Rupert & Rebekah - now less popular than...

[Calilasseia]

In answer to the OP ... less popular than rabies.

Though I gather Rupert Murdoch was less popular than rabies with a large cross section of life forms with functioning brain cells, long before the NOTW crash and burn became a public spectacle. Indeed, given that several big corporate spenders on advertising are now issuing public statements, to the effect that they're going to avoid putting their ads in papers owned by Murdoch in this country, I think we may at last be seeing the long overdue moment where the piratical old bastard finally can't buy his way out of the shit.

[Calilasseia]

Oh, and it also appears that the revelations about his employees bribing police officers, has launched the possibility of US financial markets regulators hitting him with an anti-corruption investigation. Apparently the US has on its statute book a law requiring companies operating there, to provide disclosure about their internal measures aimed at ensuring legal behaviour in foreign markets. Companies that don't have such measures, or worse still, are found to be engaging in corrupt or illegal behaviour in those foreign markets, get hit with an expensive investigation. According to some comments I've seen in broadsheet financial pages online, the amount of money that could haemorrhage from Murdoch's US operations once any such investigation is launched, would see him seriously pondering having to get out of the US altogether, before the debts reach the point of killing his operations worldwide, and he's reduced to choosing between cat food and dog food for his Sunday dinner. Though if he ends up having to sell off his acquisitions in order to keep the wolves at bay, a lot of people here will simply think "serves the bastard right".

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Oh, and it also appears that the revelations about his employees bribing police officers, has launched the possibility of US financial markets regulators hitting him with an anti-corruption investigation. Apparently the US has on its statute book a law requiring companies operating there, to provide disclosure about their internal measures aimed at ensuring legal behaviour in foreign markets. Companies that don't have such measures, or worse still, are found to be engaging in corrupt or illegal behaviour in those foreign markets, get hit with an expensive investigation. According to some comments I've seen in broadsheet financial pages online, the amount of money that could haemorrhage from Murdoch's US operations once any such investigation is launched, would see him seriously pondering having to get out of the US altogether, before the debts reach the point of killing his operations worldwide, and he's reduced to choosing between cat food and dog food for his Sunday dinner. Though if he ends up having to sell off his acquisitions in order to keep the wolves at bay, a lot of people here will simply think "serves the bastard right".

A lot of people here would say the same should he suffer an agonising and lingering death from cancer of the urethra.

[Robert_S]

Oh, and it also appears that the revelations about his employees bribing police officers, has launched the possibility of US financial markets regulators hitting him with an anti-corruption investigation. Apparently the US has on its statute book a law requiring companies operating there, to provide disclosure about their internal measures aimed at ensuring legal behaviour in foreign markets. Companies that don't have such measures, or worse still, are found to be engaging in corrupt or illegal behaviour in those foreign markets, get hit with an expensive investigation. According to some comments I've seen in broadsheet financial pages online, the amount of money that could haemorrhage from Murdoch's US operations once any such investigation is launched, would see him seriously pondering having to get out of the US altogether, before the debts reach the point of killing his operations worldwide, and he's reduced to choosing between cat food and dog food for his Sunday dinner. Though if he ends up having to sell off his acquisitions in order to keep the wolves at bay, a lot of people here will simply think "serves the bastard right".

A lot of people here would say the same should he suffer an agonising and lingering death from cancer of the urethra.

But what about the poor cancer? Who's going to take care of it when it's host so ungraciously stops life support???

[Audley Strange]

Frankly I'd rather see those who paid for his services suffer. A diseased whore he may be, but he would not have had the influence he did if those claiming outrage weren't queuing up day in and out for his services. Including last Sunday when his rag sold more copies than ever to a "horrified public".

The fucking hypocrisy of those who claim the moral high-ground always makes me laugh.

[JimC]

Frankly I'd rather see those who paid for his services suffer. A diseased whore he may be, but he would not have had the influence he did if those claiming outrage weren't queuing up day in and out for his services. Including last Sunday when his rag sold more copies than ever to a "horrified public".

The fucking hypocrisy of those who claim the moral high-ground always makes me laugh.

One can take the high ground if one only reads the morally uplifting Melbourne Age...

[devogue]

Frankly I'd rather see those who paid for his services suffer. A diseased whore he may be, but he would not have had the influence he did if those claiming outrage weren't queuing up day in and out for his services. Including last Sunday when his rag sold more copies than ever to a "horrified public".

The fucking hypocrisy of those who claim the moral high-ground always makes me laugh.

The public absolutely adores drama, loves being "horrified" and "appalled".

Whether it's planes flying in to buildings, media empires crumbling or internet forums imploding, we just can't get enough of teh drama.

[Audley Strange]

Frankly I'd rather see those who paid for his services suffer. A diseased whore he may be, but he would not have had the influence he did if those claiming outrage weren't queuing up day in and out for his services. Including last Sunday when his rag sold more copies than ever to a "horrified public".

The fucking hypocrisy of those who claim the moral high-ground always makes me laugh.

One can take the high ground if one only reads the morally uplifting Melbourne Age...

I take it that's prolefeed?

The public absolutely adores drama, loves being "horrified" and "appalled".

Whether it's planes flying in to buildings, media empires crumbling or internet forums imploding, we just can't get enough of teh drama.

Like a pack of bloodthirsty baying hounds. Its all content, all entertainment with no difference between Jodi (19) with her tits out or the trivia regarding a raped and murdered child. Outrage at paedophilia on one page while on the next a countdown to when Emma Watson's legal. "Phwooar lads eh? PHWOOOAAAAARR!!!! YOU LOVE IT! ITS JUST A BIT OF FUN"

Yeah fuck the moral indignation coming from Parliament and the great undernourished, it sickens me more than the actions of N.I. If they were as moral as they pretend Murdoch would not be in the position he is to do what he did. But they pored over every little detail nursing their aroused genitals for decades without any shame.

It would be obscene if it were not so absurd.

[Cormac]

It seems that Rebekah has Rupert's full support. I reckon he's she's giving her him one....

Fixed that for you.

[Cormac]

What I find particularly nauseating about the whole thing, is that outrage only arose when people became aware of the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.

It was a crime when they did it to celebrities and politicians too. They too are entitled to the protection of the law. The fact that they are celebrities or politicians is of no bearing whatsoever.

Good for Hugh Grant and good for Steve Coogan.

[Cormac]

The revelations about the criminal acquisition of the medical records of Gordon Brown's son is an interesting development. Apparently this was the Sun.

Hopefully there's enough energy out there to lobby Sun advertisers, in the same way the focus on NOTW closed it.

That will be two down from his "evil empire"...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I've been pretty well outraged by Rupert Murdoch's conduct for going on 20 years now. All of this is merely chickens coming home to roost. Let's hope they find some of the REALLY juicy stuff soon.

[Svartalf]

What I find particularly nauseating about the whole thing, is that outrage only arose when people became aware of the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.

It was a crime when they did it to celebrities and politicians too. They too are entitled to the protection of the law. The fact that they are celebrities or politicians is of no bearing whatsoever.

Good for Hugh Grant and good for Steve Coogan.

Honestly, celebs and politicos both make a living from being public personalities, and they'd like you to believe they fart rainbows... taking them down a few pegs is not something I'm gonna weep about.

Now, interfering with a police investigation, messing with already devastated parents, and possibly leading to the victim not being found in time, that's something that calls for rope and and something to sling it over.

[Santa_Claus]

What I find particularly nauseating about the whole thing, is that outrage only arose when people became aware of the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.

It was a crime when they did it to celebrities and politicians too. They too are entitled to the protection of the law. The fact that they are celebrities or politicians is of no bearing whatsoever.

The difference with the Milly Dowling phone is that the NOTW (Murdoch personally?) was deleting messages (to free up space and protect stories from other newspapers) within a few days of her going missing - at which point no one knew if she was dead. Not hard for most people to relate to the Parents clinging on to any hope that she was still alive (and was deleting the messages herself).

Took the Police 6 months to find her body - be interesting to know Murdochs movements during that time period.......

.....A rumour I heard was that the NOTW has security tape from an Elevator taken in a hotel at 4am showing Rupert having sex with Maddie - before putting her back into his suitcase......Murdoch has never denied it

[Cormac]

What I find particularly nauseating about the whole thing, is that outrage only arose when people became aware of the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.

It was a crime when they did it to celebrities and politicians too. They too are entitled to the protection of the law. The fact that they are celebrities or politicians is of no bearing whatsoever.

Good for Hugh Grant and good for Steve Coogan.

Honestly, celebs and politicos both make a living from being public personalities, and they'd like you to believe they fart rainbows... taking them down a few pegs is not something I'm gonna weep about.

Now, interfering with a police investigation, messing with already devastated parents, and possibly leading to the victim not being found in time, that's something that calls for rope and and something to sling it over.

That is a load of bollox.

The law equally applies to celebrities and politicians as it does anyone else.

If a celeb or politician is fucking someone on the side, then it isn't anyone's business to know about it, other than the people directly involved. It certainly isn't for some toerag of a hack to put families through hell to simply sell a few more papers.

Your notion - that because celebrities and politicians may use media to access the public (Edit:... then they are fair game for brutal, spiteful, and disgusting treatment by the media) is the bullshit propaganda used by these prurient little fucks to justify their spiteful destruction of the lives of spouses and children every week.

Incidentally, the media choose how to spin "celebrity", and they do so in order to maximise sales. They can't live without celebrities, and so it is they that are the hypocrites, not the "celebrities" - especially in their blatant and see-through build-up and tear-down jobs.


Politicians taking cash, cheating expenses, selling secrets and the like are fair game - because that is a direct conflict with their duties.

"Celebrity" in the modern sense of the word is a creation of the Murdoch's of this world - an artificial concept which degrades such people so far in the public eye, that we no longer consider them vaguely human, and we suspend all decent human behaviour towards them.

The other thing they've done is to convince the public that "public interest" means whatever might vaguely interest the public - a nice distortion intended to tie a completely different concept to the sale of newspapers. Interest in the proper sense means something that the public has a stake in, or will benefit from. I fail to see how someone's sexual indiscretions are in any way related to this. (The only exception would be in a case such as the Profumo affair, where his job and his mistress were directly in conflict - he was the Secretary of State for War, and his mistress was also the mistress of a Russian diplomat. This was a circumstance that was definitely in the public interest, and probably deserved to be reported).

Whether or not John Major shagged Edwina Currie, or a footballer shagged some glamour model is NOT in the public interest.

It is the acceptance of this bullshit that has allowed the media to descend into their despicable current impasse, and which has seen the general culture deteriorate into a morass of Jordan, Big Brother, and similar shite.

But to address the current issues directly - tapping phones, hacking, and "blagging" account details are all against the law, and in fact, are criminal acts. Everyone is entitled to their privacy, and this includes their relationships.