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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."

27 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.

    1. Re:Fuck Rupert Murdoch by dadioflex · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not sure if you're being serious but Murdoch, I'll say allegedly and then quote and link an old Guardian article, was pro-Iraqi war and this was largely the editorial position taken by many of his media outlets, papers and television channels.

      Rupert Murdoch argued strongly for a war with Iraq in an interview this week. Which might explain why his 175 editors around the world are backing it too, writes Roy Greenslade

  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 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Re:Can we close Fox News yet? by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Informative

      She's on CNN.
      (My wife is unfortunately an addict of that damnable show).

      Personally, I have zero respect for someone whose very paycheck apparently requires rhetorically feeding from the literal corpses of children, but that aside and to be fair, it wasn't just her, it was the whole damned channel's prime-time lineup: Dr. Drew, "Issues", and the rest of that particularly incestuous bucket of shows.

      To be fair to Fox, they really didn't invest nearly as much time in the whole affair. I don't think MSNBC did all that much on it either, but in their case I don't know offhand. CNN on the other hand seemed like they should have named themselves the Casey News Network and been done with it. :/

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    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.
  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 Nick+Ives · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Rebekah Brooks, née Wade, who was in charge at the time is already chief exec of News International. The current rumour mill is that the NOTW staff are being sacrificed in order to keep her safe. As to why Murdoch would go to such lengths to protect her, the thinking is that if she went then James Murdoch would also have to go. James Murdoch has admitted to paying settlements to silence people involved in the hacking affair; he claims that the information given to him at the time was incomplete and he didn't know the full extent.

      Just so everyone is clear what's going on here, Members of Parliament have started talking openly about how they've been threatened by News International. A murder investigation into a private detective where the prime suspects were two other PIs with close ties to News International was interfered with by the NOTW. The former deputy features editor of the NOTW has openly admitted to bribing police to the tune of £5-10,000 for stories - something he doesn't believe should be illegal. Rebekah Brooks accidentally admitted to Parliament a few years ago that they regularly paid the police for stories, although in a clarification 6 months later that claim was retracted.

      There's always been rumours around how Murdoch runs his empire, but now it's being blown wide open. News International runs more like a criminal conspiracy than a legitimate media organisation; they're basically gangsters.

      --
      Nick
    2. 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.

    3. Re:shell game...? by Zocalo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, it's not so much the employees that interest me; it's the paperwork. Specifically, what is going to happen to all of the News of The World's emails, accounts and all of those other records that might be of use to, say, a public inquiry or police investigation? I can't help but wonder whether this knee jerk reaction on behalf of Rupert Murdoch is a desperate attempt at damage limitation because knowledge of what was going on goes a lot higher up the ladder than just former News of The World staff.

      As an aside, The Guardian has a rather interesting piece on the use of private investigators by UK media from back in 2007 when things first kicked off. The NoTW only came in fifth behind those other stalwarts of quality UK journalism; The People, The Daily Mirror, The Mail on Sunday and, the run-away leader, The Daily Mail.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    4. Re:shell game...? by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Closing down NOTW is being done for no more reason than to keep Murdoch's purchase of the remaining 60% of BSkyB on track. The government has announced a delay, and with David Cameron's close associations to key players (including Andy Coulson who was tossed from Downing Street in shame and now faces arrest), there is a push among many Tories and close supporters in papers like the Daily Telegraph to basically toss News Corp out of Britain. The general sentiment is that Murdoch has had an unholy influence on British politics and it's time for it to go.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    5. Re:shell game...? by quarterbuck · · Score: 3, Informative

      According to FT (sorry pay walled link http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1a199004-a8d5-11e0-b877-00144feabdc0.html) Murdoch was planning to convert his other newspapers (The Sun) into a 7 day newspaper by sharing content/news with TNotW anyway. As it is, his 4 newspapers share the same printing press and he often moves around editors/writers.
      From the FT story
      The second obstacle is that Mr Murdoch and Ms Wade had made known their plan to cut costs and overlap by bringing the News of the World close into line with The Sun as a seven-day operation. It seems likely that News International will resurrect the Sunday title as The Sun on Sunday.

      --
      http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
  4. Aaaaand... by Inquisitus · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...here's the new name, complete with domain registration: http://webwhois.nic.uk/cgi-bin/whois.cgi?query=thesunonsunday.co.uk

  5. Nothing but PR by Chris+Down · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is the press equivalent of amputating a gangrenous limb to try and stop the spread of the infection, without even acknowledging that the rest of the body is already riddled with disease...

  6. 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.
  7. Voicemail Hack Scandal Leads To Closure of UK Tabl by omar.sahal · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hugh Grant just called the Murdoch Empire a protection racket live on Question Time.

  8. Re:James Murdoch alleged to off broke the law by Nick+Ives · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He almost certainly broke the law. The regulation of investigatory powers act makes it an offence for a corporate body to engage in this kind of behaviour and holds directors personally responsible for connivance and neglect.

    If James Murdoch let things happen on a nod and a wink he's guilty of connivance. Even if he didn't have that level of knowledge, failing to do a full internal investigation based on the allegations from five years ago is a clear sign of neglect.

    --
    Nick
  9. News of the Screws by jambox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Frederick Greenwood, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, met in his club one day Lord Riddell, who died a few years ago, and in the course of conversation Riddell said to him, `You know, I own a paper.' `Oh, do you?' said Greenwood, 'what is it?' `It's called the News of the Worldâ"I'll send you a copy,' replied Riddell, and in due course did so. Next time they met Riddell said, 'Well Greenwood, what do you think of my paper?' 'I looked at it,' replied Greenwood, 'and then I put it in the waste-paper basket. And then I thought, "If I leave it there the cook may read it" â"so I burned it!' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World#History

    --
    You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
  10. Re:Voicemail Hack Scandal Leads To Closure of UK T by rainmouse · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hugh Grant just called the Murdoch Empire a protection racket live on Question Time.

    Strangely enough Hugh Grant, someone I previously disliked for his films has actually shown considerable stones in this whole debacle.

  11. Re:Not just a schoolgirl by rainmouse · · Score: 5, Informative

    The schoolgirl was arguably the worst however as they actually deleted some of her voice mails to make room for new messages to see what else they could dig up about the terrified friends and family. This is both deleting evidence in a murder investigation but also led the family to falsely believe she was still alive by thinking she was freeing up space on her voice mail.

  12. Phone Hacking? by pev · · Score: 4, Funny

    I must say that I'm quite surprised that no-one technically minded has yet managed to raid Mr Murdoch and Mrs Brooks voicemails and publish them on YouTube. I'm sure there must have been some juicy irate messages left and would be a most apt thing to do.

    Hang on, didn't them crafty LulzSec buggers have a request-line...?! Anyone got the number?

  13. Re:Voicemail Hack Scandal Leads To Closure of UK T by geniice · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He has the advantage that we already know his private life isn't whiter than white and has in any case semi-retired from acting. There isn't much you could really threaten him with.

  14. 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.
  15. 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.