[Update] The News Corp scandal

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

<snip>

Basically they need to be acting in the interests of the country not the party.

Fat chance of any political party doing that.

[denphone]

Well some important news and that is that the Government is to support Labour tomorrow in the House Of Commons against Murdoch's bid to take over BSKYB.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog...-live-coverage

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/wo...g.html?_r=1&hp

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/wo...g.html?_r=1&hp

Utterly shocking and at least we have some consensus politically at last against Murdoch.

---------- Post added at 17:17 ---------- Previous post was at 17:09 ----------

Latest news is that Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks are to attend the Culture and Sports committee next week.

[Sirius]

News international is in my opinion a dead man walking . They are in such a bad place and its getting worse by the hour wonder what they will request as there last meal

[Uncle Peter]

Originally Posted by Sirius

wonder what they will request as there last meal

See if you can blag the yard, someone there might tell you

[devilincarnate]

HMMMMM? Polite request to appear?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14127282

Another good read about what Hunt has coming?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14122109

1807: There's still confusion over whether Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and his son, James, will appear before a committee of MPs next week.
The chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, John Whittingdale, tells Radio Four's PM programme he still hopes they will accept an invitation to appear.
He says: "There is some confusion reigning. We understood that a News International spokesman had said that all three would attend but now it appears that we haven't had final confirmation of that. I still hope very much that they will come."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14118864

[denphone]

As someone said is this the new Watergate and as the hours go by the revelations and the repurcussions for the future are inmense as political parties try to cut all ties with Murdoch and also the BSKYB deal looks dead in the water and then there are likely to be criminal charges against journalists and the police.

[dave6x]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

I am saying that he needs to avoid making it a party issue because Labour are as guilty of cuddling up to Murdoch as the Tories have.No one party can claim total innocence and if you can't see that then frankly I am wasting my time trying to explain it to you.

Listening to Gordon Brown today, and also some of the statements made by Cameron it is clear that they knew long ago that News International rags were gaining information by dubious means. The worrying part is that they chose to do nothing rather than upset the cosy relationship they had built up. The integrity of many senior politicians is again seriously in question!!!

Some updates on the Brown revelations:

First of all, The Sun did not hack into Brown's son's medical records:

Originally Posted by News International

We are able to assure the Brown family that we did not access the medical records of their son, nor did we commission anyone to do so.

The story The Sun ran about their son originated from a member of the public whose family has also experienced cystic fibrosis. He came to The Sun with this information voluntarily because he wanted to highlight the cause of those afflicted by the disease. The individual has provided a written affidavit this afternoon to a lawyer confirming this.

Fair enough. Not illegal. However I think it's still morally wrong to publish it but they are claiming Brown gave quotes which they took as consent and they did it with the intention of increasing awareness of cystic fibrosis (which it did so obviously). Make of that what you will...

The Sunday Times:

We pursued this story in the public interest.

We were told that Mr Brown had bought a flat cheaper than any normal valuation and that he obtained it through a company in which Geoffrey Robinson, a close ally, had been a director.

We had reasonable grounds to investigate this matter and followed the PCC Code on using subterfuge.

We believe no law was broken in the process of this investigation, and contrary to Mr Brown's assertion, no criminal was used and the story was published giving all sides a fair hearing.

So they did 'blag' his account information. However they make a good point about the reasonable grounds for doing so. I think that they acted correctly and it was in the public interest.

[Osem]

Not wanting to take this thread off course but I must say I do find watching Keith Vaz lecturing people on standards and integrity just a tad hard to stomach!

Channel 4 News seem to think the commons vote tomorrow kills off the BSkyB deal.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Damien

Channel 4 News seem to think the commons vote tomorrow kills off the BSkyB deal.

Thats great news and what the vast majority of the public wanted.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Damien

Plurality refers to the news media as a whole doesn't it? Which means you need to factor in News International with The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times and their respective websites. News Corp would be quite dominant if they control that portion of the media. Single providers are pretty dangerous, after all it wouldn't have been any of those papers or Sky breaking the news about the hacking scandal.

Plurality does refer to the media as a whole, and if you count up all his various companies, Rupert Murdoch does control a large chunk, ranging from small local newspapers, through The Sun and The Times, to Sky TV and even 20th Century Fox..

While I agree, most people don't base their political beliefs on what they see come out of hollywood, people do base their political beliefs on what they see on the TV news (which is already fairly heavily regulated), on the radio and in the news papers (which aren't regulated at all), so one company controlling a large percentage of all three industries would be in a good position to imposed it's views on a large percentage of the population. And, yes, people are that gullible.

It's worth noting that while the BBC has huge radio and TV audiences, it has little or no influence on the press, beyond a couple of magazines.

[denphone]

As the old saying goes the masses are very easily brainwashed and will believe a certain opinion by someone or some company that is very powerful.