201 replies to this topic

[Todd Gross]

The latest:
Hacking Update: UK Might Seek Tighter Media Controls In Wake Of Scandal

The fallout from News Corp’s phone-hacking scandal continued to reverberate today. U.K. Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt said he was backing new legislation that would tighten controls on cross-media ownership. Under the proposal, rolled out at the Royal Television Society Convention in Cambridge, politicians would be barred from approving major media deals and inquiries on media plurality could be launched by regulators Ofcom and the Competition Commission without the trigger of a takeover bid. Hunt said that News Corp’s near takeover of BSkyB in July, abandoned in the scandal’s wake, convinced him changes were needed. “I was very conscious in the recent BSkyB bid that however fairly I ran the process, people were always going to question my motives,” he said. News of the UK proposal comes one day after the Australian government promised an inquiry into the country’s media after politicians complained that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp owns too many newspapers. Calls have been growing for an Australian inquiry into News Corp since the New York-based company closed London’s News of the World in July over the scandal, after accusations its journalists had illegally eavesdropped on people as they searched for stories. News Corp owns 70% of Australia’s newspapers.

Also today, the judge leading the UK phone-hacking investigation said that Hugh Grant and J.K. Rowling were among dozens of celebrities given permission to participate in a top-level inquiry into hacking by British journalists. Judge Brian Leveson gave “core participant” status — qualifying them or their lawyers to examine witnesses — to politicians, celebrities and the families of murder victims “who have, or may have, suffered as a consequence of press activity.” British Prime Minister David Cameron set up the Leveson Inquiry in response to public fury at the News of the World newspaper, which shut down this summer. Police are investigating phone-hacking and related bribery allegations, and lawmakers are conducting separate probes.

News Corp’s Chase Carey Says His Role “Hasn’t Changed” With Hacking Scandal

News Corp COO Chase Carey continued the company’s effort to persuade Wall Street that all’s fine with its core media businesses — even as it struggles with multiple investigations into the News of the World scandal. “My role really hasn’t changed,” he said at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference. “As time goes on the issues will get better flushed out, particularly some of the issues beyond the UK. … We’re going to cooperate fully and take the appropriate steps.” Carey said he “won’t get into hypotheticals” when asked if there were specific steps the company could take to put the scandal behind it. Nor did he indicate whether the company might split its newspapers from the growing entertainment and cable properties. ”We don’t have a plan to do so,” he said adding that “it’s an historical foundation for the business, but that doesn’t mean you don’t look at it with a fresh eye.”

Echoing the message other media execs delivered today, he says the national ad market “continues to be robust.” Local sales are slowing, but could pick up next year as political ads kick in.

[Todd Gross]

Can News Corp Escape Scandals Unscathed?

If you look at News Corp’s stock price since July 4 you might wonder whether you’re peering into a parallel universe. This is a period durng which the company’s been battered by damaging revelations from the News Of The World phone hacking and police bribery scandals. But investors seem unconcerned. After an initial dive, News Corp stock rebounded and now almost exactly matches the performance of the overall market — the company and the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index both are down about 10%. It’s easily explained. Investors like all the cash Rupert Murdoch’s cable networks generate. They’re delighted by News Corp’s begrudging agreement to repurchase $5B of its stock. Shares also are relatively cheap: Many investors still fear that Murdoch will make a crazy acquisition – like he did in 2007 when he spent $5B for Dow Jones. News Corp trades for about 10 times expected earnings while Viacom is close to 13.5, Comcast is about 12, and Disney’s around 11.3. So News Corp is a smart buy if you believe that the scandal will force Murdoch to placate investors, and will blow over before it seriously damages the company’s finances. Similar cases often do.

But this one probably won’t — and it will be interesting to see how long it takes before investors become frightened. Investigations into possible lawbreaking at News Corp are just getting started. That’s a sobering thought when you consider how much has already happened since July 4 when The Guardian broke the scandal open with its report that NOTW in 2002 tampered with voicemails of a missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, later found murdered. Murdoch had to abandon his $12B effort to buy the 61% of BSkyB he doesn’t already own. Many UK officials want News Corp to sell off its holdings in the satellite power. Meanwhile Murdoch probably won’t be able to turn News Corp over to his son James. Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee says it will ask him to testify again as members bear down on allegations that James tried to cover up the extent of NOTW’s lawbreaking. Scotland Yard, embarrassed by reports that police accepted bribes to help NOTW phone hackers, is working the case hard and has already made 16 arrests. Potentially damaging evidence is still surfacing: Last week News International said that it found “many tens of thousands” of emails and other documents about NOTW. Former News International CEO and NOTW editor Rebekah Brooks – one of the people who has been arrested – is among the many witnesses who’ll testify at a UK judicial inquiry that’s just beginning. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether NOTW hacked the phones of families of 9/11 victims. And News Corp faces dozens of civil suits. Hacking victims want to be compensated for their lost privacy. In addition, many shareholders want company directors to atone for rubber stamping Murdoch initiatives that seemed to put his family’s interests ahead of investors’. Examples include News Corp’s $675M purchase of Elisabeth Murdoch’s TV company Shine – critics say the price was way too high — as well as the company’s failure to investigate NOTW’s hacking. Investors will have a chance to vent their anger at News Corp’s annual meeting on Oct. 21: The company plans to fight a shareholder resolution that would strip Murdoch of the chairman title by requiring that the job be held by an independent board member.

We’re already seeing some cracks in the consensus view that the scandal just affects a relatively small and isolated part of News Corp. Influential media analyst Laura Martin of Needham & Co recently downgraded company shares to “Hold” from “Buy.” She says that the impact of the scandal will “get worse before it gets better” in part because “litigation costs will be a new meaningful cost center for (News Corp) for the foreseeable future.” It’s also interesting to see potential News Corp allies tip-toe away. New York State’s Comptroller recently bailed out of a $27M contract with a News Corp education service unit saying that “the record remains incomplete with respect to the vendor responsibility issues.” In other words, the state doesn’t like the way things smell at News Corp. That’s also the most plausible explanation for Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers co-founder Tom Perkins’ announcement that he’ll leave the News Corp board when his term expires in October. His decision means the board will lose one of the only members who’s respected by corporate governance experts. Perkins won them over in 2006: He resigned from the Hewlett-Packard board after then-Chairman Patricia Dunn’s let security experts secretly track directors’ personal phone calls to find out who had leaked information to the press. Murdoch likely was grateful for Perkins’ credibility when he said in July that “there’s no reason to believe” News Corp’s top management had lied about the NOTW scandal. Considering how much Murdoch needs that kind of support, it’s hard to believe Perkins’ glib explanation that the scandal had nothing to do with his decision to leave — that the board doesn’t need someone other than Murdoch who’s over 80.

The Murdoch family also appears to be growing more concerned about the scandal. Nobody squawked several weeks ago when News Corp directors decided that executives were doing a splendid job: The board awarded the top five execs $115.2M in compensation for the year that ended in June. That’s up 43.7% from last year for a period when the stock price rose 24.5%. But James apparantly changed his mind about his pay by late August, when the information was released. Citing “the current controversy surrounding News Of The World,” he said that he would decline his $6M bonus. That was a potent symbol. No need to feel sorry for James, though: Even without the bonus, he wound up with $11.9M — a 15.8% raise vs 2010.

That annual meeting could be fun to attend.

[Sanjay]

Someone needs to film it.

Also looks likely that Murdoch Jr will be asked back in front of the committee due to the 'discrepancies' in his answers from last time - especially since others have come out and contradicted what he'd said.

[Todd Gross]

Someone needs to film it.

I wonder if some pissed off stockholders will film it with their phones and post it to YouTube?

[Todd Gross]

Murdoch close to payout to hacking victim's family

LONDON — Rupert Murdoch's company said Monday that it is in advanced compensation talks with the family of a murdered teenager whose phone was hacked by the now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

News International, Murdoch's British newspaper division, said it hoped to reach agreement soon with the family of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, whose voicemail messages were accessed by scoop-seeking journalists after she disappeared in 2002. She was later found murdered.

In a statement, News International said it was "in advanced negotiations with the Dowler family regarding their compensation settlement."

"No final agreement has yet been reached, but we hope to conclude the discussions as quickly as possible," it said.

The company would not disclose details, but the BBC and Sky News reported that it has offered to pay the family $2 million pounds ($3.2 million), and to donate 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) to charity.

Dowler family lawyer Mark Lewis did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment.

The revelation by The Guardian newspaper in July that the News of the World had hacked into Dowler's voicemail horrified Britain and triggered a widening scandal that forced resignations of senior police officers and executives of Murdoch's global media empire.

The newspaper is accused of listening to the girl's voicemail and deleting several messages, giving her parents false hope that she was alive and potentially damaging the police effort to find her.

A former nightclub bouncer was convicted earlier this year of murdering the teenager.

In July, 80-year-old media mogul Murdoch met the Dowler family at a London hotel to make a personal apology.

Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old News of the World in July. News International has already made financial payments to some phone hacking victims, including actress Sienna Miller, who received 100,000 pounds ($160,000). A multimillion-dollar payment to the Dowlers would be by far the largest settlement to date.

Murdoch's News Corp. — whose assets include the Wall Street Journal, movie studio 20th Century Fox and three British newspapers — has announced a review of standards and set aside millions of dollars to compensate victims of illegal eavesdropping.

It faces lawsuits from dozens of claimants, including former soccer star Paul Gascoigne, interior designer Kelly Hoppen and actor Jude Law.

Police have arrested more than a dozen former News of the World journalists and executives in their ongoing investigation of eavesdropping and police bribery at Murdoch's media empire.

The only people charged so far are former News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who were jailed in 2007 for eavesdropping on the phones of royal staff.

The British government has also set up an independent inquiry led by a judge to examine media ethics and relations between politicians, police and the press.

I think it is past the point where they can buy silence. This is all damage control.

[David Meadows]

The newspaper this morning said the Dowler family is holding out for £3.5 million, which if true has actually made me lose all sympathy and respect for them.

"You've made me so upset, £2 million isn't going to fix it. I'm so upset that it will need £3.5 million."

That's an awfully specific kind of upsetness

[steveuk]

I disagree.

Murdoch is all about the scorecard; he cares about money and power. If you want to get back at him for something you take him for as much of those things as you can.

Lawyers come up with the figures and fight it out, that's what they are there for.

[David Chapman]

The newspaper this morning said the Dowler family is holding out for £3.5 million, which if true has actually made me lose all sympathy and respect for them.

"You've made me so upset, £2 million isn't going to fix it. I'm so upset that it will need £3.5 million."

That's an awfully specific kind of upsetness

For "the Dowler family", read "the Dowler family's lawyers, who get 20% of the settlement".

Also consider that to the Dowlers, their getting the money may not be as important as News International losing it. Corporations cannot feel remorse. The only way you can make them feel bad about something they've done is if they lose money for doing it, and the more they lose the worse they feel.

[garjones]

I disagree.

Murdoch is all about the scorecard; he cares about money and power. If you want to get back at him for something you take him for as much of those things as you can.

Lawyers come up with the figures and fight it out, that's what they are there for.

I agree, it's the only tool they have. Sure it can look like greed to say $2m isn't enough but upping the sum is the only way to express that they should do more and make News Int. pay.

If it were a criminal conviction and they were asking for 15 years instead of 10 everyone would understand but that isn't available to them.

I also read a sizeable proportion of the settlement is going to a charity. .

[Nicholas Taggart]

Andy Coulson To Sue News Group Newspapers

Former News Of The World editor Andy Coulson is suing News Group newspapers, his former employer.

Mr Coulson is taking legal action over their decision to stop paying his legal fees.

Papers were reportedly served at the High Court "regarding the termination of the payment for his legal action."

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16076041

[Adam Wednesdays]

So how long do we think it will be for Coulson to take a plea and start ratting out News Corp? I really don't know what they're thinking by not paying his fees when he knows all the dirt.

[Todd Gross]

So how long do we think it will be for Coulson to take a plea and start ratting out News Corp? I really don't know what they're thinking by not paying his fees when he knows all the dirt.

After they cut Mulcaire loose, it was only a matter of time before others got cut off from the News Corp teat.

News Corp is in a no-win situation with this:
- Continue to pay and it looks like they are hiding something bad and get more public outrage and government pressure
- Stop paying and risk them spilling the beans and doing more damage to the company

They fucked themselves on this.

[garjones]

Yes as Todd says they are stuck, they pay the fees and they buy some loyalty but also they pay the fees and everyone assumes guilt and cover up.

It was the key part of the questioning in Parliament where they asked why News Corp was paying the legal fees for Mulcaire who is a convicted criminal that was sent to prison. James Murdoch had no choice, with tens of millions watching him live on TV, but to say they would stop.

[Todd Gross]

Yes as Todd says they are stuck, they pay the fees and they buy some loyalty but also they pay the fees and everyone assumes guilt and cover up.

It was the key part of the questioning in Parliament where they asked why News Corp was paying the legal fees for Mulcaire who is a convicted criminal that was sent to prison. James Murdoch had no choice, with tens of millions watching him live on TV, but to say they would stop.

Who else is still on some sort of payroll/compensation?

Is the Ginger woman still being paid?

[garjones]

Who else is still on some sort of payroll/compensation?

Is the Ginger woman still being paid?

I don't think so but she left with a very generous payout from all reports.

[Todd Gross]

Oh, shit!
Reporter Threatens to Name Names in Phone Hacking Scandal

LONDON — A reporter who is among the 16 people arrested and then freed on bail in the phone hacking case that has shaken Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in Britain warned his former bosses on Friday that he planned to break his silence on the scandal in a civil court case. He said that he would reveal those who were responsible for the phone hacking.

The reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, 49, who was the chief reporter for the now-defunct tabloid The News of the World, gave the warning in a statement issued through his lawyers in connection with his wrongful-dismissal lawsuit against News International, the British newspaper arm of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation. Mr. Thurlbeck was one of the first people arrested by Scotland Yard in a renewed investigation of the phone hacking this year, but he has denied publicly having played any part in the illegal interception of cellphone voicemails.

Mr. Thurlbeck remained on the News International payroll into September, when he was fired. He has accused the company of having unfairly dismissed him for being a whistleblower. In his statement on Friday, he suggested that both sides “retain a dignified silence until we meet face to face in a public tribunal,” a hearing on his suit.

“There is so much I could have said publicly to the detriment of News International but so far have chosen not to,” he said. “At the length, truth will out.”

News International declined to comment on Mr. Thurlbeck’s statement.

With his statement, Mr. Thurlbeck appeared to have joined other current or former News International employees who have shown a readiness to contradict one another in public about newsroom wrongdoing at The News of the World — in particular, who authorized the phone hacking, who at the newspaper and at News International knew about it, and when.

The discrepancies apparently in accounts given this summer by Murdoch executives to a parliamentary committee investigating the scandal will be explored further in additional hearings called by the committee this fall.

This is on the verge of going thermonuclear very soon, isn't it?

[Todd Gross]

Rupert's headaches continue...
Phone hacking: Shaun Russell among those suing News International

The father of Josie Russell, who as a young girl survived a horrific attack in which her mother and sister were killed, is among a raft of new claimants suing News International for alleged phone hacking.

Shaun Russell is one of dozens of alleged victims who are suing the News of the World's parent company, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

Russell's daughter Josie survived the 1996 attack by Michael Stone in which her mother, Lin, and younger sister, Megan, were murdered. The murders and the subsequent hunt for the killer were the subject of intense media interest.

Thirteen new legal writs, from claimants including the Sarah's law campaigner Sara Payne and 7/7 hero Paul Dadge, were issued against News Group Newspapers company on Monday , taking the number of civil actions now under way to more than 60. Dadge is the man whose image was published across the world after he was photographed helping victims of the 2005 tube bombings. Another 24 writs were filed last week.

The scale of the litigation now facing the News of the World's owner could force the company to make payments that far exceed the £20m it has set aside for compensating phone-hacking victims who can demonstrate that they have a strong case.

It emerged in July that a mobile phone given to Sara Payne had been targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was employed by the paper. Payne campaigned with the NoW to change the law so that parents could obtain access to information about paedophiles following the murder of her eight-year-old daughter, Sarah.

Payne's representatives indicated at the time that she was unlikely to sue the title. She wrote an article praising the paper in its final issue, which was published the week before it emerged she had also been targeted by Mulcaire.

Others who have also now begun legal action include Dannii Minogue and her brother Brendan, Princess Diana's former butler Paul Burrell, James Blunt, Pete Doherty, the actor Sadie Frost, and Lance Gerrard-Wright, the ex-husband of Ulrika Jonsson, who is also suing the paper.

The rash of lawsuits has been triggered by a deadline set by Mr Justice Vos, the judge who is hearing a number of phone-hacking cases that are well advanced. They include actions being brought by Steve Coogan and the football agent Sky Andrew, which are due to come to trial in the new year.

The media lawyer Niri Shan, of Taylor Wessing, said victims who filed claims before a trial scheduled for January could benefit because there was "a level of uncertainty about what the court would award in January.

He added: "News Corp may overpay to get rid of claimants."

If the claimants win in January and they are awarded damages by Vos those payouts will be used to assess the level of future payments to hacking victims.

Also among the high-profile names in the 63 writs now listed are the former Downing Street communications chief Alastair Campbell and politicians including Lord Prescott, Simon Hughes, Denis MacShane, Chris Bryant, Mark Oaten, Tessa Jowell and George Galloway.

There are also writs in the names of George Best's son, Calum, Ashley Cole, the rugby player Gavin Henson and the jockey Kieren Fallon.

Some of the writs involve more than one person. Charlotte Church is joined in her lawsuit by her mother, Maria, and stepfather James.

This reflects the fact that Mulcaire typically made a note of phone numbers and other personal information belonging to the relatives and friends of the celebrities he allegedly targeted.

The overwhelming majority of the writs have been issued jointly against News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that published the now defunct News of the World, and Mulcaire.

But one, filed by the singer Cornelia Crisa, also names the former NoW chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, who chose to break his silence on the phone-hacking affair last week in sensational fashion.

It is the first phone-hacking lawsuit to target Thurlbeck, who was arrested and bailed in April for alleged hacking but has not been charged.

Thurlbeck said: "As I said last week, the truth will out. But this will be in the law courts and at a public tribunal." He has started legal proceedings against News Group claiming that he was unfairly dismissed.

The number and range of the claims has taken some legal observers by surprise. One of the lawyers acting for some of the hacking victims, Mark Lewis, pointed out: "So far, fewer than 5% of the victims of Glenn Mulcaire have been notified."

Scotland Yard detectives working on Operation Weeting, which is investigating allegations of widespread phone hacking at the News of the World, are in the process of contacting nearly 4,000 people whose names are listed in notebooks seized from Mulcaire's home in a 2006 raid. Mulcaire and Clive Goodman, the News of the World's former royal editor, were jailed for hacking in January 2007.

Lewis said: "When the final tally takes place, we will see thousands of claims and more than one paper."

He added that, as the number of claimants grows, estimates that Murdoch's company would need at least £100m to settle such claims looks like "a serious underestimate".

Several litigants, including the former Sky Sports commentator Andy Gray and the actor Sienna Miller, have already received payments of tens of thousands of pounds from News Group.

The typical payment is likely to be around £50,000, but some will far exceed that. For example, the company has already offered to pay one of Lewis's clients – the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's family – £3m.

[Adam Wednesdays]

After they cut Mulcaire loose, it was only a matter of time before others got cut off from the News Corp teat.

News Corp is in a no-win situation with this:
- Continue to pay and it looks like they are hiding something bad and get more public outrage and government pressure
- Stop paying and risk them spilling the beans and doing more damage to the company

They fucked themselves on this.

Oh, I understand what the pressures are. But as long as they keep paying these people's way and hold it over them to keep them from talking, then the public and the government can be as outraged as they want, but for NewsCorp it's the best chance to keep the facts off the record. Public and government pressure fade over time; if NewsCorp had just made sure they all kept their mouths shut and tossed some extra money their way, they just would have had to weather some storms that would fade once the next big scandal came along.

Now, by cutting Mulcaire and others loose, they're practically guaranteeing that they're going to start spilling. And not just to spite the company that promised to protect them, but to cover their own asses and get plea deals now that they no longer have the NewsCorps Lawyer Corps and their inexhaustable resources behind them.


Don't get me wrong, I'm GLAD that they stopped paying for Mulcaire and Coulson's legal bills. I WANT those smarmy bastards to turn on the Murdochs and NewsCorp and start naming names. I'm just surprised that NewsCorp folded so quickly just to score some meager short-term PR, especially with what it'll probably cost them.

Oh, shit!
Reporter Threatens to Name Names in Phone Hacking Scandal

This is on the verge of going thermonuclear very soon, isn't it?

This is gonna be fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun...

[garjones]

Oh, I understand what the pressures are. But as long as they keep paying these people's way and hold it over them to keep them from talking, then the public and the government can be as outraged as they want, but for NewsCorp it's the best chance to keep the facts off the record. Public and government pressure fade over time; if NewsCorp had just made sure they all kept their mouths shut and tossed some extra money their way, they just would have had to weather some storms that would fade once the next big scandal came along.

They tried but the context is James Murdoch was driven into a corner by the parliamentary committee in front of millions of viewers. He was accused of paying fees for Mulcaire who is a convicted criminal and Murdoch had to say it would stop. There's no level of corporate arrogance that get him out of that as to justify it would be a confession of a cover-up and would very likely an extra investigation into that.

You can't plead transparency for an hour on live TV and then find a reason to pay a criminal's fees that's going to work.

[Adam Wednesdays]

They tried but the context is James Murdoch was driven into a corner by the parliamentary committee in front of millions of viewers. He was accused of paying fees for Mulcaire who is a convicted criminal and Murdoch had to say it would stop. There's no level of corporate arrogance that get him out of that as to justify it would be a confession of a cover-up and would very likely an extra investigation into that.

You can't plead transparency for an hour on live TV and then find a reason to pay a criminal's fees that's going to work.

Fair enough. I didn't get to watch the actual hearing, so I guess I didn't appreciate the impact that Lil' Murdoch being called out.