Study: Fox and WSJ overwhelmingly wrong about climate change

Remind me again what the common denominator is again between Fox News and the Wall Street Journal?

Rupert Murdoch may have bought his way into US nationality but he certainly doesn't understand traditional American values. Believing in science and facts used to be a matter of pride in America but Murdoch's distorted view has been a radical and unhealthy addition to the American way.

This trend of promoting lies by the Murdoch empire has to change. It's hurting America, but Murdoch's mission has nothing to do with helping the country. Much like Mitt Romney, Murdoch's mission is to make money. It's sick, but for him, the best way to accomplish that goal appears to be distorting reality.

Why does Rupert Murdoch hate America?

Primetime coverage of global warming at Fox News is overwhelmingly misleading, according to a new report that finds the same is true of climate change information in the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages.

Both outlets are owned by Rupert Murdoch's media company News Corporation. The analysis by the science-policy nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) finds that 93 percent of primetime program discussions of global warming on Fox News are inaccurate, as are 81 percent of Wall Street Journal editorials on the subject.

"It's like they were writing and talking about some sort of bizarre world where climate change isn't happening," study author Aaron Huertas, a press secretary at UCS, told LiveScience.

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Murdoch's disgraced son promoted to prime job at Fox

Among the super rich, you can't screw up enough to get a demotion.

Whether it's Wall Street getting massive bonuses after destroying the banking system, and the entire economy, or Mitt Romney's own team who were just paid nearly a quarter of a million in bonuses for getting Romney into last place, or of course the Bush team who never faced the music for ignoring the pre-9/11 warnings, there are different rules for this class.

It's hard to believe that they still think of themselves as victims.

Rupert Murdoch's son James, who slipped out of the UK in disgrace following the extensive phone-hacking scandal, now has a plum position at Fox.

When you are as rich as the Murdoch family, the norms that apply to everyone else do not apply to you. They write their own rules while thumbing their nose at everyone else.

James Murdoch will be given more responsibility over News Corp's U.S. television operations more than a year after he became a central figure in the company's telephone hacking scandal in the UK, two sources familiar with the matter said.

News of the promotion comes on the heels of a ruling earlier on Thursday by a UK regulator that appears to have cleared pay-TV company BSkyB of any connection to the scandal that tainted News Corp last year.

The 39-year-old son of News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch will be given a larger, more operational role in the Fox Networks Group, which oversees Fox's broadcast network and its cable channels that include FX, National Geographic and Fox sports channels, according to two people with knowledge of the move.

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Rupert Murdoch News Corp employees alleged to have hid evidence during investigation

Oh my, another blow for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Does this sound like a law abiding organization? As Fox News would surely say, if they have nothing to hide, why were they hiding boxes of information?

Last July when London prosecutors claim Rebekah Brooks was attempting to hide seven boxes of relevant evidence from a police probe, the former top lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. was dealing with the crisis point of the phone-hacking scandal under investigation.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Brooks allegedly conspired with Cheryl Carter, her personal assistant, to remove the boxes from the premises of News International, the News Corp. U.K. unit she headed, between Wednesday July 6 and Saturday July 9.

News International and the London Metropolitan Police Service, which has been collecting evidence related to phone- hacking and other illegal activities at Murdoch-owned newspapers in the U.K., declined to comment on the contents of the boxes or to explain how they know about their removal.

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Murdoch's former newspaper editor to be charged in UK

Murdoch via Shutterstock

Another week and yet another scandal for Rupert Murdoch's media empire. MSNBC.com:

Rebekah Brooks, the flame-haired former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper arm, will be charged with perverting the course of justice over a phone-hacking scandal at one of the media mogul's papers, British prosecutors said on Tuesday.

If convicted, she could face a prison sentence.

"I have concluded ... there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction," said Alison Levitt, Principal Legal Advisor to the Director of Public Prosecutions in a statement.

The news is a personal blow for Murdoch and also embarrassing for British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was close friends with Brooks and her husband, Charlie Brooks.

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Former Murdoch journalist: stories made up, lived in culture of fear

Anyone who has been paying attention can't be surprised. The Rupert Murdoch empire has been bullying opponents for years so it's perfectly believable that they also bullied employees.

The former Murdoch journalist raises a key point about the way Murdoch's News Corp is run. News Corp desperately needs to be investigated because there's too much smoke around its operations. The Guardian:

A former News of the World reporter has claimed that journalists at the now defunct newspaper regularly made up stories and unethical practices were rife because of a "culture of fear" at the tabloid.

Graham Johnson, who worked at the newspaper between 1995 and 1997, said many employees carried out illegal operations and fabricated articles due to pressures from the top.

He told the BBC: "You can't get through the day on a tabloid newspaper if you don't lie, if you don't deceive, if you're not prepared to use forms of blackmail or extortion or lean on people, you know, make people's lives a misery. You just have to deliver the story on time and on budget, and if you didn't then you'd get told off.

"The News of the World culture was driven by fear, because it's a hierarchy, it's a military operation, it's a seamless operation."

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Rupert Murdoch's former MySpace settles privacy violation with FTC

Wow. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp really can't keep its nose clean these days. The violations occurred when MySpace was owned by News Corp as well as with the post-News Corp time period. MySpace will be "watched" by the federal government for twenty years because of this problem.

Myspace social network has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it disclosed personally identifiable information about its users to advertisers, in violation of its privacy policy.

The proposed settlement with the FTC would bar Myspace from future misrepresentations and require the social network to implement a comprehensive privacy program that calls for independent assessments to be conducted over the next 20 years.

Myspace encouraged its 24.7-million users to create online profiles containing substantial personal information — such as a person's age, gender, photograph and name (if they failed to provide one, their real name would be associated with this information).

Anyone else notice the theme of disregard for privacy by News Corp businesses?

(To follow on Twitter: @ChrisInParis) Read the rest of this post...

Is News Corp violating FCC rules?

Considering the number of defenders of Fox News (the entire GOP and too many Democrats) this will probably not amount to anything but it's still interesting to see the issue even being raised. If there's a requirement of "good character" then News Corp fails miserably. Hacking the phones of murdered teenagers, police and hundreds of others is hardly appropriate. We still don't know whether News Corp was involved in similar acts in the US though the possibility is there. The Guardian:

Under FCC regulations, broadcast frequencies can only be handed to firms run by people of good "character" who serve the "public interest" and speak with "candor". In making that judgment, the FCC is entitled to consider past conduct of media owners, including conduct that does not relate directly to their broadcasting interests, as well as any patterns of alleged misbehaviour.

The FCC has so far shown an unwillingness to be drawn into the billowing phone hacking scandal concerning the News of the World and other News Corporation outlets in the UK. Last July, Genachowski indicated that he did not expect his agency to get involved in the probe.

But Crew insisted that as more information emerges about the failure of News Corp to deal with its hacking crisis, federal authorities would eventually be forced to act. The watchdog has also written to the US Senate and House committees on commerce calling for congressional hearings into whether the Murdochs were fit to hold the Fox TV licences. A similar request from Crew last year went unanswered.

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Did Rupert Murdoch break US law? US Senator wants to know.

For Rupert Murdoch's and News Corp, this slow drip of regular bad news has to be nerve racking. For most organizations and individuals, when you have bad news you want to get it all out as quickly as possible and move on. The pace may be frustrating for those who dislike Murdoch and News Corp, but the slow drip of bad news really is painful not to mention damaging for them. Rushing the process before all of the details are available could end up helping News Corp.

What surprises are going to emerge next in the ongoing News Corp scandal? More from The Guardian on Senator Rockefeller's request for information.

Rupert Murdoch's global media empire is facing a challenge on a new front in the billowing phone-hacking scandal after a powerful US Senate committee opened direct contact with British investigators in an attempt to find out whether News Corporation has broken American laws.

Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation, has written to Lord Justice Leveson, who leads the British judicial inquiry into media ethics, asking if he has uncovered any evidence relating questionable practices in the US.

"I would like to know whether any of the evidence you are reviewing suggests that these unethical and sometimes illegal business practices occurred in the United States or involved US citizens," Rockefeller writes in a letter released on Wednesday.

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BREAKING: UK parliamentary report finds Murdoch "unfit" to run a global company

This is happening now.  Live feed of the committee.  More to come. "Rupert Murdoch is not fit to run a multinational company."

BBC:

Rupert Murdoch "is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company", MPs have said. The cross-party culture committee questioned journalists and bosses at the now closed paper, as well as police and lawyers for hacking victims. It concluded that Mr Murdoch exhibited "wilful blindness" to what was going on in his media empire. And it said the News of the World and News International misled Parliament about the scale of phone hacking.

Why is the American press not looking into whether Fox and the WSJ were involved in this scandal as well? Three other Murdoch properties were. Reason enough to inquire whether the same thing happened at other Murdoch companies. Read the rest of this post...

Murdoch blames everyone else for hacking problem

Now here's some classic leadership skills for you by Rupert Murdoch. Either he's a completely clueless executive and should be sacked immediately for having no idea what has been happening within his organization for years or he's a liar. You choose.

It's gutless to blame everyone else and fail to accept responsibility as the CEO but this is Murdoch that we're talking about. How could it be possible to have so many hacking scandals within the News Corp organizations - allegedly across borders as well - yet he knew nothing about it? How weak to suddenly be the tough guy.

With wife Wendi and son Lachlan watching he said that he, his son James and other senior News Corp executives were “misinformed and shielded” about the extent of phone hacking at the tabloid. He also blamed “a clever lawyer” at News International for stopping people coming forward and admitted that the culture had left too much in the hands of the editor and lawyer. “I should have gone there and thrown all the lawyers out of the place and seen Mr Goodman (the reporter jailed over phone hacking) one-on-one - he had been an employee for a long time - and cross-examined him myself and made up my mind, maybe rightly, maybe wrongly, was he telling the truth,” Murdoch told the court. "And if I had come to the conclusion that he was telling the truth, I would have torn the place apart and we wouldn't be here today.

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Case for legal action against Murdoch in USA building, over 1,000 phones likely hacked in UK

Although this latest report from The Guardian doesn't specifically say Fox News was involved in hacking, it does throw Fox News into the scandal by suggesting there are reports of something that involving a breach of privacy. It's unfortunate that too many Democrats play the Fox News game of pretending as though they are fair and balanced, though perhaps it is out of fear. Whatever it is, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp media empire may have some problems in the US in the very near future.

Lewis said that he had been contacted by a number of people since he arrived in the US last weekend "raising issues against other [News Corp] titles or Fox News, not necessarily about hacking but about other untoward dark arts to obtain information that should be private." He added that the new complaints were unproven allegations.

Lewis told reporters that he had taken on a fourth case of alleged phone hacking in the US. Previously, it had been known that he was representing three individuals, one of whom is an American citizen and two of whom are Europeans who believe their phones were hacked while visiting America.

In addition, Siegel, a former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said he had been contacted by six individuals raising complaints about News Corp outlets. "My experience in these sorts of cases is that when people sense you are serious and balanced in your approach, they begin to come out of the woodwork," he said.

And Bloomberg reports that in the UK over 1,000 cell phones were likely hacked by News of the World. Read the rest of this post...

Lawsuits against Murdoch's News Corp coming to America

American authorities are too afraid of Murdoch to take action but fortunately at least one UK lawyer is traveling to the US to investigate the process of suing News Corp. The payouts for hacking have been high in the UK but the numbers will take an immediate jump if they're successful in the US. It also stands to reason that once one lawyer has success with a case, many more will be looking for reasons to sue News Corp. This year could be an exciting year for Rupert Murdoch's empire. The Guardian:

Mark Lewis, the lawyer who has been at the forefront of efforts to expose the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, is poised to bring the battle for legal redress across the Atlantic and to the doorstep of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

Lewis will arrive in the US on Saturday and next week will begin legal discussions in New York, just a stone's throw away from News Corporation's global headquarters on Sixth Avenue. His arrival constitutes a major escalation in the legal ramifications of the hacking scandal for Murdoch, who has tried desperately to keep it away from the American core of his multi-billion-dollar media holdings.

Details remain sketchy about precisely what Lewis intends to do in the US, but the Guardian has learned that he will be having legal discussions that could lead to several lawsuits being lodged with the New York courts. The direct involvement of the US judicial system in allegations of illegal activity by News Corp employees would bring the scandal dramatically closer to Murdoch's adopted home.

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Murdoch's Times of London in the news for hacking

The Murdoch media empire really struggles with following the law. Whether it's hiring Special Ops or private hackers to spy on the competition or promoting a "culture of illegal payments" this sounds like a rogue organization. Their latest problem is hacking a police blogger. As in a police officer who blogged.

Rupert Murdoch's Times of London is facing a claim for exemplary damages after admitting hacking into the email of an anonymous police blogger to expose his identity, lawyer Mark Lewis told Reuters on Friday.

Lewis, of law firm Taylor Hampton and representing police detective Richard Horton, said Horton had filed for misuse of confidential information, breach of confidence and deceit at London's High Court this week.

The Times exposed Horton as the author of the blog, in which he wrote about police work under the name NightJack, in 2009. Horton had sought an injunction to protect his anonymity but lost his case.

What will be the next scandal at News Corp? Read the rest of this post...

Murdoch's Sky News admits hacking emails for stories - how is this different than Wikileaks and Assange?

It's different because Assange and Wikileaks have a heck of a stronger moral high ground to stand on than Murdoch media.  More on that in a moment.

Obviously we're well past the point where anyone can say the hacking was an isolated incident on just one part of the Murdoch media empire. The excuse being offered by cable news channel Sky News is that they stand by their crimes because they were in the best interest of the public.

"We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest," the head of Sky News, John Ryley, said in a statement.

Now that's contrition.

Maybe evidence acquired illegally in the UK will hold up in court, but that presents some serious problems in the US.  Not to mention the ethics, and overall creepiness, of it.

It's interesting that the Murdoch media network has been so hard on Julian Assange and Wikileaks yet surprise, surprise, they have a great excuse for themselves. After all, what's more important: someone lying about a death to get the insurance money (the Murdoch paper's excuse) or an administration's lies about the justification for war (Wikileak's excuse)?

Huh? What's that answer, Rupert? Speak a little louder so we can all appreciate the full difference.

CNN:

UK news channel Sky News said Thursday it had authorized its journalists to hack into the e-mail of individual members of the public on two occasions.

John Ryley, head of Sky News, said the instances involved suspected criminal activity.

"We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest," he said in a statement. "We do not take such decisions lightly or frequently."

Now that Sky has admitted to breaking the law, when will Scotland Yard arrest someone?

NOTE FROM JOHN: Now that we know that the culture of corruption permeated a number of Murdoch's media ventures, it's fair to ask whether Murdoch's other media ventures, including FOX News and the Wall Street Journal, bit from the same fruit of the poisonous tree.  And the nerve of Sky News to puff up its chest and suggest that illegal domestic spying by a newspaper is "editorially justified."  Really, is that how it works now?  We no longer go to the authorities in order to hack into someone's email, we simply ask our editor.

And why is this man John Ryley still the head of Sky News, and not sitting in jail somewhere? Do Fox News and the WSJ agree with Murdoch's man Ryley that it's okay to hack someone's email if it's "editorially justified" and in the public interest?  I'm sure some would argue that it's editorially justified and in the public interest - especially after all of this - to know what's in the email files of Murdoch and his senior staff at Fox and the WSJ, if only to know how far this conspiracy goes.  Does that make it right? Read the rest of this post...

Rupert Murdoch's son leaves BSkyB after new hacking allegations

Last week the BBC broadcast what may turn out to be the biggest Murdoch scandal of them all.

NDS [a News Corp subsidiary] is accused of leaking information from On Digital which could be used to create counterfeit smart cards, giving people free access to paid for TV.

The latest claims have been made by Lee Gibling - who set up a website in the late 90s known as The House of Ill-Compute, or Thoic.

Mr Gibling told the BBC he was paid to publish stolen information. His contact at NDS was Ray Adams, who at the time was head of UK security for the firm - which manufactures smartcards for all News Corporations' pay-TV companies across the world.

Today James Murdoch, Rupert's son, has stepped down as chairman of BSkyB.

The NDS/Sky rumors have been circulating in the cryptography world for quite a while but without sources. The BBC program (region locked to UK unfortunately) puts faces to the statements. What the BBC is alleging amounts to a multi-billion dollar fraud that may have bankrupted ITV On-Digital, a pay-per-view system that threatened to compete with Murdoch's own pay-per-view system BSkyB.

The BBC team claim that the man behind 'The House Of Ill Compute' site (THOIC) was paid to distribute  instructions for hacking the ITV On-Digital system.  In other words, the allegation is that they tried to kill the competition by showing people how to get it for free.

Who could have imagined that News Corporation's business practices might be as dishonest and corrupt as the 'news' they publish? Read the rest of this post...

Report: Murdoch's News Corp hired hackers to fight competition

Just another happy day at News Corp. While this latest report is once again related to the UK operations, who honestly believes these alleged practices were strictly limited to the UK? The Guardian:

Part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation empire employed computer hacking to undermine the business of its chief TV rival in Britain, according to evidence due to be broadcast by BBC1's Panorama programme on Monday .

The allegations stem from apparently incriminating emails the programme-makers have obtained, and on-screen descriptions for the first time from two of the people said to be involved, a German hacker and the operator of a pirate website secretly controlled by a Murdoch company.

The witnesses allege a software company NDS, owned by News Corp, cracked the smart card codes of rival company ONdigital. ONdigital, owned by the ITV companies Granada and Carlton, eventually went under amid a welter of counterfeiting by pirates, leaving the immensely lucrative pay-TV field clear for Sky.

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UK Police accuse Murdoch paper of 'jeopardizing' murder enquiry

Via Huff Post

The News of the World "jeopardised" a police inquiry into a spate of murders in Ipswich, a former senior police officer has alleged.

David Harrison, who worked on the inquiry into the killing of five prostitutes in Ipswich while at for the Serious Organised Crime Agency, told the Leveson inquiry into press ethics that the tabloid had hired ex-special forces soldiers to carry out their own surveillance on a suspect, which could have "seriously hindered" the police inquiry.

"I believe that by its actions NotW jeopardised the murder inquiry," the retired officer said in a witness statement.

Rupert Murdoch is a bully who made a fortune manufacturing outrage with lies. Now that outrage is turned in his direction he claims not to have known the methods used by his minions. Read the rest of this post...

Murdoch's paper hired Special Ops team to monitor UK police

How creepy is this? It's still amazing to think that Rupert Murdoch and his media empire in the US is not tarnished by this ongoing investigation. Does anyone really believe this is not a rogue media organization that will do anything to stir up a story and smear anyone who gets in their way? Using alleged former Special Ops teams to monitor the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) doesn't sound right any way you try to spin it. For a team that likes to view themselves as supporters of law and order, they sure don't struggle with staying within the boundaries of the law. The Telegraph:

Mr Harrison said that, on at least two occasions, a vehicle parked up on a roundabout on the outskirts of the town attempted to follow the Soca surveillance team. "We identified them because they were sat in the position that we would sit in if we were doing the same job," he said. "We were told that they were probably ex-Special Forces soldiers who would have a good knowledge of surveillance techniques."

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Another arrest at Murdoch's UK newspaper

Maybe Murdoch can get a group discount on legal fees. Then again, you need to know the quantity before you can negotiation a group discount and there are probably many more to be arrested. The Independent:

The defence editor of The Sun newspaper was arrested today on suspicion of paying public officials for information. Virginia Wheeler, 32, appeared at a south London police station by appointment to answer questions related to evidence sent by News Corporation's management standards committee to Scotland Yard.

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James Murdoch steps down from News Corp International

As one person tweeted, this is really a demotion more than anything else. He is stepping down from his position in the UK office and transferring to the New York office. More than anything, this is PR spin by News Corp. since the investigations into News Corp businesses in the UK is going so poorly for News Corp. This is how the 1% handles discipline when you lie to Parliament about illegal behavior in your company. Rupert is a real "law and order" kind of guy, isn't he? BBC News:

James Murdoch has stepped down as executive chairman of News International, the UK newspaper business that owns the Sun and the Times titles. The newspaper publisher has been tainted by phone-hacking allegations. The scandal led the company to close its former News of the World title in July last year. Mr Murdoch will remain as deputy chief operating officer of parent group News Corporation.

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