Seven hours of gripping evidence last night from three top British cops, the two Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks was the best advertisement you’ll ever see for an equivalent federal parliamentary committee to fully investigate the regulation, ethics, relationships and ownership of Australia’s media.
Imagine Kerry Stokes, John Hartigan, David Gyngell, David Leckie and co being grilled by a Senate committee.
Last night was a great example of democracy in action. Truckloads of new material was placed on the record that now allows the public, media, regulators, police and the judiciary to get on with their job of dealing with the criminal journalistic practices at the News of the World.
There will be dozens of news stories, fresh investigations and interesting developments that flow from the testimony.
For instance, James Murdoch admitting to be shocked at the ongoing payments to Glenn Mulcaire for his legal expenses in dozens of civil actions. This was an important admission and an insight into the cover-up pursued by News Corp.
Rupert went close to committing to cutting Mulcaire adrift, but it would be fair for the police to provide News Corp with a copy of the 11,000 pages of diary notes seized from Mulcaire’s home.
The world’s most powerful family will be relieved with how Rupert and James performed last night in the teeth of the biggest public grilling they will ever face.
Rupert’s “hear no evil, see no evil” defence, combined with his blind loyalty for far to long to people like Les Hinton and Rebekah Brooks, leave him open to legitimate criticism. But there was no smoking gun that will strengthen the arm of a majority of News Corp’s independent directors to move against him.
That play is now far more likely as some sort of regulatory negotiation around News Corp’s ability to retain its existing 39% controlling stake in BSkyB.
for someone who has admirably campainged against rupert murdoch and his family in regard to there corporate governance and how the run news corp as there personal fiefdom, i find your comments quite strange
has it not occured to you that rupert murdoch and his son as simply bald faced liars ?
ie he has a meeting with david cameron soon after he is appointed british pm, and all it is for is a cup of tea, nothing else was discussed
any body who watched murdoch and his son last nite and think they were telling the truth beleives in the tooth fairy
fair dinkum, give us a break
Much has been said by various commentators this morning, that the lack of a “smoking gun” or other admissions, is a “good result” for the Murdoch’s.
Really ? Do you really think everyone is going to buy that ?
And anyway the tactic of seeking the lesser charge of incompetence, rather than corruption, may be better from a legal standpoint, but is clearly inferior in the modern world of corporate dominance.
So either the Murdoch’s will succeed in convincing the world they were incompetent and destroy their corporate status, or they will fail and wind up in gaol.
More likely, the sham that was last night is temporary relief.
It would seem that everybody who stayed up last night to watch this programme on our computers was watching not one programme on the NotW scandal, but a whole series of them. Either that or they all determined on seeing something they wished to read in to it. Unless it’s the fact that Journos feel they have to stick together and support their superiors.
To begin with Australian News Corp was clearly not an issue compared to the much more important markets of the UK and the USA. Why should it have been an issue to begin with? We all know the MSM have the principles of fleas and are so gutless they self-censor to such a degree they are no threat to any owner. But while even the rest of the Oz MSM was gaily nattering about the scandal the self-censoring-ie throttling the horse’s head back so hard it was stationary was the order of the day at Rupert’s tabloids. Days after the rest of the MSM were discussing the WotW scandal the Melbourne Hun-Herald Sun, owner Rupert Murdoch, broke the news that something was amiss days later in a 6cms X 4cms paragraph tucked away in page 28.
The parliamentary committee given the chance of a lifetime to bring a bit of honesty to
the tawdry old whore of a newssheet called the Not, they blew it. Hell the committee had the chance to to question the waning principles of journalism itself. And what did they deliver? Questions that wouldn’t have troubled a news cadet.
Then we had the regrettable excuses of a Crikey contributor virtually saying Rupert was a broken old-man, poor darling. Well he wasn’t so broken he was unable to know exactly where and when to hold back. As for the unadulterated tripe of Murdoch and his son James beating their chests crying “We wuz shamed, it wasn’t our fault, other people were to blame.”” Oh ho, ho, ho, ho. Both men have had years of experience in newspapers, from the ground up, working as galley-proof readers and upwards-especially Rupert, but they were so naïve they didn’t even notice other people were doing them in.
Honestly Stephen, how efing stupid do you think your readers are? How can you buy the pitiful line “We know/knew nothing”
The whole theatrical show had been rehearsed to within an inch of its life. Now comes the bit of the cream/shaving-cream pie. Please look the public in the eye and swear you hadn’t realised the whole thing was a plant. HTF do you think someone got through the security cordon with a bloody great pie? someone in the higher echelons of the house of Murdoch was heard to be saying words along the lines. “Relax, this will only do good for us”. He was, of course, absolutely correct. Guaranteed to cop the little old ladies and the credulous fellow readers’ votes of confidence.
As for the laughable suggestion-made by someone other than you, but at Crikey
-to the effect that Murdoch Pêre hadn’t polluted his Oz tabloid editors by telling them what to print. WTF did he have to bother? He knew they didn’t have the guts do do anything other than self-censor.
I never thought to hear myself saying this to the man who invented Crikey, but your credulousness does you no favours.
Perhaps it can be interpreted that the two Murdochs and Brooks survived the Committee’s questioning but neither of the Murdochs presented as sharp. James was parroting corporate-speak and Rupert couldn’t hear half of what he was asked. It was not a polished performance.
Nor could I get over the notion that James looked like a struggling used car salesman.