[LINK] I asked about ethics and Rupert called me a wanker

[Kim Holburn]

Murdoch rundown:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/i-asked-about-ethics-and-rupert-called-me-a-wanker-20110709-1h7tj.html

> I asked about ethics and Rupert called me a wanker
> 
> Bruce Guthrie
> 
> July 10, 2011
> Opinion
> 
> IN 1988, while attending a conference of News Corporation editors in Aspen, Colorado, I made the mistake of raising the thorny issue of journalistic ethics. The proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, was not amused.
> 
> In short order, Murdoch, who was hosting the session, turned red, then purple, as I repeatedly asked a senior executive from his London paper The Sun whether the publication had any ethical framework. It didn't, the paper's news editor finally admitted. In most media companies that admission might have earned the executive a rebuke. But instead, I copped it, with Murdoch later dismissing me as a ''Fairfax wanker''. (For the record, I wasn't at that point; I became one 12 months later.)
> 
> I have reflected on the episode many times since, particularly this week as the News of the World phone hacking scandal went from bad to worse and then putrid.
> 
> I left that conference in Colorado more than 20 years ago concerned that Murdoch saw ethics or, at least, the discussion of them, as an inconvenience that got in the way of the newspaper business. If that really is the case, should we be entirely surprised that the phone hacking scandal played out at one of his titles and that it ended in its forced closure?
> 
> I can't recall a bigger journalistic disgrace. Stephen Glass from The New Republic and Jayson Blair of The New York Times brought shame to their publications by inventing sources and quotes. The Hitler Diaries, by a couple of forgers, were the work of individuals. The NOTW scandal appears systemic and endemic.
> 
> There seems little doubt that the closure of the paper is a cynical public relations stunt designed to save Murdoch's bid for the British satellite TV broadcaster, BSkyB. In one apparently ruthless stroke, News removes some of the stench and clears the way for the company to turn the six-day-a-week Sun into a seven-day operation. It's inconceivable the company would vacate the Sunday market in Britain, given the NOTW sells in excess of 2.5 million copies a week. But this could deepen anger with the company in Britain following revelations the NOTW hacked into the mobile phone of a missing teenage girl, later found to be murdered.
> 
> Throughout the whole messy saga, the Murdoch machine has been at pains to suggest any malpractice was the work of rogue elements -  first it was a rogue private investigator, then a rogue reporter, now a rogue newspaper. But fewer and fewer people are buying that. It seems inconceivable that no one at a very senior level has yet paid with their job. Rebekah Brooks, a former editor now in charge of Murdoch's British operation, seems to have the boss's backing and he's not for changing. This is what happens when companies are run like personal fiefdoms. In the absence of any real shareholder pressure, people like Brooks get to hang on.
> 
> Ultimately, Rupert Murdoch has cut off an arm of his British operation in order to save what remains. There is mounting evidence the problem isn't confined to a limb; it infects the entire body of his company.


http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/10/murdoch-s-watergate.html

> Murdoch's Watergate?
> 
> His anything-goes approach has spread through journalism like a contagion. Now it threatens to undermine the influence he so covets.

.....

> "In the end, what you sow is what you reap," said this same executive. "Now Murdoch is a victim of the culture that he created. It is a logical conclusion, and it is his people at the top who encouraged lawbreaking and hacking phones and condoned it."
> 
> Could Murdoch eventually be criminally charged? He has always surrounded himself with trusted subordinates and family members, so perhaps it is unlikely. Though Murdoch has strenuously denied any knowledge at all of the hacking and bribery, it's hard to believe that his top deputies at the paper didn't think they had a green light from him to use such untraditional reportorial methods. Investigators are already assembling voluminous records that demonstrate the systemic lawbreaking at News of the World, and Scotland Yard seems to believe what was happening in the newsroom was endemic at the highest levels at the paper and evident within the corporate structure. Checks have been found showing tens of thousands of dollars of payments at a time.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/08/james-murdoch-criminal-charges-phone-hacking

> James Murdoch could face criminal charges on both sides of the Atlantic
> 
> As phone hacking scandal leaves News Corp open to prosecution, James Murdoch looks less likely to inherit empire
> 
> James Murdoch may face charges in both the UK and US. Photograph: Murdo Macleod
> James Murdoch and News Corp could face corporate legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic that involve criminal charges, fines and forfeiture of assets as the escalating phone-hacking scandal risks damaging his chances of taking control of Rupert Murdoch's US-based media empire.
> 
> As deputy chief operating officer of News Corp – the US-listed company that is the ultimate owner of News International (NI), which in turn owns the News of the World, the Times, the Sunday Times and the Sun – the younger Murdoch has admitted he misled parliament over phone hacking, although he has stated he did not have the complete picture at the time. There have also been reports that employees routinely made payments to police officers, believed to total more than £100,000, in return for information.
> 
> The payments could leave News Corp – and possibly James Murdoch himself – facing the possibility of prosecution in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) – legislation designed to stamp out bad corporate behaviour that carries severe penalties for anyone found guilty of breaching it – and in the UK under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 which outlaws the interception of communications.


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Kim Holburn
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