(Editor’s Note: Since ThereWillComeSoftRains did this excellent update on all the goings-on of Murdochageddon, I’m making this your open thread for all things News Corp.-related. Uncle Rupert is scheduled to appear before Parliament this morning. The fun begins at 1 p.m. GMT on BBC Parliament. ~Bots)
Week two of the News Corp. fiasco continues
Have you resigned yet? No? Well you just aren’t keeping up with the latest fashion trends coming out of London. So many people have now resigned in the phone hacking scandal, UK unemployment has been pushed up to 95%. Nobody is left to run the country; we’ve had to become an absolute monarchy again. Until next week when the Queen is caught hacking Kate Middleton’s phone trying to find messages from her hairdresser revealing the secret of her shiny locks and she quits as well. The only thing left for us now is to give the whole country back to the druids, which is why I have built a large wicker man in my front garden (well that is what I am going to tell the police should they ask).
So it’s been two weeks since the NOTW scandal broke and for some it has dominated the news since then, which to the ADHD-suffering UK media makes it the greatest epic since the Iliad, starting, as sagas are wont to do in medias res, years after the initial accusations. But it has proven to be the Marmite of news; people either are obsessed by it, and love following every twist and turn or do not want to hear about it at all. Those who feel the latter point to more important stories like the European debt crisis and the East African drought (they obviously feel the public are incapable of paying attention to more than one story at once). Fox News for some reason also feels this way. However with an FBI investigation on one side of the Atlantic and parliament being recalled because of this matter on the other, this is a story that isn’t going away any time soon. If you’ve missed anything in the last week, here is a summary. I’ve divided it up into the four main issues I highlighted last Monday: the police investigation (and public inquiry), the BSkyB deal, the role of the press in the UK, and the possible involvement of other media organisations in illegal practices.
The investigation:
- Police investigations are ongoing with 9 former NOTW executives and journalists arrested including Rebekah Brooks, News International’s Chief Executive. A bag containing a computer, paperwork and a phone was found in a dustbin near Brooks’ home by police on Monday.
- David Cameron has announced a public inquiry, led by Lord Justice Leveson to look in to phone hacking and bribery allegations. the inquiry will also have a second part further public inquiry will be looking into press regulation and the replacement of the press complaints commission. (Fulls details of the Inquiry’s remit here)
- The American FBI announced last Thursday that they will investigate News Corp. over allegations of the hacking of phones of 9/11 victims.
- The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee is still rumbling on, with James and Rupert Murdoch, and Brooks due to appear today.
- Parliament is being recalled to debate the matter further. They were all due to go on a six week recess. It is a terrible thing to deprive these hard working defenders of British justice of six weeks holiday. They will just have to hang around the Palace of Westminster and it’s 20 unlicensed bars for a bit longer.
- The police have been a focus because of the allegations of bribery and their close relationship with the media. Andy Hayman, the officer in charge of the initial investigation into phone hacking who later became a columnist for NI, was shocked, SHOCKED that anyone would suggest he took money from the media as police officer. Although he did admit to going for a meal with the journalists he was investigating while the police probe was still going on.
- Britain’s most senior police officer, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson has resigned as has Assistant Commissioner John Yates, as a result of the scandal.
- Police involvement has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission
BSkyB and News Corp.
- The BSkyB deal fell through last Wednesday; Murdoch withdrew his bid for the 61% of the company he didn’t own, just before Parliament was due to debate on a motion calling him to do just that; even the Tories were behind this motion (a stance that was a U-turn for the government) making its passage inevitable and ruining Murdoch’s chances to get his hands on this very valuable asset. FOR NOW.
- News Corp has lost several high profile members of staff: Brooks, Les Hinton (chief executive of financial news service Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal ) and Tom Crone (NI’s legal manager) have all resigned.
- News Corp. shares dropped to a two year low yesterday.
- Ha, ha, ha, in your face Murdoch.
The role of the media in the UK
- This is going to be a major focus of the second part of Levenson’s enquiry, especially looking at the relationship between the police and the press. The major long term change will be the replacement of the independent body the Press Complaints Commission, with body or bodies as yet unknown. The Prime Minister said that self-regulation has “a bad name”, but having worked in TV, he is aware of the disadvantages of statutory regulation.
- As the Guardian points out free speech is a messy business. I discussed last week the idea of trying to define what “public interest” is when journalists use it as an ethical defence for digging into legal grey areas (or outright illegality), so the journalists that who uncover important political stories are protected (within reason) and not hurt by the same rules affecting tabloid hacks who listen in to voicemail to find out things about the private lives of celebrities. But who gets to decide which is which? Let us hope that the inquiry comes up with a good answer and doesn’t opt for more regulation, no matter how tempting it is.
- With NOTW gone, last Sunday saw other papers vying for its audience. They were not very impressive, content wise but The Mirror and The Star did well out of it (if The Star actually counts as a newspaper). The Mail on Sunday’s sales rose 13% according to one survey, which is a worrying sign for the sane members of the UK (yes there are some sane people here, I definitely saw one on the street yesterday, although that might have been a large dog).
Other media organisations.
- When my post went up last week, the news was breaking that Gordon Brown’s financial records were accessed by The Sunday Times, using “blagging” and that his baby son’s medical records were illegally accessed by The Sun. The allegation against The Sun was later retracted (although Brooks’ phone call to tell the Browns that The Sun were going to print the news of their child’s diagnosis of cystic fibrosis, was more than a little cruel).
- No other papers have been shown to be using phone hacking. the editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre said to the Parliamentary Select Committee yesterday, that the Mail has never published a story based on phone hacking. So no other British papers have done anything dodgy OK guys?
Anyway, I will give the last word of this post to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. When asked in press conference how she thinks the press should report she replied “I think we will have a long debate about media ethics in this country, but if I can put it as clearly as I can, I’d say to you- don’t write crap“.
UPDATE: As I wrote this on Monday afternoon, the news came through that the whistleblower and former NOTW reporter Sean Hoare (mentioned in last week’s article as the man who talked to the New York Times) has, sadly, been found dead. His death is not thought to be suspicious. Nick Davies from the Guardian wrote a tribute on Monday evening, describing a “lovely man” who was the first NOTW journalist to allege phone hacking on the record, but who had been badly damaged by the drink and drugs that became part of his life as a tabloid journalist.
