Topic: Newscorpse Latest: Ding, Dong, the adulterous witch is charged

[SamAteTheRedAcid]

Bet they dont play moves like Jagger at the reception

HAHAHA! Very good.

[Crosby Nick]

Bet they dont play moves like Jagger at the reception

What about Gold Digger?

[Red Beret]

To be fair Jerry Hall isn't short of a few bob, from a wealthy Texas oil family isn't she?

Yeah.  I'm sure the rock hard stud is just cursed with a magnetic personality.

[CornerFlag]

Well, colour me surprised.



The story:

LAST WEEK there were two major announcements about Rupert Murdoch.

On Tuesday the Times revealed he was engaged to fellow American citizen Jerry Hall.
 
They’re planning a marriage.
 
On the same day Press Gang asked Ofcom to hold an inquiry into the media mogul’s fitness to hold the Sky TV licence.
 
We’re planning a divorce.
 
If Ofcom declares Murdoch “unfit”, his forthcoming bid to take overall control of the broadcaster will fail.
 
He tried before — an attempt in 2011 was wrecked by the phone hacking scandal.
 
If he’s found “unfit”, Murdoch will also be forced to sell his remaining 39 per cent stake in the broadcaster.
 
It will be the end of his TV empire in the UK.
 
Ofcom has acknowledged receipt of our request but has not formally responded.
 
This article spells out why this could be an important battlefield …
 ♦♦♦

IN JANUARY 1999 the Sun ran a World Exclusive.

The paper had discovered Jerry Hall had decided to end her marriage with Mick Jagger.

“Jagger divorce” was the front page headline on January 15.

The paper reported:

“The Texan model finally buckled yesterday as she ordered lawyers to start proceedings at the High Court in London.”

It was a famous scoop.

But how did the Sun get it?

The finger points to a young reporter who joined the paper in the late 1990s.

He’d discovered a new way of obtaining stories: hacking phones.

Andy Coulson — associate editor at the Sun at the time — was impressed.

It was later claimed he said of the reporter:

“He’s a one trick pony. But what a trick!”

It’s alleged the journalist was listening in to the voicemail messages of Jagger’s PR man Bernard Doherty.

SmugCunt.jpg

THE BILLIONAIRE announced his engagement to Jerry Hall last week. The media have missed the allegation that personal information about Jerry Hall’s divorce from Mick Jagger was illegally obtained by the Sun. The story is told in Nick Davies’ book Hack Attack. Davies claimed a Sun reporter — he gave him the codename “Sand” — listened to the voicemail messages of one of Jagger’s team. This would have given the paper the phone numbers of Jagger — and Jerry Hall …

Coulson and the paper had been following the Jagger-Hall marriage closely.

In November 1998, for example, the Sun discovered a lawyer acting for Jerry Hall was secretly meeting Jagger’s mistress in New York.

The lawyer was hoping the woman would provide ammunition in the event of divorce proceedings.

A Sun reporter was waiting for the couple when they left a restaurant.

The reaction of Jagger’s girlfriend was: “Oh my God, how did you find me?”

The lawyer asked the reporter: “How DID you know we were here?”

(The emphasis is in the original Sun article.)

Articles like these helped to build Coulson’s reputation.

In 2000 he joined News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks as her deputy.

He was already her lover.

Coulson was married, she was in the middle of a long relationship with EastEnders actor Ross Kemp.

In 2003, when Brooks was promoted to Sun editor, he took the reins of the News of the World.

In 2007 the paper’s royal editor Clive Goodman was gaoled for hacking phones — and Coulson resigned.

He later lied to a House of Commons select committee:

“… if a rogue reporter decides to behave in that fashion I am not sure that there is an awful lot more I could have done.”

The Goodman case would have been the end of most people’s career — but not Coulson’s.

Just four months later Opposition Leader David Cameron made him the Tories’ Director of Communications.

One of his champions was shadow Chancellor George Gideon Oliver Osborne, son of Sir Peter Osborne, 17th Baronet of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon and Felicity Alexandra Loxton-Peacock, educated at St. Paul's and Magdalen College, Oxford.

Osborne owed Coulson.

Coulson had been kind to the shadow Chancellor.

In October 2005 the Sunday Mirror published a photograph suggesting Osborne had been a cocaine user.

Taken when he was 22, the snap showed him with his arm around a dominatrix known as Madam Pain.

She was the partner of a friend.

In the background was a line of white powder Madam Pain claimed was cocaine.

The paper’s headline: “Vice Girl: I Snorted Cocaine With Top Tory Boy”.

PerjuryPrick.png

ANDY COULSON was David Cameron’s communications chief from 2007 to 2011. Critics told Cameron’s team there were indications Coulson might be involved in the phone hacking scandal. Cameron, who denied ever hearing the warnings, described Coulson as a “friend”.

Coulson also published the picture but the News of the World was unusually sympathetic.

“It was a stark lesson,” Osborne said, “of the destruction which drugs bring to so many people’s lives.”

He denied using cocaine.

When David Cameron became Prime Minister, Coulson joined him at No 10.

When the phone hacking scandal broke in 2011, Coulson resigned.

The rest is history: in July 2014 he was gaoled for 18 months for phone hacking.

There’s nothing new in the rise and fall of Andy Coulson — but it underlines the seriousness of the wrong-doing at Murdoch’s newspapers.

It forms part of our case that, by allowing Coulson to run a criminal enterprise at the News of the World, Rupert Murdoch is “unfit” to run Sky …

♦♦♦
INCREDIBLY MURDOCH is now poised to make a new bid for Sky.

Like the film Back To The Future  — where a time traveller changes the past — it’s as if the criminal enterprise that thrived at the Sun and News of the World had never happened.

In 2011 David Cameron wouldn’t touch Murdoch with a barge pole.

Now they’re best friends again.

The once disgraced Rebekah Brooks is back as chief executive of Murdoch’s British newspapers.

The scene is set for Murdoch to make another bid for the 61 per cent of the company his 21st Century Fox business doesn’t already own.

He’s been quietly preparing the ground — the company recently changed its name from BSkyB to Sky plc.

And it also bought Murdoch’s German and Italian satellite interests.

GobshiteCameron.gif

DAVID CAMERON has performed a complete U-turn in his dealings with Rupert Murdoch. In 2011, agreeing that politicians had become too close to media tycoons, he promised: “It’s on my watch that the music has stopped.” In December he and his wife attended a party at Rupert Murdoch’s central London apartment …

There are concerns the move will increase Murdoch’s share of the British market — bringing him closer to the stranglehold Silvio Berlusconi wields in Italy.

When he tried to buy Sky in 2011, he was also opposed by an unlikely alliance of newspaper groups and other broadcasters.

The BBC and BT joined the Guardian, Telegraph, Mirror and Daily Mail groups in calling for the bid to be blocked.

But the real anxiety is over Sky News.

There are fears Murdoch will try and turn it into a version of his Fox News in the USA.

Fox has earned a reputation as an extreme right wing channel: its journalism the TV equivalent of the Sun.

This isn’t a problem for the Tories — but it is for those for oppose Murdoch.

Commercial broadcasting is tightly regulated in the UK, demnding high editorial standards and political impartiality.

Murdoch plans to deal with these concerns by hiving Sky News into a separate company, guaranteeing its editorial independence in the articles of association.

This solution satisfied Ofcom at the time of the 2011 bid.

Some critics are reassured: the watchdog is a formidable regulator, thwarting Sky’s ambitions on several occasions.

In 2006 Sky had bought an 18 per cent stake in ITV to prevent it merging with another company and creating a competitor to Sky.

An Ofcom inquiry decided the stake gave Sky too much influence in the UK and, eventually, Sky was forced to sell the stake at a loss.

Ofcom has also ordered Sky to reduce the price it charged rivals for the use of its material.

In 2009 Murdoch’s son, James, attacked the watchdog for imposing “astonishing” burdens on broadcasters.

His solution was brutal:

“There is an inescapable conclusion that we must reach if we are to have a better society.”

“The only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.” 

The danger here is that David Cameron and George Gideon Oliver Osborne, son of Sir Peter Osborne, 17th Baronet of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon and Felicity Alexandra Loxton-Peacock, educated at St. Paul's and Magdalen College, Oxford also have Ofcom in their sights.

In July 2009 David Cameron said that he wanted to restrict Ofcom to its “narrow technical and enforcement roles” rather than issues of public policy.

“Ofcom, as we know it, will cease to exist,” he said.

The Tories were unable to carry out the pledge because they were in coalition with the Liberal Democrats until 2015.

Critics fear the Tories will now move to cripple Ofcom — and then quietly relax the restrictions on Sky News …

♦♦♦

THE PRESS GANG campaign — The People v. Murdoch — is designed to force Murdoch’s withdrawal from the UK TV scene.

A week has passed since we asked Ofcom to launch an inquiry into the “fitness” of Rupert Murdoch and his family to be involved in British television.

Under the 1996 Broadcasting Act Ofcom is charged with making sure licence holders are “fit and proper” persons to hold the licence.

Ofcom has already held an inquiry, in 2012.

Although it criticised James Murdoch for his handling of the phone hacking crisis, it decided there wasn’t enough evidence to take the licence away from the Murdochs.

But since then a vast amount of damaging material has emerged — see the previous article, Fightback, for more details.

[oojason]

High Court judge rules claims against the S*n newspaper by phone-hacking victims can go ahead

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36159107

[classycarra]

High Court judge rules claims against the S*n newspaper by phone-hacking victims can go ahead

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36159107

bad week to be a c*nt

[oojason]

bad week to be a c*nt

Makes you wonder if Brooks resigns again will she get another £16m payoff, then come back in a couple years after the dust has settled a bit like last time...

Over 1000 cases settled by NGN (now Newk UK)...

[SamAteTheRedAcid]

Nothing will get done.
Bunch of fucking c*nts

about the fifth post in this thread, 5 years ago. True then, true now.

The justice system is a joke, she'll be retired before anything sticks, the red witch.

[CornerFlag]

Sun journalist gets away with stuff shocker.  So not one person was successfully tried under Operation Elveden.  Fucking marvellous.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37786998

Sun crime reporter Anthony France has won an appeal against his conviction for paying for tip-offs from an anti-terrorism officer.

He was the only journalist to be successfully tried under Operation Elveden, the police probe into payments to public officials.

Mr France, 42, from Watford, was given an 18-month sentence in May 2015, suspended for two years.

He said he could now rebuild his life "after 1,379 days of sheer hell".

Lady Justice Hallett, who heard the appeal with Mr Justice King and Mr Justice Dove, announced that Mr France's conviction would be quashed and said there would not be a re-trial.

'Miscarriage of justice'

Mr France - who was at the Court of Appeal in London to hear three judges allow his challenge against his conviction - was embraced by fellow journalists from the Sun after the ruling.

"I am delighted that this serious miscarriage of justice has ended today," he said outside court.

Mr France was convicted of aiding and abetting PC Timothy Edwards to commit misconduct in public office between March 2008 and July 2011 following a trial at the Old Bailey last year.

PC Edwards sold 38 stories and tip offs to Mr France between March 2008 and July 2011 in exchange for more than £22,000. He pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office and was jailed for two years in 2014.

Mr France's appeal centred on the directions given to the jury at the trial by Judge Timothy Pontius.

In a written ruling, Lady Justice Hallett said they concluded that the jury "were not provided with legally adequate directions tailored to the circumstances of the case and that the conviction was unsafe".

'Significant day'

A News UK spokeswoman said after the ruling that it was "delighted" Mr France's conviction had been overturned.

"In the course of the last five years, 19 journalists from The Sun were prosecuted as a result of Operation Elveden and not one has resulted in any conviction being upheld," she said.

The BBC's legal correspondent Clive Coleman said the ruling marked an "end point" to Operation Elveden, which officially ended earlier this year and cost almost £15m.

He said: "Not a single journalist who was put before a jury has been successfully convicted, and so I think it is a significant day."

Our correspondent added that the ruling meant that - while Operation Elveden could be seen as a success in relation to the charging of public officials - in relation to journalists "it has to be seen as an almost total failure".

Of the journalists charged, only one, Dan Evans, from the News of the World, pleaded guilty. He received a suspended 10-month sentence in July 2014 after admitting phone hacking and making illegal payments to public officials.

In April 2015 the Crown Prosecution Service dropped charges of making illegal payments to officials against nine journalists - including former News of the World editor Andy Coulson.

Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, said there needed to be "far wider protection" for journalists reporting in the public interest and said: "Careers and lives were destroyed by the overlong and hugely expensive police investigation."

Corrupt. As. Fuck.

[Red-Soldier]

Sun journalist gets away with stuff shocker.  So not one person was successfully tried under Operation Elveden.  Fucking marvellous.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37786998

Corrupt. As. Fuck.

Total bollocks that!!!

[sms1986]

Do we know for sure that he is actually guilty, though? If he is innocent, even he as a "journalist" for that rag deserves fair treatment.

[classycarra]

Do we know for sure that he is actually guilty, though? If he is innocent, even he as a "journalist" for that rag deserves fair treatment.

some context here
https://twitter.com/Law_and_policy/status/791578671643496448

[Trada]

 The S#n losses exceed £60m as ad slump and hacking charges take toll

Total revenues fell from £456m to £446m after price increase failed to offset decline in print advertising and rising legal costs

The S#n made a loss of more than £60m last year as steep declines in print advertising, redundancy costs and phone-hacking charges battered the tabloid.

Its stablemate the Times also slipped into the red, reporting a pretax loss of £5m in the year to 3 July, down from a profit of £8.8m in 2015, in part due to racking up £13.7m in redundancy restructuring costs

The S#n fared significantly worse, notching up a pretax loss of £62.8m for the same period last year, according to accounts filed at Companies House for its parent company News Group Newspapers.

The S#n narrowed its losses (£79m in 2015), mainly due to a significant reduction in charges relating to legal claims and costs relating to phone hacking. These costs and provisions fell from about £65m in 2015 to £30m last year.

The S#n also spent £14.8m on one-off restructuring costs and significantly boosted sales and marketing spend, from £55m to £75.9m, on campaigns around Euro 2016 and “spend and save” promotions.

Total revenues fell from £456m to £446m as a steep decline in print advertising failed to be offset by income from other areas, including the now free-access Sun website. The Sun scrapped its paywall in November 2015 after two years.

“The main driver of this decline [in revenues] was the challenging market conditions for newspaper print advertising with double-digit declines currently common across the industry,” the company said.

“The print advertising revenue decline offset the growth in both print circulation [revenue], supported by an increase in the Monday to Friday cover price during the year, and excellent digital advertising growth, following the removal of the paywall for the Sun website.”

Excluding one-off and exceptional charges, the Sun said it had made £16m in profit last year, almost half the £29m in 2015.

The S#n’s performance is in stark contrast to the Times and Sunday Times, which proved remarkably resilient despite tough market conditions.

Total revenues barely budged year-on-year, dropping from £342.5m to £341.6m, as the titles managed to mostly offset print advertising declines.

Its parent company, Times Newspapers Limited, said there was a “solid” performance in print sales income, including the first cover price increase in two years last April, and digital subscriptions, which grew to 182,000.

The Times spent almost £33m on sales and marketing last year.

The parent company said that, stripping out the exceptional costs, the Times had made an adjusted operating profit of £11.2m, down from £18.6m.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/05/the-sun-losses-advertising-hacking-charges-profits-revenues

[CornerFlag]

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/fox-offices-in-london-raided-by-european-commission-investigators.html

Fox offices in London raided by European Commission investigators

European Commission investigators raided Twenty-First Century Fox's London office on Tuesday, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Sources at the location told the newspaper that authorities were trying to be discreet and had been told to keep details of their mission confidential. The Telegraph reported that investigators will be on site through Wednesday and maybe Thursday.

The raid comes amid Fox's drawn out takeover of Sky, which has fallen under intense scrutiny by regulators at the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority.

Earlier this year, the agency provisionally found Fox's bid would not be in the public interest. It said there are concerns that the deal may lead to the Murdoch Family Trust wielding too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda.

Fox Networks Group said in a statement to CNBC that it is "cooperating fully with the EC inspection." The European Commission did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Shares of Fox ticked lower in extended trading.

[rafathegaffa83]

[Hazell]

What an evening this turning out to be

[rafathegaffa83]

Independent are claiming the raid is linked to sports broadcasting

The London offices of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Networks have been raided by the European Commission as part of a continent-wide investigation into a possible sports broadcasting cartel.

Officials carried out “unannounced inspections” of companies in several countries over concerns the firms “may have violated EU antitrust rules”, the commission said.

Fox Networks Group (FNG), an operating unit of 21st Century Fox which distributes TV and cable channels around the world, said it was co-operating with the investigation after its offices in Hammersmith, west London, were raided.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/london-offices-21st-century-fox-raided-european-commission-investigation-sports-broadcasting-rupert-a8298786.html

[fredfrop]

Saw this surprisingly honest piece of advertising today