Les Tricoteuses - Part Deux

[BornSicky]

new thread to discuss phonehacking scandal.

aitch completely agree - thank you for the linky, BoF!

justabout you can find it here

Possibly my favourite bit from the SturdyAlex blog for anyone who doesn't have time to read the whole thing:

"Both of them [the Murdochs] (and Brooks later) tried to achieve an equilibrium between quite a few contradictory concepts: the notion that they knew nothing of the practices in the companies which they run, while trying not to look like incompetent fools to their shareholders; that these methods are wide-spread in most newspapers, while maintaining that they had no idea they were wide-spread in their own organisation; citing the Met?s decision not to reopen the investigation as the reason they did not look further, less than an hour after Met witnesses claimed they did not reopen the investigation because NewsInt?l misled them. Like a circle, in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel?"

Many police to be made redundant. Would it not be economical to get rid of the corrupt police at the Met without redundancy pay?

i like that blog too. he's really nailed the key issues arising from the select committees.

i don't mind that the bbc has a larger share of the media than most other organisations because it is not partisan and it is tremendously good value for money on every count - quality and quantity.

I also think that private organisations have their place, but that they need to be regulated

Was looking for info on when the ownership rules changed and Ofcom was created (Communications Bill 2001), and came across this highly informative paper. It's 19 pages double-spaced (excluding refs), so not too daunting, and well worth the read.

Too much to do justice to with quotes, but here's a particularly salient selection anyway:

"The Re-Regulation of Broadcasting, or The Mill Owners' Triumph" (2002).

? "Finally, and perhaps most seriously, OFCOM's responsibility to safeguard public service broadcasting appears to be distinctly at odds with its overall remit which is, surprise surprise, a deregulatory one." pp9

? "Foremost amongst the issues crowding for OFCOM's attention once the Communications Bill becomes an Act will be Murdoch clamouring to have the regulations on impartiality in news lifted so that he can turn Sky News (and, in all likelihood, C5 news too) into the UK equivalent of his rabidly populist Fox News, complaints from the private sector (including, again, Murdoch) that the BBC's digital, website and educational activities are a source of 'unfair' competition, BT's use of its dominant position to keep a grip on the installation of broadband access to the internet, and delivery of the government's plans to bridge the 'digital divide' and the 'information gap'. And, already, powerful players such as BSkyB have lost no opportunity to make it abundantly clear that they will not take kindly to an OFCOM that flexes its regulatory muscles too strongly. Thus, for example, its formidable chief executive Tony Ball, in a speech last year to the neo-liberal think-tank the Institute for Economic Affairs, warned that: 'there is a real danger that the regulation previously set down by governments will be replaced not by the application of competition law, but by the unelected board of OFCOM with a charter to interfere'. " pp12-13

? "the draft Bill imposed a 'must carry' obligation, which would have forced BSkyB to carry the public service channels for a nominal fee. Assiduous lobbying by the satellite channel ensured that this obligation disappeared from the Bill itself. Now ITV will pay them £17m and C4,C5 and the BBC £4m a year each for the privilege, and the Bill insists that they must be on the BSkyB digital platform even if they think the carriage charges are too high. Thus Murdoch benefits to the tune of around £28.6m a year (some of which is made up of BBC licence payers' money) for providing a service which is estimated to cost a mere £350,000." pp13-14

? "I was told by a very senior member of the Joint Committee, just after it had been formed, that it was crucial to understand that the impetus for the Bill came 'straight from No.10'. In the months that followed, watching Tessa Jowell's lamentable public performances in promoting the Bill made it abundantly clear that it certainly didn't come from her" p16

"the draft Bill imposed a 'must carry' obligation, which would have forced BSkyB to carry the public service channels for a nominal fee. Assiduous lobbying by the satellite channel ensured that this obligation disappeared from the Bill itself. Now ITV will pay them £17m and C4,C5 and the BBC £4m a year each for the privilege, and the Bill insists that they must be on the BSkyB digital platform even if they think the carriage charges are too high. Thus Murdoch benefits to the tune of around £28.6m a year (some of which is made up of BBC licence payers' money) for providing a service which is estimated to cost a mere £350,000." pp13-14

Does this still apply, do we know? if so

I have been surprised not to see any mention of Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert's elder son and intended heir, who suddenly resigned his leadership role in News Corp a few years ago, with flimsy explainations.
What did he know?
Why did he really resign?

I'm a bit behind but just read the NYT article - I am now realising the significance of the Taylor and Clifford settlements, and why the questions were asked in the committee. Still beggars belief that 'i know nuffink' was the response from JM on the finer points of those settlements, the reasons for the sums involved, and the wider implications of what may have happened with regard to compelling GM to spill his and anyone else's guts about how much wider the hacking was, and who else was involved.

OK, as you were...

Iiuc, the BBC escaped from this in 2004, by moving to a different satellite (no, I don't understand either).

And it looks like, once the BBC stopped paying BSkyB, the other channels with public services requirements dug their heels in, and the whole deal changed. And I think has changed again since.

thanks, TIANC - I think -

hammybobs, the amount of the Taylor settlement is ludicrous compared with previous similar settlements, which were in 5 figures

The Clifford one included an agreement for him to give them exclusives in future about his clients? (I'm sure I read that somewhere but don't remember where) So not quite the same.

Ooh, just got an email to say theres a new blog post on sexy brain SturdyAlex's site...

\link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/20/deborah-orr-murdoch-downfall\ great piece by Deborah Orr in the Graun today}

'Rupert admitted as much when he suggested that the people he had trusted had been let down by the people they had trusted. It's an interesting viewpoint, in which the more lowly you are, the greater a moral responsibility you bear. It is, quite plainly in the particular case of News Corp, a fatal inversion.'

'The kind of adversarial squabbling that is going on in the Commons, avidly followed by a mesmerised press, suggests only that our parliament is too small-minded even to grasp the scale of this event.'

veeeeeeeeeery interesting POV, that. and quite compelling, imo.

Ponders, I did think that when watching the committee and JM's explanation about why the settlement was so high. His explanation didn't wash, so I knew there was more to it than what was being said. I just hadn't realised how that linked to GM and his notes/records, and how any court case would mean he would be compelled to spill the beans on the whole thing. Preventing those 2 cases from getting to court clearly stopped any possibility of GM giving out any other names or details of what went on. That was the bit of info I didn't have or know when watching.

I am still fascinating by all this. I think the last time I was this engrossed in a news story was the WMD enquiry and David Kelly's 'suicide'. Tbh, all the links and discussion on the MN threads have been a fabulous eye opener. I am enjoying the education, from all different POVs.

*fascinated. Doh!

I'm sure you are fascinating too

not as fascinating as all this scandal I assure you!

Graun has evidence that James seems to have misled the select committee.

When asked for an explanation of the £700,000 to Gordon Taylor, he "told MPs the company's legal advice was that the likely award of damages was £250,000". I seem to remember he also mumbled something about legal fees of ~£500,000.

Clever Graun has got the paperwork. The damages payout was £425,000. Nearly twice the supposed legally advised amount.

Oh, and there is a figure of ~£500,000 for legal costs - but that's Taylor's costs plus NI's own costs. Taylor's share of that was a mere £220,000. So he can hardly have been reimbursed £500,000.

Now you don't have to actually lie to be guilty of Contempt of Parliament. Deliberately attempting to mislead the House or a committee (by way of statement, evidence, or petition) will do just as well.

tianc, that's a good move, but brooks lied about paying police officers and then explained it away as "clarification". she's not been charged with being in contempt of parliament.

cynical me thinks he'll get away with that one by saying he didn't have the figures to hand, or had them the wrong way round, or will simply "clarify" them later.

as a matter of interest, who has access to legal documents on civil hearings or out of court settlements?

looks to me like the legal industry may well end up getting a hammering here too on the status of civil/criminal actions/suits.

Yerse, Graun didn't say how they got this. Actually it's described as "details of the legal negotiations".

Point taken about Ms Brooks' "clarification". But Jimmy boy may find parliament's willingness to take it further has... increased slightly since 2003.

\link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/21/phone-hacking-news-corporation\OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH}

you can't do that in America...

& yet still there's (possibly?) evidence of Murdoch getting his own way even there

'The unauthorised access of the firm's computer from a News America address became the subject of a 2005 FBI and US secret service investigation. The outcome of those inquiries is not known'

'During the trial, the jury heard from a former News America manager, Robert Emmel, who recalled the chief executive Carlucci telling his staff: "If there were individuals concerned about doing the right thing ? bed-wetting liberals in particular ? then he could arrange for them to be out-placed from the company."
In 2005 Carlucci was rewarded for his stewardship of News America by being appointed publisher of the New York Post, Murdoch's prime tabloid newspaper in America. News Corp said the promotion, despite the allegations of tough-guy tactics, was "entirely appropriate".'

bed-wetting liberals

"working towards the Führer" again? (as in D Orr's piece)?

I keep being shocked. But not.

Bloody hell- the bastards!