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Media in the UK - Sh*t hitting the fan?

DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
edited July 2011 in Strut Central
This whole News of the World thing is pretty crazy. In so many ways... Terrible stuff.

Who will take a big portion of the blame in the end? People at paper? Coppers? The people who actually did the phone hacking? In the end, I think this is going to cost Murdoch a shit load of money.

Favorite bitchslap so far is the one Hugh grant laid down.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14052690
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  Comments

  • staxwaxstaxwax 1,474 Posts
    Hell yeah. This shit is snowballing. News of the world was paying off police and tapping into the voicemails of murder victims?? family members etc.
    Ford pulled their ads from the paper. Im hoping this will take Rupert Murdoch down, however unlikely.
  • neil_somethingneil_something 993 Posts
    Not to mention the fact that Prime Minister David Cameron is the neighbour, frequent dinner party guest and horse-riding buddy of Rebekah Brooks (chief executive of News International) and employed former New of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications director.

    Some real dubious connections there.

    And when the normally right-wing, pro-Tory press start going after you, you know something serious is up...

    From The Telegraph: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100095686/david-cameron-is-in-the-sewer-because-of-his-news-international-friends/

    From The Spectator: http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/7075673/what-the-papers-wont-say.thtml
  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
    It is kinda odd how not many people gave a fuck when it was celebrities and politicians. But now that it's murder victims and dead soldiers and their families, etc etc etc. I just can't imagine someone thought this was alright to go ahead and do.

    But this is getting huge. Not only are major advertizes pulling out. But they are talking about stopping Murdoch's attempt to take control of British Sky Broadcasting. Which was pretty much a done deal.

    There are going to be some major public inquiries into all of this.
  • BeatnicholasBeatnicholas 1,005 Posts
    the question remains, will murdoch still reign, how many hacks will feel the pain..
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    The Sheridan angle... this afternoon Tom Watson MP and Aamer Anwar, Tommy Sheridan's lawyer are holding a press conference somewhere in Glasgow where they will be revealing evidence aganst Coulson and Brooks, also I understand explaining why they are asking/have asked Strathclyde police to look into Andy Coulson and the evidence he gave at the Sheridan perjury trial when he said he had 'no knowledge' of paying police officers when questioned.


    Cameron may be the one who resigns when the dust finally settles. In a fair world...
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    On live tv Paul McCullan said that Rebbeka Brooks has a safe in her office full of cash for paying off the police.

    Rebekah Brooks confessed that '"We have paid the police for information in the past." eight years ago. This is unequivocally a criminal offence of corruption.
    NotW has released - according to its own timetable and its own selective criteria- evidence of phone-hacking, police payments and through civil settlements has 'confessed' to phone hacking - all criminal offences.


    It's all tied-in. Police daren't raid the offices and seize the evidence as it will lead straight back to them... and successive British governments from Thatcher to the present.
  • neil_somethingneil_something 993 Posts
    Duderonomy said:
    Rebekah Brooks confessed that '"We have paid the police for information in the past." eight years ago. This is unequivocally a criminal offence of corruption.
    Here's the clip, for those who haven't seen it:


    And here's her bullshit retraction in April:
    As can be seen from the transcript, I was responding to a specific line of questioning on how newspapers get information. My intention was simply to comment generally on the widely-held belief that payments had been made in the past to police officers.

    If, in doing so, I gave the impression that I had knowledge of any specific cases, I can assure you that this was not my intention.
    from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/11/rebekah-brooks-letter-to-mps
  • neil_somethingneil_something 993 Posts
    And now it looks as though Andy Coulson may have perjured himself about that very issue:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14062867
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    If this doesn't change anything, I think I'll give up on democracy...


    In the Lords Lady Rawlings, a government whip, has just indicated that the government will not block the News Corporation takeover of BSkyB. Jeremy Hunt has been satisfied by the assurances that he has been offered, she said

    What exactly would it take for somebody to fail the ludicrous 'fit & proper person' test?
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    If the BSkyB merger goes ahead Murdoch will make a killing because the share price has now dropped by ??3 to ??8.

    Has he set up the whole farce?
  • Mr_Lee_PHDMr_Lee_PHD 2,042 Posts
    I bet hardly any schitt will hit the fan.

    Because so many big names are implicated, a crazy amount of schitt is going to get swept under the carpet and then some other crap will be sensationalised to distract everybody.

    The search for a scapegoat is underway to get the heat off the powers that be.
  • BeatnicholasBeatnicholas 1,005 Posts
    Mr_Lee_PHD said:

    The search for a scapegoat is underway to get the heat off the powers that be.
    hmmm well.. actually thats the trouble. News Corp are pushing the heat towards Coulson.. Coulson was Cameron's communications guy. The only way to push that back is to redirect it onto Brooks. Brooks is one of his best friends. So Cameron is the one who will be implicated, he is fucked whichever scapegoat takes the blame. Meanwhile the Tory party is still in bed with Murdoch whilst this scandal is developing. they will have to fundamentally rethink their relationship, and put some distance there. (as labour will as well - after all it was Tony Blair that started all this murdoch-wooing)

    This schitt is going to spiral and spiral and spiral.. all we need now is some finger pointing at other tabloids in the murdoch network.. ideally The Sun.

    ultimately, this will be the corruption story of the decade. there are so many different implications - that the police did nothing to investigate the claims properly - that tommy sheridan was wrongfully imprisoned - that princess diana's phone was being hacked - that the tabloids have for years, done whatever they wanted to get to the story, with total disregard for the law - it's going to change press in this country for good. and that's not a bad thing at all.
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    The Evening Standard reports that Met police "received more than ??100,000 in unlawful payments from senior journalists and executives at the News of the World", and that arrests will be made within days

    Hand-cuffs at last!

    From the comments section of the Guardian:


    Having served Queen and Country for many years, investigating crime, I am completely astounded that this enquiry has been handed to Police after A) They bungled it first time around and B) that undoubtedly there are Police officers and other governement workers who have taken payments for information.

    It is completely beyond the realms of possibility that 1 private investigator and 1 reporter accessed all of this information about high profile people by simply "blagging."

    The key to this is what organisation holds personal data such as home addresses, email accounts and phone numbers on celebrities, royalty, victims of crime and senior Police officers? There can only be one such source of accurate and otherwise closely held / guarded data.

    There are 43 organistaions in this country that are a one stop shop for addresses, car indexes, phone numbers, emails and so on. All of these 43 organisations have one thing in common. They are all Police forces.

    So far, it would appear that people in London, Cambridgeshiire, Surrey, Wales and so on have been targetted.

    So is this a "small number" of Metropolitan officers, a cultivated network of officers across the UK or a group of more senior officers with more wide ranging access than the rank and file? Perhaps it's all three?

    Whatever it is the lack of action to cut out corrupt officers and deal with them speaks volumes. The Met has now sloped it's shoulders and deferred to a quango and in the meantime public confidence in the Police continues to dip.

    Where there is suspicion of a crime the Police have powers to arrest and question. There is clearly suspicion here, on a national level, about specified journalists and Police officers although the latter have not yet been apparently named.

    It does appear as if Police are scared to go where the evidence takes them and it does appear that there is some favour, lack of fervour and ill will in play.

    When are we going to see positive action taken in respect of corruption, malfeasance, information, perverting the course of justice and bribery offences???

    When? When all the available evidence has been destroyed, defaced or concealed is my best guess.

  • The-gafflerThe-gaffler 2,190 Posts
    Ulysses31nicholas said:
    the question remains, will murdoch still reign, how many hacks will feel the pain..

    Hard to discern.
  • neil_somethingneil_something 993 Posts
    Ulysses31nicholas said:
    after all it was Tony Blair Margaret Thatcher that started all this murdoch-wooing
    Fixed that for you.
  • BeatnicholasBeatnicholas 1,005 Posts
    neil_something said:
    Ulysses31nicholas said:
    after all it was Tony Blair Margaret Thatcher that started all this murdoch-wooing
    Fixed that for you.

    very true..

    b/w nice piece on NYT analysing the impact on murdoch, with a potted history of previous (in comparison micro-sized) scandals - including the "obama is racist" fox news one (a soulstrut classic) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/business/media/hacking-scandal-poses-new-threat-to-news-corporations-image.html?pagewanted=2&hp;
  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    DOR said:
    It is kinda odd how not many people gave a fuck when it was celebrities and politicians. But now that it's murder victims and dead soldiers and their families, etc etc etc. I just can't imagine someone thought this was alright to go ahead and do.

    But this is getting huge. Not only are major advertizes pulling out. But they are talking about stopping Murdoch's attempt to take control of British Sky Broadcasting. Which was pretty much a done deal.

    There are going to be some major public inquiries into all of this.

    Back when it was first breaking, and Coulson/NI thought they could just style it out, I remember saying to a few friends that it wouldn't surprise me if this story eventually led to a murdered kid or something equally terrible, and the corresponding investigations or trials being somehow compromised. The widespread indifference towards how it was affecting celebrities and politicians might have been down to the public reservoir of good will towards those sections of society, or specific individuals, being a bit dry (MPs on the fiddle, cunty popstars/footballers, etc). But it's now painfully clear that this shit was (is?) standard practice, and almost certainly not just at NI, hence the relative silence on the topic from Trinity Mirror and Express Group titles.

    Meanwhile, in Tin Foil Hat Corner, BSkyB shares have tanked, which seems awfully convenient for anyone interested in picking up the 61% they don't already own...

    It's funny how people would always worry that the government wanted to spy on them and destroy their lives, when all along it was the newspapers they should have been worrying about. And instead of picking on people who represent a threat to national security or The British Way Of Life, their targets are the likes of you and me, or people to whom something terrible has happened. Essentially, it's the sort of pernicious conspiracy that you find in the plot of a Bond film, but instead of it being incredibly cunning, involving underground lairs and stuff, it's just amounted to hacks doing something really really simple: something that only a real scumbag would do.

    And that, in a nutshell, was their cover: the trusting belief of most people that nobody would stoop so low. Well, some of us may have always had our suspicions, but now we know. Nice one, Fourth Estate.

    And the implications of widespread police corruption, and how high up it goes, don't bear mentioning. Which is handy, since hardly anyone's said a word about what might yet turn out to be the biggest, most damaging scandal of the lot.
  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    It is posts like that that make Doc one of my all time favourite strutters.
  • neil_somethingneil_something 993 Posts
    So the News of the World is being shut down?!

    Does this mean News International/Rupert Murdoch would rather sack an entire newsroom full of staff rather than fire Rebekah Brooks...? Classy.
  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    James Murdoch's just closed the News Of The World down. The Slum is moving to a 7-day operation.
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    Hah.
    Why oh why oh why aren't the old bill round there collecting evidence?


    Can The Sun be next?
  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
    PM is pals with Brooks... Both sides of the bench are advised by Murdoch's press people. Far reaching problem of police taking payments for info and bribes. Then police are investigating themselves.

    I have a feeling this is going to drag on for years and never be resolved with just a couple of low level guys taking the blame.
  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    I knew you Brits were corrupt. Ever since Star Wars, I knew. Bad guys talk Brit.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    They couldn't throw Brooks under the bus without throwing Cameron under it as well. To paraphrase Ordell Robbie, given the choice between an office full of hacks and the revenue of a few thousand newsagents and me, you can best believe - it ain't gonna be me.
  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    Let the shredding, burning and wiping of harddrives commence.

    This is quite a interesting tactic by the Murdochs, they obviously value Brooks & the BSkyB deal > NOTW, and all their staff. (although they'll probably just be re-branded under part of the new The Sun.)

    I guess Brooks probably has dirt on all of them (and not just from hacking their phones arf arf) so they wont want to piss her off, cause it would save her skin if she came out against them all, guess they want to keep her close.
  • neil_somethingneil_something 993 Posts
    lucky they merged their daily and sunday titles last month.... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/28/newsinternational-rebekahwade
  • neil_somethingneil_something 993 Posts
    ha! a few people have been pointing out that www.thesunonsunday.co.uk (&.com) were registered two days ago:

    http://webwhois.nic.uk/cgi-bin/whois.cgi?query=thesunonsunday.co.uk

    coincidence?
  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/7075673/what-the-papers-wont-say.thtml
  • neil_somethingneil_something 993 Posts
    nzshadow said:

    posted that above.

    the other tabloids should be worried.
  • Garcia_VegaGarcia_Vega 2,428 Posts
    How will this effect Page 3?
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