sun is £560m.

"As at the balance sheet date there is no indication of impairment and the directors feel that the valuation is appropriate," NGN said in the filing. "The directors believe that the publishing rights and titles have sufficiently well-established position in the marketplace to be defended against any threats arising from current competitors, potenital new entrants and potential technological changes in the industry. Any impairment results from specific events or circumstances and do not indicate that the inherent lives of the assets are anything other than indefinite."

[Steve Knight]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc25cbd4-8333-11e1-9f9a-00144feab49a.html#axzz1rgMA3Xkq

April 10, 2012 11:45 pm

ICO condemns Motorman leaks

By Maija Palmer

The Information Commissioner’s Office has condemned as “deeply irresponsible” the publication of files from Operation Motorman which detail alleged violations of the Data Protection Act by journalists.

Paul Staines, who runs the Guido Fawkes website, on Monday published details of over 1,000 requests allegedly made by News International journalists to Steve Whittamore, the private investigator. These included requests for ex-directory numbers, criminal record checks and vehicle records.

Mr Whittamore was the subject of Operation Motorman in 2003, the largest operation mounted by the information commissioner into the illegal trade in private data. He was convicted in 2005 of illegally obtaining private data and received a conditional discharge.

Some 305 journalists from publications including the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, News of the World and the Observer, were identified by the ICO as using private investigators to obtain private information. Use of private detectives to obtain personal data without consent is not necessarily illegal, as journalists have legal protection from the Data Protection Act if the action taken is in the public interest.

The Leveson inquiry into phone hacking had been considering whether the details from the enquiry should be put into the public domain, but had not yet reached a decision. The ICO has resisted publication to protect the identities of people allegedly targeted by journalists.

“The issue of publication is being considered by the Leveson Inquiry and it’s most unfortunate that Guido Fawkes has chosen to jump the gun,” the ICO said.

“Putting these into the public domain in this way is a serious violation of many people’s privacy and raises more questions than it answers.”

The Guido Fawkes blog responded in Twitter messages that the ICO was “asleep on the job” and accused it of trying to “sweep Motorman under the carpet”.

The pressure group Hacked Off, which has been campaigning for the public disclosure of the Motorman files, said on Tuesday that it had not been involved in leaking the files.

“Though we have been campaigning for full disclosure of these important documents we were not involved in this initiative. We are not in possession of the Motorman files,” the group said.

[Douglas Caddy]

News International braced as lawyer brings phone-hacking scandal to US

Lawyer's visit brings UK scandal to Rupert Murdoch's front door and raises prospect of lawsuits involving US legal system

By Ed Pilkington in New York

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 11 April 2012 15.43 EDT

Mark Lewis, the lawyer who has been at the forefront of efforts to expose the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, is poised to bring the battle for legal redress across the Atlantic and to the doorstep of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

Lewis will arrive in the US on Saturday and next week will begin legal discussions in New York, just a stone's throw away from News Corporation's global headquarters on Sixth Avenue. His arrival constitutes a major escalation in the legal ramifications of the hacking scandal for Murdoch, who has tried desperately to keep it away from the American core of his multi-billion-dollar media holdings.

Details remain sketchy about precisely what Lewis intends to do in the US, but the Guardian has learned that he will be having legal discussions that could lead to several lawsuits being lodged with the New York courts. The direct involvement of the US judicial system in allegations of illegal activity by News Corp employees would bring the scandal dramatically closer to Murdoch's adopted home.

It is not yet known how many lawsuits could result. Lewis will be in discussions with his New York-based legal partner, Norman Siegel, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, over the details of US law as it applies to phone hacking.

The cases they will be exploring are understood to relate mainly to celebrities who have come to the US and had their phones hacked while they were in the country. That could constitute a violation of US telecommunications and privacy laws.

It is also understood that a US citizen had his or her phone hacked while in America as a result of hacking into the transatlantic conversation of a foreign-based celebrity who was a friend of the victim.

Jude Law has been one of the celebrities believed to have their phones hacked while in the US, in this case while he was at JFK airport in New York. However, the Guardian understands that Law is not one of the cases that is currently being explored by Lewis and Siegel.

So far, the US component of the hacking scandal has been confined to an FBI and department of justice investigation under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that forbids corporations headquartered in the US, as News Corporation is, from indulging in acts of bribery or corruption abroad. Any lawsuit that flows from Lewis's US activities would take the scandal to another level by becoming the first legal action to arise domestically within the US.

Lewis has been a crucial figure in the exposure of the billowing phone-hacking saga. He represents the family of Milly Dowler, the missing teenager whose phone was hacked by the News of the World.

He also represented Gordon Taylor, head of the Professional Footballers' Association, who received more than $1m from News International, the UK newspaper arm of News Corporation, in a settlement over the hacking of his phone.

Lewis's involvement with the scandal has also been deeply personal: he was himself put under surveillance by the News of the World before it was shut down by Murdoch. The paper hired a specialist private investigator to covertly surveil him and his family.

Lewis will be attending a symposium on investigative journalism at UC Berkeley this weekend where he will be speaking on a panel titled: "The Murdoch Effect: The News At Any Price?"

An irony of the arrival of Lewis in the US is that it comes soon after James Murdoch, Rupert's youngest son, relocated from the UK to New York partially, it is thought, in a move to try and distance him from the phone-hacking scandal. James Murdoch announced that he was stepping down as nonexecutive chairman of the broadcaster BskyB last week, but Lewis's deliberations over possible legal action in the New York courts brings the nightmare back to haunt him.

[Douglas Caddy]

Lawyer says British phone hacking scandal could spread to U.S.

Los Angeles Times

April 12, 2012 | 8:07 am

LONDON -- The British phone hacking scandal that resulted in scores of arrests and the July closing of the popular tabloid News of the World could spread to the United States, a media lawyer who represents several victims said Thursday.

Attorney Mark Lewis said inquiries by British police into illegal phone interceptions by the tabloid were widening and he would be seeking documentation in the U.S. on behalf of three of his clients, who he said were victims of illegal phone interceptions.

The tabloid is owned by News International, the British branch of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

“The cases I am pursuing were by the News of the World against people who were in the U.S. at the time they were hacked or were U.S. citizens,” he said in a email to The Times sent while he was en route to the airport.

“The scandal is not just confined to the United Kingdom or U.K. companies,” he told the BBC, “but this goes to the heartland of News Corp. and we will be looking at the involvement of the parent company and in terms of claims there and that is something that I think will be taken more seriously by investors and shareholders in News Corp.”

He also said that of his three clients, whom he declined to identify, one had connections to Hollywood, another to the late Princess Diana and the third to English national soccer.

The hacking scandal intensified last July with revelations that journalists on Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid had been hacking into the mobile phone of slain teenager Milly Dowler and her family in 2003 in search of scoops. The subsequent outcry prompted Murdoch to close the publication and public officials to launch police investigations and inquiries into media practices.

The octogenarian Murdoch and his son James both appeared before a parliamentary panel but said they had no knowledge of phone hacking beyond one rogue reporter and a private investigator, both of whom served jail sentences for hacking into the phones of the British royal family in 2007. Their claims were later disputed by News of the World executives.

James Murdoch recently quit as chairman of the satellite TV station BSkyB (British Sky Broadcasting) after his resignation in February as chief executive of News International.

The Murdochs have pledged and paid out millions of dollars in compensation in dozens of out-of-court settlements. Phone hacking victims include celebrities such as actor Jude Law, singer Charlotte Church, former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, friends of the British royal family as well as crime victims and people associated with them.

Police and parliamentary panels and a civil inquiry looking into media practices have resulted in more than 40 arrests of media executives, government officials and journalists and prompted the resignation of several high-ranking police officials

[Douglas Caddy]

James Cusick: Leveson can probe the Yard's conduct

Far from being unified, there was a civil war which damaged its ability to do its job

The Independent

By James Cusick

Monday, 16 April 2012

A casual visitor to the Royal Courts of Justice in recent weeks would have been forgiven for thinking it was only the behaviour of the Fourth Estate that was at issue during the Leveson Inquiry's probings into relations between the press and the police.

Certainly, Scotland Yard's top brass was pushed and prodded about the failure of the original phone-hacking inquiry – the refusal to pull back the curtain at Wapping and reveal the full extent of the rot that had set in at the News of the World.

But while the Yard has some justification in citing its duty to defend London's citizens from harm as part of the reason for its peculiar failure to follow the evidence in 2006, neither Leveson nor the Met itself has shone a sufficiently bright light into the internal divisions that also hobbled Britain's largest force.

Today, The Independent reveals another side of the Met's modus operandi during this period. Far from being a unified force determined to protect the public, it appears there was a highly politicised civil war in progress that could only have damaged its ability to do its job.

When the Leveson Inquiry examined the relationship between the press and police, it should have gone further in probing the criticisms that former and acting Met officers were throwing at each other during questioning.

The existence of an internal report suggesting the Met's management board was "compromised" and leaking to the media raises the question of how Britain's police functioned, or rather malfunctioned, when it should have been exposing the sham that was News International's so-called internal inquiry into hacking.

Lord Leveson needs to re-question both Lords Stevens and Blair and publish the internal-intelligence papers that marred this period of the Met's history. More private assurances from Scotland Yard will not be enough.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: files on journalists and police officer sent to CPS

The first criminal charges since the full extent of the phone hacking scandal was exposed last year, moved a step closer today when detectives passed four files to prosecutors for consideration.

By Martin Evans, Crime Correspondent

The Telegraph

2:22PM BST 18 Apr 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/9211679/Phone-hacking-files-on-journalists-and-police-officer-sent-to-CPS.html

The allegations relate to four journalists, one police officer and six other individuals and cover a range of alleged offences.

While the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) refused to reveal the identities of those in the files, it is believed the allegations under consideration relate, among others, to Guardian journalist Amelia Hill, former News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks and former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck.

Giving details of the development, Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said the four files related to investigations being carried out by the Metropolitan Police – Operations Weeting, Elveden, Tuleta, Kilo and Sacha.

The four files include:

• One journalist and one police officer with relation to alleged offences of misconduct in public office and the Data Protection Act.

• One journalist and six other members of the public with relation to alleged offences of perverting the course of justice.

• One journalist with relation to alleged offences of witness intimidation and harassment.

• One journalist with relation to alleged offences under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).

A total of 43 people are currently on bail in connection with the various police operations, but Mr Starmer said not all of those in the files passed to the CPS had been arrested.

Miss Hill was questioned under caution in September last year over allegations that she was in receipt of leaked information from the phone hacking investigation. A police officer was also arrested in connection with the allegations.

Mrs Brooks was arrested for a second time last month along with her husband Charlie and four other people by officers investigating allegations of a cover up in the phone hacking inquiry.

Mr Thurlbeck was also arrested last month by police investigating claims that he posted information related to a member of the News Corporation’s Management and Standards Committee on his blog.

It remains unclear who the journalist is in the file connected to alleged breaches of RIPA.

The CPS will now consider the evidence collected by police before announcing whether to bring charges in any of the cases.

Mr Starmer refused to give a timescale for a charging decision but said: “We are now entering a period where we are likely to make a decision one way or another.”

Today’s announcement came as Britain's top prosecutor published guidelines setting out how journalists may have broken the law.

Mr Starmer said the new rules would help lawyers with the "very difficult decisions".

"The decisions we are going to make are going to be extremely difficult and extremely sensitive," he said.

"We have got to make a decision because these cases are coming. We cannot duck that."

[Steve Knight]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/9213455/Sun-royal-editor-Duncan-Larcombe-held-in-illegal-payment-raids.html

Sun royal editor Duncan Larcombe held in 'illegal payment' raids

The Sun's royal editor Duncan Larcombe was today arrested by detectives investigating alleged illegal payments to public officials by journalists.

10:00AM BST 19 Apr 2012

He was one of three people, also including a former member of the Armed Forces, held in dawn raids by detectives from Scotland Yard's Operation Elveden.

Mr Larcombe, 36, who was The Sun's defence editor until last year, was arrested at his home in Kent on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt and conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office. He was being questioned at a police station in Kent.

The ex-serviceman, aged 42, and a 38-year-old woman were held at an address in Lancashire at 6am. The man was held on suspicion of misconduct in a public office and a woman on suspicion of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office. They were being questioned at a police station in Lancashire.

Officers carried out searches at the homes of those under arrest.

Scotland Yard said in a statement: "Today's operation is the result of information provided to police by News Corporation's management standards committee.

"It relates to suspected payments to a public official and is not about seeking journalists to reveal confidential sources in relation to information that has been obtained legitimately."

The Management and Standards Committee was set up by Rupert Murdoch's parent company News Corp in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World last July.

It is carrying out internal investigations relating to Mr Murdoch's remaining UK papers – The Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times – and is working closely with the police team investigating alleged phone-hacking and corrupt payments to police and other public officials.

The raids bring to 26 the number of people who have now been held as part of the Elveden inquiry – which is linked to the Met's wide-ranging phone hacking probe – since July. In total, more than 50 people have now been arrested by officers investigating phone hacking, computer hacking, and payments to public officials.

The arrests came a day after prosecutors announced that they were considering whether to bring charges against 11 suspects in the scandal, after police handed over the first set of files from its investigation. The 11 suspects in the files are believed to include Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive.

The files handed over to the CPS relate to four journalists, one police officer and six other individuals and cover a range of alleged offences stemming from the investigation which began when the full extent of the phone hacking scandal was exposed last year.

The four files, which were handed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) within the past few weeks, relate to a variety of alleged offences covering journalists from beyond the now-defunct News of the World.

While the CPS refused to reveal the identities of those journalists named in the files, it is believed those whose cases are with prosecutors include Mrs Brooks, Amelia Hill, a reporter on The Guardian, and the former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck.

A total of 43 people are on bail in connection with the various police operations and it is thought more files will be passed to the CPS in the coming weeks.

[Douglas Caddy]

Tom Watson: News Corp operated like 'shadow state'

Labour MP who led campaign against phone hacking also says News of the World aimed to investigate MPs' private lives

By Dan Sabbagh and Lisa O'Carroll

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 April 2012 06.59 EDT

News Corporation is a "toxic institution" that operated like a "shadow state" in British society, according to a Labour MP who is the co-author of a new book about the phone-hacking scandal.

Tom Watson, joint writer of Dial M for Murdoch, said that the book also featured allegations that Murdoch's News of the World set out to search for "secret lovers" or "extramarital affairs" of MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee in 2009.

At a packed press conference, Watson, a member of the Commons culture select committee, said that the surveillance revelation – passed onto him by former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck – demonstrated how the Murdoch organisation tried to intimidate parliament.

Thurlbeck gave Watson an on-the-record interview, with a witness present, in which he said the then News of the World editor, Colin Myler, told journalists on the Sunday tabloid to "find out everything you can about every single member".

At the time the select committee was conducting its second inquiry into phone hacking, in the wake of revelations in the Guardian that the practice went beyond a single "rogue reporter" at the tabloid.

The aim was to discover "who was gay, who had affairs, anything we can use," according to Thurlbeck, as quoted in the book. "Each reporter was given two members [MPs] and there were six reporters that went on for around 10 days."

Thurlbeck told Watson that the investigations eventually "fell by the wayside" and that "even Ian Edmondson", the then news editor, "realised that there was something quite horrible about doing this".

Watson, and his co-author Martin Hickman, an Independent journalist, said that they believed that pressure on MPs at the time influenced the decision not to compel Rebekah Brooks, who was then News International's chief executive, to give evidence before the committee.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone Hacking Charges May Be Brought Against News Corp. In U.S.

Posted: 04/19/2012 5:20 pm

Updated: 04/19/2012 7:41 pm

Huffingtonpost.com

NEW YORK -- The News of the World phone-hacking scandal that exploded in England last summer with a spate of arrests, resignations and several ongoing investigations has remained mostly on that side of the Atlantic.

But that could change if Mark Lewis, the British lawyer who has represented several phone hacking victims in the U.K. and who recently teamed up with two Manhattan-based attorneys, decides to file suits stateside on behalf of clients who believe their phones were hacked while on U.S. soil.

On Thursday, Lewis, sitting alongside New York attorneys Norman Siegel and Steve Hyman, discussed the possibility of bringing hacking-related suits against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in the U.S., the headquarters of a worldwide media juggernaut.

Lewis, who gained prominence for his pursuit of high-profile hacking cases across the pond, arrived in the U.S. for the Monday meeting with Siegel amid some media fanfare, including a New York Times profile. As a result of that meeting, Siegel said Thursday that there's "a reasonable basis for the proposition that three of [Lewis's] clients may have been victims of telephone hacking while they were in the United States." Lewis later confirmed he has a fourth client who may also opt to file suit in the U.S.

"It's inevitable that people in America would contact people in England and people in England would contact people in America," Lewis told reporters. "It's therefore the case that amongst the victims of the English phone hacking that there will be some, either American victims or people who are European who were in America at the time that they were hacked."

Siegel stressed that Thursday's meeting, which included roughly two-dozen reporters and several cameramen, was a press availability rather than a formal news conference -- an important distinction, given that the lawyers weren't willing to divulge several details of possible U.S. hacking suits. Indeed, Lewis declined to name his clients and Siegel said he wouldn't set any timeline for filing since such deadlines are "arbitrary" and only add "unnecessary stress and pressure."

Currently, the lawyers say they are investigating to determine which side of the Atlantic would be best for each of Lewis' four clients, one of whom is known to be a U.S. citizen, to pursue legal action. Lewis said important factors to consider include whether it's more convenient to pursue cases in a client's home country or if there's an advantage to filing in the U.S. in terms of obtaining evidence.

For instance, Lewis said that if it is deemed necessary to seek information from News Corp. deputy chief operating officer James Murdoch -- the one-time heir apparent who lost much of his clout in the fallout and has since moved from London to New York City -- it could make more sense to pursue cases in the United States.

So far, there have been no allegations of phone hacking against Murdoch's U.S. media outlets, such as the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.

But since arriving this week, Lewis said he has heard unproven allegations "which raise issues against other [Murdoch] titles or perhaps against Fox News that raise suggestions, not necessarily about hacking, but about untoward dark arts to obtain information that should be private information."

Siegel said that he's received calls from six people with claims of hacking in just the past few days and suggested that more people will come forward as the investigation progresses.

"What you have to understand is that when this all started in England, this was one person with one case," Lewis said. "And you look at where it is now. So when it starts in America with three cases, it seems natural that you might find there are more than three."

A News Corp. spokesperson declined to comment on the lawyers' meeting with the press.

But surely the company is paying attention. Lewis has been one of the pivotal figures throughout the entire phone hacking saga, which has lasted nearly six years. He represented soccer executive Gordon Taylor in a 2007 civil suit against News International, the corporation's British newspaper arm, that resulted a record $1.1 million settlement and led to the further unraveling of News Corp's claims that phone hacking at the News of the World was done by only a rogue reporter and private investigator.

In pursuing the case against News International, Lewis ended up suing London's Metropolitan Police. In so doing, he obtained the "for Neville" email, a document revealing that hacking spread beyond the reporter, Clive Goodman, and the investigator, Glenn Mulcaire.

In 2009, the Guardian reported on the huge Taylor settlement, leading to more questions about what top News Corp. executives, including James Murdoch, knew about the scale of the hacking and coverup. Last summer, the Guardian broke the news that News of the World journalists had hacked the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, a revelation that sparked a national outcry. Lewis won several million dollars for the Dowler family.

So far, police have questioned over two-dozen past and present News International employees. The phone hacking scandal, along with subsequent probes into police bribery and computer hacking, has led to the arrests of 43 people, according to the AP. The investigations have also ensnared Murdoch's daily Sun tabloid and his more upmarket Times of London.

On Wednesday, Keir Starmer, who serves as Britain's chief prosecutor, said criminal charges are being considered against 11 people. The group, the AP reported, includes "four journalists, one police officer and six other people." As criminal charges appear to be looming on the horizon, News Corp. continues to pay for the phone hacking scandal, which has already cost the company $379 million -- a figure that could rise to $1 billion following more settlements, according to The New York Times.

Given Lewis' success in the U.K., Murdoch watchers are looking closely to see if any suits develop in the U.S.

London-based media analyst Claire Enders told the Daily Beast last week that "Lewis launching these lawsuits in the U.S. brings the issue of phone hacking into News Corp.’s backyard, where they have the potential for significant embarrassment."

Lawsuits aside, the company is still dealing with other U.S. investigations stemming from the phone hacking scandal. Siegel and Hynam, who also represent family members of 9/11 victims, met with both U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and members of the FBI, following an unverified report that the phones of 9/11 victims and their families may have been hacked by employees of News Of The World. There have also been allegations that reporters bribed British police, an act that could violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Siegel said that both the FBI and DOJ investigation are ongoing.

And back in the U.K., questions remain about who knew what and when. Both Rupert and James Murdoch will give evidence next week before the Leveson inquiry that will address phone hacking and wider media ethics issues