• News of the World bugging led to £700,000 payout to PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor
• Sun editor Rebekah Wade and Conservative communications chief Andy Coulson – both ex-NoW editors – involved
• News International chairman Les Hinton told MPs reporter jailed for phone-hacking was one-off case

Rupert Murdoch's News Group News­papers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public ­figures as well as gaining unlawful access to confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.

Today, the Guardian reveals details of the suppressed evidence, which may open the door to hundreds more legal actions by victims of News Group, the Murdoch company that publishes the News of the World and the Sun, as well as provoking police inquiries into reporters who were involved and the senior executives responsible for them. The evidence also poses difficult questions for:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/08/murdoch-papers-phone-hacking

The likelihood of further News of the World (NotW) journalists being dragged into the phone-hacking scandal increased yesterday when a judge ruled that names believed to belong to the paper's employees should no longer be blanked out on key documents.

In a ruling designed to streamline the snowballing number of legal claims being brought against Rupert Murdoch's top-selling title, the High Court said that notes written by the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire which it is claimed show who at the NotW commissioned him to hack phone messages must be disclosed to his alleged victims.

Until now, the Metropolitan Police, which holds thousands of pages of documents seized from Mulcaire's home, has blacked out names written in the top left-hand corner of the private detective's notebooks when handing over documents to celebrities suing the NotW. Lawyers believe Mulcaire habitually wrote the name of the reporter or executive on the Sunday paper who instructed him to access voicemails in the corner of his notes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/phone-hacking-now-judge-tells-police-to-stop-protecting-names-2225107.html

It was an incendiary allegation — and a mystery of great intrigue in the media world: After the publishing powerhouse Judith Regan was fired by HarperCollins in 2006, she claimed that a senior executive at its parent company, News Corporation, had encouraged her to lie two years earlier to federal investigators who were vetting Bernard B. Kerik for the job of homeland security secretary.

Ms. Regan had once been involved in an affair with Mr. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner whose mentor and supporter, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, was in the nascent stages of a presidential campaign. The News Corporation executive, whom she did not name, wanted to protect Mr. Giuliani and conceal the affair, she said.

Now, court documents filed in a lawsuit make clear whom Ms. Regan was accusing of urging her to lie: Roger E. Ailes, the powerful chairman of Fox News and a longtime friend of Mr. Giuliani. What is more, the documents say that Ms. Regan taped the telephone call from Mr. Ailes in which Mr. Ailes discussed her relationship with Mr. Kerik.

It is unclear whether the existence of the tape played a role in News Corporation’s decision to move quickly to settle a wrongful termination suit filed by Ms. Regan, paying her $10.75 million in a confidential settlement reached two months after she filed it in 2007.

Depending on the specifics, the taped conversation could possibly rise to the level of conspiring to lie to federal officials, a federal crime, but prosecutors rarely pursue such cases, said Daniel C. Richman, a Columbia University law professor and a former federal prosecutor.

Of course, if it were to be released, the tape could be highly embarrassing to Mr. Ailes, a onetime adviser to Richard M. Nixon whom critics deride as a partisan who engineers Fox News coverage to advance Republicans and damage Democrats, something Fox has long denied. Mr. Ailes also had close ties with Mr. Giuliani, whom he advised in his first mayoral race. Mr. Giuliani officiated at Mr. Ailes’s wedding and intervened on his behalf when Fox News Channel was blocked from securing a cable station in the city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/nyregion/25roger-ailes.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

The Government is on the verge of giving the go-ahead to Rupert Murdoch's controversial attempt to take full ownership of BSkyB in return for the media mogul releasing control of the 24-hour news channel Sky News.

News Corporation already owns 39 per cent of Sky, and an announcement could be made as early as today, that its bid for the remainder will not be referred to competition authorities.

In the anticipated trade-off, News Corp would relinquish control of Sky News, which would be hived off into a trust with independent directors, along with representatives of News Corp. News Corp would agree to a legally binding contract to provide funding to Sky News over many years.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/murdoch-set-to-get-his-way-as-bid-for-bskyb-nears-approval-2230648.html

--------------------

Gus: I nearly died laughing....

The board of News Corp has been sued by shareholders for agreeing to buy a business owned by chairman Rupert Murdoch's daughter for about $US675 million.

A trustee for several retirement funds said the board of News Corp approved the "unfairly" priced deal without questioning or challenging the elder Murdoch, who founded the company and is also chief executive.

News Corp spokeswoman Teri Everett described the suit as "meritless".

The chairman of News Corp said he expected his daughter Elisabeth to join his company's board after buying her Shine Group television production business.

The acquisition still needs approval by News Corp's audit committee and the approval of each company's respective boards. It also requires an independent fairness opinion.

The deal raised new questions about succession at News Corp, which owns the broadcaster Fox and publishes the Wall Street Journal.

"In short, Murdoch is causing News Corp to pay $US675 million for nepotism," said the lawsuit, which was filed overnight in Delaware's Chancery Court.

Murdoch sued for buying daughter's business | News Corp

from Crikey .....

As the UK phone-tapping scandal envelops News Corporation -- an imbroglio deftly summarised by Guy Rundle yesterday in Crikey - there's one highly conspicuous missing element: any kind of public utterance by the company's proprietor and conscience-in-chief, Rupert Murdoch, about the editorial practice of paying private investigators to illegally hack into the mobile phone voicemails of public figures.

Not once has Murdoch disowned the practice.

Not once has he stated that it is an appalling way to do journalism.

Not once has he promised to hunt down and sack the journalists in his organisation who paid six-figure retainers to spivs who illicitly hacked into the voicemails of prominent British politicians and celebrities.

Not once has he vowed to reassure shareholders he will cleanse his company of such repugnant behaviour.

Not once has he claimed News Corp is an ethical organisation that regards illegal acquisition of information as an abomination to be weeded out.

Sometimes silence says so much more than any words can ever say.

The News of the World has revealed that its computers have retained an archive of potentially damning emails, which hitherto it had claimed had been lost.

The millions of emails, amounting to half a terabyte of data, could expose executives and reporters involved in hacking the voicemail of public figures, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott, actor Sienna Miller, and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

The archived data is likely to include email exchanges between the most senior executives, including former editor Andy Coulson, who resigned as David Cameron's media adviser in January, as well as three former news editors – Ian Edmondson, Greg Miskiw, and Neville Thurlbeck – implicated in the affair by paperwork seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was on the News of the World's books. Edmondson was sacked in January. Miskiw and Thurlbeck were interviewed by police last autumn. No charge has been brought against any of them. Coulson and the three former news editors have all denied all involvement in criminal activity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/mar/28/news-world-email-archive-phone-hacking

James Murdoch has been handed a new senior role working closely with his father, Rupert, at News Corporation, the $60bn company whose interests extend from 20th Century Fox films to newspapers such as The Times and the Wall Street Journal, in the clearest sign yet that the media mogul's son is being lined up to take over his empire.

James, 38, the youngest of Rupert Murdoch's three children from his second marriage, will move from London to New York to take up the newly created role of "deputy chief operating officer and chairman and chief executive of international operations" at News Corp. He is currently based at the company's London offices, where he has overseen News Corp's controversial bid to take full control of BSkyB.

Rupert, 80, has been under increased pressure to name a successor. James's new position is similar to a role once held by his elder brother Lachlan, 39. But Lachlan walked out of News Corp in 2005, effectively ruling himself out of the ultimate succession.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/murdoch-amp-son-james-anointed-as-successor-at-the-60bn-family-firm-2257890.html

see toon at top...

His request came after John Yates, acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, told the committee that officers had begun "researching" claims made in 2003 by Ms Brooks (then Ms Wade) that reporters had paid officers for information, but that an investigation was not underway.

In 2003, Ms Brooks, then editor of The Sun, told the Culture, Media and Sport Committee: "We have paid the police for information in the past."

On Tuesday, the Labour MP Chris Bryant told the inquiry that Mr Yates had gone to lunch with the former deputy editor of the News of the World Neil Wallis shortly after the probe into phone hacking at the newspaper began.

News International could not be reached for comment by the time of publication.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/brooks-asked-to-reveal-suns-payments-to-police-2257889.html

British police have made two arrests in connection with a phone hacking inquiry at the top-selling British Sunday tabloid the News of the World.

The tabloid's veteran reporter Neville Thurlbeck and its former news editor Ian Edmondson have been arrested on suspicion of unlawfully intercepting voicemail messages after voluntarily presenting themselves at different London police stations.

Edmondson was sacked by the paper in January after internal emails linked him to phone-hacking claims.

"[He] was arrested today having attended voluntarily at a police station. He has not been charged," his lawyer Eddie Parladorio said in a statement.

The development is the latest in a saga which has involved the royal family, senior politicians and stars, and is sending shockwaves through Britain's media industry.

Some journalists at the tabloid newspaper were discovered to have accessed mobile phone voice messages of politicians, royalty and celebrities.

Two men have already served jail terms and the British prime minister's communications director, Andy Coulson, was forced to stand down.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/05/3183228.htm

see toon at top...

Rupert Murdoch is about to be ambushed by a cross-party group of peers determined to stop the total takeover of BSkyB by News Corp, the Mole can reveal.

While MPs were packing their holiday shorts for the beach and a long holiday until April 26, protests were raised in the House of Lords by former Times journalist and Tory peer Lord Fowler about the latest developments in the telephone hacking saga - the arrests this week of chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, 50, and former news editor Ian Edmondson, 42, on suspicion of having unlawfully intercepted voicemail messages.

Fowler called for a public inquiry into the stop-start police investigation and the extent of telephone hacking following evidence that it is far more extensive than admitted previously by Rebekah Wade, the chief executive of News International.

As the Mole predicted when the latest arrests were made, Lord Prescott, who has been told by the Met Police his name was on the list of politicians and celebs whose phones were hacked by the NoW, has now weighed in.

Rupert Murdoch's News International has issued a public apology to eight victims of phone hacking, including Sienna Miller and Tessa Jowell, and admitted for the first time that the practice was rife at the News of the World.

In a move likely to cost the company many millions of pounds, it said it would offer compensation to some of the 24 high-profile figures who have started legal proceedings against the paper in the high court for breach of privacy. It also admitted its previous investigations into hacking had not been "sufficiently robust".

The unprecedented statement of contrition is a remarkable volte face for the country's most powerful news organisation, which was claiming until the start of this year, in the face of growing evidence to the contrary, that hacking was the work of a single reporter.

It comes as a Scotland Yard investigation into phone hacking gathers pace. The News of the World's chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, was questioned by police on Tuesday along with Ian Edmondson, who was sacked as associate editor (news) in January.

The company said it had decided to offer an "unreserved apology" in certain cases but it would continue to fight others, including claims brought by Steve Coogan and the jockey Kieren Fallon.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/08/phone-hacking-victims-apology-news

Under the heading "Voicemail interception: An apology" on page two of the newspaper, it said "a number of individuals" had brought breach of privacy claims against it and that yet more were planning to do so.

"Evidence has recently come to light which supports some of these claims," the News of the World said.

"We have written to relevant individuals to admit liability in these civil cases and to apologise unreservedly, and will do the same to any other individuals where evidence shows their claims to be justifiable.

"We hope to be able to pay appropriate compensation to all these individuals, and have asked our lawyers to set up a compensation scheme to deal with genuine claims fairly and efficiently.

"Here today, we publicly and unreservedly apologise to all such individuals.

"What happened to them should not have happened. It was and remains unacceptable."

The apology was accompanied by a News International statement, in which it said "past behaviour" at the newspaper was "a matter of genuine regret".

It comes as one of the victims, actress Sienna Miller, vowed to do everything possible to hold to account those responsible for the "outrageous violations of her privacy".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/news-of-the-world-apologises-to-hacking-victims-2265952.html

The ability of the News of the World to limit the timeframe for phone hacking claims against it to the period from 2004 to 2006 is facing a direct challenge from a senior Labour MP who has lodged a complaint against the paper that his voicemails were intercepted at least 12 months earlier.

Chris Bryant, a former Foreign Office minister and one of the leading parliamentary critics of the handling of the hacking scandal by police and Rupert Murdoch's News International, has joined the list of public figures suing the NOTW and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire by alleging that his mobile phone messages were eavesdropped in 2003.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/papers-apology-is-not-enough-ndash-and-i-can-prove-it-claims-mp-2266992.html

The police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World has taken a dramatic turn with the surprise arrest of James Weatherup, a senior journalist at the paper.

He is the third current or former News of the World journalist to be arrested as part of Scotland Yard's new investigation into alleged phone hacking at the paper.

Weatherup, who has not previously been named in connection with the scandal, was arrested early on Thursday. He is currently in custody at a police station in outer London.

The arrest is expected to trigger further searches of the News of the World offices in Wapping shortly. It is thought that police felt the paper had failed to be fully co-operative during searches last week and are determined to be more robust today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/14/news-of-the-world-journalist-arrested

see toon at top...

Actress sienna Miller has been offered £100,000 by the News of The World to settle her phone hacking damages claim and the newspaper will seek to have her case thrown out of court if she fails to accept, lawyers for the Sunday tabloid said yesterday.

The six-figure offer is the first evidence of a News International strategy to halt further revelations against it in civil cases by offering substantial settlements. It has emerged that the actress claims her email account as well as phone messages was hacked using information obtained by the private detective Glenn Mulcaire.

In a pre-trial hearing at the High Court, it was alleged that email hacking took place in December 2008 – nearly two years after Mulcaire was jailed for phone hacking and after a pledge from the NOTW that any illegal newsgathering activity had ceased.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/accept-163100000-or-get-nothing-murdoch-lawyers-tell-sienna-2268613.html

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is in talks with Carlos Slim, said to be the world's richest man, about making a joint bid for the control of Formula One motor racing – one of the few major commercial sports in which it has yet to gain a foothold.

The bid was, according to Sky News, in the early stages, with News Corp in talks about forming a consortium that would include the Mexican billionaire.

It would also be the first time that the global media group, which currently owns the rights to most live Premier League football, had taken over an entire sport and could be a major blow for the BBC.

The BBC counts F1 as the last major sport – unprotected by legislation governing its broadcast – over which it has sole broadcasting rights in the UK.

It secured the television rights to show Formula One in the UK from the 2009 season as part of a five-year deal covering all platforms and can broadcast F1 on the BBC Sport website as well as on TV and radio. However, senior managers have questioned whether the £40m a year cost of the contract is worth it at a time the BBC needs to make savings.

A spokesperson for News Corp declined to comment on what she described as "rumour and speculation".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/19/formula-one-takeover-talks-murdoch

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/05/21/3223103.htm

Getting off lightly so far... according to some report, about 6000 people have suffered harm from the hacking of their (or employer's) phone voice mails in most part by a private detective working for News Corp's News of the World. At US$100.000 each on average (one person got UK£100,000) compensation or settlement, this could grow to 600 million US dollars, but some might get far more due to the harm it has caused to their employment or social standing. Some people might not bother fighting it out, though court cases will drag the rag into the gutter. Apparently, Scotland Yard has been less than cooperative in the early part of the inquiry as it is alleged some cops got paid to pass on information.

As the new full inquiry expands, the paltry 30 million US dollars set aside by News Corp to pay damages might be undervalued by tenfold or more...

See what happens next...

Myspace has been purchased by an advertising outfit called Specific Media to the tune of $35 million, reports All Things D.

The once-ubiquitous social networking site was acquired by News Corp. back in 2005 for $580 million, with All Things D adding that the $35 million sale price "is well below the $100 million that News Corp. had been hoping for and a chasm away from Myspace's one-time billion valuation."

In an apparent memo to Myspace employees obtained by TechCrunch, CEO Mike Jones relays the following:

"In conjunction with the deal, we are conducting a series of restructuring initiatives, including a significant reduction in our workforce.  I will assist Specific with the transition over the next two months before departing my role as Myspace CEO."

The "significant reduction" will amount to laying off half of the team at Myspace, from 400 employees to around 200, says All Things D, adding, "as well as other cost cuts."

A private detective working for Britain's News of the World tabloid hacked into voicemail messages left on the mobile phone of a murdered schoolgirl while police were searching for her, a lawyer for the girl's family says.

Mark Lewis, of solicitors Taylor Hampton, says police investigating phone hacking by the paper had told the parents of Milly Dowler their daughter's own phone had been intercepted illegally.

The Guardian newspaper reports voicemail messages from Milly Dowler's phone were deleted by journalists in the first few days after Milly's disappearance in order to free up space for more messages.

As a result friends and relatives concluded wrongly that she might still be alive. Police feared evidence may have been destroyed.

Mr Lewis says the family planned to sue the paper, owned by News International, a part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/05/3261104.htm?section=justin

"Never believe anything till it's officially denied" was one of my father Claud's admonitions to young journalists and now we have Murdoch hastening to emphasise that NoW editor Rebekah Brooks was on holiday in Italy at the time the Milly Dowler voicemail hacking was underway in 2002. Presumably, amid this idyll, Brooks took no phone calls or emails from London.

Few corporate employees are more sensitive to the whims, preferences and overall political and moral coordinates of their commanders than journalists. Murdoch, ruthless and unprincipled his entire professional life, has cast a long, dark shadow over journalism in Australia, Britain and the US.

Murdoch [James], News International's chairman, is quoted in a press release admitting he personally - and wrongly - approved out-of-court settlements to phone-hacking victims.

Mr Johnson said that may have put him in breach of Britain's Regulation and Investigatory Powers Act, The Guardian has reported. The act states:

"Where an offence under any provision of this Act (...) is committed by a body corporate and is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body he (as well as the body corporate) shall be guilty of that offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly."

HOLLYWOOD actor Alec Baldwin has called News Corp "humourless as well as corrupt" following a decision by subsidiary company Fox to cut one of his jokes for the Emmy Awards last night.

The opening video for the primetime television award ceremony was supposed to be a skit by Baldwin, but he boycotted the show after Fox decided to cut his joke about phone hacking. According to New York Times reporter Brian Stelter, in the controversial gag Baldwin is on the phone with an unnamed colleague when he suddenly pauses and says: "Rupert? Is that you? I hear you breathing, Rupert!"

Fox offered to just take out the offending part and leave the rest of Baldwin's segment intact, but the 53-year-old actor, who currently stars in 30 Rock, pulled out completely, saying that he was afraid the piece wouldn't flow if it was edited.

Baldwin tweeted, "I did a short Emmy pretape a few days ago. Now they tell me NewsCorp may cut the funniest line.”

Fox said that they cut the joke because they did not want to be seen making light of very serious allegations surrounding the phone hacking scandal. But Baldwin, who did not attend the Emmy Awards last night due to a prior engagement, said he thought the joke "would have made them look better. A little."

Rupert Murdoch was advised by his daughter Elisabeth that her brother James should stand down from his senior role at News Corp earlier this year because of the mishandling of the phone-hacking scandal, the magazine Vanity Fair claims.

Both Elisabeth and Murdoch senior separately suggested to James that he should "take a leave" from the company this summer, only for Rupert Murdoch to "change his mind" following a "sleepless night", the magazine claims in an article published tomorrow.

The story is based on information supplied by News Corp insiders and sources close to the Murdoch family.

It states that Elisabeth Murdoch declined to take her seat on the News Corp board because her lawyers and her husband, the PR man Matthew Freud, advised her that "it was best not to take the seat, in order to stay as far away from the [phone-hacking] scandal as possible".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/sister-of-james-murdoch-said-he-should-go-6256408.html