Ghân-buri-Ghân wrote:I think the major implications of this story are being missed here. "Sleazy journalists" is about as arresting a headline as "Dog bites man".
Well you may have missed them but direct references to the influences on the police and the implications thereof appeared in more than one of my posts.
The story has moved fast, with Murdoch and Son(s) offering as a sacrificial victim the News of the World (aka Sunday Filth).
The NOTW was quite an institution in the UK, it had been going for a number of years and it is the highest circulation English Language newspaper in the world.
This gives quite an interesting view of how the modern "corporate mind" works. I guess the logic goes something like this. Bad news has appeared about the News of the World, this has casued the brand to be damaged, what do you do with a severely damaged brand, you close it down and everything will be forgotten - it doesn't matter that peoples livelyhoods who work there will be directly harmed, many innocent people who pitched up for work and honourably worked hard.
At best this is a denial by the executives who oversaw the paper, the idea that it was some mystical force which was responsible for the immoral and illegal actions that took place, and by closing it down, as the sacrificial lamb, there actions or inactions are in some way absolved.
At worst it's a cynical view of how really dumb Joe Public is, perhaps reinforced by the focus group work undertaken by the readership, by removing the News of the World title from the streets Murdoch hopes to cut a canker which may havebeen predjudicial to his ability to buy BSkyB outright.
The press and to some extent the BBC are now perhaps unwittingly colluding in a piece of melodrama whereby the NOTW will print it's last ever edition, a really pathetic attempt to win some kind of sympathy, so that we can all well in a bit of nostalgia, as they conjur the vision of the old sheep dock, being let out on to the hill side for one last attempt to bring the flock in before the vet comes out to put the hopeless case down.
To move onto more intersting matters, yesterday Offcom the regulator of media took the almost unprecedent step of taking the initiative. They have written to various bodies, including select committees of both houses of parliament to remind them in their role of offering a "fit and proper person " judgement on everyone seeking to obtain a majority holding in national media.
Offcom is historically a re-active body, only coming into play during an acquisition, this time they have taken the view that the attempt by the current culture secretary James Hunt to pass the takeover of BSkyB on the nod is not proper and will be subject to their scruitiny.
Whilst the issue of the police being corrupted is important, what I think is more important about this sage is that it may break the power of Murdoch to behave with impunity, in a way that has bought the notion of democracy in the UK into question. Milliband is actually being brave enough to say things, and I paraphrase here, that politicians have for too long been scared of Murdoch, and it was the time for Parliament to assert it's independence. If that can happen then I have much more hope for the country, as it's one step along the road of removing power and influence from unelected partisan interests.
I have two further wishes, firstly that the trail of the coverup and the destruction of emails leads back to to the top of News International in the UK and we see the relevant people in the Dock.
Secondly this sequence of events hits Murdoch where it really hurts in his pockets. My understanding is that his busines empire is very highly leveraged and his success is very dependant on delivering on his promises to and reatining the goodwill of his bankers. Already they are taking a dim view of what has happened in the UK especially as it will affect his capability to take over BSkyB.
Of course it would be wholly improper for one to suggest the fact that Rupe is deeply in hock to the bankers, has any baring on the coverage he offers regarding the causes and responsibility for the banking crisis, nor the apparent lack of criticism of a state of affairs, whereby most of the western world is suffering finanacially whilst the banks are back to making profit.
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