3 Dec 2010 | Uncategorized
If it sometimes seems that the News of the World phone-hacking scandal is running out of steam, it’s not. The affair may not always be present in the headlines (most papers avoid reporting it) but it is most certainly present in the courts.
Merely counting the cases is a challenge — because they take different forms, because of court orders, because claimants are coy — but legal sources suggest that the total is now a remarkable 23, of which 20 involve people who believe they were or may have been hacking victims. The list looks like this.
First, there are eight people who have initiated legal proceedings against the News of the World.
1. Nicola Phillips, former assistant to Max Clifford.
2. Sky Andrew, football agent.
3. Steve Coogan, actor and comedian.
4. Andy Gray, football commentator.
5. George Galloway, politician.
6. Mick McGuire, former official of the Professional Footballers’ Association.
7. “High-profile individual” number 1
8. “High-profile individual” number 2
Next is a group of at least eight people who have prepared or are preparing cases against the News of the World. All have established that their names or numbers were in documents seized by police from convicted hacker Glen Mulcaire. The television personality Chris Tarrant is one, another is described as a leading sportsman, and four of the others, though unnamed, are said to be high-profile individuals.
In addition, four people who know or believe that they were victims have joined forces to seek a judicial review of alleged failures by the Metropolitan Police (a) to warn individuals they had been hacked and (b) to investigate the affair properly. These four are:
1. Lord Prescott, politician.
2. Chris Bryant MP.
3. Brian Paddick, former senior police officer.
4. Brendan Montague, journalist.
And besides all these, three further legal cases relate to the scandal in different ways.
1. At the current trial of Tommy and Gail Sheridan in Glasgow on charges of perjury — which they deny — Sheridan has alleged that his phone was hacked by the News of the World. Sheridan has documents which show that Mulcaire had his mobile phone details and PIN codes.
2. A solicitor, Mark Lewis, is suing the Metropolitan Police for libel in a case relating to statements about the total number of hacking victims. In a linked action brought by Lewis, the Press Complaints Commission has apologised and settled.
3. Proceedings of some kind are apparently under way in a case of alleged hacking by a News of the World journalist first reported in the New York Times in September. The Press Complaints Commission has said the case is sub judice.
Finally, though this one may never reach the stage of legal proceedings, the Crown Prosecution Service is considering a new file of material on hacking gathered in a recent re-investigation by the Metropolitan Police.
This formidable catalogue wave of legal activity represents many months if not years of litigation, particularly for the News of the World. It also threatens considerable embarrassment for the paper, for the Metropolitan Police and for Andy Coulson, the prime minister’s media adviser. And for the newspaper and its owner, Rupert Murdoch’s News International, which have already had to settle several cases, there is also the potential for costs running into millions of pounds.
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26 Oct 2010 | Uncategorized
This article appears in Media Guardian
The gathered clan laughed nervously when Lord Saatchi, their host, declared that Britons now spent more on Sky TV subscriptions than they did on bread. When the other man on the stage smiled, the audience relaxed. To understand Rupert Murdoch‘s grip on British public life it is instructive to see the body language when the elite comes together. I counted at least five Conservative cabinet ministers among the great and good in the ornate surroundings of Lancaster House for the inaugural Margaret Thatcher lecture on Thursday.
The timing was equally pertinent. Murdoch’s speech, entitled Free Markets and Free Minds, came the day after the Comprehensive Spending Review that sought not just to tackle the budget deficit but to complete Thatcher’s unfinished business of reducing the size of the state and unleashing the private sector.
Concerns over Thatcher’s health could not mask a celebratory mood among News Corporation executives who, in just a matter of days, have seen the BBC’s budget cut by 16% and Ofcom denuded of staff.
Murdoch, even now, continues to portray himself as the rebel with a cause. “I am something of a parvenu,” he said. At each step of the way, he had taken on vested interests – whether trade unions at Wapping or other “institutions hungry for power at the expense of ordinary citizens”. He argued that technological change was leading to a new “democracy … from the bottom up”. A free society, he said, “required an independent press: turbulent, inquiring, bustling and free. That’s why our journalism is hard-driving and questioning of authority. And so are our journalists.”
Such a laudable commitment to free expression sits uneasily with his company’s dealings in countries with dubious civil liberties records, notably China, where his business interests invariably trump journalistic inquiry.
Murdoch suggested that traditional mediated journalism remained the only serious constraint on elites. “It would certainly serve the interests of the powerful if professional journalists were muted – or replaced as navigators in our society by bloggers and bloviators.” Bloggers could play a “social” role but this had little to do with uncovering facts. In saying this, Murdoch was doing more than justifying the Times’ and Sunday Times’ internet paywall. He appeared to be echoing the views of the New Yorker columnist Malcolm Gladwell, and others who argue that social media and blogs are not speaking truth to power in the way their advocates proclaim.
When tackling the most controversial areas, Murdoch moved from unequivocal statement to hints. The words “Andy” and “Coulson” came immediately to mind when he stated: “Often I have cause to celebrate editorial endeavour. Occasionally I have cause for regret. Let me be clear: we will vigorously pursue the truth – and we will not tolerate wrongdoing.” One News Corp executive suggested afterwards that this was the closest Murdoch had come, and would come, to apologising for the phone-hacking affair.
The official line is that no senior figure knew about the practice at the News of the World. Coulson, who is now director of communications in Downing Street, resigned as the editor when the paper’s former royal editor, Clive Goodman, was jailed in January 2007. Intriguingly, a senior Murdoch executive told me after the speech: “If Coulson hadn’t quit, he would have been fired”. If that is the case, why do they continue to insist publicly that Coulson had done nothing wrong and had fallen on his sword only to protect the reputation of the company?
The other unspoken drama in the room was Murdoch’s bid to take full control of BSkyB and the campaign of resistance by an alliance of newspaper editors and the BBC, who are urging Vince Cable to block the deal.
Murdoch said the energy of the iconoclastic and unconventional should not be curbed, adding: “When the upstart is too successful, somehow the old interests surface, and restrictions on growth are proposed or imposed. That’s an issue for my company.”
The assembled ministers will have taken note. Just as the Labour government kowtowed at every turn, so the coalition – and Cable in particular – will be scrutinised closely by News Corp to ensure that it does the decent thing.
13 Oct 2010 | Uncategorized
Andy Coulson must be scared. Not of the Guardian, which to date has failed to root him out of his job in Downing Street. And not of David Cameron, who shows no inclination to sack him. No, Coulson must be scared that his old boss Rupert Murdoch will pull the rug out from underneath him.
Murdoch wants, very much, to buy the whole of BSkyB so that he can move a big step closer to monopoly control of the British media market, and Coulson, almost accidentally, is getting in the way.
Any day now, Murdoch could pick up the phone in New York and ask Cameron (instruct him?) to ditch his most senior media adviser. No doubt News Corp would offer the former News of the World editor a nice job in compensation, but it would be the end of Coulson’s promising career as the smarter, slicker version of Alastair Campbell.
He is an embarrassment to the old man because the never-ending scandal of phone hacking keeps reminding us just how depraved and sinister the Murdoch empire can be. And this is happening at a moment when Murdoch wants us all to think of him as an inspiring business genius, a victim of Establishment snobbery and the man who just gives viewers what they want.
Murdoch employees illegally hacked the voicemails of the future king of this country, as well as dozens or more likely hundreds of other people very prominent in our public life. Reported targets include Cabinet ministers, a celebrity agent, a top sports official, a supermodel and at least one senior police officer — not to mention, perhaps most chillingly, ordinary members of the public who are victims of crime.
And as the revelations tumble out and the lawsuits against Murdoch’s company stack up, something even more significant is happening. People are talking more and more about his extraordinary power, and the fear he can spread.
That was the most potent message to come out of Peter Oborne’s Dispatches programme on the scandal last week. There were complaints afterwards that the key new witness casting doubt on Coulson’s I-knew-nothing defence was anonymous, but they missed the point: as Oborne made clear, the systematic need for anonymity provided eloquent proof of how frightened people are. Grassing on the Murdoch empire looks uncomfortably similar to grassing on the IRA.
Tom Watson MP, in a remarkable speech about phone-hacking to the Commons last month, sent the same message: “The barons of the media, with their red-topped assassins, are the biggest beasts in the modern jungle. They have no predators; they are untouchable. They laugh at the law; they sneer at parliament. They have the power to hurt us, and they do, with gusto and precision, with joy and criminality. Prime ministers quail before them, and that is how they like it.”
And have a look at the story of Michael Wolff, who had the nerve to write a critical biography of Murdoch. We probably wouldn’t have read that if it were not for phone-hacking.
Right now, when Murdoch has all his other ducks in a row for the total takeover of BSkyB — the Tories owe him for his papers’ election support; Ofcom is being neutered; the BBC is being kicked from pillar to post — he emphatically does not want to be making headlines as the monstrous bogey man of British public life.
So one day soon he may decide that Coulson, in principle a terrific Murdoch asset at the heart of British government, is in fact a liability. He may calculate that if Coulson went, the heat would go out of the phone-hacking scandal and those nasty headlines about ruthless, bully-boy News International would fade away.
And if that day comes, does anyone doubt that one phone call to Number 10 would settle the matter?
24 Sep 2010 | Uncategorized
“Dear Sun Readers” begins Atwood’s pithy response to the recent controversy surrounding her signing a stop Fox News North petition that’s aiming to try and keep the right-wing television station off the air in Canada. Atwood is objecting to the way the channel will be funded and the government’s involvement. Her involvement sparked a debate on Twitter with conservative blogger Stephen Taylor and Toronto Sun Media’s Ottawa bureau chief, David Akin. During the Twitter spat, the men accused Atwood of calling the Sun an advocate of hate speech since the right-wing news channel is proposed by Sun Media. Akin tweeted:
So disappointing you would put your name to what is an anti-free speech movement. You’re smarter than that.
However, Atwood was quick to reply with:
“Free speech does not mean under-the-carpet deals that would force people to pay for Fox out of cable fees.”
After clearing any confusion and allegations made by the Sun about the Avaaz petition with spiffy ‘Allegation’ and ‘Fact’ statements, Atwood reiterates what the petition is about.
“As concerned Canadians who deeply oppose American-style hate media on our airwaves, we applaud CRTC’s refusal to allow a new ‘Fox News North’ channel to be funded from our cable fees. We urge Mr. Von Finckenstein to stay in his job and continue to stand up for Canada’s democratic traditions, and call on Prime Minister Harper to immediately stop all pressure on the CRTC on this matter.”
And she adds in subtle caps lock:
“THE VERBS ARE “APPLAUD”, “URGE” AND “CALL ON” NOT “BAN”, “SUPPRESS” AND “CENSOR.”
She mentions her views on censorship, underscoring the use of Twitter as a mode of free expression while name-dropped us too:
“AM I A PROPONENT OF “CENSORSHIP”?
Nope. Read the petition again.
Now Konrad von Finckenstein has said he isn’t under pressure (unlike his fired CRTC deputy), and will judge Application # 2 on its merits. Good!
REAL CENSORSHIP INCLUDES
Book burning, murdering, jailing and exiling writers, and shutting down newspapers, publishers, and TV stations. If you are against this, support PEN International and Index on Censorship.
Calling the Avaaz petition “censorship” is beyond cheap.
IS IT “CENSORSHIP” TO BLOCK TROLLS ON TWITTER?
No, and it’s not “censorship” to send back hate mail unopened and refuse material for your own blog, either.
Anyone can vent on their own Twitter or blog. And anyone can sign a petition to express their views.”
The latest update on the Avaaz petition states that over 80,000 people have signed it, over $110,000 has been donated to meet legal threats and Kory Teneycke, PM Harper’s former chief spokesman resigned on 15 September.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearing is on Sun TV News will begin on 19 November in Gatineau, Quebec.
Margaret Atwood features in the next issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
