Media and politics tragics will no doubt be glued to ABC News24 this evening as it broadcasts Rupert Murdoch’s appearance before the UK parliamentary media select committee. This open thread is the place to discuss your observations, predictions and reactions.
To add some interest to proceedings, we’ve prepared some special edition bingo cards for the occasion.
Download the whole set here of Rupert Murdoch Parliamentary Enquiry bingo cards here, pick one, and let us know in the comments if you get five in a row.
Over to you.
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I had to bail last night, but have it recorded and will watch proceedings this morning.
Guess who wrote this:
LOL – parallel universe?
Yes , i saw james hiding behind his father ? while Wendy attacked the protester with her handbag. Gutless prick.
I started to watch with their abc , but after the scene was covered with running comments on 3/4 of the scene ??? covering up Ruppy ? switched to 7 and 9. Much better. Its like they don’t want to get the International contract ???? , or just poor management ?
I wonder if our ABC cares that Channel Seven’s coverage was superior? In my experience the ABC is technically inept, how often does ABC radio broadcast silence when they should be broadcasting the news? I would have thought these things would be automated in this day and age.
a robot?
Pie throw – a set up or not?
Certainly gives people something to talk about that isn’t anything to do with hacking phones.
So Murdoch doesn’t abide by the same standards of responsibility his papers insisted the govt should wrt the Home Insulation Program and BER, in that those at the top are ultimately responsible or wrong doing. Hypocrite much?
Whatever can be used to ensure the company stays firmly in Murdoch hands will be used. Check out this quote one expects to be widely distributed in coming days (it’s already found it’s way into the ABC):
I don’t know how the performance last night helped James’ credibility in any way, shape, or form but it will become that through the grand tradition of repeating it until it gets accepted as fact.
Anyone suggesting James’ credibility has been enhanced by last night’s performance has rocks in their head. All we got from James was PR waffle and spin, no genuine contrition, and some admissions which were, frankly, clangers.
James’ spurious claims with regard to transparency went unchallenged. Two words:
Melbourne Storm!
Jules @ 57 – Ah, at least I’m not the only one thinking that.
And did you notice all the coughing from the gallery, à la Who wants to be a millionaire?
1 cough for “No.”
2 coughs for “Yes.”
3 coughs for “I can’t recall.”
4 coughs for “That happened before I started.”
Man, am I ever in a cynical mood today ..
Confessions @ 60: Your description is accurate. James will make a perfect News Corp CEO.
A much more succinct expression of my #58.
Daniel Bond:
I expect this poll to get spammed in the next two days. Currently sitting with those thinking “None believable” @ 80%.
While a lot of people were unimpressed, worth noting that News ltd’s share price jumped, suggesting the market thought it was going to be a much worse performance than it was.
“If Peter Garrett is responsible for bodgy insulation installers, surely Rupert Murdoch is responsible for what happens in his own company.”
Exactly.
Won’t hold my breath for it happening though.
•••••••••••••
Rupert blew it completely, spectacularly even. Clearly not fit or able to run a cold bath.
James did what he had to, and did it well (in the purely mercenary, not the ethical, sense).
I turned off when Rupert started blathering on about his father.
While a lot of people were unimpressed, worth noting that News ltd’s share price jumped, suggesting the market thought it was going to be a much worse performance than it was.
Or that investors believe the Murdoch’s dominant reign is over, and are getting early while the stock is down.
Andrew Bolt works for a company that is endemically, knowingly corrupt.
It always amuses me to hazard a guess whether Bell-head will post one of my efforts on his blog. I try and craft them subtly, so he (or his busy, distracted moderators) don’t clue up til it’s too late. This time, however, I may have gone a bit past the line:
monkeywrench:
Why does your gravitar keep changing colours?
The News regime is more interested in global influence peddling than reporting the news, according to New York University’s Jay Rosen:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jul/19/rupert-murdoch-phone-hacking
The British media is deploying increasing resources to investigate the practices of Rupert Murdoch’s Australian journalists and newspapers:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14219397
confessions: it’s a mood thing.
Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters who busted the Watergate scandal back in the day, believes Rupert Murdoch’s whatever-it-takes tabloid news approach has contaminated News Ltd from the top down:
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/10/murdoch-s-watergate.html
The pie-thrower is being described in various media outlets as a comediean.
I thought the comedic performance of the day was Old Man Rupert with this line;
“I employ 53,000 people around the world who are proud and great and ethical and distinguished people, professionals in their work.”
He clearly needs to pay more attention to his Australian papers before making such a ridiculous generalisation…..
Sheehan in today’s SMH:
So there, that’s Dave and Jeremy and Crikey put in their place then. Take that! lefty bearded types
Has anyone seen this:
http://www.grist.org/climate-energy/2011-07-19-could-murdochs-news-corp-be-behind-climategate-too
Its an article wondering about Climategate and who actually did what. And calling for an independent investigation of whether News Corp was involved in the climategate debacle.
Raises plenty of questions including the obvious one to start with – how many climate scientists have had their phones hacked?
I noticed that too confessions.
monkeywrench, blur today, depressed or horny? Or sweary???
Errr ‘blue’ not ‘blur’
jules:
Was reading about it this morning. Apparently there was a NY Times report a couple of days ago that News Corp in 2009 settled with a company after complaints it had hacked into their system.
This has naturally led to speculation that News was behind the Climategate hacking.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/07/whats-in-a-name/
Thats Craig Murray, former uk diplomat and whistleblower noticing that the police investigation into the bribing of officers by NotW, and another one into the hacking itself, are both named after notorious traffic bottlenecks around Norfolk. Kind of ironic.
(Like operation Kratos, the shoot to kill policy that led to de Menezes being shot. Who names these things?)
Personally, i never doubted it…it’s become the denialist big ‘gotcha’ (which of course it simply is not). A gift to teh stupid.
Well there is the Floorgraphics incident Confessions mentioned, and what NDS got up to back in the day.
n 2002 ITVDigital went broke after people cracked their satellite code and all of Europe accessed their pay tv service for free.
I think James Murdoch was at the helm at the time, coincidentally enough.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2002/mar/18/security.hacking
That particular tale has it all, including links with dodgy cops that go back years.
News corp entity – NDS – is alleged to have cracked the security ITVDigital used then publicised it, destroying their ability to sell satellite broadcasting, using a dodgy ex Cop in the process. THe upshot was the death of ITVDigital which was bought out by a consortium including BSkyB which had nearly 40% news Corp ownership at the time.
http://canalvsnds.bravehost.com/index.html
rhwombat posted this on the weekly open thread, but I’m reposting it here for convenience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj6vKrDFE5s
Fox News had a dirty tricks unit that ran phone hacking and other dodgy surveillance programmes, a former News executive has alleged:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8650631/Rupert-Murdochs-Fox-News-ran-black-ops-department-former-executive-claims.html
Hard to imagine they wouldn’t have attempted to try such a ‘winning’ formula in other countries…
I posted about that very topic on the weekend, Q.
They have an interesting habit of crushing opponents using dodgy means and then buying them out for about the amount of their debt. The neat thing about this is you get to crush your opponent, get rid of them, and then YOU OWN ALL THE INCRIMINATING INFO!!
Sheer brilliance. Here’s part of that comment:
Of course, the real jewel is payTV and owning your information.
Great story in the Guardian from way back in 2002, some choice bits:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2002/mar/13/media.citynews
Ltd News: “Official Newspaper of Olympics 2012″ …Not!
Classic headline in the OZ “Hypocrites lionise Assange and demonise Murdoch”
Dear Mirko Bagaric , please provide examples of Assange’s underlings corrupting police and senior politicians.
The Australian is heavily pushing the line that this was all about the phone hacking. If it was just about phone hacking , it’d be serious but Murdoch would not have been dragged in front of parliment. Its the corruption charges that are important here, and that was never something assange was/is accused of. But hey Miko, nice spin! Your boss is still gunna walk the plank!
Did Young Jimmy just get pwned?
http://www.theage.com.au/world/james-murdoch-accused-of-lying-to-inquiry-20110722-1hrgj.html
More Rup’ LOLz over at Boing Boing
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/07/21/rupert-murdoch-revea.html
…and more at Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49403380@N00/5962139217/lightbox/
Where is Mondo Rock, surely there’s some minute pithy correcting that needs to be done here in this thread?
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