Phone hacking scandal: Rupert Murdoch’s son may be arrested

Mangalore Today News Network

London, July 09, 2011:  The crisis for media baron Rupert Murdoch seems to be worsening every day. Reports from the UK suggest that there is a high possibility of Rupert Murdoch’s son, James Murdoch, facing criminal charges.

The Murdochs have been hit by the phone hacking scandal allegedly by a journalist of their popular UK tabloid, News of the World (NOTW). The hacking scandal forced Murdoch to shut down the paper.

Former Editor of the tabloid and a former close aide of Prime Minister David Cameron, Andy Coulson, was arrested for involvement as well.

And for the first time in years, Murdoch may be facing a real blow to his dominance to his media dominance in Britain.

With Prime Minister David Cameron under pressure in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, Murdoch’s bid for one of England’s biggest Satellite Broadcast companies, the British Sky Broadcasting Group, seems to be under a cloud.

"It will take some time to reach a decision on the BSkyB deal," said Mr Cameron.

Murdoch will be pinning his hopes on the BSkyB buy out and experts feel that it’s likely he’ll get it.

"There’s a process of investigation in to the buying corporation that will be more stringent in this case. But if you want my opinion Murdoch will pull through," said Professor George Brock, Head, City University Journalism, London.

With one of the former Editors of the now infamous tabloids, News of the World, under arrest and with people demanding another be axed, 80-year-old Murdoch has stayed away from commenting on the controversy, allowing his son - who is under a cloud as well - to face the flak.

It’s an unusual move from a man with a finger in media pies across the world.

The Opposition in the UK is baying for his blood and inquiries have already been ordered into the soon to be defunct NOTW.

The pressure is on Murdoch. His main Sunday newspaper has been shut down, a full-scale inquiry has been launched, he’s facing questions about why his current CEO. If he cannot buy the 61 per cent of BSkyB that he does not own, News Corp will have to look for other ways to invest its stockpile or return the money to shareholders through buybacks or dividends.

What will he do? That continues to be the 12 billion dollar question.

 

Sex, crime,  history of The News of the World

The News of the World that shut down on Sunday has a history that dates back to 1843 when its publisher was clear on what its readers wanted to read: crime, sensation and vice.

The tabloid shuts after 168 years of print following uproar over phone hacking.

Priced at three pence, its first edition was out October 1, 1843. Publisher John Browne Bell’s formula was fast, titillating news, with an emphasis on sensation and sex.

It soon started doing well. By 1880 it was selling 30,000 copies a week.

Forty years later, its circulation was over three million. At its peak, in the 1950s, the paper would sell over eight million copies, the Guardian reported.

The tabloid eventually became the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper, with 7.4 million readers each week.

Given the paper’s reputation, in early 20th century, Frederick Greenwood, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, reportedly told the paper’s proprietor and managing editor, George Riddell, that he had looked at the paper, "and then I put it in the waste-paper basket. And then I thought, ’If I leave it there the cook may read it’ - so I burned it!"

Time magazine said in May 1941: "Each Sunday morning to more than a third of Britain’s 11m homes, goes a juicy dish of the week’s doings in divorce, scandal, abduction, assault, murder and sport.

"Farmers, labourers and millworkers cherish its sinful revelations; so also do royalty, cabinet ministers, tycoons.

"Without News of the World, Sunday morning in Britain would lack something as familiar as church bells."

 

Courtesy: NDTV