This has the potential to also bring down the Conservative government in the UK.

One can only hope people start to understand the ethical sewage his company spews out hurts people. I mean he taps into the private voice mails of child murder victims, uses stolen information to blackmail police and high government officials.

Can one hope his methods will expose Fox and his other companies as pure unadulterated evil.

Last night I had dinner with a neighbor of mine who used to live in India. She said that in the Hindu view that evil is utter ignorance.

News Corp seems to be the single biggest prebayor of ignorance in the world today. People who watch Fox News as a source for news are the most uniformed on basic facts according to surveys. I sus that all this attention given to non news by News Corp and it's ilk serves the sole purpose of covering uo real news, like the threat to the environment and global poverty.

... and it has cultivated a voracious appetite for vacuity.

Real stuff it too hard. 

London (CNN) -- Andy Coulson, the prime minister's former press secretary, was arrested Friday in connection with allegations of phone hacking and corruption, in a case that is set to be a growing political liability for David Cameron.

The scandal has prompted questions over the prime minister's judgement in hiring Coulson after he resigned as editor of the News of the World over the allegations.

Speaking shortly before his former aide's arrest was announced, Cameron went on the defensive at a Downing Street news conference Friday, saying: "The decision to hire him was mine, and mine alone."

He said he gave Coulson a second chance after he was assured that he was not involved in wrongdoing at the newspaper.

Coulson had resigned from the News of the World over previous phone hacking allegations, but has denied knowledge of the alleged activities.

Earlier Friday, Labour leader Ed Miliband called on Cameron to admit the "appalling error of judgment" he made in hiring Coulson and apologize for bringing him into the heart of government.

Cameron used his address to call for full inquiries into the News of the World phone hacking scandal and how it happened, urging a broad reform of the press.

He said the News of the World turmoil "is not just about journalists on one newspaper, it's not even just just about the press -- it's also about the police and about how politics works, and politicians too."

What was needed was a fresh start, he said, after decades in which politicians from both Labour and Conservative parties and the press grew too close.

"This is a wake-up call," he said. "It's on my watch that the music has stopped and I'm saying loud and clear that the relationship has to change in the future."

Oh Mike!  That is one of the best run on sentences ever!

And let us not forget the Wall Street Journal purchased in 2007 and whose current CEO, Les Hinton was also the CEO of News International in 2007 and at that time Hinton claimed he had conducted a thorough investigation of the scandal and determined that only Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter assigned to cover the royal family, was involved. (Alternet.org July 7, 2011)

One suspects Mr. Hinton was not using the OED when defining "thorough".  Leading one also to ponder on the "thoroughness" of the of the Wall Street Journal reporting after 2007 and the timing of the 2008 Stock Market crash - coincidence?

Oh please let it be so.

LB - hoping the b-Sky-b falls on him too

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For better or for worse, our company (The News Corporation Ltd.) is a reflection of my thinking, my character, my values.

     Rupert Murdoch

From 'The Scotsman' on Saturday morning:

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And here is a little hope for us all....

In a world of social media, corrupt corporations are done like dictators

Globe & Mail, July 7, 2011

.....

Unilever CEO Paul Polman told the audience that the events of the recent Arab Spring should serve as a cautionary tale for every executive overseeing a company or a brand.

“If they can bring down the Egyptian regime in weeks,” he said, “they can bring us down in nanoseconds.”

Or, at most, a few days. For it was only Monday evening when a British freelance magazine editor began calling for advertisers to “reconsider” their financial support of News of the World, the tabloid newspaper run by News International, of which Mr. Murdoch is the chairman and CEO. Ford Motor Co. was the first to withdraw its ads. Others, spurred by thousands of tweets and a rash of websites calling for action, announced a review of their advertising practices. By Thursday afternoon, the reviews were moot: News of the World would close.

Having smelled blood, the twitterers began calling for the heads of specific News International executives as well as investigations into the company’s ties with Britain’s Conservative Party.

The company has wrestled with activists before, notably over the last couple of years in the United States, as boycotts organized over the Internet threatened the profitability of some shows on its cable channel Fox News. The host Glenn Beck proved too incendiary for some advertisers, and last week the network ended his show.

But with the events in the Middle East serving as a case study for the power of social media, consumers and citizens in the West are also feeling empowered. And if they don’t have governments to target that are as corrupt as the Arab leaders, their latent and sometimes inchoate fury is channelled toward companies more easily than ever before.

Indeed, one day before Mr. Murdoch’s Cannes appearance, the Egyptian filmmaker Amr Salama took part in a panel at the advertising festival about the growing ability of people to challenge corporations.

“Businesses now really need to understand something that governments, dictators didn’t understand,” he said. “Some day you’ll be busted, anything you do will be known. Social media’s gonna get you, and if you’re lying we’re gonna know.”

That is hopeful. Corporates hold far more power than governments these days and they have gathered that power without consultation or real consent. It's been a gradual accumulation and consolidation while large masses of people have been distracted by entertainment and competitive consumerism. Elsewhere, Geo very tellingly reminds us that we used to be called "citizens" but now are referred to as "consumers"... similarly, patients (people in need of care) are now "clients (income streams)...  it's pervasive, it's everywhere... awareness has atrophied... people bitch about "politics" and "the government" without seeming to value or appreciate their own capacities, responsibilities and liabilities... 

If social media can light a few fires and waken the sleepers, perhaps humanity can recover it future. Murdoch's comeuppance in this very surprising way -- out of a corner the British Conservatives found they'd painted themselves into --  does hoist banners of hope and liberty.

It's not just social media it is the Internet in general.    It took 70 years after the development of the printing press for it's ability to challenge and change power structures, with the reformation.  The Internet is even bigger than the printing press,, and it is producing change faster and destroying the existing power structure.

this was a fascinating view on wikileaks.

http://www.thevirtualcircle.com/2010/12/wikileaks-this-is-just-the-beginning/

There is much agitation about Wikileaks on the chattering channels in the US and elsewhere. The politicians are up in arms, many commentators are aghast and the legal eagles are pontificating. The press is having a field day, at least as regards the stories it can publish from leaked material. But all of them seem to be missing the import of what is happening.

History is on the march.

There’s a strong analogy in this with the Diet of Worms and the doomed attempt by Pope Leo X to silence Martin Luther.

It’s A Far Wider Conflict Than You Imagine

​

The infowar is real, but the protagonists are not as I have thus far described them. The US may be sore right now with Wikileaks, but this is about power structures. The US government is merely one of the power structures that is under the threat of “looser transparency” Almost all governments are under the same threat. Corporations that base their business models on corruption and extreme lobbying are also under threat. It may even be that the current world economic systems (national currencies and the world banking system) will be challenged.

The last great info war was enabled by the introduction of printing. It gave rise to a whole host of effects that were unpredictable at the time, but logical in retrospect. Its revolutionary nature was not appreciated at all at the time. However the following consequences can be laid at its door:

The schism in the Roman Church, the fall of the monarchies of Europe, the rise of democracy; the introduction of paper money, modern banking, insurance, limited companies, stock markets and other financial markets and much greater international trade; the birth of newspapers, literacy, the publishing industry and universal education.

This infowar did not begin with Julian Assange and Wikileaks, it began with Tim Berners Lee.

The previous infowar did not begin with Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses, it began with Johannes Gutenberg.

Ultimately, it seems inevitable that other power structures will be drawn into battles in this war: the governments of China, Russia and Iran, for example.

I was wondering when this was going to come up on WC :3

I first heard aboot it from one of the sexiest men in the UK, Hugh Grant

Here's a New Statesman article by Hugh Grant.

Sociopath? Opportunist? "Just doing my job?"  Cynic?

Some Saint Moore

The vanity of that News of the World News culture is staggering!!! And the bedrock of their thinking is denial and deep, deep dishonesty... and that goes spiralling back to Rupert Murdoch's cyncical ethics-free greed.

It's almost as unworthy as Canada's position on asbestos exports.

I don't believe Murdoch was motivated just by greed.  I read a great article in the New York Times Murdoch's Fatal Flaw.  In it the author, Joe Nocera, describes Murdoch's introduction to the newspaper business.  Murdoch was relatively young and the process had a profound impact on the man he was to become.  Nocera writes:

Though World War II was long over, a lingering paper shortage meant that all the London newspapers were limited to eight pages a day. “Everything was boiled down to two paragraphs or so,” he recalled in the Esquire interview. “Brevity was important. Facts had to be right. And it was exciting.”

What particularly enthralled him was the brutal competition for stories — “like it was life or death.” An editor would issue a daily critique: “We had 156 stories today, and The Daily Mail had 164. Never let that happen again.”

[....]

Most people outgrow their twentysomething selves. As they age, they realize that the impulses and excitements of youth need to be tempered with the judgment, empathy and caution that come with maturity. They get a better feel for the lines that ought not to be crossed. Journalists, in particular, learn that there are stories that ought not to be pursued. Not every scoop is worth it.

Murdoch’s essential problem is that he never grew up. His instincts as a journalist are the same as when he was 22. “I love competition,” he said at the end of that Esquire interview. “And I want to win.”

We often make the assumption that people who rise to great power must possess intelligence but often it is a matter of instinct and sometimes that instinct is the arrested development of a ruthless school boy.  We give these individuals far more credit than they deserve.  They are, indeed, not like us because we have matured.

All along Murdoch's life he would have encountered mature people.  People who could have said "Stop.  Grow up" but they didn't.  Mesmerized by his power and wealth they enabled his adolescent need to be King of the School Yard.

I find it laughable that adults spend so much time condemning bully behaviour in children; develop zero tolerance practices in schools and playgrounds.  Yet, turn a blind eye to the same behaviours in adults.

Murdoch was not solely possessed by greed but by an even less noble motivation.  He was a bully boy who was never allowed to grow up.

 LB

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The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

     Wilhelm Stekel

I can't agree with you on this one, LB.

I don't think it's primarily greed or being a bully that drives Murdock.

He's excessively competitive - and winning is everything. He grew up in the newspaper industry (his father also owned newspapers) so he channeled his competitive drive in an area he understood.

(Such a pity his father wasn't a medical man!)

His wealth is a by-product of his competitive nature. It enabled him to see the shadow in man's nature and exploit it.

By that I mean the newspapers were his creation - but the readers and buyers were always out there.

They were there to see the humans fed to beasts at the Colosseum and executions by guillotine during the French Revolution.

Sadly, folks often prefer entertainment and spectacle to news.

By not wishing it so, doesn't make it disappear.

Man's shadow side will continue long after the demise of Murdoch - and there will always be another to take his place........

 Rupert's Mum is a lovely ol' gal!

Great commentary.

This is growing.  Reports such as the following will certain add to the decline of News Corp. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/world/europe/12hacking.html?_r=1&hp

LONDON — The scandal that has enveloped Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in Britain widened substantially on Monday with reports that two of his newspapers may have bribed police officers or used other potentially illegal methods to obtain information about Queen Elizabeth II and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Others on the police payroll have been bribed to use restricted cellphone-tracking technology to pinpoint the location of people sought by the papers in their restless pursuit of scoops, according to two former journalists for the tabloid shut on Sunday

......

The revelations about the intrusive activities directed at the queen and Mr. Brown have seized the headlines, driving home the realization that nobody, not even the most powerful and protected people in the land, has been beyond the reach of news organizations caught up in a relentless battle for lurid headlines and mass circulations. A wide segment of British society, from celebrities to ordinary families wrestling with personal tragedies, has been shown to be potentially vulnerable to the newspapers’ use of cellphone-hacking, identity theft, tracking technology and police bribery — perhaps even clandestine property break-ins, if some reports circulating in recent days are true.

There are many people motivated by competitiveness that do not end up ruthless like Murdoch.  For example Bill Gates was/is competitive, and while I don't agree with some of what he did - the assault on Corel and that abomination called Vista! - he did not run his company as a dictator.

There were/are other newspaper men, equally competitive and hard edged, but again knew there were boundaries that should not be crossed.  Somewhere along the line Murdoch crossed the line from competition to tyranny and when he did no one stepped in to stop him.

Exactly, wishing it doesn't make it disappear but denouncing the behaviour will at least slow its progression.  The Roman Colosseum is lying in ruins, a testament to what happens when ruthlessness goes unchecked and should be seen as reminder to those who fail to acknowledge the boundaries of the human condition.

Like alcoholism, over eating or any of the seven sins of humanity, the baseness of the human condition will exist.  The difference is whether it is exalted, elevated to a place of achievement, or whether it is placed at the bottom of the list of what our aspirations are to be.

Murdoch as of last week was being touted as "best businessmen and most accurate visionaries of his age".  Repeated enough it will make it so and creates the environment where no one steps in to stop the onslaught of degradation to the human condition.

LB

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The degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay.

     Thomas Merton

From 'The Sotsman' today:

-------------------------

-----------------

It's going to be interesting to see how far this goes beyond Murdoch: it's very likely that News of the World is not the only trash tabloid to have been into these antics... journalism in London is a pretty thick community, with individuals moving around the pond quite a bit.

I see that Rupert Murdoch allegedly has been a speaker at the Bohemian Grove Club.

Some people here have mentioned that group before.

Anonymous has another project against them.

Alex Jones has done stuff on them

Good ol Ralph Nader

The world definitely is stranger than I can imagine.  Thank g_ddess, makes it more interesting :3

There is room here for concern.  Backlash and knee jerk governmental response could put freedom of press in jeopardy.

There is no need for additional controls - everything the News of the World did was illegal.  The problem was no one was respecting or enforcing those laws.  The Corporation felt above them and bribed law enforcement to turn a blind eye.

This is why when corporations go bad, those at the very top must be held legally responsible.  So far not one of the executives has been held accountable.  Rebekah Brooks, current CEO, and Les Hinton, former CEO, are both still employed by Murdoch. 

All the underlings, people it could be and will be argued, that were "following orders" with fear for their jobs have been punished in some way or another.  One could say that is the price one pays for selling out one's integrity for a pay cheque, however when the poison is dripping down from the top the only cure is to cut off the head.

This Corporate invincibility has been allowed to go on far too long.  We have seen it with oil companies who through neglect and greed have destroyed environments and peoples' lives walk away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.  Bank and investment CEOs whose incompetence and avarice devastated savings accounts of citizens around the world were given golden parachutes instead of jail time or compensation.

If the average Joe vandalizes the land or steals a senior citizen's purse, they are jailed, ordered to compensate the victim or made to do community service.  Why should CEO's be treated any different.

LB

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Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

     Balise Pascal (1623-1662)

Well, well, well.  Something to give even a pessimist like me a little hope.  The Murdochs' attempt at owning British Sky Broadcasting (or BSkyB) has been stopped.  The British Parliament that was all ready to rubber stamp the sale two weeks ago declared it a no go on Wednesday.

And interestingly even the markets seem to agree, as the stock price of BSkyB rose after falling when the hacking scandal took off.

The Murdochs', however, appear to remain unremorseful and are still acting as if they should be above the law of the average citizen....

Murdoch defies summons by British Parliament over phone hack scandal     Globe & Mail, July 14, 2011

“If they have any shred of sense of responsibility or accountability for their position of power, then they should come and explain themselves before a select committee,” Mr. Clegg said in an interview with BBC radio.

Edit:  After posting this this morning, I just read in  the Globe that the Murdochs' have changed their mind and will be making an appearance at the hearing next week.  Another hopeful sign that mounting pressure and animosity towards News Corp practices is working.

A former News of the World journalist who made allegations of phone hacking against the paper has been found dead.

Sean Hoare who said the practice of phone-hacking was common by journalists to find stories was more extensive than the paper acknowledged when police first investigated hacking claims.

A spokesperson from Hertfordshire Police said, "at 10.40am today [Monday] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street.

"Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.

"The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."

And the Hackers are now on the loose....

Sun website hacked by LulzSec

As they say in the news biz, this story has legs and News International is on the run.

It continues to unfold.... The Scotsman, 17 August:

----------

I do hope the pressure is kept up on News International, but I pessimistically believe that the only way to make the news giants listen is through their pocket books.  It will take mega lawsuits and consumer boycotts to bring any real change.

LB

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The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money. 

      Author Unknown