The View from Across the Pond: The Rupert Murdoch Story

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Members of both political parties fawned before Murdoch and staff for the publicity

The fallout from the telephone tapping scam in Britain has apparently crossed the Atlantic where Rupert Murdoch’s empire is under threat. It started somewhat innocuously with the discovery that the telephones of Princes William and Harry had been tapped. It has now reached enormous proportions, and has caused accusations of political parties fawning before Rupert Murdoch and his staff to gain publicity – Murdoch has a habit of changing preferences before elections. At the heart of this is the Sunday newspaper the News of the World. It has already paid out large sums to a number of celebrities for breach of their privacy, obviously hoping to close the matter. But there are now estimates that around four thousand other people’s telephones have been hacked, including the voice mail of a young thirteen year old girl who disappeared and was thought to have been murdered (her body was found a few months later), and the telephones of bereaved families of soldiers who had been killed in Afghanistan.

News International owns four newspapers in Britain – the Sun, Times, Sunday Times and News of the World. It is the latter which is the focus of attention, but it may well spread to the others. The original police investigation was stopped by the police after consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service (the British equivalent of American District Attorneys). The CPS denies being involved, although that seems unlikely as it supervises nearly all police investigations. Part of the reason for abandoning it is that the News of the World deliberately withheld thousands of emails from the police, which were subsequently released by a new management. Some of the hacking and bribery has been done on behalf of the News of the World by known criminals who have served prison sentences for similar offences.

The News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks telephoned our last Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to tell him that she was publishing the fact that his son was suffering from cystic fibrosis – before Brown himself had made it public. He has said that he was in tears at Rebekah Brook’s disclosure but saw fit subsequently to invite her to a party at the Prime Minister’s country house. How the News of the World obtained this information is not known. He had previously invited several tabloid editors to the funeral of his daughter who died at 10 days old. Brown has also claimed that his bank accounts and other personal matters have been hacked. The Queen’s personal telephone number has also been breached. There are also allegations that large sums have been paid to police officers in bribes for information.

Our present Prime Minister has in the past been constantly criticised for employing a previous editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, as his publicity guru. Coulson was forced to resign a few months ago after much political pressure. He has also been criticised for getting too close to Rebekah Brooks, attending her wedding and other gatherings.

The fallout from this is going to be enormous. A House of Commons Committee, similar to an American Senate hearing is to question Rupert Murdoch and his son, together with Rebekah Brooks, when they appear before it shortly. Rebekah Brooks has now resigned as CEO of News International.

Rupert Murdoch has now closed the News of the World, which has been in existence for a hundred and sixty eight years. But he may well replace it with the Sun on Sunday. The Murdoch empire also owns 39% of our satellite broadcaster BSkyB. He has been attempting to acquire the remaining 61% and this was on the point of being approved, but under much pressure from Parliament he has now withdrawn the application.

The government has set up two judicial enquiries headed by a judge. One is to examine the whole of the hacking scandal and the police’s part in it. The other is to examine the relationship between the media, politicians and police, and form a set of rules for the future. It will also examine whether one organisation can in future hold so large a portion of the media as has happened with Murdoch.

This of course has created much interest in Parliament, and confusion in the government. On normal days there are usually only twenty or thirty members of parliament present for debates, but for something exciting like this all six hundred and fifty members turn up so it’s standing room only. David Cameron has now been saying that politicians have been too eager to fall for media blandishments, and have learnt their lesson and will change their ways – as we are always told after these sort of scandals.

We’ve done a lot of stories on Rupert Murdoch and we are interested in what you think about the whole thing.