Sunday 22nd of December 2024
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dear leader .....

dear leader .....

In August 2009 James Murdoch delivered the MacTaggart Lecture. It is the keynote address at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, and the annual corroboree of the leading players in Britain's television world.

James Murdoch was at the top of his game. He was News Corp's chairman and chief executive in Europe and Asia, in charge of the company's British newspapers and its interests in the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

He arrived on the platform to thunderous applause and delivered a speech scathing of the industry regulator Ofcom, ''unaccountable institutions'' like the BBC and the ''authoritarianism'' of government media agencies.

He ended with a flourish: ''The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.''

If all of this was not breathtaking enough, his speech was called ''The absence of trust''. In other words, ''the right path,'' according to James, ''is all about trusting and empowering consumers''. The state should get its nose out of his business and the BBC should leave commercial activities to the market.

Intriguingly, the guest speaker at this year's MacTaggart Lecture is James's sister Elisabeth Murdoch. By next August the Brits will have had the Murdochs up to pussy's bow.

The context of that swaggering lecture in 2009 is fascinating. The general election was held eight months later and a lot happened in the interim. In March 2009 the Tory opposition leader David Cameron (now the PM) said the BBC licence fee, which is the corporation's main source of revenue, should be frozen. The opposition's culture and media spokesman, Jeremy Hunt (a former PR man), made the same call.

Just after James's lecture in Edinburgh, Hunt wrote an article in Murdoch's Sun attacking the BBC and saying it should curtail its commercial activities. Between the lecture and the publication of the article Hunt had flown to New York where he met News Corp retainers.

Just before the lecture, Murdoch had complained that Ofcom was meddling in his business - in June 2009 the regulator had announced BSkyB should sell some of its channels. Less than a fortnight later Cameron declared that if he was elected to government he would scrap Ofcom.

Thirteen days after the lecture, Cameron and James Murdoch had a drink at a private club in Mount Street, called George. Over a cocktail James said The Sun would back Cameron and the Tories at the coming election.

It was revealed before the Leveson inquiry into the media on Tuesday that Jeremy Hunt, the Media and Culture Secretary, and his office, instead of acting in a quasi-judicial capacity in determining the merits of News's bid for the balance of the BSkyB shares, was actively backing the bid.

How the world has turned upside down. James has been drummed out of London with his tail between his legs, the BSkyB bid is in tatters, and the idea of ''soft touch'' regulation of the media is a distant fantasy. In fact, out of all this will come a statutory scheme with powers to enforce codes of conduct for newspapers and internet media.

The remarkable thing is that James Murdoch on Tuesday and his father Rupert on Wednesday were still clinging to their tattered scripts in evidence before Lord Justice Leveson.

''I want to put it to bed once and for all that I used the influence of The Sun to get favourable political treatment,'' insisted Rupert with a straight face.

James said he would never make ''such a crass calculation'' about what his newspapers could have achieved in relation to the BSkyB bid in the run-up to the election. ''It would never occur to me.''

The strangled guffaws could be heard around the world, right back to little old Oz, where almost on a daily basis the Murdoch papers shove their proprietor's commercial interests down our throats.

The relentless attacks on the national broadband network in News Ltd's national daily The Australian and other of its capital city tabloids is not without an eye on protecting the patch of Foxtel, SkyNews and Fox Sports.

The assaults on the Finkelstein findings and on the recommendation for a News Media Council are certainly something News Ltd has shared with other media organisations, including this one, but News has very much been to the forefront on that political campaign.

It is notable that Tony Abbott's Coalition is in step with News Ltd in its opposition to a statutory media regulator, a privacy law and the broadband network in its current proposed form.

I think we're entitled to know what backroom discussions, private drink sessions, winks or nods have taken place, if any. As Paul Keating once observed of Rupert Murdoch: ''You can do a deal with him without ever saying a deal is done.''

He doesn't have to ask prime ministers for favours. They understand implicitly what's required.

The wondrous thing about Leveson's hearings is that for the first time since Murdoch went to Britain in 1968 to buy the News of the World, he has been put on the stand and pressed to account for his role and influence with successive British governments.

We have seen over the past 12 months or so evidence of News International's ever-spreading stain on British institutions and democracy - on the police, on the public service, on politics and on the media itself.

In Britain, at least, the Murdoch ascendancy is over. But the Leveson hearing is not over.

Rupert Murdoch returned last night our time. He thought the impertinent questions would be out of the way by Wednesday, when outside the inquiry room during a break he was heard to say to one of his consiglieri: ''Let's get him to get this fucking thing over with today.''

Actually, this might run as long as The Mousetrap on the West End.

Winds Turn Against Murdoch Influence

 

peel the bullshit like we peel an onion...

The Andrew Olle lecture (2007) by Murdoch's right hand man in Australia, John Hartigan, was equally heavy-handed... but delivered with a bit more maturity and subtlety though. 

Having met Andrew Olle a few times, I wonder what he would have made of such clever rabble... Who knows... Andrew was a larrikin with a very serious analytical mind, thus he could peel the bullshit like we peel an onion — delicately, with refrained tears in his eyes... while using a very sharp knife...

great moments in credibility .....

Prime Minister David Cameron has acknowledged that he wooed Rupert Murdoch as he attempted to win power in Britain, but insisted he never struck a tit-for-tat deal to support the media mogul's business dealings in return for favourable coverage.

Ties between Cameron's government and Murdoch's News Corporation are under scrutiny after Britain's judge-led inquiry into media ethics raised questions about a minister's handling of a decision on whether the company should be authorised to take full control of BSkyB, in which it holds a 39 per cent stake.

Lord Justice Brian Leveson's inquiry has disclosed 163 emails sent by News Corp lobbyist Frederic Michel about his contacts with Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt's office, mainly with special adviser Adam Smith.

Hunt was supposed to be acting as an impartial judge to decide on whether to approve the takeover or refer it to regulators, but Michel's emails portrayed the minister, or his office, as leaking sensitive information to Murdoch's representatives and supporting the News Corp case.

Smith resigned on Wednesday, and claimed he had held some discussions without Hunt's authority.

Cameron told the BBC in an interview that "as things stand, I don't believe Jeremy Hunt broke the ministerial code," but warned that if any evidence emerged that Hunt had acted inappropriately, he would order an investigation.

Both Cameron and Hunt will give evidence, along with other lawmakers, to the Leveson inquiry on the relationship between the press and politicians.

The inquiry was launched following the tabloid phone hacking scandal, which forced Murdoch in mid-2011 to close down the country's top selling Sunday newspaper, the News of The World, and to drop News Corp's takeover bid for BSkyB.

Cameron said that when in opposition he had wooed Murdoch and his British newspapers. Murdoch's daily tabloid, The Sun, switched support from Britain's Labour Party to Cameron's Conservative Party before the country's 2010 national election. The Conservatives won the most seats but not a majority, forming a coalition government with a smaller party.

"I did want the support of as many newspapers and television commentators for the Conservative Party because I wanted to take the country in a different direction," Cameron said.

However, he insisted he had never promised to go easy on Murdoch's businesses in exchange for that backing.

"The thing that people are asking is was there some big deal, some big agreement between me and Rupert Murdoch or (his son) James Murdoch that in return for support for the Conservative Party I would somehow help their business interests or allow this merger to go through," he said.

"It would be absolutely wrong for there to be any sort of deal and there wasn't," Cameron insisted.

Cameron acknowledged chatting with James Murdoch - then the chairman of BSkyB - about the deal at a 2010 Christmas party hosted by Rebekah Brooks, the ex-chief executive of News International, the British division of News Corp.

Asked if he was now embarrassed about that meeting, Cameron said: "In hindsight, one might do things differently."

Before the deal was dropped, Hunt had approved News Corp's takeover proposal in March 2011 after it offered to spin off BSkyB's Sky News channel to alleviate concerns about any concentration of news media ownership.

Hunt insists he did not have inappropriate contact with News Corp executives over the deal, and has pledged to disclose his private texts and emails to the Leveson inquiry.

Cameron Says No Pact Made With Murdoch

my space .....

Scotland Yard detectives investigating phone hacking at the News of the World are examining the call records of four newly discovered Apple iPhones issued to senior executives at News International.

The smartphones, issued by O2 in a contract beginning in October 2009, included a handset given to James Murdoch, the former chairman and chief executive of News Corp Europe. Despite billing for the phones totalling nearly £12,000 between June last year and May this year, neither Operation Weeting nor the Leveson Inquiry was told of the existence of the smartphone accounts.

Phone text messages and emails sent and received by News International executives and advisers have provided some of the most controversial evidence heard by Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry into press practices and ethics.

It had been assumed that the email and text traffic from key News International executives was centred solely on their company BlackBerry account with Vodafone.

In accounts seen by The Independent, issued through 02's corporate customer services at Arlington Business Park in Leeds, Mr Murdoch's iPhone account is listed as "active".

Mr Murdoch is said to have told 02 that he specifically wanted a "white iPhone" when the smartphone was issued to him in the summer of 2009.

Katie Vanneck-Smith, listed as News International's chief marketing officer, also has an active account. Two other NI executive numbers are described as disconnected.

Between June last year – just before The Guardian revealed in July that the mobile phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been hacked into – and the beginning of the Leveson Inquiry in November, the NI iPhone accounts were billed for £9,650.

Last night, Labour MP Tom Watson said people would be "shocked" to learn that the smartphones had been issued to key NI executives, while the company's disclosures focused only on the BlackBerry Vodafone accounts.

Mr Watson said he hoped that News Corp's Management and Standards Committee, which is responsible for all matters relating to phone hacking, would enforce its own promise of full transparency and appropriate disclosure, by revealing all the data and logs held on the discovered phones to both the police and the Leveson Inquiry. Last night, a spokeswoman for News International, said: "Mr Murdoch fully co-operated with the Leveson Inquiry. It is ridiculous to suggest that James Murdoch keeps or kept a 'secret phone'."

Meanwhile sources close to the Leveson Inquiry have denied that Lord Justice Leveson threatened to quit his judicial investigation following comments made in February by Michael Gove.

The Education Secretary told a gathering of political journalists that the inquiry into press ethics and practices was creating a "chilling atmosphere" towards press freedom.

During Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons the day after Mr Gove's lobby speech, David Cameron appeared to back his cabinet colleague's view. Concern that Mr Gove might be the Prime Minister's advance messenger prompted Lord Justice Leveson to call the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood.

Whitehall sources say Lord Justice Leveson wanted to learn directly from Mr Cameron whether his inquiry was wasting public money on an ultimately futile exercise or whether his initial remit stood. Although the reassurances from No 10 took two days to arrive, sources claim there was no threat from the judge to resign from his own inquiry.

Police study Murdoch's 'secret' iPhone Account