Is this Armageddon for Murdoch and NewsCorp?

In the Journal IE 23rd November it was reported that James Murdoch had resigned from the Board of the Times and The Sun,
my guess is he was forced to because of the NOTW scandal which he professed to know nothing about.

Wikipedia

Rebekah Brooks


Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of the News of the World
and former chief executive of News International, was arrested on 17
July on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and on
suspicion of corruption. She was arrested by appointment at a London
police station^[124][125] by detectives working on Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan Police's phone hacking investigation, and Operation Elveden, the probe examining illicit payments to police officers.^[126]

Following twelve hours in custody, Brooks was released on bail until late October.^[127]

On 18 July, police reported the discovery of a rubbish bag containing
a laptop, documents, a phone dumped in an underground parking garage
near Brooks' home.^[128]
Brooks' husband had initially tried to claim the trash bag, which he
said contained his property unrelated to the investigation.^[129]

this was on a tickertape just now but I can"t find the source.

"Tables turn on Murdochs with latest scandal affecting them in year of scrutiny from Newscorp".

It looks as though Rupert will resign and James lose his seat on the Board.

Award yourself a Medal Panda for finding this/


December 22, 2011, 1:34 pmYear in Media | Phone-Hacking Scandal Rattles the Murdochs

By AMY CHOZICKStaff members of The Times’s media news department are highlighting the most significant developments this year in the industries they cover.
Until this past summer, The News of the World tabloid didn’t mean much to readers outside Britain. When it suddenly stood at the center of a phone-hacking scandal, that didn’t change much. Even the British weren’t that engaged. (The public may lap up chatter about celebrities, but evidently they don’t care much about how that gossip was gathered.) But public opinion did change with reports in The Guardian newspaper that a private investigator for The News of the World, part of the News Corporation, had hacked the voice mails of the kidnapped and murdered teenager, Milly Dowler. (Another allegation, that the investigator erased some of the messages, thereby giving hope to the the Dowler family that Milly was still alive, has been thrown into question in recent weeks.)
By July, News Corporation’s chairman and chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, closed the 167-year-old newspaper, and Mr. Murdoch and his son James Murdoch were called before Parliament. The scandal not only raised the curtain on news gathering at Britain’s oldest tabloid (and the British press in general), but called into question the relationships between the Murdochs and the country’s political leaders. The climate in Britain prompted News Corporation to withdraw its $12 billion bid to acquire the portion of British satellite service BSkyB it didn’t already own. And, larger still, the scandal has tainted the News Corporation’s image, stroked shareholder discontent and called into question who will take over from the 80-year-old Mr. Murdoch. Once the inevitable successor, James Murdoch continues to face scrutiny from British lawmakers. His predicament could lead to a power vacuum at one of the world’s largest and most influential media conglomerates.

I was watching Youv"e been framed on T.V. tonight and there was a lot about animals. One scene showed a Cat taking the receiver off the phone and
Harry Hill says" he likes listening in ,like Rebekah Brooks".

Since she hasn"t been found guilty yet she might get her Lawyers on to him.

For all you twitter members who can post on here any relevant info, Rupert Murdoch has opened an account there. Apparently , he was at a party with John Dorsey , the owner of twitter , and encouraged to enrol.....has had 60,000 hits so far, I wonder if the Mccanns have been mentioned?

He has only made 24 tweets and they're mostly about Obama. I'll keep you up to date if anything exciting happens.

Iris wrote:He has only made 24 tweets and they're mostly about Obama. I'll keep you up to date if anything exciting happens.

Thanks Iris....they are suggesting that he has only become a Member to promote a Politician for the upcoming election, I didn"t catch the name so
maybe it IS Obama although the Election now is for a Republican Candidate because Obama doesn"t need to do any canvassing until nearer the General
election. I hope he does get a few responses about the McCanns and Hacking. Keep me informed because I think he will be asked to stand down from
Newscorp.

Well, Well, Well,.........is Murdoch wielding his power in the U.S. Elections? When I reported he had a twitter account which had received 60,000 hits
the announcer said he could be supporting Santorem, which never registered with me at the time.

The first Election campaign by the Republicans was held in Iowa yesterday and Newt Romney was favourite with Santorem about 4th. the result was
Romney won by EIGHT votes with Santorem second.!!!!!!

IT WAS BEING SAID IN GUARDIAN TODAY THAT IT OR A SIMILIAR TWITTER ACCOUNT IS A HOAX.

Badboy wrote:IT WAS BEING SAID IN GUARDIAN TODAY THAT IT OR A SIMILIAR TWITTER ACCOUNT IS A HOAX.

I don"t know Badboy, but Iris checked it out , she will have a better idea.

IT WAS WENDI MURDOCH TWITTER ACCOUNT THAT WAS A HOAX.

2 January 2012
Last updated at 17:35











News Corp's Rupert Murdoch joins Twitter social network











Rupert Murdoch joined Twitter at the end of a year in which he closed the tabloid News of The World



Continue reading the main story

Twitter has added media mogul Rupert Murdoch to its ranks.

Within three days his @rupertmurdoch account attracted over 45,000 followers.

But reaction to the 80-year-old chairman and chief executive of News Corporation's Twitter presence has been mixed.

In a tweet Rupert Murdoch noted: "I'm getting killed for fooling around here and friends frightened what I may really say."

Among those sending jovial reminders of current controversies, former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott tweeted, "Welcome to Twitter...@rupertmurdoch. I've left you a Happy New Year message on my voicemail!"

The comment referred to the phone-hacking scandal which had resulted in the closure of the News of The World.

Mr Murdoch also threatened to create more problems for
himself after tweeting from his tablet computer about the UK's bank
holiday: "Maybe Brits have too many holidays for [a] broke country!"

He deleted the posting shortly afterwards but was too late to
prevent hundreds of other users retweeting the comment. Several of whom
noted that Mr Murdoch was on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy
and added the hashtag #murdochdeletedtweets.

Keeping positive
Mr Murdoch has received advice on how to tweet, from a new unverified account written under the name of Wendi Deng, his wife.

It said:
"Trying to explain to @rupertmurdoch that twitter is about following
not just being followed. sharing and chatting and tweeting."

However, Mr Murdoch initially chose to follow only four people, including Amstrad founder Lord Sugar who tweeted:
"I wonder if my old pal @rupertmurdoch is eying up Twitter to buy or
invest in it. He missed out on Facebook, and My Space.. not a great
deal."




Rupert Murdoch has already got to grips with Twitter's delete function


Mr Murdoch also follows Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus, Twitter's
executive chairman Jack Dorsey, and a spoof account purporting to be
from Google's chief executive Larry Page.

Mr Murdoch's tweets have already covered a diverse range of
topics. One described the Steve Jobs biography as "interesting but
unfair," while another praised the movie, We Bought a Zoo, which is
distributed by News Corp's 20th Century Fox.

He touches on politics, praising New York mayor Mike
Bloomberg and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, who was named Briton
of the Year by Mr Murdoch's Times newspaper.

After a difficult 2011 Mr Murdoch also chose to take a
positive view of the year ahead, wishing his followers: "Happy 2012. May
it be better than all experts predict. Has to be!"

Absolutely terrified
Experts in corporate use of social media highlight the challenges Mr Murdoch will face.

"Be engaging, be conversational, be humble and learn," said
Lee Bryant, the European managing director of social business
consultancy Dachis.

Last year Mr Murdoch described his grilling by MPs as "the most humble day of my life."

Mr Bryant said that it was going to be hard for Mr Murdoch to
respond to all the tweets addressed to him, but said that he should
reply to a few.

However, he thought that having the man at the top talking
directly to the public would leave his media advisors "absolutely
terrified".

Others thought that the foray into microblogging was a mistake.

"I would have advised him to think very carefully before
opening up this can of worms," said Drew Benvie, UK managing director of
public relations firm Hotwire.

In his view it would be a big challenge for a new tweeter, who was "not quite ready to take the stabilisers off".

PM May Be Quizzed On Links To Murdoch Empire

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David Cameron may face questions about his relationship
with Rupert Murdoch and other top media executives


2:30am UK, Tuesday January 10, 2012


David Cameron will attend the Leveson Inquiry into press standards if
summoned to give evidence, Downing Street has said, as more national newspaper
editors prepare to face questioning.


The official probe, which was ordered by the Prime Minister after revelations about illegal phone
hacking at the News Of The World (NOTW), is this week turning its attention to
newspaper bosses for the first time.

:: Read more on the Leveson Inquiry

Responding to reports that Lord Justice Leveson is "99.9%" certain to call Mr
Cameron for questioning under oath about his dealings with senior media
executives and press baron Rupert Murdoch, a Number 10 spokeswoman said: "A
request has not yet been received. If asked, the Prime Minister would of course
attend."

Senior politicians from both the Conservative and Labour parties have been
criticised in the past for courting the Murdoch press.


Ex-editor Andy Coulson quit as Downing Street director of
communications



Last year Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Mr
Murdoch's News International and a former editor of The Sun and NOTW, defended
her relationship with Mr Cameron - who she described as a neighbour and a friend
- as "wholly appropriate".

Former PM Gordon Brown and Labour's current leader
Ed Miliband are expected to appear when the inquiry moves
on to focus on relations between the media and politicians, The Times said.

A Leveson Inquiry source told the newspaper the final decision on which
politicians to invite had not yet been made.

The newspaper suggests Mr Cameron is likely to be called after the local
elections in May.

Questioning would probably focus on his decision to employ Andy Coulson, the
former editor of the defunct NOTW, who quit as Downing Street's director of
communications amid continued pressure about phone hacking.

Today the Daily Telegraph's Tony Gallagher, Lionel Barber of the Financial
Times and the Independent's Chris Blackhurst are expected to be asked about
their papers' approaches to ethics, fact-checking and complaints.

Further testimony will come from former Daily Telegraph editor Will Lewis,
who joined News International in September 2010, and Telegraph Media Group chief
executive Murdoch MacLennan.

The inquiry heard on Monday from executives at The Sun, whose editor Dominic
Mohan said the paper could be a "powerful force for good" through its campaigns,
support for charities and ability to explain complicated stories in a clear
way.

And Mr Mohan's most famous predecessor, Kelvin MacKenzie,
defended his "bullish" approach to running the paper between 1981 and 1994,
telling the inquiry he did not spend much time worrying about journalistic
ethics.

News Corp. Execs Tumble as Scandal Widens





Published: July 15, 2011 @ 12:14 pm






3 Comments









Print this page
















By Lucas Shaw

Two top senior executives at News Corp. resigned on Friday. Les
Hinton, CEO of Dow Jones & Co., resigned in a letter to News Corp.
Chairman Rupert Murdoch just hours after Rebekah Brooks, the embattled
chief of News International, stepped down.

Hinton, who also serves as publisher of the Wall Street Journal and
is a 52-year veteran of the company, sent out a memo to his staff
calling it a "deeply, deeply sad day."



Hinton has come under great scrutiny of late because of his possible
complicity in the phone hacking scandal enveloping News Corp. Hinton
was chairman of News International, News Corp.'s British publishing arm
and the division that oversaw the now-shuttered tabloid News of the
World, from 1997 to 2005 -- while much of the hacking and alleged
bribery took place.

His resignation came the same day as that of Rebekah Brooks, his
successor at News International and herself a former World editor.

In his resignation letter to Murdoch, Hinton said he was not aware
of wrongdoing at News of the World beyond what was discovered in an
investigation under his purview in 2007. Hinton testified in front of
the English

Parliament's Culture Media and Sports Select Committee that only one
man -- former royals editor Clive Goodman -- had engaged in hacking.

Subsequent revelations have revealed those comments to be false and
have raised suspicion that editors and potentially even News Corp.
executives were aware of the nefarious activities.

"That I was ignorant of what apparently happened is irrelevant, and
in the circumstances I feel it is proper for me to resign from News
Corp, and apologize to those hurt by the actions of the News of the
World."

The
scandal that has raged for nearly two weeks continues to scale the News
Corp. hierarchy, with the latest resignations uncomfortably close to
the CEO suite. Both Brooks and Hinton are close friends and advisers of
the elder Murdoch.

The company issued a statement by Murdoch that accompanied the news:

"Les and I have been on a remarkable journey together for more than
52 years. That this passage has come to an unexpected end,
professionally, not personally, is a matter of much sadness to me,”
commented Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corporation.

“On this difficult day we should appreciate that his extraordinary
work has provided a platform for the future success of Dow Jones. And
his great contribution to News Corporation over more than five decades
has enhanced innumerable lives, whether those of employees hired by him
or of readers better informed because of him. News Corporation is not
Rupert Murdoch. It is the collective creativity and effort of many
thousands of people around the world, and few individuals have given
more to this Company than Les Hinton."

Dow Jones President Todd Larsen will replace Hinton and report to news Corp.

This was a ticker tape announcement ." Newscorp for the first time releases the Tabloid story of a child killer".........I assume it must be Milly Dowler.???.

This is rich, on a ticker-tape just now Murdoch is accusing Google of obtaining information illegally.

If any of you tweeters can find out more, do post it here.

The latest on tickertape taken from xclamations report.

Times editor Harding mentions Iraq coverage. Yet ALL Murdoch's 175 titles came out in favour of invasion. Is t ... yesterday · reply · retweet · favorite

Newscorp....note not Murdoch, is admitting hacking Ashley Cole"s phone.

This is it folks......Newscorp has settled 36 Lawsuits including the hacking of Jude Law, Charlotte Church and othe celebs. Settlements ranged from
£5 or six thousand to £100,000. News International has accepted that some Managers knew and there will be a Trial in the next couple of months.

Panda wrote:This is it folks......Newscorp has settled 36 Lawsuits including the hacking of Jude Law, Charlotte Church and othe celebs. Settlements ranged from
£5 or six thousand to £100,000. News International has accepted that some Managers knew and there will be a Trial in the next couple of months.

Thanks Panda.

Murdoch Company Settles With 36 Hacking Victims

By SARAH LYALL, ALAN COWELL and RAVI SOMAIYA

Published: January 19, 2012

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LONDON — The actor Jude Law, the soccer star Ashley Cole, and Lord Prescott, a former British deputy prime minister, were named Thursday on a list of 36 victims of phone hacking who have reached settlements totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

Enlarge This Image

Andrew Cowie/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The actor Jude Law was among a list of 36 victims of alleged hacking who was said to have reached a settlement with News Corp.


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Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines.



A statement by lawyers representing hacking victims said that Mr. Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, which published the now-defunct News of the World tabloid, had agreed to pay substantial damages on the basis “that senior employees and directors” of the company “knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence.”
While not explicitly admitting or denying those claims, the company approved the wording of the statement and agreed to set compensation on the basis that it was true. In doing so, it acknowledged, lawyers said, that it had deliberately covered up both the existence and the pervasiveness of the News of the World’s phone hacking operation; lied about it to the police and Parliament; and destroyed evidence in the case.
Details about some of the settlements were disclosed at a High Court hearing on Thursday, in which victims’ statements were read aloud and a lawyer for News Group repeatedly apologized on behalf of the company.
Victims whose settlement details were disclosed include Mr. Law, who received 130,000 pounds (about $200,000) in damages; Sadie Frost, his ex-wife, who received 50,000 pounds ($77,000) ; Ben Jackson, his assistant, who received 40,000 pounds ($61,000); Dennis MacShane, a member of Parliament, who received 32,500 pounds ($50,000); and Gavin Henson, a Welsh rugby star, who received 40,000 pounds ($61,000). In each case, the settlement includes legal costs, which can easily run into six-figure sums for a single complainant.
The settlements disclosed on Thursday represent only a small number of the cases brought by people who say their phones were hacked against News Group.
Mark Lewis, a lawyer for many of the phone hacking victims, said in an e-mail that the claimants’ fight against the Murdoch media properties was not over.
“It is important that we don’t get carried away into thinking that the war is over,” Mr. Lewis said, according to The Associated Press. “ There are many more cases in the pipeline.”
He added: “This is too early to celebrate, we’re not even at the end of the beginning.”
The scandal, which exploded last year into a full-blown crisis for Mr. Murdoch’s holdings in Britain, has led to a series of police and judicial inquiries into the behavior of journalists, police officers and politicians.
At the same, disclosures about hacking by a private investigator employed by The News of the World — a 168-year-old Sunday tabloid that Mr. Murdoch ordered closed last year as the scandal spread — forced a series of high-level resignations, including that of Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor who later became media adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron. He resigned a year ago amid continued questions about his possible involvement in the illegal hacking.
At least 20 people have been arrested by police.
News reports on Thursday did not immediately specify the total amount involved in the settlements. But only a fraction of potential victims have settled with the company, and its final legal bill could be well into the tens of millions of pounds, lawyers say.
All of the cases dealt with voice mail interception except one which related to alleged hacking of the personal e-mail account of Christopher Shipman, the son of convicted mass murderer Harold Shipman.

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Phone hacking: News of the World’s executives led the cover-up, say hacking victims

Senior executives at the News of the World “deliberately destroyed evidence” as part of a “conspiracy” to cover up the extent of phone hacking, it has been alleged.

Dannii Minogue, left, Sadie Frost and Jude Law are among those who have now settled claims against News International Photo: REX








By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

7:30AM GMT 20 Jan 2012


Computers used by journalists at the newspaper were destroyed in 2010, a few months before Scotland Yard began a fresh investigation into voicemail interception.

As News Group Newspapers, part of News International, agreed to pay more than £1 million in damages to 37 victims of phone hacking yesterday, the victims’ lawyers made a series of claims about directors at the company.

A joint statement by three leading law firms stated that the compensation had been agreed “on the basis that senior employees and directors of NGN knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence”.

The statement stopped short of naming any directors but when the computers were broken up, NGN was headed by James Murdoch, with Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive, on the board.

A spokesman for the company said no admissions had been made of senior employees or directors being aware of evidence being destroyed. Earlier, during an application at the High Court for an order to force News Group to disclose more evidence of phone hacking, Jeremy Reed, counsel for the victims, said eight computers used by journalists implicated in hacking had been destroyed when the company moved to a new office in autumn 2010.

Related Articles

• Harold Shipman's son had phone and email hacked by NotW
  19 Jan 2012
  
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  19 Jan 2012
  
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  19 Jan 2012
  
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  19 Jan 2012
  
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  19 Jan 2012
  

Mr Reed told Mr Justice Vos that in March last year Paul Cheesbrough, who joined News International as head of IT in 2010, had said: “We have destroyed all the computers from that time.” Mr Reed added: “Here is a company that has deliberately destroyed the key computers and it is now standing here saying 'we’ve only got the ones from after that so it’s disproportionate to search them’.”
Company sources said any emails sent from the computers were stored on a server, the contents of which have been given to police.
The joint statement issued later by Bindmans, Atkins Thomson and Steel & Shamash said that as a result of more than 60 claims being brought against News Group, “documents relating to the nature and scale of the conspiracy, a cover-up and the destruction of evidence/email archives by News Group have now been disclosed to the claimants”.
As part of the agreement reached with 37 victims yesterday, News Group promised to carry on searching its archives for more evidence of illegal activity, which it will hand over to the victims’ lawyers. The statement continued: “This was important because attempts are being made to reconstruct email archives which had been destroyed by News Group in an apparent attempt to cover up wrongdoing.”
James Murdoch has already faced allegations of a cover-up after he claimed he had been unaware that phone hacking went beyond Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s former royal editor, who was convicted in 2007. The newspaper’s lawyer, Tom Crone, and its former editor, Colin Myler, told a parliamentary committee last year that they had made Mr Murdoch aware in 2008 of an email that implicated a second reporter.
Mr Murdoch, who twice gave evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating phone hacking last year, maintains he only found out about the other allegations much more recently.
Mark Thomson, who represented Jude Law and other hacking victims, said yesterday: “After years of denials and cover-up, News Group Newspapers has finally admitted the depth and scale of the unlawful activities of many of their journalists at the News of the World and the culture of illegal conduct at their paper.”
In a statement, News International said: “Today NGN agreed settlements in respect of a number of claims against the company. NGN made no admission as part of these settlements that directors or senior employees knew about the wrongdoing by NGN or sought to conceal it.
“However, for the purpose of reaching these settlements only, NGN agreed that the damages to be paid to claimants should be assessed as if this was the case.”


















http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/9026506/Phone-hacking-News-of-the-Worlds-executives-led-the-cover-up-say-hacking-victims.html
Telegraph

Leveson Inquiry

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In Phone Hacking



Leveson Inquiry: 'Heat Magazine is not my normal journal'





PCC hacking probe 'worse than a whitewash'





Ian Hislop mocks the media's antics





The Sunday Times 'blagged Brown'





Hacking 'might have happened at Mirror'

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More from The Telegraph

Rebekah Brooks Becomes Mum by Surrogate

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The surrogate mother has not been named and wishes to
remain anonymous


11:51am UK, Thursday January 26, 2012


Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and her husband
have become parents by a surrogate mother.


Scarlett Anne Mary Brooks was born on Wednesday at The Portland private
hospital in central London.

Mrs Brooks and her husband, former racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, who she
married in 2009, spent years trying to conceive before deciding to use a
surrogate.

The pair announced the birth saying: "Our beautiful little miracle, Scarlett
Anne Mary Brooks arrived at The Portland at 4.05pm weighing 6lbs 1oz."

Mrs Brooks's spokesman David Wilson said: "They are obviously overjoyed and
relieved at a safe birth.

"Scarlett was born at 37 weeks and is perfectly healthy and the family are
getting to know one another.


Brooks after the closure of the News Of The
World



"It is tremendous news for them. They have been trying for five years to have
a baby - since they got together."

The surrogate mother has not been named and wishes to remain anonymous.

Mrs Brooks, 43, who grew up in Warrington, Cheshire, edited the News Of The
World and The Sun before becoming chief executive of parent company News
International in 2009.

Public furore erupted in July after it was claimed that a private detective
working for the News Of The World hacked the mobile phone of murdered schoolgirl
Milly Dowler.

Mrs Brooks resigned as News International chief executive on July 15 last
year.

Two days later Scotland Yard detectives arrested her on suspicion
of phone hacking and corruption.

She is currently on police bail. Her lawyer has said she denies committing
any criminal offence.

At least the poor wee mite might not have inherited the "evil" gene.