Murdoch / News International - a threat to British Democracy

[Rum]

The British population has a habit of now and again going on a moral crusade and they love nothing better than a bit of moral outrage. We love it! When it happens we feel we are totally in the right, that anyone who questions the righteousness of the cause is damned by the same judgements as those who are acuses and that every rumour and piece of gossip attached to the core issue is correct. That seems to be happening now. And of course, politicians who feel that Murdoch has become part of UK politics and a power within it, when he pays no taxes here and yet owns a quarter of all our media are taking advantage of this 'outrage' to clip his wings.

Personally I think Murdoch is a predatory business psychopath with only two things motivating him - power and money. I think his position in the UK political mix should be directly challenged rather than by going about undermining him and his through the investigation of this admittedly highly disgusting scandal.

[Santa_Claus]

As despicable as all this shit is, everyone seems to be forgetting one thing. Someone gave them that number in the first place. I'm assuming it was likely not the family, at the time it was nigh on impossible to find someone's mobile number even if registered, which most were not. Thus it is likely to be either a "friend" of the family or one of the Police involved.

It's possible they could have got it via other methods like searching through the rubbish for phone bills. It's supposedly common enough for ID fraudsters to do that.

The eaiest way to obtain information is always simply to ask a human. They are amazingly helpful and on something like this friends of Milly would have been only too willing to provide the information, on the surface by wanting to help but in reality for many it is about wanting (needing?) to be a part of the story.....and that's an easy one to exploit. "we've had lots of people claiming to have been freinds of Milly (can you beleive the behaviour of some people? ) - if you have her mobile number on your phone it substantiates your relationship, and we need something like that before we can print anything"....."and the more publicity the better for helping to find her" .

Having followed the story over the last few days, seems the only common factor between all these dead children is......a creepy looking old man. Maybe time to contact Scooby Doo?

[Audley Strange]

The thing is that for a long long time the political courtiers have danced to King Rupert's tune being under the (probably accurate) impression that his favour won the elections for them. So they happily turned a blind eye to his questionable business practices. Given that for the last 30 years (at least) these practices have become widespread, I have no reason to think that King Rupert did not use this time to consolidate even more power by investigating the "great and good", quietly building up dossiers on those who were vulnerable to his manipulation. This might explain why there has been a reticence by the Met, the P.C.C. and even Parliament to properly investigate.

I learned yesterday that the previous Director of Public Prosecutions who helpfully downplayed the last investigation of these practices has now been hired by news international to aid them in the current brouhaha as well as a number of senior officers who worked for the Met. Was this a promise for fudging the operations or a reward for fudging the operation?

However, we should not forget that this is not something that is a singular habit within the NoTW, it seems as if such practices were endemic throughout the Tabloid rags and as appalled as we can all pretend to be about this, we all (as a society not as individuals) allowed them to get away with it by supporting their increasingly content free alarmist and sensationalist gossip and scandal. We paid them to give us more and more trivial details about celebrities and murdered children.

[Svartalf]

This is a disgrace and the Queen should fire the whole lot and name a new cabinet.

What? she can't do that? well, she's as useless as she's ugly, get rid of her too.

Maybe a healthy return to the habits of Tudor times, when a minister getting the axe would be a literal statement, might be a good idea.

[Tero]

I used to read some tabloids at the supemarket line, but now I have lost track of who is famous. And the store has wifi. So I now read Facebook updates.

But why don't you papers just follow royalty and such? What's with this crime stuff?

[Jaygray]

This scandal won't hurt Murdoch much if at all. All he needs to do is distance himself from events (he's already started that I see) roll a few token heads at NoTW (Rebekah can fuck off if she becomes a liability) and bide his time. So what if Rupe doesn't get BSkyB now? This will all blow over after suitable outrage has been expressed, BSkyB will come back to him eventually, and RM won't even have had to crease his suit over the affair.

The only time Rupe hurts (morally or physically) is when his stock value goes down. I notice that some advertisers are pulling their support from NoTW, but that will have a very limited effect as they are not pulling their support from News International (they would be crazy to, with 40% of the UK newspaper market alone). Probably not much joy to be had there then.

The UK Government will reflect the public's feelings, wail and gnash teeth, pass a law without any balls (superinjunctions and the web, anyone?) and preen themselves on their decisiveness.

...and the voters will vote: Or not.

In the extremely unlikely event it got bad for Rupe he could ditch NoTW, but with the circulation it has I can't really see that happening. In fact the numbers may go up slightly as more members of the UK public might buy it to vent their moral outrage ("look at this! Disgusting! Tut tut..").

NoTW will get a mangement change, and the public will be assured that 'steps will be taken to prevent this from ever happening again'.

I do not defend what happend for one second (in fact it makes me feel sick), but the announcement of the death of NoTW and / or Murdoch's press because of this stuff is premature to say the least.

Depressing post. Sorry.

[The Red Fox]

News of The World will close. Sunday's edition will be the last, with proceeds going to charity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14070733

This Sunday's issue of the News of the World will be the last edition of the paper, News International chairman James Murdoch has said.

In the past few days, claims have been made that the paper authorised hacking into the mobile phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and the families of 7/7 bombing victims.

Mr Murdoch said proceeds from the last edition would go to good causes.

Downing Street said it had no role or involvement in the decision.

One last little gesture of good will in the vain hope that people will somehow forgive and forget. As good as it is that NotW is closing down, Murdoch still has The Sun to fall back on for revenue and populist media hackery.

[Svartalf]

Well, one horrible rag down, how many more left standing?
It's not like the Murdoch methods of "journalism" are going to stop being used, the "reporters" will just get a stern talking to about the consequences of being caught.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

One day, Rupert Murdoch will die.

There. There is always a ray of sunshine.

[Jaygray]

You've got to admit that you can't underestimate the guy. I honestly didn't think he'd ditch the thing. Prune the dead wood, and launch it gain under another name with the advertisers back. Neat.

What happens to Rebekah?

[Rum]

Well the News of the World has been closed. Several dozen 'innocent' journalists (well journos who had nothing to do with the original scandal) have lost their jobs and the bitch boss keeps hers. This all announced with great drama and breast beating today.

Two days ago the Sun (also owned by Murdoch) registered the web domain name 'The Sun on Sunday'.

Call me cynical..

yes - call me cynical.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think while we have laws ensuring unbiased TV and the fact he is giving up Sky News is some comfort. Question is how much damage can papers do?

British TV is unbiased?

[Coito ergo sum]

I haven't been following this issue. My only understanding is that Murdoch's organization is out to acquire some news outfit, and some folks don't think it's wise for him to be permitted to do so.

What's the problem? What's the threat to democracy? Why the objections?

[Rum]

I haven't been following this issue. My only understanding is that Murdoch's organization is out to acquire some news outfit, and some folks don't think it's wise for him to be permitted to do so.

What's the problem? What's the threat to democracy? Why the objections?

He owns an estimated 25% of UK media including papers, TV etc. (and the Times!). He does not pay taxes in the UK and is not a British citizen. This state of affairs would not actually be legal in most of Europe and (I read) America. In addition until this mould changing episode, the generally received wisdom was that you could only win a general election if you got the Murdoch press on our side, in particular the Sun, which would always plumb for one leader or another. Prime Ministers from Thatcher onwards sidled up to Murdoch and always tried to win his favour one way or another to get the press on their 'side'. This always looked creepy, but politicians didn't know what else to do. It looked like Murdoch had a major part to play in our democratic process..undemocratically. Now, without doubt, the game has been changed.

The meta issue here is his bid to gain overall control of BSkyB, a big TV outfit, which he currently has a 39% share of. It looked like he was going to win his bid, but now it will go on hold at least for a few months. Hopefully he will lose the bid.

It does rather look like all sorts has been going on behind the scenes. I am not a conspiracy nut by a long shot, but the phone hacking scandal laid on top of the Sky bid looks like a rather 'odd' coincidence.

[Coito ergo sum]

Well, one group owning 25% of any industry, I think, is too much, especially the press/media. So, I think antitrust laws should kick in to prevent it. So, I have to say that based on that, I would oppose the Murdoch acquisition too.