http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/07/21/jon-stewart-murdoch-news/

The extraordinary access that Cabinet ministers granted Rupert Murdoch and his children was revealed for the first time yesterday, with more than two dozen private meetings between the family and senior members of the Government in the 15 months since David Cameron entered Downing Street.

In total, Cabinet ministers have had private meetings with Murdoch executives more than 60 times and, if social events such as receptions at party conferences are included, the figure is at least 107.

On two occasions, James Murdoch and former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks were given confidential defence briefings on Afghanistan and Britain's strategic defence review by the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox. A further briefing was held with Ms Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and the Sunday Times editor John Witherow.

Murdochs Were Given Secret Defence Briefings

The extraordinary access that Cabinet ministers granted Rupert Murdoch and his children was revealed for the first time yesterday, with more than two dozen private meetings between the family and senior members of the Government in the 15 months since David Cameron entered Downing Street.

In total, Cabinet ministers have had private meetings with Murdoch executives more than 60 times and, if social events such as receptions at party conferences are included, the figure is at least 107.

On two occasions, James Murdoch and former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks were given confidential defence briefings on Afghanistan and Britain's strategic defence review by the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox. A further briefing was held with Ms Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and the Sunday Times editor John Witherow.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, has had 16 separate meetings since May 2010 with News International editors and executives, including two with the Murdochs within just a month of taking office. He also invited Elisabeth Murdoch as a guest to his 40th birthday party last month.

The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, dined with Rupert Murdoch within days of the Government coming to power and, after being given quasi-judicial oversight for the Murdochs' £8bn attempted takeover of BSkyB, had two meetings with James Murdoch in which they discussed the takeover. Mr Hunt said last night that these were legitimate as part of the bid process.

But the minister who sees Rupert Murdoch the most frequently is the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, a former News International employee. Mr Gove has seen the mogul for breakfast, lunch or dinner on six occasions since last May. Overall, Mr Gove has had 12 meetings with Murdoch executives since becoming a minister.

Antony Loewenstein

If you had only paid a 6% tax rate over a 4-year period, accumulated $7 billion in offshore profits not subject to US taxes, had over 150 accounts in tax-haven countries like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, and used the money from your tax dodging to buy another company, you'd be wanted for tax evasion and money laundering. But for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, that's business as usual.

The Australian media mogul, currently under scrutiny for News of the World's alleged phone tapping of terror victims for tabloid fodder, has largely expanded his empire with the help of a rigged tax code, written by lobbyists on the payroll of corporate tax dodgers like News Corp. In the last five years, most of the $27 million spent on lobbying by News Corp was for tax legislation.

The thousands of loopholes in our lobbyist-written tax code allowed Murdoch's company to cut their corporate tax rate to 6%, meaning News Corp paid just $324 million in taxes on $5.4 billion in worldwide profits in the years leading up to his $5 billion Dow Jones buyout. The Bancroft family would still be in control of the Wall Street Journal if it weren't for Murdoch's expertise in tax dodging.

Comparatively, corporate tax rates in the countries where News Corp operates - Australia, America and the UK - are 36%, 35%, and 30% respectively. In 2010, Murdoch's media empire exploited the tax loopholes lobbied for to pay just an 8.5% tax rate in the US on $2.9 billion in profits.

Pay Your Taxes, Murdoch

The Electoral Commission is to be urged to hold an investigation into whether Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire was covertly funding the Conservative Party while David Cameron was leader of the opposition.

The call from the Labour MP Tom Watson, who has played the lead role in uncovering the telephone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's former newspaper the News of the World, follows a BBC revelation about large payments to David Cameron's former spin doctor, Andy Coulson.

Mr Coulson resigned from the editorship of the News of the World early in 2007, after the newspaper's royal correspondent Clive Goodman and the private detective Glen Mulcaire were jailed for phone hacking.

It has now emerged that Mr Coulson received a pay-off of hundreds of thousands of pounds from Rupert Murdoch's company, News International. The BBC's Business Editor Robert Peston also disclosed last night that Coulson was still being paid large sums up to the end of 2007.

Mr Coulson was appointed Director of Communications for the Conservative Party in May 2007, and took up his post in July, implying that he was receiving large amounts from News International up to five months after he joined the staff of the Tory party.

A Conservative Party spokesman said last night that party managers did not know this at the time. "Senior party officials have no knowledge of Andy Coulson's severance arrangements," she said.

But the discovery that Mr Coulson was acting as Mr Cameron's adviser on handling the media at the same time as he was receiving payments from the country's largest media organisations, has raised new questions about the relationship between David Cameron and the Murdoch empire.

Coulson Paid By Murdoch While Working For PM

News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch took a "hands on approach" to his UK newspapers, The Sun tabloid's former editor told an inquiry into press ethics yesterday, recounting Mr Murdoch's reaction to a story involving Elton John.

Mr Murdoch was angry about The Sun paying a £1 million ($1.54 million) settlement to the pop singer over a false news story in 1987, Kelvin MacKenzie, who edited the paper from 1981 to 1994, told the inquiry. The story wrongfully claimed Elton John paid for sex with underage "rent boys".

"Murdoch thought I'd gone too far," Mr MacKenzie said. "I then received something like 40 minutes of non-stop abuse" during a phone call from Mr Murdoch. "It wasn't so much the money of course - it was the shadow it cast over the paper."

The inquiry was called for last year by British Prime Minister David Cameron in response to a phone-hacking scandal at another News Corporation tabloid, the News of the World, which the New York-based company closed in July to contain public outrage over the scandal. Mr Murdoch, 80, told lawmakers last year that he wasn't responsible for the scandal and that he'd "lost sight" of the News of the World.

Mr MacKenzie said he spoke to Mr Murdoch "most days" and that the chairman took an interest in "whether it was upbeat enough, and that kind of thing".

The inquiry, overseen by Judge Brian Leveson, has heard evidence from celebrities, crime victims and other targets of media interest to determine problems in the relationship between the public and the press. Further segments of the inquiry will examine the UK media's relationship with police and politicians, then suggest changes.

Mr MacKenzie, questioned about his views on accuracy, defended his record and said, "there is no certainty in journalism, in the same way there's no certainty in the legal world". He told the same inquiry in October that he checked the source of a story one time in his 13 years as editor of The Sun - for the Elton John story.

"I never did it again," Mr MacKenzie said in October. "Basically my view was that if it sounded right it was probably right and therefore we should lob it in."

MacKenzie also told the inquiry it "wouldn't surprise" him if Sun journalists had paid police officers for information under his leadership, although he wasn't aware of any payments himself. Police bribery by News of the World reporters is one of the three related probes, along with phone hacking and computer hacking by journalists, or their private investigators.

Justice Leveson told lawyers yesterday there was no chance he would recommend the government call off the inquiry as the result of a potential error in a Guardian newspaper article about the phone-hacking scandal. The publication last month corrected a story from July about the News of the World's interception of the voice mails of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002, when she was still missing - a story that triggered the closure of the tabloid and the start of the inquiry.

The Guardian changed the story to say the News of the World's reporters hadn't deleted Dowler's messages to make room for new ones and hindered the police search. A report on the events surrounding the voice mail deletions is expected soon from the Metropolitan Police, Justice Leveson said.

Police have arrested 17 people since January after it was revealed the interception of voice mails was more widespread than News Corporation had said.

Murdoch 'angry' over Elton John Settlement

Stewart joined the Daily Show in 1999 and performs for more than a million viewers each night. But he told The Guardian there were many low points in the last 16 years, including skipping the jokes to cover major news events such as the Charlie Hebdo killings and the constant diet of bad news.

He was particularly scathing of Fox News, a right-leaning news service owned by Rupert Murdoch.

"Watching these channels all day is incredibly depressing," Stewart said, humourously exaggerating the effect of Fox News on his mental health. "I live in a constant state of depression. I think of us as turd miners. I put on my helmet, I go and mine turds, hopefully I don't get turd lung disease."

He added the only time he would ever watch Fox News in the future would be by accident, if he was roaming the wintery fields of America after a nuclear accident and mistook the light for a food source. Then he would immediately turn it off.