Murdoch's minions reach a new low

[Cain]

James Murdoch looks like he is going down.

He was informed about the phone hacking - and it looks like he paid for it to be buried.  The police are investigating.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Fuck yeah!

[Luna]

James Murdoch looks like he is going down.

He was informed about the phone hacking - and it looks like he paid for it to be buried.  The police are investigating.

I wish I could say I'm shocked that he knew.

[Cain]

This is interesting:

There is one fascinating subtext to the whole story: Watson's claim that Brooks has long been driven to damage him, which he says dates back to his move against Blair. "I had one particular chilling conversation in 2006," he says, "when I was told that she would never forgive me for doing what I did to 'her Tony'. When I was made an assistant whip under Brown, the Sun did a story saying it was an outrageous I'd been awarded a job. Whenever I moved, there was a dig. It's painful and it's not easy, but that's the job, and the culture we operated in. It's when it's scaled up that those attack pieces take on a greater significance."

...Of late, there have been reports that she told Labour insiders she would pursue Watson "for the rest of his life" – a story he dates to the Labour party conference of 2006. When the Red Rag story broke, he claims Brooks texted Labour cabinet ministers, demanding that he was sacked.

At one point, he says, a senior editor at the Sun made a point of sending him a message via another Labour MP: "Tell that fat bastard Watson we know about his little planning matter." This, he says, was a reference to his application to put a conservatory on his family home in the Midlands: a typical "non-newsy, low-level thing" that played its part in making him "start to think like a conspiracy theorist".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/02/tom-watson-phone-hacking

[Cramulus]

from http://chaosmarxism.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-love-historical-analogies.html

If, as previously discussed, the relationship between the ruling class and the media today is analogous to that between the feudal aristocracy and the priesthood in Europe of 1000 years ago, then Rupert Murdoch would be a Borgia pope. Alexander VI?

I can totally see it  

[Cain]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14797365

Former News of the World legal manager Tom Crone has told MPs he was "certain" he told James Murdoch about an email which indicated phone hacking at the paper went beyond one rogue reporter.

Mr Crone said the email was discussed and "it was the reason that we had to settle the case".

In a previous hearing, News Corp bosses Rupert and James Murdoch said they were not told of an email.

The paper's former editor Colin Myler also told MPs the email was discussed.

The Commons committee has also quizzed former legal director Jon Chapman and human resources director Daniel Cloke in a second round of questions from MPs examining phone hacking.

The discrepancy in the evidence between Mr Crone and Mr Myler and Rupert and James Murdoch hinges on a key document from April 2008 - known as the "for Neville" email.

When it was sent, the News of the World's royal editor Clive Goodman had already been jailed for hacking into phones of the royal household - a practice the paper insisted was not more widely used.

Oh yes, James Murdoch is in the shit, big-time.

[Cramulus]

 

[Cain]

Oh Murdoch, you so crazy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/12/wall-street-journal-andrew-langhoff

One of Rupert Murdoch's most senior European executives has resigned following Guardian inquiries about a circulation scam at News Corporation's flagship newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal's true circulation.

The bizarre scheme included a formal, written contract in which the Journal persuaded one company to co-operate by agreeing to publish articles that promoted its activities, a move which led some staff to accuse the paper's management of violating journalistic ethics and jeopardising its treasured reputation for editorial quality.

Internal emails and documents suggest the scam was promoted by Andrew Langhoff, the European managing director of the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones and Co, which was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in July 2007. Langhoff resigned on Tuesday. The highly controversial activities were organised in London and focused on the Journal's European edition, which circulates in the EU, Russia, and Africa. Senior executives in New York, including Murdoch's right-hand man, Les Hinton, were alerted to the problems last year by an internal whistleblower and apparently chose to take no action. The whistleblower was then made redundant.

In what appears to have been a damage limitation exercise following the Guardian's inquiries, Langhoff resigned on Tuesday, citing only the complaints of unethical interference in editorial coverage. Neither he nor an article published last night in the Wall Street Journal made any reference to the circulation scam nor to the fact that the senior management of Dow Jones in New York failed to act when they were alerted last year.

Is there a right wing newspaper or journal out there that is actually economically viable?  Seriously, I'm asking, because it seems that, the Daily Mail and Telegraph aside, almost all of them fail to have a sufficient readership to justify their continued existence.  The Weekly Standard and National Review, for example, are money pits.  So is Reason Magazine.  And now it looks like the Wall Street Journal is too.

[LMNO]

Is there a right wing newspaper or journal out there that is actually economically viable?  Seriously, I'm asking, because it seems that, the Daily Mail and Telegraph aside, almost all of them fail to have a sufficient readership to justify their continued existence.  The Weekly Standard and National Review, for example, are money pits.  So is Reason Magazine.  And now it looks like the Wall Street Journal is too.

I know that rationality will usually win out given a long enough timeline, but this has been way too long in coming.

[Cain]

Of course, this is just more proof that Murdoch's media empire is a criminal venture, also.  The method used above actually artifically inflates the paper's readership, and thus its advertising revenues.  They perpertuated fraud on their advertisers, and there will be hell to pay for that.

[kingyak]

Oh Murdoch, you so crazy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/12/wall-street-journal-andrew-langhoff

One of Rupert Murdoch's most senior European executives has resigned following Guardian inquiries about a circulation scam at News Corporation's flagship newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal's true circulation.

I've heard of this scheme used to manipulate sales numbers and best seller lists for books before. I think Thomas Frank might have mentioned it in The Wrecking Crew, but apparently my Google-fu is weak today and I can't find confirmation. This blog post was all I turned up: http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2009/09/conservative-bulk-book-buying-machine.html

[Cain]

Yeah, Regenery do that quite a lot, I believe, with groups like the Heritage Foundation putting in the big bucks to buy up copies.

[Luna]

IIRC, Palin pulled this stunt, using money donated to her PAC to buy a ton of her first book.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh Murdoch, you so crazy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/12/wall-street-journal-andrew-langhoff

One of Rupert Murdoch's most senior European executives has resigned following Guardian inquiries about a circulation scam at News Corporation's flagship newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal's true circulation.

The bizarre scheme included a formal, written contract in which the Journal persuaded one company to co-operate by agreeing to publish articles that promoted its activities, a move which led some staff to accuse the paper's management of violating journalistic ethics and jeopardising its treasured reputation for editorial quality.

Internal emails and documents suggest the scam was promoted by Andrew Langhoff, the European managing director of the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones and Co, which was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in July 2007. Langhoff resigned on Tuesday. The highly controversial activities were organised in London and focused on the Journal's European edition, which circulates in the EU, Russia, and Africa. Senior executives in New York, including Murdoch's right-hand man, Les Hinton, were alerted to the problems last year by an internal whistleblower and apparently chose to take no action. The whistleblower was then made redundant.

In what appears to have been a damage limitation exercise following the Guardian's inquiries, Langhoff resigned on Tuesday, citing only the complaints of unethical interference in editorial coverage. Neither he nor an article published last night in the Wall Street Journal made any reference to the circulation scam nor to the fact that the senior management of Dow Jones in New York failed to act when they were alerted last year.

Is there a right wing newspaper or journal out there that is actually economically viable?  Seriously, I'm asking, because it seems that, the Daily Mail and Telegraph aside, almost all of them fail to have a sufficient readership to justify their continued existence.  The Weekly Standard and National Review, for example, are money pits.  So is Reason Magazine.  And now it looks like the Wall Street Journal is too.

They ALL seem to be the financially lucrative Western versions of Nigeria scammers.

[Freeky]

So where is Pickle?  He was espousing big name magazines a while back as purveyors of Truth and Honesty, namely Fortune 500, and isn't WSJ about the same thing, only a little different?