Rupert Is Beginning To Sweat

by Bryan

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has arrived in London on Sunday to tackle a crisis that has spiralled beyond a phone-hacking scandal at one of his papers and threatened to scupper a multi-billion-dollar deal.

Things are spinning out of control, and politicians are seeking pay-back for years of pressure and fear delivered by News Corp and its minions. Rupert may think that he can scare enough people for this to go away, but there is ‘blood in the water’, and the politicians aren’t going to miss this opportunity for pay back.

The ABC News 24 program has a video up of an interview with Paul McMullan, the former News of the World executive who has been ‘helping the Guardian with its inquiries’. McMullan says that Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks knew about the hacking. McMullan is a charming piece of work who is apparently expecting to be arrested shortly, but still thinks that hacking the phones of ‘celebrities’ is OK, but hacking the phones of ‘the little people’ is wrong.

His comments about the costs of these investigations confirms my feeling that reporters don’t have the kind of budget authority necessary to carry off these operations without the approval of executives.

11 comments

1 Kryten42 { 07.11.11 at 4:19 am }: LOL Rupe is finding out that almost everyone hates his gut’s! 😆

Even the staff of NotW got in a few parting shots in the massively oversold last edition. 😀

News of the World staff stow parting barbs in final edition’s crosswords

I watched a few of the non-Murdock owned news programs here, and they are all acting like vultures watching a dying man stagger in the desert miles from anywhere! 😈

Couldn’t happen to a more perfect bastard! He may yet escape unscathed (legally), many stinking rat’s often do, but he will at least loose whatever credibility he has left (except to many fawning morons who think the sun shines from *you-know-where*!)

This may well only be the beginning of the end, bat someone as arrogant and short sighted as Rupe will continue to drive the nails in his own coffin. One day, the last one will be driven in. I’d be very happy to hold the hammer! 😀

Best laugh I’ve had in days! 😆
2 Kryten42 { 07.11.11 at 4:29 am }: Oh! I meant to add this article link also:

News of the World scandal: God’s newspaper executive less than visionary

Only a few days ago, a New York Bloomberg TV special was lauding Rupert Murdoch as “what God meant when he invented a newspaper executive … he has vision, he has guts, he’ll take a risk, he’ll go to the edge”. The question now is whether Murdoch and the giant, family-dominated company he created has gone not to just the edge – but over it.

Put morality and the News of the World’s phone-hacking imbecilities to one side for a moment, parked on a shelf marked “Unacceptable, Deplorable Ordure”. Purely in business terms, purely as a textbook study in management ineptitude and purblind public relations, the great shambles of Wapping takes some beating. It’s natural, perhaps, to see Murdoch senior as bold, ruthless and imaginative. That’s the image and, in many ways, the record. But ponder the account of the News of the World’s final hours as recounted from inside the Wapping bunker by journalists from another News International paper, the Times.

Bloomberg is backpedaling faster than someone heading for a waterfall! 😆
Ahhhh… but *Guilt by association* is such a wonderful thing! 😈

…still laughing… 😆
3 jams o donnell { 07.11.11 at 6:10 am }: McMullan is a glutton for punishment. he last worked for NOTW in 2001 but he is just about the only person to act as spokesman for their activities!

He was on Newsnight on Friday (BBC2’s main news programme) he got his arse handed to him!

Here it is: http://thepoormouth.blogspot.com/2011/07/tabloid-hack-in-train-wreck-moment.html
4 Kryten42 { 07.11.11 at 9:02 am }: LOL Thanks jams! 😀

I found this also at Political Scrapbook:

Steve Coogan demolishes ex-NOTW Paul McMullan on Newsnight

Seeing Steve Coogan straining visibly at the leash as former News of the World features editor and self-confessed commissioner of “illegal practices” Paul McMullan held forth on phone hacking, many viewers of Newsnight would have made themselves comfortable for some popcorn telly.

Coogan’s utter disgust with the tactics employed by some tabloid journalists — though Coogan might contest that description — at times bordered on the visceral.

“you come across as a risible individual who is symptomatic of everything that’s wrong with the tabloids”

“I’m not a politician so why come after me? Milly Dowler’s relatives aren’t politicians, so why go after them? It’s morally bankrupt and you are morally bankrupt.”

“This guy sat outside my house. It’s just a risible, deplorable profession that you’re in.”

“You’re not a journalist. You know you’re not, deep down.”

When Emily Maitlis pointed to the genuine merit of Fake Sheikh-style scoops Coogan deadpanned:
“Hitler was nice to dogs.”

There could only ever be one winner.

… still laughing! 😉 😆
5 jams o donnell { 07.11.11 at 9:28 am }: Some analysts are speculting that Murdoch may sell New International. If so that would be a good day for the British pres. Even so if he thinks he still can buy BSkyB he can go to hell!
6 jams o donnell { 07.11.11 at 9:29 am }: It was train wreck tv wasn’t it Kryten!
7 Badtux { 07.11.11 at 9:45 am }: Let’s hope that he gets a taste of the same treatment as Lord Conrad Black, who’s had such a joyful time in Club Fed… what’s the UK equivalent of Club Fed, BTW? Being a media mogul hasn’t been such a get-out-of-jail card lately, hmm…

– Badtux the Laughing Penguin
8 jams o donnell { 07.11.11 at 11:53 am }: Ah Badtux, all prisons here are Club Fed. The Prison Services in England and Wales are run as a single entity (although Scotland and NI manage their own prisons) under the Department of Justice.

Depending on the lenght of sentence anyone convicted would go to a local dispersal prison pending a move to (probably) a Category C prison (Medium security) and then a Cat D (a so called open prison)

The crimes don’t warrant incarceration in a Cat A (top security prisons_ or Cat B (High security_
9 Bryan { 07.11.11 at 12:48 pm }: The only way forward for the BSkyB bid is for News Corp to divest itself of all of the print holdings. BSkyB makes more money than all of them combined, so that would be the correct business decision as the most profitable. The problem is that Ofcom can still rule that News Corp isn’t ‘fit & proper’ to own BSkyB, and has indicated that it won’t rule until all of the other cases are complete.

As there are new cases popping up every day, it would appear that Ofcom won’t rule for decades.

Maybe these guys could convince Armani to design orange jumpsuits for them … just a thought.
10 Kryten42 { 07.11.11 at 1:36 pm }: Yep jams! It was a train-wreck, and the second one I saw yesterday. 😀

This is a partial transcript from 7 News yesterday:

Prominent UK media lawyer Mark Stephens says he thinks the Murdochs will protect Ms Brooks.

“We have to remember that people like Rebekah Brooks are treated as family by the Murdochs, particularly Rupert Murdoch and I think she will perhaps go to one of his titles in America or Australia and will continue her good work from there,” he said.

Mr Stephens says News of the World’s closure is a stroke of “evil genius” by Mr Murdoch to save himself, his son and Ms Brooks.

“He has preserved Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, his three key senior executives and they’ve kind of climbed in a life raft and allowed the rest of the people to go down with the ship that they’ve scuttled,” he said.

“Of course as they’ve scuttled this ship, the News of the World, what goes down with it are all the documents, the new and the electronic files which might cause embarrassment and all the rest of it and so they will never see the light of day as a result of that.”

Disgruntled staff like News of the World political editor Dave Wooding say they have been sacrificed to save Ms Brooks.

“There’s hardly anybody there who was there in the old regime,” he said.

“The people are very clean, great, talented professional journalists and we put out a great paper every week and we are all paying the price of what happened six years ago.”

Sceptics say the tabloid’s closure and News International’s cooperation with the police investigation has more to do with the Murdoch empire’s bid to take over the satellite broadcaster, BSkyB.

Alastair Campbell, who was Tony Blair’s communications director, says he thinks it is a tactical move related to the BSkyB takeover.

“They want to be seen now to be taking this far more seriously than they have up to now so that the government can give them the go ahead in relation to the BSkyB deal,” he said.

“But I think as this story develops and it goes on, the public will find that more and more unfathomable, let alone unacceptable.”

In the past week alone, the British culture secretary has received 100,000 submissions on the bid, almost all of them opposing the Murdoch bid.

OT: But the first was our very own Gillard train-wreck! I feel an election coming on Bryan… And I’m afraid Abbott will win. And I’m honestly (and unusually) completely unsure which will be worse! Continuing with the fool we have, or having a fundi moron with the imagination of a rat as PM! What a choice. *SIGH*

Angry voters want election on carbon tax

You can see on this graph that public opinion has been swinging towards the Coalition since Gillard stole the PMship. Current Government Confidence Rating is at 96.5, the lowest ever recorded.

L-NP Increases Lead Before PM Gillard Announces Details Of Carbon Tax On Sunday

I’m grateful for the Murdock train-wreck. It helps distract me from our own.

Maybe I can emigrate… Sth. Korea or Dubai maybe…. Hmmmm.
11 Bryan { 07.11.11 at 4:31 pm }: At this point I would think that in most of the world an endorsement by the Murdock empire would be the kiss of death for a politician.

OT: Kryten, I think the Coalition wants an election before Abbott implodes, which could happen at any time. The proof is in the details as far as the carbon tax goes, and people have to see how it will affect them, before making up their minds if it is a good or bad deal.