Uncle Rupert has taken the stand. The Guardian is liveblogging. Murdoch seems to have been told quite clearly by his lawyers that his doddering oldster act from last year’s parliamentary committee isn’t going to cut it in front of someone who actually knows how to question a witness.
Robert Jay QC (counsel assisting the inquiry) is taking quiet delight in quoting unflattering views of Mr Murdoch to him for his response. If that wasn’t enough to make me want to get into Mr Jay’s pants (and, frankly, it is), his questioning seems to be focussing on two quite interesting themes so far.
First, he is carefully exploring the relationship between Murdoch and British governments, starting with a lunch between Murdoch and Prime Minister Thatcher in 1981 when Murdoch was bidding for the Times. Murdoch maintains that the meeting was entirely appropriate. It was simply to inform the PM about his bid, and nothing to do with asking for favors.
Jay suggests a slightly different take:
Jay asks: “President elect Reagan, Baroness Thatcher and you were all on the same page politically weren’t you?”
Murdoch: “I guess that’s true.
“Was part of that meeting to demonstrate how much you were “one of us” to use Mrs Thatcher’s term? “No,” says Murdoch.
Asked why it was important for Thatcher to have a meeting with him about the possible takeover, Murdoch says it was “perfectly right that she should know what was at stake”.
Wasn’t the meeting all about the trade unions, asks Jay?
Murdoch: “I didn’t have the will to crush the unions, I might have had the desire but that took several years.”
Murdoch bluntly denies that he ever asked a Prime Minister for anything, but Jay’s clear implication is that Murdoch doesn’t need to ask.
The other aspect of the questioning goes to Murdoch’s frequent statements that he runs a decentralized business and allows his editors to set their own agendas without his interference in any way.
Lord Justice Leveson seems to find that idea a little questionable:
Leveson: “You have been on the world stage for many years, you have seen many editors come and go, your press interests have extended. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if those who worked for you recognised that you had an appreciation of events that it would be important for them to understand and they should therefore take a different line only with caution?”
Murdoch: “I would hope so. Our editors have generally been very long serving.”
Leveson says he wasn’t suggesting there had been a big turnover of editors. It ends there.
It’s going to be a long day, and Jay is a very skilled questioner. I’d be very surprised if things don’t get stickier for Rupert as the day progresses.
ETA: Meanwhile, Adam Smith, the special adviser to Jeremy Hunt, the Minister for Culture, has been pushed very firmly onto his own sword, suggesting that Mr Hunt’s death throes will continue for a while yet.
While it was part of my role to keep News Corporation informed throughout the BSkyB bid process, the content and extent of my contact was done without authorisation from the secretary of state. I do not recognise all of what Fréd Michel said, but nonetheless I appreciate that my activities at times went too far and have, taken together, created the perception that News Corporation had too close a relationship with the department, contrary to the clear requirements set out by Jeremy Hunt and the permanent secretary that this needed to be a fair and scrupulous process. Whilst I firmly believe that the process was in fact conducted scrupulously fairly, as a result of my activities it is only right for me to step down as special adviser to Jeremy Hunt.
EATA:
12.12pm: Murdoch is losing his patience at the subtle “sinister inferences” being put about his relations with politicians.
He raps his hands on the desk, saying: “I, in 10 years he was in power, never asked Mr Blair for anything, nor did I receive any favours”
Jay says the interchange between a sophisticated politician and proprietor would be rather more subtle than that. Murdoch says: “I’m afraid I don’t have much subtlety about me.”
Don’t you Mr Murdoch? “No,” he maintains.
JPL
Who would have thought that Cameron’s economic policies would lead to another recession? Hopefully, the repubs are paying attention. Murdoch’s support of Cameron is the icing on the cake.
amk
With camie boy and his pals in bed with rupie, what exactly is this ‘enquiry’ going to bring about ?
c u n d gulag
Ah, yes, Murder-ochs editors are independent.
Sure the are…
That’s why every paper he touches veers to the right so fast, it would get you a traffic ticket if you did it in a car.
The NY Post was the most Liberal of NY’s major papers. Now, it makes the NY Times and Daily News look like PRAVDA.
And look what he did to the WSJ, once a great, great, paper.
He decided to make the world, national, and financial news fit the idiotic, hard Reich-wing Editorial page.
And we have Bill Clinton to thank for signing the law allowing a foreign media potentate, with a world view that would make Goldwater look like Alinsky, own various forms of media in this country.
Reagan.
Murder-och.
And “Baby Doc” Bush.
The “Trilogy of Terror,” the “unholy trio,” that have reduced this nation to the most well-armed Banana Republic in the world.
WereBear
Sometimes I wonder: it’s like when Mafia kingpins, aged and claiming illnesses, finally get dragged into court and sentenced to life in prison; and it only lasts a few years.
Murdoch has lived quite the privileged life; the power, the glory, the hobnobbing. Now, in his twilight, will it crumble to dust? Does that dent the decades of wallowing excess and triumph?
It’s what I wonder, anyway.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@amk:
Given that Cameron didn’t want to set it up, and Mr Jay (presumably with the full approval of Lord Leveson) is being extremely hard on Rupert and James, we might all be surprised…
Steve
@c u n d gulag: Is that really Bill Clinton’s fault? The Moonies owned a newspaper since 1982.
JGabriel
c u n d gulag:
Great? As a New Yorker, I have to disagree. WSJ, on the news side, was a good paper with occasional moments of greatness. The editorial side, on the other hand, has been a cesspool of far-right Republican extremism for decades.
.
ChrisNYC
The inquiry isn’t a prosecution. Leveson has terms of reference to ultimately propose new systems for dealing with relations between the press and the public (i.e. a way for people defamed and harassed to get relief quickly and cheaply), the press and the police and the press and the politicians (i.e. disclosures of meetings between barons and PMs).
There was a great little moment yesterday in the testimony of the gross James Murdoch. Leveson asked him, as he asks most witnesses, what the answer is, how the UK should regulate this stuff. Murdoch, completely lacking any self awareness, chuckled and said, “Well, that’s above my pay grade.” Pause while that sunk in and then the entire room laughed. Leveson raised his eyebrows and said, “Well, no, I suspect it’s not actually.” And giggled.
c u n d gulag
@Steve:
I’m not saying it’s his fault.
But, as memory serves me, Clinton didn’t threaten to veto the bill. Bill signed the bill. I may be wrong, and he didn’t want to, but I’m too lazy to google the intertubes this morning.
And the moonies also had The Unification Theological Seminary, just north of Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck, NY. It was founded in 1975.
I covered that school, and wrote an article about if for my college paper in 1977.
I spent two days there talking to professors and students, and stayed overnight.
It was a very interesting experience, to say the least.
amk
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Given the level of corruption that rupie has engaged in with rw govts. everywhere, I’ll be surprised if I am surprised. But I pray so. I rate him the most evil man in this world followed by darth.
c u n d gulag
@JGabriel:
To be honest, while I used to read the NY Times every day, I didn’t with the WSJ. I only bought it when it broke a big, or interesting, story. Those, back then, were well researched and written. Now… Not so much.
So, I’ll defer to you on the news front.
And I know that for decades, the Editorial side has made Love Canal look like a muddy pothole. It has long been the go-to page for the rantings of Bircherite lunatics.
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
True dat. The WSJ editorial page has always been to the right of Attila the Hun.
JPL
@amk: but Rupert said he knows few politicians. Depends on the meaning of few though.
Wag
@JPL:
…but those he does know, he knows in the Biblical sense.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@JPL:
Yep. It doesn’t matter if you only know a few politicians if those few happen to include Margaret and Tony and Dave, plus the occasional Minister with responsibilty for media takeovers….
Barry
@JPL: “but Rupert said he knows few politicians. Depends on the meaning of few though.”
Few as in ‘few thousands’.
The Republic of Stupidity
Somebody somewhere recently (w/in the last year) described Rupert as resembling a ‘man statue carved of overripe ham’…or something to that effect… perhaps I even followed that link from here…
And whilst Lord Murdoch’s travails across the pond are entertaining to watch, what I want to know is…
When are we gonna get some action on THIS side of the Atlantic? ‘Cause if the Newscorp
boys were that active over there, ain’t no farkin’ way in hell they weren’t pulling the same shite over here…
So where’s the farkin’ beef?
priscianusjr
@c u n d gulag:
Steve
@c u n d gulag: Maybe I didn’t explain myself well. Clinton signed the bill, but a guy from South Korea had already owned one of our newspapers for 15 years, so how can it be the case that foreign ownership was illegal until Clinton signed the bill?
handsmile
As Sarah notes above in her first ETA, yesterday’s revelation during James Murdoch’s testimony about a back-channel between the Cameron government and News Corporation in its now-thwarted attempt to purchase cable network BSkyB has already resulted in the resignation of a special adviser to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, the cabinet official responsible for overseeing the proposal.
On the floor of Parliament this morning, Hunt asserted his innocence and integrity and has pleaded with Lord Levenson to permit his early testimony on these matters. Vultures are now circling around Mr. Hunt.
@The Republic of Stupidity:
On this side of the pond, Mark Lewis, the English lawyer foremost responsible for pursing phone-hacking charges against Murdoch’s media empire, has begun to compile evidence in four cases of alleged phone hacking in the US. Such violations of telecom privacy could be prosecuted under US federal law. This Guardian article, “Murdoch’s News Corp facing growing legal threat in US,” provides the details. Looks promising….
handsmile
Oops, sorry, forgot the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/19/murdoch-news-corp-lawyers-us
gocart mozart
Suggested title for next update on this Newscorp inquiry: “From The Darkest Depths Of Murdoch . . . “
priscianusjr
From a business column by James Robinson, “The Tabloid that Exposed… Itself: A startling ‘mea culpa’ by the New York Post could cause Murdoch problems”, The Observer, 27 May, 2007
….
“[NY Post Page Six editor Richard] Johnson is accused of begging a favour two years ago from Hillary Clinton, the Presidential candidate and former first lady who is also a New York senator, after he found it difficult to get a passport. Without it, he would have been unable to cover a party being thrown by Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs in France, so he contacted Clinton for help. Howard Rubenstein, the veteran New York PR man who has represented Murdoch for decades, concedes Johnson did call Clinton, telling the New York Observer that he ‘found the bureaucracy delaying his passport, and he appealed to Clinton’s staff for help, as any constituent would. And he secured, in a legal and proper way, a passport that he was entitled to.’
“Perhaps, but others claim that the incident illustrates the strength of the bond between Murdoch and the Clintons, who had a frosty relationship that began to thaw around the time Johnson made his request. [Former Page-six writer Ian] Spiegelman’s affidavit details a tour of the Post’s offices Murdoch gave Bill Clinton, during which the former President joked with Page Six staff. It goes on to allege that ‘politicians such as Hillary Clinton and others in a position to grant Murdoch and News Corp valuable concessions and favours were . . . fellated in print’, and, later, that ‘Page Six was ordered to kill unflattering stories about Hillary and Bill on numerous occasions’.
“Spiegelman’s statement provides few details, but Stern has claimed that a story about Edward Klein’s eagerly anticipated book The Truth About Hillary was ‘reconfigured’ by Johnson, who turned a scoop about the book’s explosive revelations into a piece that portrayed it as an inaccurate hatchet job.
“Such decisions are routine at newspapers, which are free to support whichever political figures they like. Murdoch’s cosy relationship with Hillary Clinton has been an open secret since he hosted a fundraising dinner for her last summer; the number of negative stories about the Clintons subsequently fell dramatically. But the interest in Murdoch’s methods is intense enough to cause the mogul a headache at an acutely sensitive time.”
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@gocart mozart:
Win. You have a deal….
c u n d gulag
@Steve:
Good question.
My memory banks are depleting as I get older.
I think it may be that a foreigner could own newspapers and magazines, but not any of the broadcast spectrum on radio and tv (theoretically owned by ‘the public).’
I think the act that was signed in 1996, allowed foreign media potentates like Murder-och, not only to get into broadcast mediums, but to own more than one medium in the same state/city/town.
In other words, Murder-och was able to not only buy the NY Post, but also own NY radio and tv stations.
And so, he now has the NY Post and WSJ, FSM knows how many magazines and radio stations in NY, and FOX News.
Maybe someone who knows better will inform/correct me.
Culture of Truth
2.31pm:
Murdoch is asked about entering Downing Street via the back door.
“They don’t want me to be photographed going in the front. I don’t want to … and it happens to be a shortcut to my apartment so it’s quite OK. And there is a car park behind 10 and 11.”
Hill Dweller
I fondly recall the sycophants in this country falling all over themselves praising Rupert after last year’s testimony. I’d love to see that shady fucker’s empire crumble.
priscianusjr
Sorry, I may be going OT here, but I am fascinated by the subject of Murdoch’s relationship with the Clintons, even if it is unclear what it has to do with the Telecommunications “Reform” Act of 1996, which was such a huge windfall for Murdoch.
[See No. 23, above} “[Former Page-Six writer Jared Paul] Stern has claimed that a story about Edward Klein’s eagerly anticipated book The Truth About Hillary was ‘reconfigured’ by [editor Richard] Johnson, who turned a scoop about the book’s explosive revelations into a piece that portrayed it as an inaccurate hatchet job.”
The article referred to is by John Podhoretz,”Smear For Profit—New Hillary ‘Bio’ is Just Trash” NY Post, 22 June 2005, p. 31:
June 22, 2005 — ON page 202 of his new tome — just out yesterday — Ed Klein writes, “Greed seemed to be the only explanation for the outlandish book deal.” Klein is referring to the $8 million advance Hillary Clinton received for her autobiography.
These are curious words to be publishing in 2005, when Klein and the world know that her book “Living History” was a phenomenal success and has earned its author more than the $8 million in royalty payments advanced to her.
Curious and revealing. Because if any book in recent memory reads as though it has been written out of greed — a greedy hunger to separate millions of conservative book buyers from their hard-earned 25 bucks — it is Ed Klein’s “The Truth About Hillary.”
This is one of the most sordid volumes I’ve ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn’t have to suffer through another word.
Though Klein suggests in his subtitle that he has written a study of a power-hungry politician — “What She Knew, When She Knew It, And How Far She’ll Go to Become President” — he’s produced something quite different. An unduly celebratory biography is called a “hagiography.” Klein’s book is a “hate-eography.”
Despite a distinguished journalistic pedigree including stints as the editor of both Newsweek and The New York Times Magazine, Klein has chosen to emulate the works of the highly dubious bio-defamer Charles Higham, who with the slimmest of evidence wrote books claiming that Errol Flynn was a gay Nazi spy and Howard Hughes was a bisexual.
Klein may offer a few words here or there about Whitewater or Travelgate, but what really floats his boat is the Higham-like notion that Sen. Clinton is secretly a lesbian.
He has no proof whatever for this claim save that she has had some lesbian friends. (So do I. Does that make me a lesbian?) Indeed, Klein even offers the quaint theory that it doesn’t really matter whether Hillary ever acted on her supposed lesbian tendencies. “To be a lesbian,” he lectures on page 63, “it was not necessary for a woman to have a physical relationship with another woman. Such a relationship could be romantic and asexual.”
He quotes someone he says is an unnamed college classmate of Hillary’s, who claims that “the notion of a woman being a lesbian was fascinating to Hillary . . . But she was much more interested in lesbianism as a political statement than a sexual practice . . . Hillary talked about it a lot, read lesbian literature, and embraced it as a revolutionary concept.”
Oh, really. Let’s see. It’s June 2005. Hillary Clinton has been a major public figure in the United States for nearly 15 years. Somehow I imagine that if, indeed, she had “embraced” lesbianism “as a revolutionary concept” during her college years — years that have been written about exhaustively — we would have heard about it before now.
We also probably would have heard by now that Bill Clinton learned Hillary was pregnant with Chelsea by reading about it in an Arkansas newspaper. This detail is offered up by a single source — an “investment banker from New York” — in the course of a story about how Bill “raped” Hillary while on vacation in Bermuda in 1979.
Everything in this book that matters has been written before, and better. Everything else in it shouldn’t have been published.
* * * * *
The book was widely recognized as a steaming pile of crap. What’s unusual, and may substantiate Stern’s charge, is that the book was attacked by many on the right as well — despite being touted by Matt Drudge, prior to its publication, as a book that “should sink Hillary’s candidacy for 2008.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Hillary#cite_note-nyp-2
Stern’s charge is probably true, at least in part. It’s highly believable that the Post was all set to do a “scoop” on the Hillary “revelations”, à la Drudge. But some on the right saw it as a clever trap, since Hillary was considered a strong contender for 2008 and endorsement of the book would hurt their side. But it’s interesting that one of the most vociferous opponents of the book was Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, who banned Klein from his show. Some on the right also found this odd:
http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/oreilly-over-the-edge/
Fox’s John Gibson also changed his mind about having him on. Hannity did interview Klein, but charged him with being “too personal” — “crossing a boundary that ought not to be crossed” — can you imagine Hannity actually having such scruples?
From Howard Kurtz, “Ed Klein, Drowning in Ink and Gasping for Air”, Washington Post, 11 July 2005:
“”It’s just been a total blackout,” says Klein, adding that talk radio and some Web sites, including the Drudge Report, have driven sales of the book. “I definitely think there’s something organized going on here.”
Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines says Klein “didn’t even rate a full 15 minutes of fame on national television” because the book is “full of blatant and vicious fabrications.”
“There’s been an effort to make sure people know about the inaccuracies,” Reines says. “Anyone who has called, we’ve made the case: ‘Why would you even give him any airtime at all?’ People have editorially made the decision it doesn’t warrant airtime. It’s beyond the pale.”
. . . .
Klein did not get a warm reception in his two cable interviews. Fox’s Sean Hannity asked whether, in questioning the former first lady’s sexuality, Klein was being “too personal” and had crossed “a boundary that ought not to be crossed in political dialogue.” . . .
Klein says that MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews, CNN’s Paula Zahn, Fox’s John Gibson and ABC’s “Good Morning America” were among those who had tentatively booked or expressed strong interest in him, only to drop him like a hot potato. “I can’t prove this,” he says, but “the Hillary people” have told the networks “she would be mightily displeased if I got on.”
“The book is uninteresting to Fox News,” says spokesman Paul Schur. “We’ve moved on.” Klein “has kind of just fallen off everybody’s radar screen.”