No more news off the world

whatsupdoc wrote:Murdoch entertains each new PM as they arrive. He has far too much power and things need to change.

buildersbum wrote:

tabs wrote:hmmmm now any ex employees can get to twitter ( from home) and tell us all what they really have on the McCanns


and no i'm not being insensitive i'm being proactive

It could be the tip of the iceberg in more ways then one

chrissie wrote:Just read on another site, what happens to the NOTW reward now?

SteveT wrote:Murdoch doesn't just entertain PMs, he agrees for the Sun to back them and then brainwash the public. He supported Tony Blair and brought the sun out in his favour. Too powerful!

@ExNOTWJourno

3 former colleagues to sell stories. Good on them!

The Staggers
The New Statesman rolling blog

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How Brooks tried to destroy the Guardian
Posted by Duncan Robinson - 08 July 2011 16:54
How is this phone hacking thing going to end? Rebekah Brooks: "With Alan Rusbridger on his knees, begging for mercy."


The Guardian and the News of the World. Photo: Getty Images.
Rebekah Brooks said that the phone-hacking scandal would end with Guardian editor "Alan Rusbridger on his knees, begging for mercy", according to Nick Davies in this week's Media Talk podcast over at the Guardian. Davies continues: "They would have destroyed us. If they could have done, they would have shut down the Guardian."

Elsewhere in the podcast, Rusbridger talks about the resistence to covering the scandal from within Fleet Street. "I was told from time to time that this was not helpful for Fleet Street," said Rusbridger. "The only thing that was going to damage Fleet Street was the failure to deal with this seriously. If the PCC had acted in 2009. . . then I think the News of the World would still be alive."

The general gist of the podcast is: "Ha, ha, we were right!" You can hardly blame them. People who should know better repeatedly told the Guardian that they were on a hiding to nothing, and yet we are now staring at a scandal that has brought down Britain's most read newspaper, revealed widespread corruption in the police and shaken the Prime Minister. The Guardian deserves its moment in the sun.

Listen to the whole podcast here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/audio/2011/jul/08/media-talk-podcast-news-of-the-world-closes?CMP=twt_gu

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Dear xxxxxxxxx

It is with great regret that we write to inform you that after 168 years we will publish the final edition of the News of the World this Sunday.

You will know that the paper has a proud history of fighting crime, exposing wrong-doing and regularly setting the news agenda for the nation.

However, in recent times the good things that the News of the World have done have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong and inexcusable.

As a result, the very difficult decision to close down the paper and notw.co.uk has been made.

Advertising space in this last edition of the paper will be donated to good causes and charities and all revenues will go to organisations that improve life in Britain and are devoted to treating others with dignity.

As a result of this decision, notw.co.uk will be open to the public for free for our final edition on Sunday 10th July. If you have already paid for access to the sites for this weekend and have outstanding credit on your account, we will contact you shortly and arrange a refund within the next 28 days.

If you have any other questions please email help@notw.co.uk

Thank you for reading the News of the World.

Yours sincerely,

The News of the World


You have received this e-mail from a member of the News International Group. NI Group Limited, 3 Thomas More Square, London E98 1XY , is the holding company for the News International group and is registered in England No 81701. VAT number GB 243 8054 69.

News Group Newspapers Ltd is a member of the Direct Marketing Association and registered under the Data Protection Act 1998. View our privacy policy.

Panda wrote:

SteveT wrote:Murdoch doesn't just entertain PMs, he agrees for the Sun to back them and then brainwash the public. He supported Tony Blair and brought the sun out in his favour. Too powerful!

He supported the Tories too..I tried to remember the name of the American Newspaper Baron , about the 30"s 40"s, Orson Welles made a film about him, it was called Rosebud,. do you know who I mean? anyway, he too got to powerful and the U.S. brought in Laws to limit the power of these Moguls. In the
U.S. Murdoch would never be allowed to own all the Press like he does around the World because we only read what he decides we should read and
althought he will shrug off this little problem , any Paper he owns now will be suspect.

Panda wrote:

chrissie wrote:Just read on another site, what happens to the NOTW reward now?

It lapses when the NOTW closes down. No big deal , it was never going to be claimed anyway and the Donors didn"t actually put money in , they pledged
it .

Chris wrote:

Panda wrote:

SteveT wrote:Murdoch doesn't just entertain PMs, he agrees for the Sun to back them and then brainwash the public. He supported Tony Blair and brought the sun out in his favour. Too powerful!

He supported the Tories too..I tried to remember the name of the American Newspaper Baron , about the 30"s 40"s, Orson Welles made a film about him, it was called Rosebud,. do you know who I mean? anyway, he too got to powerful and the U.S. brought in Laws to limit the power of these Moguls. In the
U.S. Murdoch would never be allowed to own all the Press like he does around the World because we only read what he decides we should read and
althought he will shrug off this little problem , any Paper he owns now will be suspect.

The film was Citizen Kane loosely based on William Randolph Hearst. "Rosebud" was his dying word.

By Robbie Collin
Former News of the World film critic

THIS is the way the News of the World ends: not with a bang but a whimper.

At 4.10pm yesterday, the editor’s personal assistant asked all staff in the newspaper’s Wapping headquarters to gather in front of the editor’s office.

A huddle of around 70 of the paper’s 250 staff – reporters, feature writers, department heads, sub-editors, messengers – watched bemused as News International’s chief executive Rebekah Brooks talked to the editor Colin Myler behind floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

Their faces were ashen; their body language slight and unreadable. After a moment, the pair emerged. Myler stood back in his office doorway. Brooks spoke in a whisper.

We were told that this week had been the most difficult in the newspaper’s 168-year history.

We were reminded that whatever the complexities of the situation may be, what had been done in the News of the World’s name was wrong and unforgivable.

We were reassured that News Corporation was a company that cared deeply and passionately about its newspapers.

And then: “So it is with great regret that...”

Journalists talk about the charge that crackles through a newsroom’s air after a major story breaks, seconds before its reporters spring into action.

Everybody in the News of the World office felt that yesterday. But seconds passed and no-one sprung anywhere.

Most of us stood stock-still and open-mouthed. Mobile phones rang, unanswered.

Myler asked Brooks to leave the office before he spoke to us. His voice was halting and thick with sadness.

We were told to make the phone calls we needed to make. Some staff members went into conference rooms and private offices. Others stood by their desks.

We watched as the story broke on TV and Twitter. The tension ebbed, slightly, and the mood turned vaguely surreal.

“It’s been running for more than a hundred years,” sobbed a junior showbiz reporter into his mobile. “I finally get a job here and six months later they f***ing shut it.”

A feature writer found two plastic bottles, one of Mai Tai and the other of Espresso Martini, in a crate beside a radiator. We drank them out of blue plastic cups from the water cooler.

A friend on the Sunday Times business desk rang me to ask if we wanted half a box of warm Carlsberg. We did, and I collected it from him on the maintenance stairwell.

The staff gathered for drinks in a pub round the corner from the office. At 11pm some of us got in a taxi and went, inexplicably, to a karaoke bar.

I sang Hold On by Wilson Phillips. We all joined in with REM’s It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).

But none of us did.

A newspaper that had thrilled, informed, amused and titillated millions of readers every Sunday for more than a century was dead. And we had been there at the moment it slipped away.

An Autopsy of The News of The World Affair
JULY 8, 2011

tags: Andy Coulson, BSkyB, Chris Bryant, Chris Jefferies, David Cameron, Jeremy Hunt, Joanna Yeates, News Corp, News International, News of The World, Rebekah Brooks, Rebekah Wade, The Sun, The Times, Tom Watson
by sturdyblog

It is terribly unfair how most of us seem to have made up our minds about the Murdoch Press. The serious allegations against the News of The World have not yet been proven. Our reaction was quite unreasonable and disproportionate. It was based on accusation and innuendo. We decided to go on a witch-hunt before the ordinary processes of justice had run their course.

But here is the delicious irony: we have been conditioned to behave like this by the Murdoch Press.

Only a couple of days ago, the Attorney General made representations in the High Court seeking a ruling of contempt against tabloid publications, including The Sun, over the vilification of Chris Jefferies in the Joanna Yeates murder – hung, drawn and quartered before he was even charged. The Murdoch empire has been absolutely instrumental in establishing a climate of sensationalism which has taken hold of much of this country’s media in the last few decades. Their hacks are always among the first alligators at any given feeding frenzy; among the first sharks to catch the scent of blood of the unionist, the depressed, the eccentric, the immigrant or the homo and sink their teeth in. They lived by the sword and they died by the sword.

I have some sympathy with the 200 individual workers who have lost their jobs. However, they are a small drop in an ocean of the many thousands of workers being laid off by a government that News International helped elect – and bragged about having done so. And again, I find a healthy dose of irony in the editors of The Sun walking out in support of their colleagues, having attacked every single legitimate strike in the last 30 years as extremist, leftie posturing.

I have even less sympathy with arguments that the demise of the News of The World is a loss to press pluralism. The absence of this Jordan-obsessed rag is as much a loss to pluralism as the throwing away of last week’s shopping list is a loss to literature. In any case, I am certain we shall be able to glean the Murdochs’ take on current affairs from their remaining three publications (as well as the soon-to-emerge Sun on Sunday – the relevant web domains having been registered two days ago).

The idea is propagated that Rupert Murdoch is sitting in a swivel-chair somewhere, deep within his Bond-villain lair, stroking a white cat. He is shrewd. He is cunning. He is a foreigner. He should not be allowed to control such a large slice of our media. This is as obvious and solid a notion, as it is lazy and convenient. It obfuscates the real issue, which is that nobody – no entity, no one person, no corporation - nobody should hold such power.

This is why the government must now act to stop the proposed takeover of BSkyB. Do not be side-tracked by their protestations that it is up to OfCom to decide whether the license-holders are fit and proper persons. It is a red herring. It can be side-stepped by the appointment of a different, more palatable figurehead. The real grounds and the real decision belong to the Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt. He had originally stated that he was minded to refer the matter to the Competition Commission. News Corp then gave certain assurances. When assessing those assurances he stated:

“Some respondents also argued that News Corp could not be relied upon to abide by the requirements set out in the undertakings, citing previous guarantees and assurances given by News in the past, and the current phone hacking allegations against The News of the World. I have taken the view that News have offered serious undertakings and discussed them in good faith… whilst the phone hacking allegations are very serious they were not material to my consideration.“

Those assurances are still under consideration. In the light of recent revelations his position on their validity is untenable. Any assurances given by that organisation are not worth the smudgy, cheap paper they are printed on.

Rupert Murdoch took a massive risk yesterday. He needed to create some storm defences. He cynically decided to place them at a level where the blameless would be swept away and the culpable would be protected. His gamble was calculated to prevent cross-contamination of his other brands and, most crucially, to keep the proposed BSkyB takeover dry. I think he has failed in two significant ways:

Firstly, he has created an army of as many as 200 disgruntled whistle-blowers. The hope that not a single editor or journalist will have come across a document or email which implicates those responsible is naive. Watch out for leak after leak and revelation after revelation.

Secondly, he has removed the physical target for the public’s anger, without removing the guilty parties. The inevitable result is that the public’s anger will be directed upwards to News International – the organisation which now seeks to shelter the guilty. And they are guilty. Which ever way one looks at the matter they are guilty. At best they are guilty of gross incompetence – if one were to accept their ludicrous argument that they had no idea of the systemic immoral and illegal practices which took place under their watchful eye. At worst, they are the source of the infection.

And when I talk about “the guilty”, I very much include our glorious Prime Minister. All evidence points to Cameron having made a pre-election deal with Murdoch. Granted this evidence is circumstantial. But then again an apple falling from a tree is only circumstantial evidence of gravity. Make up your own mind:

As Leader of the Opposition he flew to a Greek island and met with Murdoch. Immediately afterwards he started announcing a variety of policies beneficial to the mogul’s interests, including downsizing OfCom and abolishing the BBC Trust. News Corp then delayed launching their takeover bid until a change of government. The moment Cameron was in office, Murdoch was one of the first people he saw at number 10. As recently as this spring he wrote columns for the News of The World, condemning the evils of regulation. As recently as a month ago he made a private speech at Murdoch’s Headquarters. As recently as Wednesday’s PMQs he stood by his decision to hire the beleaguered Andy Coulson as his PR guru. He also refused to call for the resignation of his horse-riding partner and gracious dinner hostess, Rebekah Brooks (aka Wade).

Rebekah… Like the similarly named heroine of the Daphne du Maurier novel and the Hitchcock film adaptation, her presence always felt – causing fire, destruction and mischief – but never actually there. Never actually at fault, it seems. During the Milly Dowler disappearance, and the hacking of her phone, she was apparently away. That’s right. The biggest story, the front-page story of that and many more weeks and the editor of the paper did not communicate with the employees working on it. Nothing odd about that. She was also away for the two weeks following the murders of the Soham girls. Apparently. She also knew nothing about payments to the police. Even though she said she did in front of the Parliamentary Committee, before Mrs Danvers steps in to “correct her”.

I believe, that the News of the World hacking scandal is the best thing that could have happened to the media sector in the UK; a truly serendipitous event. If we learn lessons from it, there is no doubt in my mind that this country will be better and freer. But we must learn the right lessons.

The truth is Rupert Murdoch’s empire is a product of our times; a Thatcherite dream of entrepreneurship. Capitalism is a primarily male construct and so, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is preoccupied with size. What the last few days prove is something that a significant and growing school of political and economic science has been arguing: size presents opportunities for efficiencies and economies of scale and scope, up to a point. Beyond that point it produces crude oil cartels that price-fix; banks that are too big to fail; corporations that hoard food securities to the detriment of the starving; telecom giants that refuse to pay tax; media conglomerates which bribe officials for information and openly state that they control the outcomes of elections. In short, entities so large as to think they can operate outside ordinary ethical and legal constraints.

It is up to us to stop them. And the biggest, the most gloriously positive lesson of the last few days is this: With a few gutsy politicians like Chris Bryant and Tom Watson, a few driven journalists, a few doggedly determined bloggers and a public that is sick to the back teeth of being treated like idiots, we can.

Badboy wrote:IDEA,WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE BOYCOTT THE NEWSPAPERS UNTIL THEY PAY THEIR FAIR AMOUNT OF TAXES.