[Q0KmoR8K]

No i know i'm just not sure what his personal views are - God knows calling for more EU solidarity is hardly something that flies well with conservatives in the countries he is being investigated in. (Not even in the US where it was relatively moot for a while a decade ago as it led to favorable trade tarrifs).

[KRbGA0Bg]

They didn't - the subsidiaries of the parent company did to other victims, not to 9/11 families though.

Rupert Murdoch is having his murdoch handed to him in the UK. He lost B-Sky-B 2 trillion dollar deal and is now facing possible jail time.

I believe he will be convicted of running an organization that did criminal activity, bribed those around him and when caught he tells everyone he is not responsible or a crook...Oh my old Murdoch has caught Nixonitis and is now blooming into a fine and standard Republican!

As for avoiding Fox News many do and I am sure the administration wishes to have the same freedom of choice.

[Q0KmoR8K]

Yes i am well aware of his difficulties and the problems he is facing in the UK. I wasn't aware of issues with 9/11 families being targeted but i stand corrected as Peter King has also asked the DoJ to investigate. The UK metropolitan police are now themselves under investigation for corruption and allowing the Murdoch empire to bribe officers and payments of up to 25K at a go given back and fro between folks on the payroll, somehow, at both places.

[KRbGA0Bg]

Fox News Network maybe up for sale soon...Seems old Murdoch will soon be spending a little time covering the inside workings of Gitmo.

[Q0KmoR8K]

See i've always been opposed to giving journalists the rights to access Guitmo.

But seriously, i'd doubt Murdoch will be looking at jail time - well not the senior anyway. James on the other hand may well be in some difficulty.

[Stivenslivakovishhhs]

The thing that has to be said...
The Staff and Management in the News of the World have been swapping between the NoW the and The Sun. the Sun is thew tenth-largest circulation of any newspaper in the world and the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the United Kingdom.

If the is going to be 4000 claims of phone hacking in the News of the World are we supposed to believe that The Sun had none of this going on. Are we meant to be that Naive?

By the way each one of these people have a civil case against News Corp...

[Kthzltje]

Murdoch is certainly not an unknown in the US. In the UK he is getting into real and deep troubles currently however. After the "News of the World" scandal (which included allegations of tapping the phone of a kidnapped and afterwards murdered child and not only causing big suffering to the parents it also messed into the police investigations and lead them to wrong conclusions) which lead to the closure of that boulevard paper with a very long history the problems didn't stop there. First David Cameron got into real trouble because his former press chief and Murdoch employee got into the focus of police investigations. Cameron tries to do damage control by trying to distance to the Murdoch empire.

Latest news is that Rupert Murdochs son James (who is the boss of the British branch of the news empire) is now getting into the focus of British as well as American authorities as well. Accusations are among others the bribing of higher police officials.

This all comes as Murdoch tries to do his greatest deal ever: the takeover of the pay tv channel BSkyB.

What do you think, is this a a conspiracy against Murdoch done by his enemies or is it just that some of the dirt could not be hidden anymore? And if Murdoch takes over Sky as well, what does that mean for the British democracy? Obviously the government is having very close relationships with the news emperor already today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...-hacking/print

[Q0KmoR8K]

Thread already on this but, this one is in the correct forum, the search function probably didn't work that well in trying to find the other one and its got a broader discussion of the entire saga and expanding into a larger discussion so i'll lock the divert the other one to here.

[Kthzltje]

Yeah, I really tried to find an older thread, but the search function did not show anything.

[Q0KmoR8K]

Yeah, sorry we really do need to get to fixing that...there's some fatal errors still there. (We did notice the querry for the new of the world, so we know you tried. )

As for the issue itself...i think this is one of the very few major topics that transends Bi-partisanship and generally has the ire of anyone and everybody who has read about it. This is exactly what makes folks so distrustful of both the media and the government but when the two combine and media moguls start schmoozing with folks at the head of the respective country, this is the horrible outcome you get.

This seemingly is Cameron's first big scandal and whilst he is handling it well (not throwing his former communications chief under the bus) but like you said the damage it has done to the folks involved has been devastating (police investigations, grieving families etc).

I'll link to it later but Ian Hislop (Private eye chief, just a co-incidence on the name, he's not a PI) has long ridiculed Murdoch for putting his family on the board at NewsCorp, and Australian regulators have been swooning all over channel 10. Murdoch has controlled every British Government going back to 1992 or so and his scheming and ponzi system is beginning to crumble. Sky's dominance in the media empire, may be coming to an end.

[Stivenslivakovishhhs]

Yeah, sorry we really do need to get to fixing that...there's some fatal errors still there. (We did notice the querry for the new of the world, so we know you tried. )

As for the issue itself...i think this is one of the very few major topics that transends Bi-partisanship and generally has the ire of anyone and everybody who has read about it. This is exactly what makes folks so distrustful of both the media and the government but when the two combine and media moguls start schmoozing with folks at the head of the respective country, this is the horrible outcome you get.

This seemingly is Cameron's first big scandal and whilst he is handling it well (not throwing his former communications chief under the bus) but like you said the damage it has done to the folks involved has been devastating (police investigations, grieving families etc).

I'll link to it later but Ian Hislop (Private eye chief, just a co-incidence on the name, he's not a PI) has long ridiculed Murdoch for putting his family on the board at NewsCorp, and Australian regulators have been swooning all over channel 10. Murdoch has controlled every British Government going back to 1992 or so and his scheming and ponzi system is beginning to crumble. Sky's dominance in the media empire, may be coming to an end.

Agreed the next on the list has to be The Sun newspaper... There is so much staff going back and over between the NoW. This will now haunt News Corp... There was a great segment in the Irish Radio from a girl that used to work with all the protaganists in this scandal... She described a hell hole of enviromnet with less to do with honest journalism but more to do with 18 hour days and alpha dog enviroment...

[Q0KmoR8K]

Yeah i mean the notion that Murdoch's empire was ever into shoe leather journalism was so far off that even he never denied being in it for his own interests. And the male alpha, cut throat environment is what you expect from him and the way he would instruct a company to run - and something a lot of people dont have the stomach for and when they see it, only then do they realize how much pressure is involved. But he has now left a few hundred more folks out of work, he has probably left quite a few people without a paper (as you suggest the Sun will likely go next) and now other than coming on here of a day to stare at my profile, i'm not sure what you'll do for page a 3 replacement.

No in all seriousness though, the trickle down effect will likely lead to an increase in charges for the rest of sky's customers and their buisness users...and that's all fine and well as its a free market but of course, when you have a monopoly...

See this is a problem in the half ass system, with full control they'd keep prices relatively stable as they have nothing to gain from jacking them up - not like the excess proffit is what Murdoch cares about, its the money. But this way with half a competitior here and there (Branson etc) and the fear of losing multiple outlets (the Times may survive but this may even force him to stop WSJ publications in Europe) may cause Sky's board to punatively push up rates for everyone left. And the amount of suspicion this has brought on so many innocent folks who did nothing wrong, is shocking.

[yovbQVpD]

Yeah i mean the notion that Murdoch's empire was ever into shoe leather journalism was so far off that even he never denied being in it for his own interests. And the male alpha, cut throat environment is what you expect from him and the way he would instruct a company to run - and something a lot of people dont have the stomach for and when they see it, only then do they realize how much pressure is involved. But he has now left a few hundred more folks out of work, he has probably left quite a few people without a paper (as you suggest the Sun will likely go next) and now other than coming on here of a day to stare at my profile, i'm not sure what you'll do for page a 3 replacement.

No in all seriousness though, the trickle down effect will likely lead to an increase in charges for the rest of sky's customers and their buisness users...and that's all fine and well as its a free market but of course, when you have a monopoly...

See this is a problem in the half ass system, with full control they'd keep prices relatively stable as they have nothing to gain from jacking them up - not like the excess proffit is what Murdoch cares about, its the money. But this way with half a competitior here and there (Branson etc) and the fear of losing multiple outlets (the Times may survive but this may even force him to stop WSJ publications in Europe) may cause Sky's board to punatively push up rates for everyone left. And the amount of suspicion this has brought on so many innocent folks who did nothing wrong, is shocking.

So the best way to deal with an abusive monopoly is to eliminate ALL it's competition??

[Q0KmoR8K]

I just don't think you should go about it in a half ass way...anyhow regulators were only approving his mergers and what not, with him buying up the terrestrial licenses it created new available licences and vacated ones to be taken up by other companies...at some point there was also ITV digital, combined with Tele...something (can't remember the name, help me out here Ted) and also NTL, BT's cable arm, and freeview which is usually available for most set box subscribers. None of that other lot were available whilst BSkyB were analog and before Sky Digital came into being...the dominance caused the competition due to the ever increasing price Sky customers had to pay due to their dominance, and subsequently their ego. And EU busybodies meddling in anything and everything they feel like - which of course as Irony would have it, is something Murdoch has pushed all day every day for 15 years. (EU integration and what not).

[yovbQVpD]

I just don't think you should go about it in a half ass way...anyhow regulators were only approving his mergers and what not, with him buying up the terrestrial licenses it created new available licences and vacated ones to be taken up by other companies...at some point there was also ITV digital, combined with Tele...something (can't remember the name, help me out here Ted) and also NTL, BT's cable arm, and freeview which is usually available for most set box subscribers. None of that other lot were available whilst BSkyB were analog and before Sky Digital came into being...the dominance caused the competition due to the ever increasing price Sky customers had to pay due to their dominance, and subsequently their ego. And EU busybodies meddling in anything and everything they feel like - which of course as Irony would have it, is something Murdoch has pushed all day every day for 15 years. (EU integration and what not).

Perhaps you're right, but to me that means you should not go about ensuring full COMPETITION in a "half assed" way. Murdoch should be broke up now because they should have never been let to get this big in the first place, nor should any other media entity.

[Stivenslivakovishhhs]

The problem I see here is that from the police, politicians and Ofcom the whole thing was corrupted by Murdoch... It is scarey the power he controls things... He has been thanked in private reports by the Tories for getting them elected... That is the kind of poer your talking... You must remember UK is one of the strange bests in Europe in that first past the post is the winner... This winner takes all (thus grossly manipulating democracy in favout of a two party sytem) has led Murdoch with the relatively easy job of only having to coerce and bribe two patries.

The Media should be free but that freedom come with responsibilty and viligence. Murdoch abuses this responsibility for his own gain. The press is given freedom to report but then expected to use this to report the truth. Can we say that is true in the UK? No.
Can we say it in USA? Lads, that is for ye to answer.


I am sorry I am using Robert Fisk for this example (I know some of ye have a problem with his reporting), I hope if while not liking what he says at time that you would trust his integrity.
Robert Fisk: Why I had to leave Murdoch’s London Times - Europe, World News - Independent.ie
Robert Fisk: Why I had to leave Murdoch’s London Times
When he worked at The Times, Robert Fisk witnessed the curious working practices of the paper's proprietor, Rupert Murdoch. Despite their jocular exchanges, the writer knew he couldn't stay...


He is a caliph, I suppose, almost of the Middle Eastern variety.

You hear all these awful things about Arab dictators and then, when you meet them, they are charm itself. Hafez al-Assad once held my hand in his for a long time with a paternal smile. Surely he can't be that bad, I almost said to myself – this was long before the 1982 Hama massacres. King Hussein would call me "Sir", along with most other journalists. These potentates, in public, would often joke with their ministers. Mistakes could be forgiven.

The "Hitler Diaries" were Murdoch's own mistake, after refusing to countenance his own "expert's" change of heart over the documents hours before The Times and The Sunday Times began printing them. Months later, I was passing by the paper's London office on my way back to Beirut when the foreign editor, Ivan Barnes, held up the Reuters wire copy from Bonn. "Aha!" he thundered. "The diaries are forgeries!" The West German government had proved that they must have been written long after the Führer's death.

So Barnes dispatched me to editor Charles Douglas-Home's office with the Reuters story and I marched in only to find Charlie entertaining Murdoch. "They say they're forgeries, Charlie," I announced, trying not to glance at Murdoch. But I did when he reacted. "Well, there you go," the mogul reflected with a giggle. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Much mirth. The man's insouciance was almost catching. Great Story. It only had one problem. It wasn't true.

Oddly, he never appeared the ogre of evil, darkness and poison that he's been made out to be these past few days. Maybe it's because his editors and sub-editors and reporters repeatedly second-guessed what Murdoch would say. Murdoch was owner of The Times when I covered the blood-soaked Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. Not a line was removed from my reports, however critical they were of Israel. After the invasion, Douglas-Home and Murdoch were invited by the Israelis to take a military helicopter trip into Lebanon. The Israelis tried to rubbish my reporting; Douglas-Home said he stood up for me. On the flight back to London, Douglas-Home and Murdoch sat together. "I knew Rupert was interested in what I was writing," he told me later. "He sort of waited for me to tell him what it was, although he didn't demand it. I didn't show it to him."

But things changed. Before he was editor, Douglas-Home would write for the Arabic-language Al-Majella magazine, often deeply critical of Israel. Now his Times editorials took an optimistic view of the Israeli invasion. He stated that "there is now no worthy Palestinian to whom the world can talk" and – for heaven's sake – that "perhaps at last the Palestinians on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip will stop hoping that stage-strutters like Mr Arafat can rescue them miraculously from doing business with the Israelis."

All of which, of course, was official Israeli government policy at the time.

Then, in the spring of 1983, another change. I had, with Douglas-Home's full agreement, spent months investigating the death of seven Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners of the Israelis in Sidon. It was obvious, I concluded, that the men had been murdered – the grave-digger even told me that their corpses had been brought to him, hands tied behind their backs, showing marks of bruising. But now Douglas-Home couldn't see how we would be "justified" in running a report "so long after the event".

In other words, the very system of investigative journalism – of fact-checking and months of interviews – became self-defeating. When we got the facts, too much time had passed to print them. I asked the Israelis if they would carry out a military inquiry and, anxious to show how humanitarian they were, they duly told us there would be an official investigation. The Israeli "inquiry" was, I suspected, a fiction. But it was enough to "justify" publishing my long and detailed report. Once the Israelis could look like good guys, Douglas-Home's concerns evaporated.

When he died, of cancer, it was announced that his deputy, Charles Wilson, would edit the paper. Murdoch said that Wilson was "Charlie's choice" and I thought, so, all well and good – until I was chatting to Charlie's widow and she told me that it was the first time she had heard that Wilson's editorship had been her late husband's decision. We all knew Murdoch had signed up to all manner of guarantees of editorial independence, oversight and promises of goodwill when he bought The Times – and had then fired his first editor, Harold Evans. He would deal with the trade unionists later.

Charles Wilson – who much later became, briefly, the editor of The Independent – was a tough, friendly man who could show great kindness, as well as harshness, to his staff. He was kind to me, too. But once, when I was visiting Wilson in London, Murdoch walked into his office. "Hallo, Robert!" Murdoch greeted me, before holding a jocular conversation with Wilson. And, after he had left, Wilson said to me in a hushed voice: "See how he called you by your first name?" This was laughable. It was like the Assad smile or the King Hussein "Sir". It meant nothing. Murdoch was joking with his ministers and courtiers.

A warning sign. Still in west Beirut, where dozens of Westerners were being kidnapped, I opened The Times to discover that a pro-Israeli writer was claiming on our centre page that all journalists in west Beirut, clearly intimidated by "terrorism", could be regarded only as "bloodsuckers". Was the paper claiming that I, too, was a bloodsucker? In all this time, Murdoch had expressed exclusively pro-Israeli views, and had accepted a "Man of the Year" award from a prominent Jewish-American organisation. The Times editorials became more and more pro-Israeli, their use of the word "terrorist" ever more promiscuous.

The end came for me when I flew to Dubai in 1988 after the USS Vincennes had shot down an Iranian passenger airliner over the Gulf. Within 24 hours, I had spoken to the British air traffic controllers at Dubai, discovered that US ships had routinely been threatening British Airways airliners, and that the crew of the Vincennes appeared to have panicked. The foreign desk told me the report was up for the page-one splash. I warned them that American "leaks" that the IranAir pilot was trying to suicide-crash his aircraft on to the Vincennes were rubbish. They agreed.

Next day, my report appeared with all criticism of the Americans deleted, with all my sources ignored. The Times even carried an editorial suggesting the pilot was indeed a suicider. A subsequent US official report and accounts by US naval officers subsequently proved my dispatch correct. Except that Times readers were not allowed to see it. This was when I first made contact with The Independent. I didn't believe in The Times any more – certainly not in Rupert Murdoch.

Months later, a senior night editor who had been on duty on the night my Vincennes report arrived, recalled in a letter that he had promoted my dispatch as the splash, but that Wilson had said: "There's nothing in it. There's not a fact in it. I wouldn't even run this gibberish." Wilson, the night editor said, called it "bollocks" and "waffle". The night editor's diary for that day finished: "Shambles, chaos on Gulf story. [George] Brock [Wilson's foreign editor] rewrites Fisk."

The good news: a few months later, I was Middle East correspondent for The Independent. The bad news: I don't believe Murdoch personally interfered in any of the above events. He didn't need to. He had turned The Times into a tame, pro-Tory, pro-Israeli paper shorn of all editorial independence. If I hadn't been living in the Middle East, of course, it might have taken me longer to grasp all this.

But I worked in a region where almost every Arab journalist knows the importance of self-censorship – or direct censorship – and where kings and dictators do not need to give orders. They have satraps and ministers and senior police officers – and "democratic" governments – who know their wishes, their likes and dislikes. And they do what they believe their master wants. Of course, they all told me this was not true and went on to assert that their king/president was always right.

These past two weeks, I have been thinking of what it was like to work for Murdoch, what was wrong about it, about the use of power by proxy. For Murdoch could never be blamed. Murdoch was more caliph than ever, no more responsible for an editorial or a "news" story than a president of Syria is for a massacre – the latter would be carried out on the orders of governors who could always be tried or sacked or sent off as adviser to a prime minister – and the leader would invariably anoint his son as his successor. Think of Hafez and Bashar Assad or Hosni and Gamal Mubarak or Rupert and James. In the Middle East, Arab journalists knew what their masters wanted, and helped to create a journalistic desert without the water of freedom, an utterly skewed version of reality. So, too, within the Murdoch empire.

In the sterile world of the Murdochs, new technology was used to deprive the people of their freedom of speech and privacy. In the Arab world, surviving potentates had no problem in appointing tame prime ministers. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Even if you don't like Fisk or what he was saying you must ask the question, how can these guys just rewrite this guys stuff without checking a fact.... You must Remember Murdoch has heavy interests in Chinese Satelites some are you prepared to trust the news your getting fed?

[Q0KmoR8K]

I think most countries have a first past the post voting system do they not? I mean other than Australia which has the AV system, i'm pretty sure the rest of the civilized world has a winner take all system based on majorities or plurality + run offs if neccessary. I would think that him not having a role in the AV refferendum and what not showed his own perception of how serious it was...but like you said he has a hand in every freaking politician/government's election to parliament for the last 15 years making it impossible to reign his conduct. However the one thing this could do is finally force some distance between the UK and the EU. His policies of promoting further EU intergration have finally come to an end. As for the Chinese stuff, well it is widely believed it was the only reason he married a Chinese woman to start with, to get into their market.

I have said this time and time again and it stands true, Silvio was the only guy who could beat Murdoch and eventually he will get the last laugh.

[KRbGA0Bg]

Murdoch's misadventures and misdeeds will come to haunt him here in America too. Murdoch can only hide and bide his misadventures and misdeeds for so long before his onanistic behavior is exposed.

[Stivenslivakovishhhs]

I think most countries have a first past the post voting system do they not? I mean other than Australia which has the AV system, i'm pretty sure the rest of the civilized world has a winner take all system based on majorities or plurality + run offs if neccessary. I would think that him not having a role in the AV refferendum and what not showed his own perception of how serious it was...but like you said he has a hand in every freaking politician/government's election to parliament for the last 15 years making it impossible to reign his conduct. However the one thing this could do is finally force some distance between the UK and the EU. His policies of promoting further EU intergration have finally come to an end. As for the Chinese stuff, well it is widely believed it was the only reason he married a Chinese woman to start with, to get into their market.

I have said this time and time again and it stands true, Silvio was the only guy who could beat Murdoch and eventually he will get the last laugh.

Traveller,

Your right first past the post is the most common system. But as you take out third world countries you get into a more mixed answer.
Have a look at these videos to show what I mean:
YouTube - ‪The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained‬‏
YouTube - ‪The Alternative Vote Explained‬‏

I actually thing think this is a brilliant disscussion which deserves a separate thread... I actually want to see your take on it.

[Q0KmoR8K]

Yeah i was going to comment on it a while ago in this thread:

http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/form...ct-voting.html (I had spoke with Noahath about starting it) but time was so short then for me that i never got round to it - we can take the discussion there perhaps?

Noa is the one resident poster we have who lives in an AV country and has first had expertise so i think his insight into the whole matter here would also be great, and he is Australian, so he will gave a better idea of Murdoch's dealings as well.