News Of The World Shut Down

[clocker]

Fox is saying we need to move on from the story. Nothing to see here.

I'm guessing the first Fox personality to confront the story will be Sarah Palin.
She's been honing her martyr's act and played at being being victimized by the liberal media under Murdoch's aegis...now's the time he wheels her out as the opening sally in his defense campaign.

Of course, she could just as easily throw Fox under the bus and go for her big shining moment as the TP's Joan of Arc.
Betrayal and double dealing are hardly beneath her.

[JPaul]

Rupert and James Murdoch have agreed to appear before Parliament to answer questions on the subject, as has Rebekah Brooks.

That should be an interesting confrontation. I believe it will be televised here and if not I would expect the "highlights" to be available.

There must be some really interesting deals going on in the background here. As I said one of the central figures (Andy Coulson) also worked very closely with the PM. It seems he wasn't the only one and unsurprisingly Mr Cameron knew all of them socially, at least to some extent.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...e-2314787.html

Coulson invite 'normal', says Hague

Inviting Andy Coulson to Chequers after his resignation as Downing Street director of communications was a "normal, human thing" for David Cameron to do, Foreign Secretary William Hague said today.

Mr Hague said he was not embarrassed "in any way" by the Government's relationship with News International executives and defended the Prime Minister's decision to entertain Mr Coulson, the former News of the World editor, at his Buckinghamshire retreat in March.

Labour claimed last night that his invite to Chequers was evidence of Mr Cameron's "extraordinary lack of judgment".

But Mr Hague told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "In inviting Andy Coulson back the Prime Minister has invited someone back to thank him for his work, he's worked for him for several years, that is a normal, human thing to do, I think it shows a positive side to his character."

Downing Street has also disclosed that Rebekah Brooks, who resigned yesterday as chief executive of News International, received hospitality at Chequers twice last year, once in June and again in August.

According to a list of prime ministerial engagements, News International chairman James Murdoch also attended Chequers in November.

Ms Brooks and Mr Murdoch met the Prime Minister socially in December. Separately, Ms Brooks met Mr Cameron again the same month.

There were further meetings between Mr Cameron and the editors of News International newspapers The Sun, The Times, News of the World and The Sunday Times.

Asked whether he was embarrassed by the amount of contact between the Government and News International executives, Mr Hague - a former News of the World columnist - said: "Personally I'm not embarrassed by it in any way, but there is something wrong here in this country and it must be put right.

"It's been acknowledged by the Prime Minister and I think that's the right attitude to take."

He added: "It's not surprising that in a democratic country there is some contact between leaders of the country, and indeed opposition leaders, and indeed I believe on that list of meetings there are also meetings with the executives of the Guardian and Trinity Mirror and whatever other news organisations."

Mr Cameron revealed last week that he had met Mr Coulson since his resignation, but "not recently and not frequently".

"When you work with someone for four years as I did, and you work closely, you do build a friendship and I became friends with him," the Prime Minister told a press conference last Friday.

"He became a friend and is a friend."

Amid calls from Labour leader Ed Miliband to apologise for his Downing Street appointment, Mr Cameron insisted he had had no reason to doubt Mr Coulson's assurances that he had no knowledge of hacking under his editorship.

At Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons on Wednesday, Mr Cameron said: "If it turns out he lied, it won't just be that he shouldn't have been in Government, it will be that he should be prosecuted."

Of Mr Coulson's visit to Chequers, shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis said: "This is yet more evidence of an extraordinary lack of judgment by David Cameron.

"He hosted Andy Coulson at Chequers after, in the Prime Minister's own words, Mr Coulson's second chance hadn't worked out.

"David Cameron may think that this is a good day to bury bad news but he now has an increasing number of serious questions to answer."

[NotLettingItGo]

That's all just lying cheating politicians playing the stupid immature party politics point scoring game they piss away valuable time playing against each other. Ed Milliband and his parties senior members are as close to News International execs as any Tory is. If you watched Question Time last week, you'd have seen Hugh Grant catch a shadow cabinet member out on that exact point, by pointing out that three weeks ago Ed and his cabinet members all attended a Rupert Murdoch party.

All politicians are bent, Labour just as much as the Toffs. The only ones who've got away with this is the Lib Dems, and that's not because they're not as corrupt as the Tories or Labour MPs, it's because Murdoch never paid any attention to members of a party he never thought would obtain any power.

[JPaul]

The Lib Dems are dead as a party anyway.

They have allowed a Conservative government to do whatever they wanted to the country. They did this whilst going back on pledges they made during the election campaign and in their manifesto. They have supported policies which they pledged to oppose, they were elected on their pledges and have now binned them to suck at the teat of political power. It was hysterical when leading Tories campaigned against the AV system they put forward and Labour who supported it refused to share a platform with Clegg so he had to send Cable.

Nick Clegg's legacy is as the man who made the Liberal Democrats a political non-entity. So much so that Scotland now has a majority party in Holyrood, in a system which was designed to make sure that was as near impossible as made no difference.

Anyway, the oppositions relationship with these people will rove to be irrelevant in my view. I have no doubt the Government and it's spin doctors will continue with the tu quoque argument that "they are as bad as us". So, as they say, what. The relationship between the Prime minister and in particular Mr Coulson will cause at the very last serious embarrassment and possibly worse. I listened to Gordon Brown speak in Parliament the other day and it was clear that even prior to News International giving their support overtly to the Conservatives he was far from being their best chum.

[Biggles]

The Lib Dems are dead as a party anyway.


Nick Clegg's legacy is as the man who made the Liberal Democrats a political non-entity. So much so that Scotland now has a majority party in Holyrood, in a system which was designed to make sure that was as near impossible as made no difference.

Quite an achievement really - although to be fair Labour ran such an inept campaign it was almost like they didn't want to win.

[j2k4]

The issue has proliferated, I see.

Very well.

What is the story, now - a scandal at News of the World (owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Foxnews) has caused incredible and incredulous upset in the U.K., and seemingly has tentacles that reach into the U.S.

Foxnews has reported the same facts other American nets have, though, according to some here, the difference in salivatory output indicates...something.

Fox, while forthrightly acknowledging the connections/conflicts it labors under, also notes that, insofar as what's happened stateside, hacking is becoming endemic.

The other networks are, in sum, "salivating"; one assumes this condition encompasses the requisite speculations about the relative level of 'rot' and bias extant at Foxnews.

One might wonder whence comes the description "salivating" given the commonly excepted trope that only Foxnews actually has a bias, but I digress.

Couple of questions:

Where, then, is the nexus of the actual issue?

NOTW?

Rupert Murdoch?

Foxnews?

Anybody up for a discussion of the White House's official 'policies' vis a vis Foxnews?





Ah - didn't think so.

JP - modulate your thread, please.

[NotLettingItGo]

The nexus of the issue is the criminal scum who decided they could break the laws of the land to (hopefully) find some salacious information about celebrities. They then decided they could do the same to victims of crime and their families.

The political left (who've always hated the biased media outlets of Mr Murdoch) have smelt blood in the water and commenced on a fully fledged witch hunt, all inclusive of every feature of witch hunts that history records... they're working towards the burning at the stake as we speak... well they're hopeful anyway.

Very few are really stupid enough to believe Rupert Murdoch ordered or instructed anyone to commit the crimes.

Better yet, everyone knows James Murdoch wasn't anywhere near the News of the World when the crimes were committed... but that won't stop the witch hunters baying for his blood... because he is the son of their avowed enemy in chief... Satans son himself, Rupert...

Simple facts have the rest of us not giving a toss about it. Even if Murdoch and his little UK empire fall, some other biased individual will come along and pick up the guantlet. There's an appetite for the kind of reporting that the empire reports, as proven by their sales figures. Because of the popularity of such reporting, our professional political class will cosy up to whomever the replacement is, and the corruption will continue unabated. Still it distracts them all from doing any more damage to some other poor sod for a while... so it's not a total waste of time.

[JPaul]

My only specific comment on events in the US is that the FBI have been asked to investigate whether or not News International hacked the phones of victims of the 9/11 atrocity. Where it has gone from there I have no idea whatsoever. However I do know that they are accused of doing a similar thing in the UK with regard the attacks in London.

How Fox News, or anyone else reported events there is a mystery to me. However I can say that, at the time I posted it the BBC were reporting that Fox News were singularly not reporting it, indeed off air the newsreaders were commenting on the very fact that they were staying silent. Hardly surprising though, given those involved.

It appeared strange that the BBC were reporting those events, including film of the politician in question being asked about the investigation he had requested, whereas a US News channel were not doing the same.

That is all.

[j2k4]

It appeared strange that the BBC were reporting those events, including film of the politician in question being asked about the investigation he had requested, whereas a US News channel were not doing the same.

How much stranger, then, that Peter King (the politician) appeared on Foxnews to chat about it?

Don't know that other US main-stream outlets couldn't seem to find him...in NYC.

[devilsadvocate]

King was the first republican to request investigations, there was a number of democrats asking for them before. It may be that King made more news because of a committee he sits on or heads

There is a thing with politicians on both sides where they refuse to appear on certain channels, It could be that the democrats wouldn't appear on fox , at least for an interview, and that King would only give interviews on fox, home ground. So, to be fair, fox may not have had anyone to interview until King stepped up.

Of course it's also possible that fox avoided interviewing the democrats.