Murdoch

[Vanir Ausf B]

According to Fox, NOTW are the victims.

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/07/17/fox-friends-lash-out.html

But you're right, it's just about the quantity, not the quality.

Nice strawman. My comment referred to the study dieseltaylor linked to. And that was indeed just about the quantity.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Nice strawman. My comment referred to the study dieseltaylor linked to. And that was indeed just about the quantity.

Yes, and what JonS's linked story showed was the quality of the stories that are run by Fox in relation to the scandal. i.e. one where a commentator deliberately tries to misdirect the audience into thinking that News of the World was the victim of hacking whereas it was the actual perpetrator. Seems relevant to me since your initial point was the stats might show the quantity of stories each media outlet runs but you intimated that the quality was the important part.

Regards

KR

[Vanir Ausf B]

Wrong. Dieseltaylor asked "No comment?" and I intimated that was why.

[JonS]

Jolly good.

But we now know that Fox's coverage is both pathetically paltry (fair and balanced?) and hopelessly deceptive (fair and balanced?). I'd have thought you'd be able to combine those two complex concepts for yourself, but I'm happy to have been able to help.

You're welcome

Jon

[Vanir Ausf B]

I'd have thought you'd be able to combine those two complex concepts for yourself

What makes you think I can't?

[JonS]

The evidence.

[Vanir Ausf B]

There is no such evidence.

[Magpie_Oz]

How are the Aussie media treating it? Britain attacks favourite ex-son unfairly : ) No Aussies have more sense.

We kinda distanced ourselves from him some time ago. Murdoch, Gibson and the other ex-pats we only recognise as still Aussie when they are in the good books. When they stuff up they are immediately "Yanks".

[dieseltaylor]

The live feed from the BBC sems to be proving that James Murdoch is not that smart and one feels he might have achieved what he has through nepotism.

No, seriously.!

[dieseltaylor]

This is a corker of a blog piece from DCVelocity - the well known journal for the Distributuion Centre industry

http://blogs.dcvelocity.com/communications/2011/07/goodbye-rebekah.html

Goodbye, Rebekah

By Helen Atkinson | 07/15/2011 | 11:12 AM

It's been rather surprising to see a story about skullduggery in the British press make such a news splash over here in the U.S., but I suppose media matters are now international, especially when it comes to Rupert Murdoch, whose influence on the English-speaking world continues to spread like a particularly aggressive cancer, and who now owns not only Fox News and the New York Post, but also Dow Jones, including The Wall Street Journal over here. The voice-mail hacking scandal is now off the front page on this side of the Atlantic, but I wanted to weigh in now because this morning's Guardian gave me the happy news that Rebekah Brooks, formerly Wade, has resigned as chief executive of News International, owner of the now-closed News of the World.

Until now, Ms. Brooks' fortunes seemed to tell us a different story than the ones we've been hearing lately about public accountability and what happens when you get caught with your pants down, literally or figuratively. No amount of straight-talking and mea culpa speeches were able to save the career of Anthony Weiner, or Arnold Schwarzenegger's marriage. It seemed that, once you were exposed as a complete blaggard, you were toast, in this bright new century of hyper-connected, information-saturated, e-democracy.

But Ms. Brooks, when she was still Ms. Wade, as editor of News of the World in 2000, was responsible for one of the most lamentable recent scandals in the British press before this one. The newspaper decided to "name and shame" pedophiles around the country. You can argue back and forth about the public's right to know the criminal record of their neighbors. But the rabid tone of the campaign led to a number of cases of vigilante action, many against innocent targets; in one famous instance, a pediatrician was attacked by people who couldn't tell the difference between pediatrics and pedophilia. Iain Armstrong, an innocent man in Manchester, was beaten by a mob because he wore a neck-brace similar to that in a photograph of a pedophile, and there were other attacks and threats of violence (some against the police) elsewhere. Convicted child-abuser James White committed suicide after being named.

Brooks then moved on to become editor of the Sun, where another "name and shame" news story ran with a photo of the wrong guy. That's a pretty big oops.

Somehow, Brooks survived both of these scandals, continuing to rise in the ranks, and in the esteem, it seems of Mr. Murdoch, who until yesterday was firmly and vocally supportive of Brooks and swore she had done no wrong.

As a former journalist, I can tell you that the editor of a newspaper knows exactly when his or her staff are bending the rules to get a good story. Usually, it's the editor who suggests bending the rules in the first place, and an editor is flat-out, no-arguments responsible for a culture of deception and bribery that results in sensational news breaks. Rebekah Brooks profited from illegal activity. She should be in jail.

It's a profound relief to realize that even the backing of a man ranked 7th most powerful in the world by Forbes magazine this year could not save this loathsome, morally bankrupt woman in the end. It's also a great reminder of the power of public opinion. I can't help wondering if she'll wake one morning to a marauding crowd of vigilantes, whipped into a frenzy by the hateful imprecations of another newspaper editor. It would certainly seem like poetic justice.

[Bigduke6]

That was a well-written piece on Ms. Brooks. I pretty much agree, if she was editor when reporters were doing fishy journalism, then pretty much on this or any other planet she is going to wind up being responsible. Editors tell reporters what to do and editors give the reporters money to do it. Reporters like most people are naturally lazy and will only put out extra effort if some one pushes them, which is what editors are for.

An editor not aware reporters are paying off police and hacking phone accounts to generate juicy news stories that will spike newspaper sales? Yeah right. The top editor's number one priority, the reason the top editor exists, is making the newspaper work meaning doing what it takes so people read it, so the pub makes money not loses it.

If Ms. Wade was not aware her reporters and subordinate editors were coming up with these salacious articles by illicit means, never mind egging them on, then what in the world was there left for her to do? Sit in her office and exchange e-mails about the weather with Rupert?

Judging from her recent comments (some of which were recorded secretly during a staff meeting just before the News shut down) she seems to consider herself a strong leader at the helm of a publication sailing the angry waters etc. etc., don't blame me the naval metaphor was hers. If I have her type right, in her mind her denials of complicity are a calculated insult, they say: I can deny everything and because I am so much more clever than you I can do that and there will be no repercussions.

I strongly suspect this attitude comes from being a Rupert protege, for reasons best known to him she was his Golden Girl. It appears she may have confused the personal support of Rupert Murdoch, with a sound knowledge of the pitfalls of journalism on her own part. One of the most basic rules is that if you print enough lies and cater to the mob long enough, you will get in trouble somehow. She seems either not to have known this or to have thought the rule did not apply to her.

Whether she took that route because she decided fact-based responsible journalism was old hat and cynically reasoned out a better way, or whether she was just a relatively ignorant woman placed in a position of far too much responsibility and she was just doing whatever felt good without really thinking about it, is now immaterial. For the record, my guess is she is clever and cynical rather than ignorant.

But even if she was just a stupid woman in a job requiring extremely high intelligence, by the time the criminal investigations are over she may well realize being Rupert Murdoch's hit woman was, for her personally, not a Good Thing.

This largely because once Fleet Street gets finished flaying Rebekah Brooks' reputation, it will become very difficult for her to attend the best parties and visit the right clubs and hob nob with minor royals and so on. Sure she will remain wealthy, but it's much less fun to be rich in Britain if the snobs cold-shoulder you.

Which they most certainly will. Their standards are pretty low, after all they accepted her in the first place, but now the aristos and the Oxbridge people won't be seen in public with Ms. Brooks, probably forever. She will always be the woman the killed the News of the Day while doing that Australian Rupert Murdoch's bidding, which was to phone tap messages of dead murder victims and pay off police for information and get caught at it.

And that will hurt. She had her chance to break into the elite, and she has lost it.

The more interesting question, I think, is what about the US? Rupert's fingerprints are all over Fox news, which by many standards is far more odious, and in some ways dangerous, than News of the Day. See above note about lazy reporters. They also are generally cowards and won't go after a dangerous opponent, even if they have the goods on him, unless that opponent is wounded or even better already under attack.

Will the media feeding frenzy against Rupert cross the Atlantic? Demonstrating Fox engages in irresponsible journalism is about as simple a reporter task, as demonstrating Jesus or Mohammed attracted followers.

As nasty stuff about Rupert's practices in Britain come out, as surely they will, will that tar stick to Fox? It is a very dicey situation for them, national elections coming up, country in a long-term crisis, and every one's looking for scapegoats. What if Fox becomes, in the public mind, not a voice of the right but a perceived reason so much is wrong? Maybe America really is going to heck, in part, because a guy like Murdoch built a channel like Fox. You wouldn't have to prove it, just make it enough of a common assumption to convince people not to watch Fox.

Likewise, and probably even worse, what about Wall Street Journal? They too are vulnerable, they're the cheerleaders for "Rich stockbrokers = Healthy America". Make no mistake, their journalism is world-class, but what if a thought along the lines of "Hey, WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch, how much can the newspaper's reports be worth with a guy like that running it?" got loose among the WSJ's readers? Can WSJ survive being on the side of the rich people when a depression is in progress AND being owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch to boot?

Somehow I think Rupert's US holdings will survive just fine. But then I thought News of the World and tabloid press like it was unassailable in Britain, and at least to some extent that's clearly not so.

[womble]

There is greater competition and a much richer advertising market. But It's not just a case of more newspapers, it's a case of more market crossover between segments. In Australia most of the big cities have one broadsheet and one tabloid and people read one or the other. Not so in the UK where the newpapers are national and they're often competing for slices of the same demographic.

There may be more titles, but who owns 'em (or owns the ones that sell the most, at least). The Beeb's Oz correspondent (I assume "one of" since Australia is far away, not small) writes:

...many of you were shocked that Rupert Murdoch controls 70% of the newspaper market in Australia.

in this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14219397

article about Antipodean reaction to the Murdoch testimonies to MPs. I should point out that he also says there's no sign of News-International-esque shenanigans at the News Limited titles.

[dieseltaylor]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/22/uk-austar-regulator-idUKTRE76L0KH20110722

(Reuters) - In a further blow to Rupert Murdoch, a $2 billion (1 billion pounds) takeover bid by an Australian pay-TV business part-owned by his News Corp (NWSA.O) is expected to be blocked by the country's competition watchdog.

Aw shucks!

[dieseltaylor]

Murdoch's New York Post Publisher Also Has A Hacking Problem

July 22, 2011 10:18 am ET by Eric Boehlert

One week ago, Rupert Murdoch's longtime aide, Les Hinton, was forced to resign as publisher of the Wall Street Journal because of the central role he'd been playing for years in News Corp.'s unraveling phone-hacking scandal. Hinton's resignation, unthinkable just four weeks ago, signaled the severity of News Corp.'s woes in America.

Now another Murdoch publisher, Paul Carlucci, who oversees the New York Post, may be facing renewed questions from prosecutors about his business past and what role he played in a News Corp. computer hacking scandal that unfolded right here in the U.S.

The allegations were part of a larger anti-competitive practices scandal that has already cost Murdoch's company hundreds of millions of dollars in legal setbacks and settlements, and a scandal that highlights what appears to be a culture of corruption inside News Corp.'s American operations. It's a culture that flies in the face of Murdoch's insistence that the hacking at his British tabloid represented an isolated incident.

The background: A New Jersey start-up company, Floorgraphics (FGI), was created to sell large advertising decals placed on the floors of grocery stores. In 1999, FGI's founders, Richard and George Rebh, met with Carlucci who at the time was CEO of News America Marketing, an in-store advertising division of News Corp. (In 2005, Carlucci added the title of Post publisher to his resume.) At the lunch, after the Rebhs rebuffed Carlucci's offer to buy the company, he allegedly threatened to destroy FGI.

Years later company executives discovered FGI's secure website had been broken into nearly a dozen times and confidential information had been obtained. They alleged Murdoch's company was spreading lies about FGI and using its proprietary information to steal away clients.

At the time, FGI urged authorities to pursue criminal charges, but the case was not prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney General's office in New Jersey, run at the time by Chris Christie. (Now governor of New Jersey, Christie has struck up a close working relationship with Roger Ailes, chief of Murdoch's Fox News.)

A FGI civil suit, claiming a series of anti-competitive practices, was filed against News Corp.'s News America. In 2009, after only a couple of days of testimony, the case was abruptly settled with Murdoch's company agreeing to purchase FGI for $30 million, but not before News America conceded that someone using its computers had hacked FGI's website. (News America claimed it did not know who the culprit was.)

Now, in light of the UK phone-hacking fiasco, NBC's Michael Isikoff reports Department of Justice prosecutors "are reviewing allegations that News Corp.'s advertising arm repeatedly hacked into the computers of a competitor in the United States as part of an effort to steal the rival firm's business, according to a lawyer for the company."

And that brings us back to Post publisher Carlucci. Writes Isikoff [emphasis added]:

The inquiry into Floorgraphics could pose a problem for another of Murdoch's top newspaper executives: Paul Carlucci, the publisher of the New York Post.

Carlucci also has been the longtime chairman and chief executive of News America and has been accused in three lawsuits of creating a cut-throat competitive culture at the company

, including

showing his employees a scene from the movie "The Untouchables"

in which the mobster Al Capone crushes a rival's head with a baseball bat.

Carlucci has denied the incident. Asked if Carlucci had any knowledge of the hacking of Floorgraphics' computers, company spokeswoman [suzanne] Halpin said via email: "Certainly not. No one at News America Marketing had any knowledge of the alleged incident until the claim was made that it had happened."

Legal experts say it could prove difficult for prosecutors to make a case against News Corp. based on the Floorgraphics allegations alone, since the standard five-year statute of limitations for most federal computer crimes has long since expired.

But legal sources say that the interest in the case appeared to be part of an effort to determine if there is a more extensive pattern of criminal conduct at News Corp. -- a line of inquiry that New Jersey's Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg asked be pursued

in a letter this week

to Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

And from bnet.com's Jim Edwards, who's diligently covered the FGI/News America story for years:

At the time FGI's competitors were allegedly hacked, the CEO of News America Marketing was

Paul Carlucci, who is now also publisher of the New York Post

. Carlucci was the focus of a series of

contentious depositions

prior to the 2009 trial, in which Rebh claimed Carlucci threatened to "destroy" FGI.

From that deposition:

A:

At a certain point in the conversation Mr. Carlucci turned to Richard and said, "So, I understand your --" words to the effect, "So, I understand you're here to sell your company?"

Q:

And was there a response?

A:

We were -- I was surprised to hear that, and Richard's response was, "No. That's not why we're here. We were really here to meet you, and to discuss the possibility of doing joint promotions."

Q:

What happened after that?

A:

... he followed that by saying, "But from now on, consider me, us your competitor, and understand this, if you ever get into any of our businesses,

I will destroy you

." And he said, "

I work for a man who wants it all, and doesn't understand anybody telling him he can't have it all."

And that ended his discussion.

Carlucci, of course, works for Murdoch.

But given the new scrutiny of News Corp. and questions that swirl about the history of law-breaking at its media properties, can Murdoch afford to keep Carlucci working at the NYP

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201107220011