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News of the World to close amid hacking scandal

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PeteEU

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BBC News - News of the World to close amid hacking scandal

This Sunday's issue of the News of the World will be the last edition of the paper, News International chairman James Murdoch has said.
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This took under a week.

Some back ground.

The basics of the case was that News of the World journalists hired a private investigator in 2001 and onwards to hack the voice mails and phones of "famous people". It started when the Royal family got the police involved after they suspected someone had been bugging/hacking their mobile phones. This has been know for a while and the journalist and private investigator have been convicted of it some time ago after a police investigation.

However there has always been criticism of the investigation and a suspicion it was not on a few that had their phones hacked but in fact many. The other news papers but especially The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian continued to look into the case and over the years the names of the famous people who had been hacked came out. They included the actress Siena Miller, British politicians and so on and so on.

But the "crapper hit the fan" under a week ago, when it came out that the phone of missing child Milly Dowler had been hacked by the very same private investigator and that he even deleted voice mails during the investigation, making the family and police think she was still alive. Then it came out other missing girls/boys phones were hacked, and then it really started to snowball with revelations that the families of victims of 7/7 terror attacks in London might have been hacked and then yesterday the worst of all came out.... the phones of families of service men lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now the attacks against News of the World did not stop here, but continued up the corporate ladder and is still going on, since the editor of the News of the World at the time of the hacking, is now the CEO of NewsCorp International and a very personal friend of the sitting Prime Minister. Also one of those now seriously implicated in the case, is the former spin doctor and right hand man of... the present Prime Minister.

Companies have pulled pretty much all advertising over the last two days, with only NewsCorp semi owned Sky saying they would not pull their ads.

So today, Murdoch Jr. pulled the plug on a 168 year old newspaper in the hope that the scandal will not pull down NewsCorp it self... Daddy Murdoch still backs the editor now CEO of News International... as does the Prime Minister... and every one is denying that they knew about the hacking... since when does an Editor not know what is going on in his/her newspaper?

Oh and it is also now a fact that the News of the World paid police officers for information, which of course means even more police investigations. Lets hope they do a better job this time around...

And in all this, NewsCorp has been trying to buy 100% of Sky (Satellite operator in the UK and major News outlet), which now is under review after massive pressure despite the Cameron government signing off on it .. well pretty much.

And to show how bad it is with NewsCorp.... the Sun, another Murdoch tabloid, did not mention a word of the scandal today in its newspaper...The Times did though.

The consequences for Murdoch in the UK can be huge... he sits on a huge portion of the media as it is, but this scandal has the possibility to tear the whole thing apart.

Much much more to come... and if I were Murdoch, I would be very afraid about going to the UK any time soon.
 
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PeteEU said:
BBC News - News of the World to close amid hacking scandal



This took under a week.

Some back ground.

The basics of the case was that News of the World journalists hired a private investigator in 2001 and onwards to hack the voice mails and phones of "famous people". It started when the Royal family got the police involved after they suspected someone had been bugging/hacking their mobile phones. This has been know for a while and the journalist and private investigator have been convicted of it some time ago after a police investigation.

However there has always been criticism of the investigation and a suspicion it was not on a few that had their phones hacked but in fact many. The other news papers but especially The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian continued to look into the case and over the years the names of the famous people who had been hacked came out. They included the actress Siena Miller, British politicians and so on and so on.

But the "crapper hit the fan" under a week ago, when it came out that the phone of missing child Milly Dowler had been hacked by the very same private investigator and that he even deleted voice mails during the investigation, making the family and police think she was still alive. Then it came out other missing girls/boys phones were hacked, and then it really started to snowball with revelations that the families of victims of 7/7 terror attacks in London might have been hacked and then yesterday the worst of all came out.... the phones of families of service men lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now the attacks against News of the World did not stop here, but continued up the corporate ladder and is still going on, since the editor of the News of the World at the time of the hacking, is now the CEO of NewsCorp International and a very personal friend of the sitting Prime Minister. Also one of those now seriously implicated in the case, is the former spin doctor and right hand man of... the present Prime Minister.

Companies have pulled pretty much all advertising over the last two days, with only NewsCorp semi owned Sky saying they would not pull their ads.

So today, Murdoch Jr. pulled the plug on a 168 year old newspaper in the hope that the scandal will not pull down NewsCorp it self... Daddy Murdoch still backs the editor now CEO of News International... as does the Prime Minister... and every one is denying that they knew about the hacking... since when does an Editor not know what is going on in his/her newspaper?

Oh and it is also now a fact that the News of the World paid police officers for information, which of course means even more police investigations. Lets hope they do a better job this time around...

And in all this, NewsCorp has been trying to buy 100% of Sky (Satellite operator in the UK and major News outlet), which now is under review after massive pressure despite the Cameron government signing off on it .. well pretty much.

And to show how bad it is with NewsCorp.... the Sun, another Murdoch tabloid, did not mention a word of the scandal today in its newspaper...The Times did though.

The consequences for Murdoch in the UK can be huge... he sits on a huge portion of the media as it is, but this scandal has the possibility to tear the whole thing apart.

Much much more to come... and if I were Murdoch, I would be very afraid about going to the UK any time soon.
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Unbelievable story. Clearly News Intl. have realised that they can no longer be sweeping everything under the carpet and to turn the NotW into the Sun on Sunday (The Sunday Sun is a non-starter as a paper of that name already exists) is the only option. I don't think it is as cataclysmic as it appears, but it is pretty bad to News Intl. I'm pretty sure the ramifications for Cameron will be well controlled. A couple more heads will roll and I'd be delighted if the odious Rebekah Wade walks, but don't hold your breath; she knows where Murdoch and Cameron buries the bodies.
 
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Amazing how fast a News Paper can crash and burn over doing some really stupid moves.

Credibility is still very important to some but not so much to others.
 
Councilman said:
Amazing how fast a News Paper can crash and burn over doing some really stupid moves.

Credibility is still very important to some but not so much to others.
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They are making it sound much, much more drastic that it really is. I doubt the entire paper will close down, it will just change its name, a couple of key editorial seats and reorganise the staff. News Intl. know how to make a big propaganda splash when they need to.
 
Councilman said:
Amazing how fast a News Paper can crash and burn over doing some really stupid moves.

Credibility is still very important to some but not so much to others.
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Actually it is not only Newspapers that can crash and burn that fast.... any media outlet can do so... all depends on the stupid moves.

How long do you think that CNN would survive if the public learned that the phones of family members of dead US soldiers had been hacked, along with every family member of a 9/11 victim and of course the random celebrity and murdered child...

The real issue is if NewsCorp can survive since the comments coming out as I write this, clearly shows the scandal is not over and people are gunning for NewsCorp. One Times journalists, another NewsCorp newspaper that so far has nothing what so ever to do with this scandal, was called rather abusive names in the street by random people... so we shall see.
 
Andalublue said:
They are making it sound much, much more drastic that it really is. I doubt the entire paper will close down, it will just change its name, a couple of key editorial seats and reorganise the staff. News Intl. know how to make a big propaganda splash when they need to.
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Yes that is the sceptical view of many in the UK media at the moment and considering NewsCorp history. BBC just broke the news that the web domains "The Sunday Sun" and "The Sun on Sunday" were registered.... 2 days ago....

Question is if the public will accept a re-branding or not... I dont think they will to be honest. The Sun should know this.. it still does not sell anything in Liverpool after the Hillsbourgh fiasco over 20 years ago.
 
There has to be a plan b, since the distinctly downmarket NotW subsidises the Times and Sunday Times which are the upscale lossmakers in the News International UK stable.
 
Manc Skipper said:
There has to be a plan b, since the distinctly downmarket NotW subsidises the Times and Sunday Times which are the upscale lossmakers in the News International UK stable.
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Yes... News of the World was the biggest news paper per circulation on Sundays by far... and highly profitable.

Plan B is making the Sun on Sunday.. but question is if the public will accept that.... they are pretty pissed at NewsCorp and the Murdochs atm, plus I heard on the news that the Sun journalists and workers went on strike in sympathy over how the News of the World people were fired.
 
Andy Coulson might well be arrested tomorrow. He signed off on the payments while denying all knowledge under oath. Cameron can't backpedal away from his pals fast enough to not be tainted by this
 
Yes, pete, I do take the sceptical view. I worked for Murdoch for 3 years and I know that nothing is done under the pressure of public or political coercion. This strikes me as the plausible and likely motivation behind the move...

The closure of the News of the World could be a cunning ploy to legally shred any incriminating evidence linked to the phone hacking scandal, according to a prominent media lawyer.

Mark Stephens, head of media with Finers Stephens Innocent lawyer, said under British law the paper "may not be obliged to retain documents that could be relevant to civil and criminal claims against the newspaper—even in cases that are already underway."

If News of the World is to be liquidated, Stephens told Reuters, it "is a stroke of genius—perhaps evil genius."

All of the assets of the shuttered newspaper, including its records, will be transferred to a professional liquidator (such as a global accounting firm). The liquidator's obligation is to maximize the estate's assets and minimize its liabilities. So the liquidator could be well within its discretion to decide News of the World would be best served by defaulting on pending claims rather than defending them. That way, the paper could simply destroy its documents to avoid the cost of warehousing them—and to preclude any other time bombs contained in News of the World's records from exploding.
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From The Guardian, the paper who single-handedly brought the scandal to light.

News of the World closes
 
First arrests made. The former right hand man of the Prime Minister turned himself in. His house has been searched and material taken away.

The soon to be laid off News of the World people have had their internet access cut off in the news room plus guards have been posted on the floors... the people are not happy about this to say the least.

Question is why the police have not raided Newscorp yet... bet the shredders are glowing at the moment ..
 
PeteEU said:
First arrests made. The former right hand man of the Prime Minister turned himself in. His house has been searched and material taken away.

The soon to be laid off News of the World people have had their internet access cut off in the news room plus guards have been posted on the floors... the people are not happy about this to say the least.

Question is why the police have not raided Newscorp yet... bet the shredders are glowing at the moment ..
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And Rupert is working hard to save his empire

News Corp plans $5bn share buyback | Media | The Guardian
News Corp plans $5bn share buyback

News Corp has announced plans to buy back $5bn (£3.2bn) of its shares in an attempt to halt the slide in value of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

The growing phone hacking scandal has sent News Corp's shares down 13% since the story first broke. The share price collapse had wiped more than $5bn off the market value of News Corp. The drop was most painfully felt by the Murdoch family, which with a 39.7% shareholding, saw its paper fortune reduced by more than $2bn.
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It's not just about closing one paper. The market is losing confidence in NewsCorp. This could bring down his entire empire. Not just in the UK, but in the US also. Already, several congressmembers have called for a US investigation of this matter
 
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