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damn, scotland yard's number 1 and number 2 have resigned, and the guy at the center of all this has committed suicide? i guess this story is heating up.

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What sort of coverage are you getting of it over there? From what I've heard all the News International media outlets are giving it as little coverage as they can get away with (naturally), but what about everyone else?

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Originally Posted by Kieran Colfer:
What sort of coverage are you getting of it over there? From what I've heard all the News International media outlets are giving it as little coverage as they can get away with (naturally), but what about everyone else?

Those who follow BBC get plenty of details (BBC was the original news feed on Firefox when I began using it, I assume its probably the same for many others).  NPR has also given it a great bit of detail, and considering what transpired between the two organizations about a year ago I wouldn't be surprised if many of their journalists are cheering the decline of News Corp.

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Heh, Fox New's take on this:



So many things wrong with this, is hard to know where to start..... First off, NOTW wasn't the one that was hacked, they were the ones doing the hacking - or rather, paying private detectives to do the hacking for them. On several occasions. And they lied to investigators about it. On several occasions. Talking about this in connection with any hacking atempts on the pentagon or citibank is just deliberately trying to muddy the waters.

The company knew internally for years that this was happening, and not only did they not fire the people who did it, it seems that they tried to buy off anyone who threatened to expose it and "accidentally" lost all their email records that could prove that they knew about it.  And the big issue now is the collusion between the papers and senior members of the police and government, who didn't want to "rock the boat" and played down the original investigations. One of the guys who resigned from the paper over the hacking affair back in 2007 even ended up working as communications director for David Cameron, the new british PM. So this has gone waaaay beyond the original phone hacking (which was barely hacking, more guessing the PIN of the people's voicemail).

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yeah, that was a stupid segment. fox's serious coverage (as would be seen on special report with bret baier) has been pretty straightforward with all the allegations and developments. i can't say i see the big deal with one of these guys working for the PM at one point, unless it's believed david cameron knew about all of this, which i highly doubt. i'm surprised it goes as high as it does, but i don't see it being something commonly known in the ranks of higher government. however, it does seem to be the perfect opportunity to bash anyone with a right-leaning agenda, particularly anyone who might be connected in any shape or form to news corp.

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
however, it does seem to be the perfect opportunity to bash anyone with a right-leaning agenda, particularly anyone who might be connected in any shape or form to news corp.

Well, it isn't just the Tories, Labour were just as cozy with/scared of the newsies as anyone in the Cameron government when they were in power.

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i will say, that given the corporate structure, i think it's somewhat unfair for people to try to pin this on the murdochs, or to extrapolate what happened with news of the world, and implicate all of news corp with this kind of behavior. it's not typical for parent companies to be intimately involved with the day to day operations of a subsidiary company. i mean news corp consists of more than two hundred papers and news outlets. and all of these have their own management and financial structures. murdoch's level - at the very top of the corporate structure - is so far removed from the day-in-day-out decisions and goings on of each of these entities, that it seems far-fetched to think murdoch had any foreknowledge of the voicemail hacks. and so far, i haven't seen any hard proof that this was the case.

so on that aspect of it, that's the way i see it. but then again, i don't know what all the evidence is of this alleged cover up that followed or who was involved, and how. i don't know where all those avenues lead yet. so i guess i'm just trying to be objective.

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by the way, i've been watching the hearings, and james can be a bit of a stutterer can't he? still, he looks like christian bale with glasses.

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
i will say, that given the corporate structure, i think it's somewhat unfair for people to try to pin this on the murdochs, or to extrapolate what happened with news of the world, and implicate all of news corp with this kind of behavior. it's not typical for parent companies to be intimately involved with the day to day operations of a subsidiary company. i mean news corp consists of more than two hundred papers and news outlets. and all of these have their own management and financial structures. murdoch's level - at the very top of the corporate structure - is so far removed from the day-in-day-out decisions and goings on of each of these entities, that it seems far-fetched to think murdoch had any foreknowledge of the voicemail hacks. and so far, i haven't seen any hard proof that this was the case.

so on that aspect of it, that's the way i see it. but then again, i don't know what all the evidence is of this alleged cover up that followed or who was involved, and how. i don't know where all those avenues lead yet. so i guess i'm just trying to be objective.

Brooks, who has been described as being almost like a daughter to Rupert Murdoch and until recently was one of his top executives, certainly knew.  I don't doubt that Rupert knew as well.

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I just watched a clip of Rupert Murdoch's testimony before Parliament on BBC's website.  Its hard to sound sincere when you're reading word for word off a script your lawyers drafted for you.

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in summation, here's how i basically see it. from what's out there so far, an investigation is warranted, however, this just presents too good of an opportunity for the media and politicians on the left to pass up, and is being used to go after conservatism in the uk in general. so whatever angles and connections they can find, are fair game, even including the prime minister. and obviously this is being approached by the left with the predetermination that no matter what comes to light, murdoch (and possibly even cameron) are guilty, they were just successful of covering up any evidence leading to them.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
I just watched a clip of Rupert Murdoch's testimony before Parliament on BBC's website.  Its hard to sound sincere when you're reading word for word off a script your lawyers drafted for you.

i doubt you would believe his sincerity anyway, so what's it matter? not that i do, but the jury is still out, and much of this is a kangaroo court.

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
in summation, here's how i basically see it. from what's out there so far, an investigation is warranted, however, this just presents too good of an opportunity for the media and politicians on the left to pass up, and is being used to go after conservatism in the uk in general. so whatever angles and connections they can find, are fair game, even including the prime minister. and obviously this is being approached by the left with the predetermination that no matter what comes to light, murdoch (and possibly even cameron) are guilty, they were just successful of covering up any evidence leading to them.

Political accusations aren't simply being fired at the Conservatives, but also Labour.  As for the media's response, News Corp has many rivals and several foes that they've wronged over the years (like NPR and BBC) who are for various reasons cheering on Murdoch's downfall.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
As for the media's response, News Corp has many rivals and several foes that they've wronged over the years (like NPR and BBC) who are for various reasons cheering on Murdoch's downfall.

of course the mainstream media wants to have a go at the man who broke their monopoly (least here in the states).

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:

Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
As for the media's response, News Corp has many rivals and several foes that they've wronged over the years (like NPR and BBC) who are for various reasons cheering on Murdoch's downfall.

of course the mainstream media wants to have a go at the man who broke their monopoly (least here in the states).

For the for-profit news outlets in the US (CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, McClatchy, etc) Murdoch's fall would needless to say be good for business.  I don't think that has anything to do with politics, its just business.  If Fox News crumbles its viewers would probably be most likely to switch to CNN, thus increasing the value of ads and as such profits.  I have no doubt MSNBC would love to see CNN go under for the same reason.   I cited NPR and BBC separately because News Corp levied their political influence to try to break both of them.