Murdoch's minions reach a new low

[Chairman Risus]

Awesome.

Now we need to destroy the Sun.

[LMNO]

Awesome.

Now we need to destroy the Sun.

Dammit, I was looking for that.  I bow before your google-fu.

[East Coast Hustle]

This is the guy that runs Fox news too isn't it?

Not exactly. Rupert Murdoch owns News Corp, which is the parent company of Fox News, but he's been almost completely hands-off at Fox News since it started. That's Roger Ailes's baby, which makes total sense for anyone who knows anything about Roger Ailes.

[Cain]

Indeed.  While Murdoch is fairly right-wing in his own views, he is not consistently so (see: support for Obama in 2008) and while allying his media enterprises to economically right-wing parties, as a rule, he has no qualms about stabbing them in the back if a good enough story allows him to do so (see: various Times stories embarrassing Thatcher's government).

Ailes is an interesting case, because it is actually one of the few areas where the traditional Top-Down Editorial Control conspiracy theory of media actually works.  Gawker had a good piece on a document from Ailes' time working for Nixon, where he mused on the need for a "GOP News network" to "get the message to heartland voters".  Nick Davies, an investigative journalist, gives persuasive reasons why editorial control is not the cause of political bias in reporting, in most cases, but with FOX it is certainly true.


Anyway, other interesting facets of the case:

- 500 gigabytes of emails have vanished from News of the World's internal archive, and that they were deleted twice by a "senior executive".

- A police surveillance team were following the News of the World private detectives, who were following Detective Inspector David Cook, who was investigating the News of the World.  The film of this is going to be awesome.

- Andy Coulson was vetted by a "private company", according to the PM.  Which firm is he talking about?  Was Coulson ever vetted by the DVA, and if so, did their report contradict or provide additional informational this "private company" missed?

- We still don't know how the hacks actually happened, in the technical sense.  Call centres are being floated as a possibility, I'm inclined to agree, given past practices.

[Cain]

Also, now families of those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq are now being mentioned as possibly being hacked.  Given the Murdoch backed "Help for Heroes" campaign heavily via the Sun and News of the World, on top of cheerleading for those conflicts, this is going to look especially bad.

[BadBeast]

You know, even now, I get the names Rupert Murdoch, and Robert Maxwell mixed up in my head momentarily. Seems they were both cut from the same cloth.
That statement from James Maxwe Murdoch is just fucking crass beyond belief. The Son Sun Daily Newspaper was already secretly marked to go Sundays only months ago too, so it looks like they've been expecting the shit to hit the fan for some time.  The really telling part of all this is the level of Police and Government complicity right down the line. They've been right up each other arses since at least as far back as the Miner's Strike in the mid 80's, and now their positions are so entrenched, it's going to be obvious to everyone. But hey, nothing will happen beyond a few Editors getting the sack, maybe a couple of bent Ex-Pigs will get token Prison terms in Ford open Prison. The Sun will take the place o the NOTW, The Murdoch Empire will continue to spew it's horribly fascist bile upon a world already hopelessly infected with NewSpeak, and things will carry on pretty much as they have been. And the other News Agencies will squawk and point fingers, but only up to a point, because you can be sure that Murdoch isn't the only one guilty of using these Orwellian tactics to generate the "right" kind of News. The only Western News source that's got any ethical credibility now at all is fucking Wikileaks, and I can't see them stepping into the sewer of the Fourth Estate anytime soon.

[Cain]

The problems are spreading like the plague, from NOTW to other News International publications

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14112097

The Sunday Times is alleged to have targeted the personal information of the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the time he was chancellor, a BBC investigation has found.

Documents and a phone recording suggest "blagging" was used to obtain private financial and property details.

The Browns also fear medical records relating to their son Fraser, whom the Sun revealed in 2006 had cystic fibrosis, may have been obtained.

They can argue public interest in the case of the Robert Maxwell flat, but nothing justifies going after Fraser Brown.

[bds]

Kinda wondering if it might be easier to start counting the things NOT hacked/stolen by News International papers, to be honest.

[Cain]

The most disappointing thing about this scandal is that

a) we have not yet seen "UR MOM HACKED BY NOTW, HUR HUR HUR" as a headline, and
b) Mock the Week and HIGNFY both were unable to cover the unfolding story, for various reasons

[Cain]

Turns out Andy Coulson was given a top level security clearance by the DVA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/09/phone-hacking-andy-coulson-paddy-ashdown

Coulson, arrested by police on Friday over his role in the scandal, went on to be cleared by the security vetting team at Downing Street after three in-depth interviews about his professional and personal life. He was given "strap one" status, which allowed him the highest access to top-secret material.

[Cain]

More on Fraser Brown

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/11/phone-hacking-news-international-gordon-brown

Confidential health records for Brown's family have reached the media on two different occasions. In October 2006, the then editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks, contacted the Browns to tell them that they had obtained details from the medical file of their four-month-old son, Fraser, which revealed that the boy was suffering from cystic fibrosis. This appears to have been a clear breach of the Data Protection Act, which would allow such a disclosure only if it was in the public interest. Friends of the Browns say the call caused them immense distress, since they were only coming to terms with the diagnosis, which had not been confirmed. The Sun published the story.

As links from Wikipedia show, his diagnosis wasn't confirmed until November 2006.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That is SO fucked up.

[Cain]

No-one likes Gordon Brown, not even his own family.

The NOTW, in their own twisted way, have actually made sympathy for Brown possible.  It's like feeling sorry for Aspergers Dick Cheney.

[Cain]

Looks like Parliament is going to unite and vote for a motion for Murdoch to drop his bid for bSkyb.

Not legally binding, of course, but still very damaging, if he continues on with it, and the government lets it pass.

The US Senate, meanwhile, is going to look into whether News International employees in the US have been hacking phones as well, and Murdoch's campaign contributions in Australia are being scrutinized.

All in all, this has been an excellent week.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Two questions spring immediately to mind

1) Could this damage Rupert Moloch's media oligarchy?

2) If so, who's most likely to step in and fill the vacuum?

I'm thinking that a replacement with less of a politically mercenary attitude, y'know, someone with principles that transcend simple accumulation of wealth might turn out to be even fucking worse