News of the World

I'm surprised that concidering this has the potential to change the way the media acts forever and what they have done there isn't a single thread on here, not even one comment from the self proclaimed writters here.

 

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http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2794980.html

 

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Now the FBI is involved

On the Australian side Murdoc isnt getting much surport from politics, Bob Brown is calling for an inquiry into all of news limited which isnt a surprise concidering how news limited papers in Australia have spent years trying to crusify him for being a left winger

Gillard's comments when asked about it was that they should "just not write crap" so she is no friend of his and she certainly isnt about to go against the greens for him

As for the leader of the opositition Mr Negitive (Tony Abbott) i havent herd a word from him, seems abbott doesnt belive Murdoc is worth wasting any political capital on either

 

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incase anyone but me is interested here is an analysis by the ABC's media watch. Yes the ABC is goverment owned but it is very independent and media watch even more so

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/video/

Its episode 22

 

I love to see asshole backstabbing politicians lynch other assholes that used to be on friendly terms for political gain.

Let the asshole elite destroy each other. And LOL @ all the fake outrage attention whoring. Nobody actually cares about the victims, they just want to be outraged.

 

Actually if your talking about the Australian pollies then thats not actually accurate. Labor are more likely to have tollerated Murdoc's news limited and the Greens have been at war with News limited because they are pedling political activisum and calling it journalisium. If you take the opinion pieces which come after the editorials and letters to the editor in the Advertiser (SA's ONLY newspaper) you get a rotation between Amber petty (who is as blond as her name suggests and just as shallow in her topics) and Andrew Bolt who is right of George Bush. There is no balanced assesments in there papers and the left of politics and labor have either tolerated or been openly hostile to this for a while. Infact if i had to guess it may have been a strong contributing factor to why Gillard is having so much trouble selling her message.

That being said why turn this into a story about pollies? One example from the media watch story is that Murdoc's lackies hacked a young murder victom's phone and then deleted the contents before the police got it. That isnt just a political stouch, thats tampering with evidence in a MURDER investigation. Then there is the allergations of phone hacking of victoms of 9/11 in the US.

Im sorry but this isnt about what any pollies have done, this is what murdoc has done

 

One hell of a show

I should mention that there is a thread around here somewhere ... um ... er ... how about in Politics. One of Joepistole's threads, starting with the question of whether or not this scandal will kill News Corp.

As one member said, it was a bit early to start that speculation.

So to some degree I think people are just watching this spectacle evolve. It's moving rather quickly; Mark Steel led off his column this week in fine style:

Oh this is such fun. And every few hours it gets better, but always with an announcement there's "still worse to come", leaving us struggling to imagine what they might have done that's worse. Presumably by tomorrow it will turn out they planted a bug in Heather Mills's false leg and hacked into Stephen Hawking's voicebox.

The only thing that tarnishes it slightly is now everyone hates Murdoch. It's like when you follow an obscure band and they become famous. Suddenly politicians who've spent their careers prostrate before him are shocked at how dreadful these revelations are. This astonishment might be reasonable if News International was run by Susan Boyle or Dame Judi Dench, but this was RUPERT BLOODY SODDING BLOODY MURDOCH YOU IDIOT.​

I have a habit of missing certain things because it doesn't seem possible that I'm witnessing that degree of history in motion. And it's not a tremendously tall standard, either.

So it took until I heard the news of Murdoch's thrashing in Parliament, and then that the FBI was officially on the case, before I really started to believe the News Corp beast might actually be gravely wounded.

Meanwhile, it's hard to express an opinion when the facts contributing to that outcome are changing so rapidly. And by changing, I mean heaping up in a way that is only going to augment people's outrage.

I loathe News Corp. So I'm holding off on any predictions of what will happen because I won't get my hopes up simply for the sake of my loathing.

And the bad news keeps rolling in so quickly that I'm really not certain at what level to establish my disgust.

So I watch. And wait. And it's one hell of a show.
____________________

Notes:

Steel, Mark. "How about a TV detective called Yates?" The Independent. July 13, 2011. Independent.co.uk. July 15, 2011. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...bout-a-tv-detective-called-yates-2312536.html

 

my apologies for missing that, i did check through WE and ethics before posting it but i should have had a better look through politics too i guess.

I do agree with you that i was sceptical about the damage done to its Australian arm as well. Concidering the spanking ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) gave Allen Jones for very corupt behavior and the fact hes still there well ACMA has few teeth and they have no power over print. Further more he controles most of the papers and all in some states such as SA.

However even his own papers are starting to show stories about this which is an interesting sign concidering the soft touch his journilists usually give there boss (see the media watch artical)

So far no laws have been pased against him in the UK (a vote in the lower house is aparently non binding) but as its an oposition motion which got unanomous surport it could well become some form of legislation. Infact that alone would garentiee legislation in Australia if he defied it but the UK system is slightly different from the Australian one when it comes to the upper house.

 

It's still huge news here in the UK, politicians and journos opposed to the Murcdoch monster are taking every opportunity to bash him and News International. I don't blame them one bit.

I don't really think the News Of The World represents much of a material loss to Murdoch, but if it harms his other interests then I think he will start to panic.

I stopped reading the UK papers years ago, so full of fear mongering, editorial bias, bullshit, self serving stories, etc.
The BBC may not be perfect but as far as news outlets go I think it is one of the best.

What's interesting is that we know many people in the UK had their phones and emails hacked....but what if extends into other Euro nations and the USA? Some major heads will have to start rolling, maybe even Murdoch's.

 

the first head HAS rolled

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-15/news-international-chief-rebekah-brooks-quits/2796612

 

I suggest (if your post is more than hyperbolie) that you watch media watche's 13th episode

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/video/

it is about a book by a former Australian minster Linsy Tanner. he was one of the best performing of the Labor minsters before the election which he chose not to contest and his seat went to the greens.

 

I'd think that the apathy that you are noticing about this matter is coming from many who feel that the government and news media are already in bed with each other and that the government allows the media to already get away with slander, lies, embellishments and on and on. They really don't think that much will come of this in the long run because the government needs the media to do its bidding at times to insure certain public officials stay out of the news, certain politicians get elected and others get discredited by the news. So now the government got itself burned by its own friendship with the media and they are pissed off, so what, it will all blow over in time and they will both be back sleeping with each other once again in a short while. Just another bump in the road but they need each other, perhaps they just might not need Murdock any longer and want him out of the circus for any reasons. :shrug:

 

cosmic, even assuming that the only issue in all this is between pollies and journos there is still an issue with shifting the blame for this back onto the pollies. Yes they need the media but its not the "need" that exists between celebs and the paparatzi which is what you 2 are basically suggesting. Pollies actually do have to diseminate infomation, its a core part of the job. Not for self gratification but rather because if they DONT then nothing gets done, if you dont sell your legislative programe you dont get elected, and if you dont get elected your program doesnt get put in place. There is no point in planing to build a new hospital because its needed if no one KNOWS thats what your planning to do so no one votes for you.

Now sure pollies get some printing alowances but opositions dont and even if they did most people throw the newsletters in the bin. They have to cut through.

The media then manipulate this and when you only have one source of news you have major problems for democracy as a whole.

Once again i suggest you watch the media watch program i linked too.

And again thats just looking at only the relationships between pollies and journos, what did the young girl whos phone was hacked after she was murdered and then evidence was errased by the media, what did SHE do to invite this sort of blatently illegal activity?

Apart from the actually relationship between the political structure and the 4th estate pollies also have a roll in regulation. The parliment writes the legislation and debates there matter, they show the public what the pollies are thinking about on specific issues and potentually where they plan to go and that includeds where regulation will go. This is a multinational criminal scandle and to expect that it wouldnt be debated in parliment is rather astonishing (for me at least), makes me wonder what exactly your congress does. More than likly there will be at least a parlimentry inquiry out of this if not a royal commission and there should be. If the situation was reversed then the media would be taring strips out of parliment and it did (take the british coverage of the parlimentry "perks" scandal for instance) but as one person put it the media is calling it abhorent when police investigate police, judges investigate judges, lawyers investigate lawyers and doctors investigate doctors but some how its acceptable for the media to investigate itself. In the Australian context i dont know why newspapers were ever left out of ACMA's reach

 

one thought and one question that occured to me when this first happened, that is that that ACMA has no teeth which is something i have known ever since i started watching media watch. The act requires certain ethical standeds from the commertial media outlets such as requiring that they give balanced reporting to issues of national importance and that they not pry into the private lives of people unless there is a public intrest reason for doing so. Now this hasnt been enforced as it should but the law is there

The question though is how could you stop these sorts of issues happerning in the US? As i read the first ammendment with regard to the media it gives a compleatly unrestricted power to the media. Now i dont know how your courts have interpreted this but it appears that apsolute power has been granted to those who are only in it to make a buck (we hope, they could be in it for power).

 

I have mixed feelings about this 'phone hacking' story.

1) I think that what 'News of the World' is reported to have done is probably illegal and certainly unethical. I'd personally like to see the reporters who did it, their editors, and any executives that knew about it and let it continue, all be convicted of felonies and go to prison for multi-year sentences. That includes Murdoch himself and all of his henchmen, including Rebekah, the bitch-queen of British journalism.

2) But one thing that troubles me is that it's an open-secret that 'News of the World' wasn't the only British news organization that was doing this kind of thing. It's said to be widespread across much of the profession.

But Murdoch is thoroughly disliked by many of his competitors, and it's that media that's reporting the whole affair and is whipping up public outrage about it. So the whole spotlight is on Murdoch and there's no interest at all in pursuing industry-wide abuses.

I really hate all the hypocrisy.

3) My own attitude towards the media in general is profound distrust.

Editors have somehow made themselves into the most powerful people in some countries, particularly those that boast a "free press". Editors can make or break politicians through the kind of coverage that they provide, particularly at election-time. So politicans' careers depend on keeping journalists sweet. And that translates into untouchability, into the position of effectively being above the law.

Everyone in power depends on the media being kept satisfied. And the media is fully aware that it has the power to destroy the career of anyone that opposes them. So police drop criminal investigations when newspapers threaten to make top police officials' extramarital affairs public. They also drop investigations when the Prime Minister and most of Parliament (of all parties) are perceived as being willing to do whatever it takes to protect their friends.

But it's a very tense and resentful "friendship", and when a newspaper company goes down that the rest of the media aren't interested in protecting, that's when the sharks feast. The only concern now is to keep the investigations focused squarely on Murdoch and make sure that everyone else's immunity remains safe.

Of course, Murdoch's people doubtless have a lot of dirt about what their competitors were doing. If their careers are ruined and if they're crashing in flames, then they might feel like taking the others down with them. So startling new revelations could appear any day, perhaps on some independent website or in a foreign newspaper.

Journalists obviously do provide a badly needed check on unrestrained government power and abuse. But who provides a check on journalists' own unrestrained use of their own power? And what happens to all the checks and balances when government leaders' insatiable need for good publicity drives them into an unholy and corrupt alliance with the editors that cover them and have the power to make and break them?

 

bells if you think this is just going to go away with a name change and a couple of mid level resignations i doubt it. As i said previously there is already an FBI investigation into it and if the vote in the UK parliment goes ahead murdoc has already lost the takeover deal he was after (which incidently would increase his ownership of Sky news in Australia to 100% if it did go through). My guess is it might go away if his head was on a plate but even that is an iffy question, there are various investigations happerning in the UK, US and one on the books here and god knows if this will spread to eroupe as well

 

That last bit is the question that is being asked here, there is little evidence of this sort of conduct happerning in Australia but the main question to come out of this is where is the check on the media. ACMA is one of the weakest goverment regulators, the newspapers arnt even covered by ACMA, the ABC can only go so far in balancing the sorts of political bias that coprate media can employ and the majority of the public wouldnt even know about it.

Why did it take me so long to post this thread? because i had stopped watching media watch and i forgot the channel for ABC News Radio, why is there no www.news.com.au sources on here? because all the papers on that site are murdocs and his papers arnt printing ANYTHING about this. Tracking this story was like tracking a ghost when i first herd about it, i couldnt find anything about it.

Basically the whole thing reminds me of the sorts of propergander coverup that places like China and NK are famous for and your right, they can bring down goverments if they chose to. They are already at war with the greens and Bob Brown has aleged some VERY dogy practices before all this.

All this shows why strong regulators and media ownership laws are so vital and why the BBC, ABC ect are so important. Imagin if Murdoc had got his way and shut down the BBC and ABC's online componants, where could you get unbiased coverage of the pollies comments about changes to media regulation then? Murdoc is just about at war with our parliment, IS at war with the UKs, his compeatitors have problems with conflict of interests (are they involved and covering there asses? are they blowing things up to hurt a compeator?)