According to David Folkenflik of NPR: In total, British prosecutors alleging a conspiracy going to paper’s top levels to hack into mobile voicemail of 600+ people over 6 years.
Brooks remains defiant. In a statement: “I am not guilty of these charges. I did not authorise, nor was I aware of, phone hacking under my editorship.”
I am so rooting for you tomorrow not just as a personal friend but because professionally we’re definitely in this together. Speech of your life? Yes, he Cam!Former News International exec Rebekah Brooks • In a text message to current British Prime Minister David Cameron, on the brink of a speech Cameron was about to make at a Conservative Party conference. News International had to hand over the text messages between the two as part of the Leveson Inquiry that grew out of the company’s phone-hacking scandal. It’s been a fun one so far, with such luminaries as Tony Blair (who also had a tight relationship with Brooks) and Rupert Murdoch being forced to testify. Today was Cameron’s turn.
It was clearly something that he was familiar with and I wasn’t. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that this went on.Journalist Jeremy Paxman • Testifying before the Leveson inquiry, about an event he attended during 2002, during which then Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan taught him about phone hacking. Paxman told British officials that Morgan’s openness was “quite shocking”, particularly when it came to gaining and maintaining access to phones. “[Morgan explained] that the way to get access to people’s messages was was go to the factory default setting and press either 0000 or 1234,” testified Paxman, adding, “if you didn’t put on your own code… his words: “You’re a fool.” Unsurprisingly, Piers Morgan was less than pleased with Paxman’s testimony. (slight edit) source (via • follow)
Sky News, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp media empire, admitted on Thursday it had hacked into emails on two occasions but said the actions had been editorially justified and were in the public interest.
Murdoch’s son James resigned as chairman of BSkyB on Tuesday to prevent a phone-hacking scandal at News Corp’s News of the World tabloid newspaper from harming BSkyB, a British pay-tv broadcaster of which News Corp owns 39 percent.
Sky News, BSkyB’S news channel, said that on one occasion it authorized a journalist to access the emails of people suspected of criminal activity in the so-called “canoe man” case of a man who faked his own death by paddling out to sea.
“We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest,” the head of Sky News, John Ryley, said in a statement.
Sky did not say what the second hacking episode was, but media reports said the said journalist accessed the email accounts of a suspected pedophile and his wife in an investigation that did not lead to any material being published or broadcast.
READ MORE: Sky News channel admits to email hacking
Of note in part because Sky News is seen as more “above the fray” compared to their newspaper cousins. The defending of the actions is significant.
News Corporation made a commitment last summer that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be repeated.News Corp’s Management and Standards Committee • Discussing the arrests made of four current and former employees of The Sun — along with a policeman. The arrests came as a result of the company choosing to police itself in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that greatly hurt its reputation. News International’s London offices also got raided in the process. No word if any pie-throwing was involved.
Down goes Murdoch (sort of): News broke this morning that James Murdoch, the son of media magnate Rupert and the most prominent News Corp figure embroiled in the phone hacking scandal, would resign as director of the board of News International’s UK newspapers. He is not, however, entirely out in the cold. He’s still the deputy COO of the entire News Corp empire, which begs the question — when you have to start resigning jobs due to legal trouble and popular outrage, don’t most normal people lose the highest profile one first? Murdoch ascended to the deputy COO position earlier this year, and was thought to be the looming successor to his father atop the News Corp empire. That certainly can’t happen now, can it? (Photo by Eirik Solheim) source
» The negotiations aren’t final just yet: A News International spokeswoman confirmed that the company is negotiating a multi-million dollar settlement (about three million pounds) with the family of slain child Milly Dowler, who’s voicemail was hacked by the Murdoch-owned media giant following her abduction in 2002. This is a good example of the disparity of financial power between normal people and giant companies, and the problems that can lie therein; this sum, though it would be the company’s biggest ever payout, is in no way a prohibitive cost for a media empire like Murdoch’s.
Credit to Channel 4’s Andy Davies, who reported the news first. (h/t Soup on that)
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News Corp. hacking scandal committee hearing: In case you’re just checking in now, here’s how the hearing began.
I’d say ‘What’s doing?’ (And) he’d say ‘We might have a story exposing X or Y.’ Or he might say ‘Nothing special.’RUPERT MURDOCH, on how a normal conversation between him and his editor at The Sun might go; Murdoch was responding to a British parliamentarian asking him, during the phone hacking hearings, whether said editor might have informed Murdoch of things like payoffs to sources. (via inothernews)
Murdoch refuses to take any responsibility for the affair. Again: staggering. The notion of the buck stopping at the top seems completely alien to him. The total lack of interest in correcting wrongs, the blithe assurance that he has no ultimate responsibility - the NOTW representing a mere 1 percent of his company. He sounds like Cheney responding to war crimes.Andrew Sullivan • During his liveblog on the Murdoch hearing.
“Are you aware of ‘willful blindness?’” How to catch James Murdoch off-guard. Surprisingly, Rupert was able to handle it deftly in comparison.
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