Murdoch Meltdown

[infinite monkey]

A pie in the face? What a clown!

[DanaC]

This is making for occasionally quite surreal viewing.

[BigV]

I heard a report that the "protestor" was Johnny Marbles. I wonder if Murdoch hired him to be his safecall.

[DanaC]

Yeah, I believe it was at that.

[TheMercenary]

Murdoch did very well in his testimony. He held his own as the political pundits tried to say he should have know about something that represents less than 1% of his financial holdings.

Glad to see his wife got a face slap on the ass hole who tried to hit him with a pie.

[tw]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Murdoch did very well in his testimony. He held his own as the political pundits tried to say he should have know about something that represents less than 1% of his financial holdings.

He blamed everyone but himself. If there was ever an example of "85% of all problems directly traceable to ...", it was apparent in his testimony.

Top management sets the attitude and knowledge. And top management is responsible for subordinates having the proper attitude and knowledge. Well, Rick Wagoner of GM also tried to blame everybody else including the market, the economy, government regulation, unfair competition, etc. Why was GM making crap cars? Wagoner - the guy who blamed everyone but himself.

Riccardo blamed unions, the economy, government, unfair foreign competition, and everything else for Chrysler that kept making products that could not sell. He literally filled the Michigan State Fairgrounds with products nobody wanted. Why could Iacocca make Chrysler profitable in only three years? He replaced the guy who blamed everyone but himself.

Murdoch's testimony describes a corporation that was doing exactly what he wanted. Complete with blame everyone else. How many other Murdoch operations are just as corrupt? Why is Dow Jones so suspect that its top man resigned? No reason exists to believe this is limited to "News of the World". But Murdoch is a right wing extremist. Therefore TheMercenary *knows* Murdoch is innocent. The political agenda is again telling us what to believe.

At this point, we have no idea how wide this corruption is. Because Murdoch was blaming everyone but himself ... just like Nixon.

Report from Fox News has it that Johnny Marbles is also responsible for the corruption.

[Aliantha]

Murdoch may well have no knowledge of phone hacking within his organisation, but he along with his 'top management' are responsible for putting enough pressure on employees to make them feel it necessary to commit crimes in order to get their job done.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Murdoch may well have no knowledge of phone hacking within his organisation, but he along with his 'top management' are responsible for putting enough pressure on employees to make them feel it necessary to commit crimes in order to get their job done.

Yea, that is the nature of all news organizations today, from the Huffington Post to MSNBC to Fox News.... The Economist has a great series of articles in the latest edition addressing this very issue.

[Aliantha]

tw, I'm pretty sure a megalomaniac like Murdoch would be very pleased to be considered as important as Nixon.

[TheMercenary]

He sure is a hell of a lot richer and more powerful than any politician could ever hope to be!

[DanaC]

So, if the people questioned yesterday are to be believed: nobody at the top of News International and News Corp, or the Metropolitan Police knew anything that was going on beneath them.

The Murdchs didn't know about paying the legal fees for one of the Private Investigators who conducted the illegal hacking until just recently, the Chief knew nothing about the cloud hanging over the man his department had hired, the Deputy Chief did nothing wrong when he assisted the daughter of a friend ('a business friend') at News of the World get a job in civilian liason.

Everybody attends the same parties, the Chief recovered from injury at a luxury spa owned by someone at News International, but nobody ever spoke about what was going on.

Rupert Murdoch has taken such a deep personal interest in British politics for such a long time and is known throughout the media world as a hands on business man with a particular personal interest in the newspaper side of his empire, knew nothing of what went on.


This stinks in all kinds of ways. The key players are all linked socially and in business. Police, politicians and press. A ridiculous number of ex-police worked for the NoTW, and a ridiculos number of ex-NoTW worked for the police. The Prime Minister is a neighbour and friend of Rebecca Brooks, who was apparently 'like a daughter' to Murdoch, and was his 'first priority' when he came back to sort out the mess. It was said when he closed down NoTW, he killed the paper to save Rebecca.

The Prime Minister's former press aide is currently on bail awaiting trial. Employed by him after he had resigned from the NoTW claiming ignorance of what went on under his watch. And then taken with him into Downing Street after the election. Despite warnings from people across the political and party spectrum, and by the Guardian newspaper based on what they knew from investigating the story, and what they knew of an ongoing murder trial of a private detective involved in the hacking.

Thatcher and her government waved through the Murdoch deal to launch Sky Tv despite it breaching the assumptions of the day that ownership of so many newspapers and also a tv broadcasting arm consisted of a dangerous monopoly.

Blair flew halfway around the world to court Murdoch's support. The switch of Murdoch's press to support Labour was itself a massive news story and is thought to have had a profound impact on voting in that election.

The former Prime Minister, Brown, meanwhile says that News International tried to pressure him into legislating a weaker BBC. On his refusal to act in a way that would clearly be of direct benefit to the BBC'a rival, BSkYB, the Murdoch press turned against him.

A former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met has come out and said they essentially attempted to blackmail him into a more cooperative position, and when he refused to play ball, the stories about his gay sex life started appearing in the Murdoch press, and he ended up having to resign because 'he had become the story' and it was preventing him from doing his job.

Prior to this scandal it was looking certain (and was clearly supported by the Conservative government) that the BSkyB deal would go through. This would have given Murdoch 100% ownership of the satellite broadcasting system. He already owned 30%, Sky having effected a takeover ('merger') of BsB in the 90s. Whilst Conservative ministers float changes in legislation which would force the BBC to operate more like a commercial organisation and at the same time reducing its presence in the market (through cutting back what it offered online, and splitting the licence fee across other channels). The minister for this area engaged in public speaking events and discussions where he pushed the same anti-BBC regulation script that we'd already heard so many times from James Murdoch. All whilst the leviathon of BSkyB, whose commercial revenues far outstrip anything the BBC brings in awaits a more favourable climate for its own business.


The amount of power Murdoch's press machine has in British politics has long been known/suspected, but I think even we are shocked at the close and intertwined three way relationship that appears to have struck up between press, politicians and police, accross decades.

[classicman]

...

[DanaC]

lol

Very good.

[DanaC]

There was a really interesting Panorama investigation the other night. I managed to track it down on youtube, chopped up into chunks:p It includes interviews with the chap that was found dead the other day (Hoare). It's also quite a nice analysis of the role of Murdoch in British political culture.

P1
David Mellor who talks about the Thatcher government was one of her Cabinet ministers. He spoke out against Murdoch (iirc) and then the tabloid press outed him for an affair, with all sorts of gory details, and basically destroyed his ministerial career.

P2:
Prescott was the deputy Prime Minister during the Blair years. He's been suing NoTW for breach of privacy, as his phones were hacked.

P3:


P4: (Includes some of the Hoare interview)




P5: ('Clapham Common' is infamous as a gay pick up place)



P6: Final part :P




The small sgment that was removed from the documentary is also available on Youtube separately:

Rebecca Brooks telling Parliament in 2003 that the NoTW had paid police.

[TheMercenary]

Rebekah Brooks is hot, and I would hit her twotimes.... just saying.