Tim's Favorite Blogs
Media Matters
Blog Directories
Tuesday, July 19. 2011
Out of News
Wow! Rupert Murdoch is going down! As I start this Monday Morning, Murdoch’s top lieutenants in his UK media operations have resigned and one has been arrested. This, just a week after News International closed the 168 year old News of the World. When you finish reading. Or, if you’re already bored, Click Here to see their web site.We all know the story. The paper wasn’t losing any money. In fact, it was one of the few in the industrialized world doing good financially. No, what brought this paper down: illegal eavesdropping. On some 4,000 or so British citizens, including a young girl who is a murder victim. They tapped her voice mail!
Then there were the payoffs to police officers — and no one knows just how deep that is or how high up the chain it goes, but two top Scotland Yard officials have resigned since Sunday: Paul Stephenson, the director of Scotland Yard and John Yates, the assistant director. Not just any two officials, the top two officials. O dear.
Apparently these officials were close friends with Brooks.A total of ten people have been arrested, so far, in this scandal, from reporters to Brooks, who, until she resigned, was the chief executive of Murdoch’s News International. Her arrest, from the information that has so far been revealed, seems a bit shady, but it’s sending a message.
This is the message: “Past friendships are now forgotten. Our alliance has now become a political liability.”
Brooks was considered a close friend of three Prime Ministers: Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the current PM, David Cameron. Now we have to wonder just where those friendships stand now. He relationship with Cameron was described as being “cozy.” Okay, what does that mean? Well, they socialized a lot, frequently having dinner at each others’ homes. Both are married by the way so when they socialize we can assume their spouses are included.
The thought is this could very well bring down Cameron’s Conservative government because the story is still unfolding. As investigations continue, both official and from news organizations, the scope of this scandal will continue to expand; and, with the resignation of Andy Coulson, it has already reached the prime minister’s office. More on Coulson in a bit.
Today (Tuesday) Rupert Murdoch, his son James and Brooks will be answering questions in front of Britain’s House of Commons. There are a lot of questions, similar to what the Watergate conspirators were subjected to nearly 40 years ago: What did you know and when did you know it? And the evidence of the cover up will be brought into the record, and there is evidence, it will be more than Rebekah Brooks and Neil Wallis who will be arrested.
Oh, Neil Wallis was once a deputy editor at News of the World until he got a job with Scotland Yard.And now a whistleblower in this scandal, Sean Hoare, is dead. But, it’s not that suspicious. Hoare was a prodigious drug user and drunk, bragged about his “rock star” breakfast of cocaine and Jack Daniels. Hoare was the guy who told the world he and his former employer, News of the World, were intercepting phone calls and messages to get stories.
Hoare had been an entertainment reporter for the paper and said, “everyone was doing it” when describing the phone hacking. And, he said, his boss at the time, Andy Coulson, not only knew of it but also encouraged the crimes.
Andy Coulson had been the editor of News of the World, among other high level positions with News International, until he resigned to work with Britain’s current Prime Minister. It was a deal that was supposed to make Cameron more palpable for Rupert Murdoch, who preferred Gordon Brown as PM. With this deal, Murdoch had a loyal employee inside 10 Downing Street, a coup for any businessman.
Here in the United States, Les Hinton, publisher of Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and CEO of Dow Jones, Inc (also owned by Murdoch), resigned in the wake of the scandal. He had been with Murdoch for decades and was part of the creation of Murdoch’s two main news organizations, News Corp and News International.
Okay, a small tidbit of the back-story is out of the way. And really, this story is such a labyrinth of shady connections, relationships between Murdoch and his subordinates and government officials, books will need to be written to explain it all — and we will no doubt still be confused.
Here’s the thing though. Murdoch, his son and Brooks all claimed, several years ago, the phone tapping was just the work of a rogue reporter. They also said it never crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the U.S. But as the story continues to expand, we are now hearing News Corp reporters may have hacked into the phones of 9/11 victims. Among others.British actor Jude Law said his phone was hacked as well, when he was in New York. That alone opens Murdoch and News Corps to investigations here in the United States. And, because Murdoch is a naturalized U.S. citizen, he can — and most likely will — be subpoenaed to testify before Congress.
If it is found that members of News Corps have engaged in illegal wiretapping and hacking into the communications of citizens and visitors, then what’s happening in Britain will happen here. Hell, it’s already started! Les Hinton has resigned.
Murdoch and his son are natives of Australia so if the investigations show that the Murdoch’s are culpable for any crimes, be it the wiretapping or a cover up, not only can their citizenship be revoked, but the government can force Murdoch to give up all his U.S. business interests — including his television empire. The potential ramifications are extraordinary.
Now, it’s not likely Dow Jones, Inc, the Wall Street Journal, the television and radio FOX networks will go out of business, or even change their political bent, but the changes would be monumental.A very real possibility is someone like Ted Turner, who has always wanted a broadcast network to call his own, could scoop up all of Murdoch’s TV and radio holdings.
See, I’m betting the Murdochs and Brooks get implicated in the scandal over in Europe — oh yeah, it isn’t confined to Britain — and the scope will engulf the vast media holdings of Murdoch, including his U.S.-based News Corp. And then Murdoch will pay a heavy price for his crimes, including disenfranchisement as a citizen and the dissolution of his business empire here.
For more than 20 years Murdoch has been successfully bullying his way around the media world, causing resentment with every acquisition. To be fair, a lot of that resentment was just sour grapes. Here was this foreigner buying up American media and becoming a bona fide mogul, pushing aside the other players already in the game. He even became a U.S. citizen just so he could legally own the ones that required U.S. ownership. How cynical and opportunist!
And then he started a network that soon produced some of the best programming on TV: The Simpsons and Married, With Children to name the network’s first two hits. And then Fox bought the rights to broadcast the NFL! And if that wasn’t enough, in 1996 Murdoch started FOX News and it became the dominant cable news network in America.
Now, Murdoch’s media empire is in jeopardy. Neither MSNBC or CNN are talking about the possibilities in any great detail, but they are no doubt talking about what could happen in private, snickering little conversations off the air, during commercial breaks even. People have been waiting to see Murdoch get his comeuppance and this just might be it.Americans don’t like seeing rich bullies getting away with “it,” whatever “it” is. What gets our goat is the notion that people with lots of money don’t have to play by the rules, that they can buy their way out of anything and everything, as Murdoch and News Corp have done over the past 20-plus years, to the tune of a half billion dollars, including a case in which they were caught hacking into a business rival’s computer system to steal proprietary information.
Now, you gotta wonder, with all the government figures going down in Britain, how many politicians in America have such strong ties to Murdoch and News Corps? The thought sort of makes the Anthony Weiner scandal seem ... silly.
This is going to blow up big here in the United States. Huge. Make a note: if Roger Ailes, resigns as CEO of FOX News, you can bet News Corps is going down the tubes. And I’m betting Ailes resigns.
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry
No Trackbacks
Calendar
Quicksearch
Archives
Categories
AD Links
Referrals
Syndicate This Blog
Blog Administration
Powered by
TheForkesReport