Jeremy Hunt: stop Rupert Murdoch's power grab + NoTW Brand Meltdown

@johnprescott

We still have three days to stop Murdoch getting BSkyB. Please sign here and RT http://t.co/7PCRBBT
1 minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

Jeremy Hunt: stop Rupert Murdoch's power grab

We have three days to stop Rupert Murdoch controlling more of our media. We've already forced media minister Jeremy Hunt to delay the deal. Our massive outcry to the new official consultation could get Hunt to go much further.

Murdoch already controls more of our media than is legal in many other countries – and is notorious for using his power to skew our politics. The hacking of murdered Milly Dowler is the latest grim example of how Murdoch's editors and journalists trample standards and ignore ethics. Yet Jeremy Hunt has just said that he'll let Murdoch own all of the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster. Hunt has opened another consultation to see what we think. Last time he did that -- in March -- he was stunned to get 40,000 messages, which his officials had to read carefully, for fear of legal challenge.

The official consultation which ends this Friday is our chance to call on Hunt to pass this deal to the Competition Commission for a full review. Together we can stop one man controlling our media and our politics. Send a message now -- in your own words if possible, to make it more powerful -- using the form on the right.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/murdoch_messages_2?twjp

@Scotty_McTweety

@johnprescott List of pre-written tweets to companies who advertise with #NOTW with a 'tweet this' option attached http://t.co/QTnL2D9

@Peston

Claire Enders, analyst, tells #R4Today that NOTW would lose revenue of £4m in full year from Ford suspension of advertising, 10% of total
1 minute ago via web

@MarkBorkowski

News of the World brand in meltdown as advertisers pull spots. Interesting to see what happens in the next week. #Hardhatson
3 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

News International: Hacking away at the truth
The BSkyB merger simply doesn't pass the commonsense 'bad smell' test. Mr Hunt should put the decision on ice

Editorial
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 July 2011 23.29 BST
Article history
The revelation that a private investigator working for the News of the World hacked into – and even deleted – the voicemail messages of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler has caused widespread revulsion. The prime minister – who employed the former NoW editor Andy Coulson as his press spokesman – said he was shocked. The chief executive of News International – who was editing the paper at the time – said she was sickened. The chair of the Press Complaints Commission, which has wrung its hands for two years, said she was angry. The Labour party leader called on Rebekah Brooks to resign. The Lib Dems' president asked whether Rupert Murdoch was a "fit and proper person" to own any more of the media market. The Tory peer Lord Fowler called for a public inquiry. Meanwhile advertisers began to boycott the newspaper and thousands of people flocked to sign an online petition to stop the imminent Murdoch takeover of BSkyB.

This is obviously a crisis for one particular company. It is a crisis of press regulation. And it is a crisis which touches on many other areas of public life, including policing, the privileges of parliament and media plurality. There are four separate but connected strands to the developing saga. The first concerns the governance of News International at a time when the company is asking the secretary of state to allow it to become quite easily the most dominant media company this country has ever seen. Rebekah Brooks refused to resign on Tuesday, announcing that she was determined to stay on to investigate herself. This would be comic if it were not so serious.

The second concerns the future of the Press Complaints Commission. We warned in November 2009 that the PCC's cursory and complacent response to the Guardian's phone-hacking allegations would be damaging to the cause of self-regulation, and so it has proved. The credibility of the organisation is currently hanging by a thread. The third strand relates to the growing pressure for a public inquiry which will get to the bottom of all the issues, including why the police closed down the inquiry in 2006, never informing the thousands of potential victims – who included politicians, intelligence officers and the police themselves – that they might have been targeted.

But, most urgently, there is the decision which the culture secretary must take in relation to the BSkyB takeover. Jeremy Hunt ignored the obvious initial route – which would have been to pass the matter straight to the Competition Commission, as he was advised to do by the media regulator Ofcom. Instead, he chose to enter into tortuous negotiations with News International over the governance and independence of Sky News, which was never the main issue. He protests that his hands are tied by the legal advice he has received on plurality matters. Until this week it looked inevitable that he would wave the merger through.

The problem is that a significant majority of people in this country are opposed to the merger: it simply doesn't pass the commonsense "bad smell" test. So Mr Hunt should simply put the decision on ice. He should say that it is inconceivable that he should currently approve the creation of a giant media entity in this country while there are so many unanswered questions about the criminal behaviour of its employees and about the governance of the company. The people at the head of News International are the same people who paid hush money to conceal evidence of criminality within their own company and who led a news organisation which – according to the PCC chair, Peta Buscombe – lied to the regulator. Mr Hunt should announce a pause while we see who, if anyone, is charged with what offences. By doing so, he would, of course, open himself to the possibility of judicial review by News International. After the Milly Dowler affair it would take some nerve on the part of the company to dare to do so.

@johnprescott

Just reached 94,000 signatures on the @Avaaz petition to stop Murdoch's BSkyB takeover. Let's reach 100,000! http://www.avaaz.org/en/murdoch_messages_2?twjp

@johnprescott

More than 100,000 have signed our petition in just 36 hours to stop Murdoch's BSkyB takeover. Remarkable http://t.co/7PCRBBT
3 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

@SkyNewsBreak

Financial Times website: Jeremy Hunt to delay BSkyB decision until September

@ johnprescott

It looks your 133,000 submissions to the @Avaaz petition is forcing Gvt to delay decision on BSkyB until September http://t.co/FRBUFur

@johnprescott

Morning. More than 154,000 have now signed the petition to stop Murdoch's BSkyB takeover. Well done. Let's keep it going http://t.co/8sIZDYa
9 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

kitti wrote:Can someone tell me how phone hacking has got anything to do with a perjury case ?