Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Voicemail Hack Scandal Leads To Closure of UK Tabloid

Posted by timothy on from the wait-for-the-rename-and-reorg dept.

Some Bitch writes "Britain's biggest selling Sunday tabloid will close after this Sunday's issue. The tabloid has been embroiled in a voicemail hacking controversy for some time now and the news that they compromised the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl and paid bribes to Metropolitan police officers for stories kicked off a renewed assault on the paper. The News Corp daily counterpart to Sunday's News of the World is the Sun; the domain sunonsunday.co.uk was registered two days ago."

16 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Fuck Rupert Murdoch by F34nor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Send that fuck a bill for Iraq while you're at it.

  2. Can we close Fox News yet? by blair1q · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If the intolerable hyping and biasing of the Casey Anthony trial in complete disregard of the defendant's right to due process isn't enough, there's that whole ordering people to tell lies about science to bias legislation thing.

    1. Re:Can we close Fox News yet? by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If the intolerable hyping and biasing of the Casey Anthony trial in complete disregard of the defendant's right to due process isn't enough...

      If you're singling out Fox News for that, you're nuts. Every single news outlet was doing exactly the same thing. It was disgusting.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    2. Re:Can we close Fox News yet? by Darkness404 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Wait what? News isn't always 100% fact and may contain opinion? The same thing could be said for CNN, MSNBC, the BBC or heck, even Slashdot. Nothing is without bias.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    3. Re:Can we close Fox News yet? by sconeu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah. Isn't Nancy Grace on MSNBC?

      By all that's holy, I cannot stand that woman!

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    4. Re:Can we close Fox News yet? by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nothing is without bias.

      Yes, but honest news outfits do everything in their power to minimize their bias, rather than reveling in it like Fox and the other NewsCorp properties do.

      --
      That is all.
    5. Re:Can we close Fox News yet? by Darkness404 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Right, and what "honest news outfits" are out there? None of them. Because quite honestly, no one really cares about news. The masses want their mindless celebrity gossip. The left wants to hear alarmist predictions about what republicans are doing, the right wants to hear alarmist predictions about what democrats are doing. Others want local "mush" stories about a three-legged dog, giving the elderly a free air conditioner, etc. But no one really wants facts and figures. And even if there is a market for facts, how do you even get reliable facts? Everyone with the capability to gather facts will always have an incentive to skew the facts. Even "neutral" organizations such as universities and publicly funded studies have a desire to gain more funds, which either means agreeing with the powers that fund them (usually the government) or being alarmist to gain more funds. Because, no funds mean no jobs.

      Bias is human and as long as humans are involved in some way, news will have bias.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    6. Re:Can we close Fox News yet? by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Al Jazeera? BBC? Oh you mean an American news org? Sorry I've got nothing.

      As for TFA? When you are hacking into and deleting a murder victim's voice mails, thus hindering an investigation, and bribing the cops for evidence? Then you've gone way past reporting the news into making it. Personally i hope that just because they close the doors won't stop the investigation and every single one who bribed or hacked gets a nice long jail term.

      After all in these days of shell corps if you can kill an investigation simply by closing the doors I think we'll see a lot more of this crap in the future.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    7. Re:Can we close Fox News yet? by artor3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      False equivalency bullshit, as usually from Fox apologists. There's a difference of scale. Fox, and right-wing pundits in generally, are far more likely to demagogue than their left-wing counterparts. These are the people who actively pushed the idea that the Democrats were trying to set up "death panels" to kill off the elderly. Find me something on Rachel Maddow that is even remotely on par with that.

    8. Re:Can we close Fox News yet? by Darkness404 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And like usual, yet another person saying that bias exists on the other side but not -my- favourite news agency. And surely not in my point of view. For example, look at MSNBC trying to stereotype all people protesting health care as white racists. Just take a look at this news clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYKQJ4-N7LI&feature=player_embedded#at=15 and how concerned they are that these "white racists" are carrying guns so close to the first black president. When in reality, the guy carrying the "assault rifle" was... black. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syx26QtQIM&feature=player_embedded I'm not saying that Fox/CNN/MSNBC/BBC/etc. is better than the other, all I'm saying is that -all- news outlets have bias, and it is honestly silly to say otherwise.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  3. shell game...? by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 3, Insightful

    so they close down one tabloid and move all the employees to another?

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
    1. Re:shell game...? by Catmeat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      so they close down one tabloid and move all the employees to another?

      No, it's cleverer than that. The close a Sunday tabloid and move a small number of staff to the daily stablemate, just enough additional hands for it to operate effectively over seven days rather than six. The rest are fired, giving massive savings. The News Corp accountants are now punching the air, and the senior management making wry jokes about silver linings.

      Hell, that may have been a long-term plan for a while. The scandal had just given them an excuse to bring the plans forward.

  4. Re:And Nothing Of Value Was Lost by Skidborg · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Don't get your hopes up.

    --
    Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
  5. Re:And Nothing Of Value Was Lost by pluther · · Score: 5, Insightful
    They're not really closing it, though. Just renaming it.

    As a brand new organization, the new tabloid won't be tainted with the bad name of the old one. Nor, presumably, will it be subject to their lawsuits.

    The fact that it'll be the exact same people doing the exact same thing is mostly meaningless from a business standpoint.

    --
    If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
  6. Re:Voicemail Hack Scandal Leads To Closure of UK T by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah. That does sound rather funny:

    call to Hugh: We will threaten you with exposing your private life if you reveal anything on us.

    -some muttering can be heard in background-

    Call to Hugh: sorry, seems like we already did that. Is there anything else you would like us to threaten you with?

    Hugh: not really

    -more muttering in background-

    Call to Hugh: turns out you are retired and we kinda draw the line at death threats at the moment (new company policy and all), and we're pretty much fucked anyhow. Continue as you were.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  7. Re:The way it should be by Patch86 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The company isn't gone. This is the equivalent of The Coca Cola Company selling cans of Fanta Orange intentionally laced with arsenic, being caught out, and then agreeing to discontinue the brand "Fanta Orange" (but immediately announcing the launch of new "Sprite Orange"). Oh, and firing some factory workers who weren't even on the pay roll at the time of the arsenic-lacing for good measure.