I will reserve final judgment for when all the facts are in. I won't go all "Casey Anthony" on this, convicting with a shadow of doubt before all the facts are in. I worry: Will I have to give Fox and WSJ the heave-ho like I did NPR in the wake of the Juan Williams fiasco? Journalism. We need true journalism .... but, the field is full of a bunch of dishonest, scandal-seeking, lasciviousness-loving hacks.
Until all accounts have been proven and recorded and all evidence is in, I will meanwhile monitor the situation, as I hope you will, too. For now, here is a small collection of news, op-eds, and varying perspectives:
• from good ol' FoxNews today (emphasis added):
U.S. Justice Department Prepares Subpoenas in News Corp Inquiry• and from another of News Corp's U.S. interests, The Wall Street Journal (which I also love ... alas!) offers a continuation of the above (click here).
New York – The U.S. Justice Department is preparing subpoenas as part of preliminary investigations into News Corp. relating to alleged foreign bribery and alleged hacking of voicemail of Sept. 11 victims, The Wall Street Journal reported in its Friday edition, citing a government official.
The issuance of such subpoenas, which would broadly seek relevant information from the company, requires approval by senior Justice Department leadership, which has not yet happened, the person said.
The issuance of subpoenas would represent an escalation of scrutiny on the New York-based media company. While the company has sought to isolate the legal problems in the U.K., it has been bracing for increased scrutiny from both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to people familiar with the company's strategy.
The Justice Department has said it is looking into allegations that News Corp.'s now-defunct News of the World newspaper in the U.K. paid bribes to British police. It has been unclear whether the Justice Department or the SEC have begun formal probes.
The FBI separately has begun an inquiry into whether News Corp. employees tried to hack into voicemails of Sept. 11 victims, people familiar with the early-stage probe have said.
A person close to News Corp. said the preparation of subpoenas is "a fishing expedition with no evidence to support it."
Commenting on the FBI inquiry, another News Corp. spokeswoman said, "We have not seen any evidence to suggest there was any hacking of 9/11 victim's phones, nor has anybody corroborated what are clearly very serious allegations. The story arose when an unidentified person speculated to the Daily Mirror about whether it happened. That paper printed the anonymous speculation, which has since mushroomed in the broader media with no substantiation."
• Many of us are familiar with Piers Morgan from his CNN show "Piers Morgan Tonight" and as one of the hosts of "America's Got Talent." Well, it turns out that before his U.S. gigs here, Morgan was the editor of two non-News Corp related papers over in England, and a former reporter claims that phone hacking widespread under Morgan's reign, as well. From the UK's Guardian (emphasis added):
Phone hacking also rife under Piers Morgan at Mirror, claims ex-reporter• an interesting angle: how News Corp could impact Israel ... from The Jewish Times (emphasis added)"
Former City Slicker reporter offers evidence for public inquiry, alleging phone hacking was widespread at Mirror and People
Phone hacking was not confined to the News of the World but was widespread at other newspapers, including the Daily Mirror, a former Mirror reporter has claimed.
James Hipwell, who worked as a financial journalist under the editorship of Piers Morgan, said the practice was "seen as a bit of a wheeze" and offered to give evidence to the public inquiry into hacking ordered by David Cameron.
Hacking also took place at other titles in the newspaper group, including the People, he alleged.
"You know what people around you are doing," he told the Independent. "They would call a celebrity with one phone and when it was answered they would then hang up.
"By that stage, the other phone would be into [the celebrity's] voicemail and they would key in the code, 9999 or 0000. I saw that a lot."
He added: "It was seen as a bit of a wheeze – something that was slightly underhand but something many of them did. What a laugh.
"After they'd hacked into someone's mobile, they'd delete the message so another paper couldn't get the story. There was great hilarity about it."
Piers Morgan, a former editor of the Mirror, and the News of the World, has strenuously denied any link to the phone-hacking scandal....
Murdoch Scandal's Israel Fallout• Cal Thomas points out the hypocrisy on the part of the MSM here in the U.S. (from Newsbusters.org) -- with emphasis added:
Pro-Israel leaders in the United States, Britain and Australia are warily watching the unfolding of the phone-hacking scandal that is threatening to engulf the media empire of Rupert Murdoch, founder of News Corp.
Murdoch’s sudden massive reversal of fortune—with 10 top former staffers and executives under arrest in Britain for hacking into the phones of public figures and a murdered schoolgirl, and paying off the police and journalists—has supporters of Israel worried that a diminished Murdoch presence may mute the strongly pro-Israel voice of many of the publications he owns.
“His publications and media have proven to be fairer on the issue of Israel than the rest of the media,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “I hope that won’t be impacted.”
...
Jewish leaders said that Murdoch’s view of Israel’s dealings with the Palestinians and with its Arab neighbors seemed both knowledgeable and sensitive to the Jewish state’s self-perception as beleaguered and isolated.
“My own perspective is simple: We live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews,” Murdoch said last October at an Anti-Defamation League dinner in his honor. “When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century. Now it seems that the most virulent strains come from the left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.”
...
Murdoch’s affection for Israel arose less out of his conservative sensibility than from his native Australian sympathy for the underdog fending off elites seized by conventional wisdoms, according to Isi Liebler, a longtime Australian Jewish community leader who now lives in Israel ...
About The Glee Over Murdoch's Troubles
"Glee" is not just an American TV show, it is also the emotion many people feel and express toward the trouble Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is having, since they consider Murdoch's properties a blight on their formerly pristine media landscape.
There are two strains running through the phone-hacking scandal that monopolizes much of the media attention in the UK. One is the attitude of the mainstream media types who are frustrated by the success of Murdoch properties, most notably Fox News Channel in America (to which I contribute). They see Murdoch's troubles with the now shuttered News of the World tabloid as an opportunity to destroy the Murdoch empire, which they have been unable to do by competing with it.
The second strain is legal. After the apparent suicide of a former News of the World reporter and unprecedented resignations of high-ranking officers at Scotland Yard, whose allegedly paid connections with News of the World are at the center of parliamentary and police inquiries, Labour and Tory politicians are positioning themselves for major political advantage.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed the Justice Department is looking into allegations that employees of News International, a division of News Corp, hacked, or attempted to hack, into the phones of 9/11 victims. Several Democratic members of Congress and Rep. Peter King (R-NY) have called for such an investigation.
The response to this by the British and American mainstream media reeks of hypocrisy. Whatever one thinks of the morality of paying for news stories, the British press, under Labour and Tory governments, have been doing it for years. Fleet Street was built on cash for gossip. American media are slightly more sophisticated in pursuing "exclusive" stories.
There are other forms of "payment" U.S. media make to politicians -- mostly liberals -- with whom they agree. They repeat the talking points of Democrats or refuse to challenge statements that are factually incorrect. They frequently fawn over people they like and challenge those they don't like. Call it a political version of an "in-kind" contribution.
People who broke the law by hacking into phones should be punished, but this is more about liberal attempts to destroy Fox News, which liberals hate because it communicates ideas, issues and opinions that were mostly unavailable, or ignored, until the network launched in 1996. Fox News has not been implicated in the British phone hacking, but that won't stop its enemies from trying to make the connection. MSNBC's Martin Bashir compared Murdoch to Jack Abramoff and mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. There were similar over-the-top comments by other broadcast "journalists."
People can debate Fox's slogan "we report, you decide," but the liberal mantra might more accurately be stated, "we distort, we decide."
The faux "virgins" in big media like to portray themselves as "above" the standards and practices of media owned by Murdoch, but past behavior exposes them as two-faced. Examples: In 2003, the New York Times reported that, "Michael Jackson struck a deal with CBS to be paid in effect an additional $1 million for both an entertainment special ... and his interview on "60 Minutes" ... part of yearlong negotiations." The news magazine denied paying Jackson for the interview, but an associate of Jackson's said at the time the deal included the "60 Minutes" appearance.
According to one of Casey Anthony's attorneys, ABC News paid $200,000 for photos of her dead daughter, Caylee. CBS News got off with a mere $20,000 "licensing fee" paid to Caylee's grandparents.
When hero passenger Jasper Schuringa helped subdue the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, on a flight to Detroit and later snapped cellphone photos of the suspect being escorted off the plane in wrist restraints, CNN paid Schuringa a "licensing fee" for the images. CBS and ABC reportedly bid for the photos, according to TVNewser.com, ultimately earning Schuringa $18,000.
If tabloids paid British police for information, then that would be a violation of journalistic ethics, if they still exist. American journalists had better look to their own motivations before casting stones at Rupert Murdoch.
Whatever happens in Britain, Fox News will survive and prosper. And that will be a cause for glee to those who dislike reporting that comes from a single ideological worldview.
Just imagine if the newspapers were, say, banks cooperating in secrecy with intelligence/counterterrorism officials to help track jihadists.
Why, it would be a front-page national scandal.
It's a very intricate, twisted spider's web of intrigue. In fact, if you're feeling a bit embarrassed feeling a tad incapable of keeping up, don't. Apparently, the Brits are, too. So much so, that the BBC has posted a Q&A section on the scandal: "Q&A: News of the World phone-hacking scandal." It's pretty good!
0 comments:
Post a Comment