Pits Of Hell Not Deep Enough For Murdoch's Crew

You could almost be forgiven for thinking that the scumbag hacks & corporate puppetmasters couldn't possibly sink any lower than what had already been revealed. I mean, Murdoch's crew of despicable skinbags hacked the phone of a murdered teenage girl, listened to her phone messages and then deleted some of them lest another "journalist" come by and do the same thing later. They guys hacked the phones of family of victims of 9/11. They hacked the phones of celebrities so that they could leak deeply personal information about their private lives and call it news. They paid the cops to illegally pass along private information. And, of course, they used their influence as a mega media corporation employing 53,000 people worldwide and with assets of over $50 billion with tentacles absolutely everywhere in order to threaten, cajole and harass politicians and anyone who disagreed with their right wing agenda. They run Fox News, which is the filthiest, lyingest, most racist and reprehensible media outlet in North America (not to put too fine a point on it). I mean - how could you possibly beat that?

Well, you would be wrong.

In the final issue of the News of the World, they ran an editorial by a woman named Sara Payne whose young daughter had been murdered some time ago. They had "championed" her case and supported the charity that she set up in the wake of the murder. Why, Rebekah Brooks, former editor in chief, recently forced to resign as CEO of News International (the British arm of News Corporation), even gave Ms. Payne her very own phone. In that editorial Ms. Payne described the support that she had received and how losing News of the World was like losing an old friend. And, yet, now it turns out, Ms. Payne's phone number was found in one of the notebooks belonging to Glen Mulcaire, the private detective paid handsome sums by News of the World to hack into the voice mail of NotW's targets.

The Labour MP Tom Watson, who has been an outspoken critic of News International, said of the Payne allegation: "This is a new low. The last edition of the News of the World made great play of the paper's relationship with the Payne family. Brooks talked about it at the committee inquiry. Now this. I have nothing but contempt for the people that did this."

It should be noted that Rebekah Brooks - editor in chief at the time of the greatest phone hacking - claims that she never knew anything about any of the phone hacking. Andy Coulson - also an editor at the News of the World at this time, and a former Tory spin doctor until he was forced to resign in January, also claimed that he knew nothing about any phone hacking or payments to the police. He's now been charged with perjury in relation to those claims and his continued close relationship with British PM David Cameron (who spent one Christmas with Ms. Brooks) has damaged him, possibly irreparably.

On Tuesday, July 26 the National Union of Journalists organized a meeting that drew 250 people in London against the Murdoch machine and for a truly free press.

Tony Burke, the assistant general secretary of the Unite union, said, “25 years ago Murdoch broke the trade unions at his newspapers. He used the extra profits he made from this to make a right wing media empire that extended its tentacles into the political class.”

As it turns out, it didn't just extend into the political class. They used that power to harass and spy on even the most powerless and devastated people in Britain and beyond in order to sell papers on the basis of the most grotesque tittle-tattle. There is growing talk that News International ought to be stripped of its licenses to operate media outlets in Britain. It will be sweet indeed if Murdoch's corruption, which made him rich and degraded journalism, brings down his empire during his lifetime.

News of the World targeted phone of Sarah Payne's mother | Media | guardian.co.uk

Rupert Murdoch, Friend Of Israel

Well this article is an interesting addition to the swirl of debate and exposé that's happening around Rupert Murdoch. The attached article is from J-Wire and is written by Isi Leibler. As all this scandal and humiliation was unfolding, I hadn't considered the impact that it might have upon Israel. Luckily, the zionists never neglect to defend a friend, no matter how much of a dirtbag, dictator, liar, racist or generally unpleasant person that they are. As Mr. Leibler notes:

"... while his enemies continue baying for his blood, most Israelis will be hoping that despite the criminal nature of the News of the World scandal, Rupert Murdoch and his senior management will be exonerated of direct malfeasance and his media holdings will remain substantially intact."

To be fair, Mr. Leibler does say several times that the phone hacking was "unconscionable" and "a disgrace to journalism" but the main thrust of the article is that Murdoch is a victim of the liberal media - which has also abandoned Israel - and the far left in the media. Apparently, Murdoch saved the British nation from the clutches of the far left - I assume by smashing the unions in the press back in the 1980s and creating the conditions of hyper-competitiveness that was a key dynamic driving the turn to the use of phone hacking.

Leibler continues, defending Murdoch from accusations of bias: "most of the Murdoch outlets maintain a fair and evenhanded approach [to Israel]". Fox News? The New York Daily Post? The Sun? Bias? Heavens, no? Leibler focuses his argument on the fact that while the Murdoch empire may have been guilty of some transgressions, the great man was in the forefront of defending western civilization (i.e. Israel) from an assault by "hostile Muslims and other extremists." As an aside, does a Muslim become an extremist by virtue of being hostile to something or is it rooted in the very nature of being Muslim? My guess is the latter and the only good Muslim for Mr. Leibler is one that acquiesces to the Israeli colonialist project and to the US backed dictatorships in the Middle East.

I have to say that I'm grateful that Mr. Leibler brought in the Israel angle and defends Rupert Murdoch from the point of view of the Zionist project. It has given me one more reason to cheer the public dismemberment of his empire and the corruption woven through its every fiber. If it means that Israel's lies have one less mouthpiece in the west and their hold over the narrative of the roots of the conflict in that region are weakened, the world will be a tiny bit of a better place.

Murdoch & News International: BURN BABY BURN!

I'll leave it to others of more sober professional inclinations and responsibility to provide the sophisticated analysis that the present crisis in Britain deserves. For my part I will unabashedly and with great joy celebrate the giant f***ing bonfire that is piling higher and higher everyday with kindling made of the great and good in British politics and media. The whole hacking scandal is coming unravelled so quickly that it's frankly hard to keep track. One minute its a former editor or two, then it's the chief executive, Rebekah Brooks whose willowy red hair makes one think of a character in a Harry Potter film. Now important political figures have started to fall - that includes the commissioner and deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London. The commissioner - undone by the freebies that News International gave him at an exclusive London spa - even had the audacity to have a go at the Prime Minister in his resignation letter.

The scandal has also spread to America where, hopefully, it will ignite that towering shithouse of right wing lunacy known as Fox News. Imagine that for a brief, pleasant moment that might be better than a mix of hallucinogens and sex: the end of Fox News. Perhaps Rupert Murdoch, union buster, parasite and vile usurper of the democratic process wherever possible, might actually have, in his dotage, provided a wonderful gift to the left. Maybe we can pick a date (the day of his own looming arrest?) and each year have a festival akin to Britain's Guy Fawkes day where giant bonfires are lit and effigies of Guy Fawkes are thrown on the pyre. Only in this case, we'll toss on effigies of Murdoch, his loathsome son, Rebekah with her serpentine locks writhing in the hot wind of the fire, a few cops and, as the piece de la resistance, David Cameron, the British Tory PM. Ah, I can taste those marshmallows now. Yummy.

And the whole thing gets dirtier and deeper with each passing moment. Today the former New of the World journalist who first blew the whistle on phone hacking was found dead by the cops, who immediately proclaimed it "not suspicious". Ah, yes, we'll certainly trust the cops then - who Sean Hoare, the dead journalist - also exposed as involved in the skullduggery that was just another day at the NotW offices. Nothing to see here then. Ignore the body of the man who was promising more and more damaging revelations. Trust us, we're the police - different than the ones who took the bribes and the spa weekends. Really.

Then there is poor, sodden David Cameron, prime minister of the UK. He always something of a fool, a toff with about as much street fighting smarts as you'd expect from an Eton boy who would look down his nose at a mere silver spoon. His whimsical pronouncements about such empty fluff as the Big Society and generally friendly foppishness made him a pleasant cover for the evil that lurks in the heart of every Tory party. Too bad he was so arrogant and stupid that he hired a dirty player like former NotW editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief and then, after the lying stalker was forced to resign, Cameron still hung out with him, including having his picture taken being all palsy with the bastard. Is it any wonder that the press - including the Tory press - are starting to call for Cameron's head on a plate?

In the end, some dirty compromise might be reached. Fox News might be spared the smear of being part of an organization that tapped the phones of family of victims of the World Trade Center attack. But it will surely undermine the credibility of Fox as a strident patriot's news source. In Britain, it may bring down the Prime Minister and bring instability into the heart of the government just when they are trying to fuck over their population with the whip of brutal austerity. And, as surely as the media lies, cheats and steals, an unstable government is one that is easier to defeat. I would dearly love to know how it would torment Murdoch to know that he helped to bring about the end of a Tory government and a revival of the workers' movement and the left. If he had any decency, he'd throw himself on the bonfire. He doesn't, of course, and so it will be all the sweeter if his former allies do it to him.

For the filthy full coverage, check this out: Latest news, comment and reviews from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

The Marvellous Meltdown Of Murdoch's Media Machine

It couldn't, to paraphrase, happen to a nicer newspaper. After 168 years the British News of the World has closed down in the face of a momentous scandal regarding phone hacking and corruption. That scandal is touching every aspect of British society, bringing key institutions and individuals into disrepute. It is weakening the Tory government at a time when they are already under siege because of the unpopularity of their austerity program. And the full depths of the scandal have yet to be plumbed.

For decades the Murdoch media empire has stood as the bulwark of right wing populism and political bullying in Britain and elsewhere. Politicians who didn't fellate the paper's masters faced the threat of ruin, union leaders would be hounded, progressive ideas misrepresented and condemned. Nor was it just in the realm of a ferocious ideological battle on behalf of corporate interests and the most backward, foul ideas of our age that the New of the World (NotW) was the vanguard. In the 1980s the battle at Wapping involved the Murdoch press smashing union organization in the UK print media, leading to a generational decline in wages and industry conditions.

To put it in perspective, Conrad Black is like a Rupert Murdoch mini-me. Lord Black once aspired to the heights of grotesquerie that Murdoch climbed and dominated for 30 years. Sadly, for Black, he turned out to be barely a Draco Malfoy to Murdoch's Lord Voldemort.

It has indeed been a sweet month to see Black back in the big house, where he belongs, and to see the dark lord himself humbled and his empire shaking from top to bottom.

Even more sweet is the knock on effect that this ignominious collapse is having upon the British police force - exposed as having regularly accepted bribes from NotW journalists to receive information that damaged criminal cases - and, perhaps more significantly, to the British Tory party. British PM David Cameron - despite numerous warnings that he was damaged goods - hired former senior NotW editor Andrew Coulson as his media relations chief after the election last year that brought them to government. That he did so is not so much a reflection of Cameron's stupidity but rather of the hubris that was the result of Murdoch's imperial power having been untouchable for so long. Cameron now looks like a corrupted buffoon and his already tarnished credibility is unlikely to recover from so great a lapse. This can't but help increase the confidence of trade unionists, students and others as they battle his wounded government over its austerity plans.

Certainly Murdoch's craven and vile publications are on the sharp end of mainstream media evil but just as certainly they aren't the only ones. Faced with international competition, not only from other media outlets now instantly accessible via the internet - but also from internet and media activists, exemplified by Wikileaks - the traditional media are under sustained pressure to use dirty tricks to stay ahead of competitors, get scoops, lay traps, etc. The revelation that NotW journalists hacked into the phone messages of a teenage murder victim - and then erased some of her messages to prevent other newspapers from gaining access - is only one of the more odious examples of this. The tsunami that is threatening the already shaky Murdoch empire, could easily spread to exposing the media more broadly, in Britain and across the Atlantic. Murdoch's News International, owned by News Corporation, is the world's second largest media company, behind Disney with revenue approaching $40 billion (that's right, with a "b"). It owns Fox News, which pumps out right wing bilge and conservative tinfoil hat lunacy from the likes of Glenn Beck, along with the equally crazy New York Post and the The Wall Street Journal. If nothing else, this will increase the suspicion of ordinary people - and perhaps a few intrepid and uncorrupted police detectives - towards the mainstream media more generally.

And, frankly, all of that is a good thing.

Meantime, enjoy this skewering of a senior features editor from NotW by a british comic:

Phone hacking | Media | guardian.co.uk