Will anyone listen to new controller?
What won what where
Just-posted NYT story has quite a nut graf:
Interviews with dozens of current and former News Corporation employees and others involved in the multiple hacking inquiries provide an inside view of how a small group of executives pursued strategies for years that had the effect of obscuring the extent of wrongdoing in the newsroom of Britain's best-selling tabloid. And once the hacking scandal escalated, they scrambled in vain to quarantine the damage. Evidence indicating that The News of the World paid police for information was not handed over to the authorities for four years. Its parent company paid hefty sums to those who threatened legal action, on condition of silence. The tabloid continued to pay reporters and editors whose knowledge could prove embarrassing even after they were fired or arrested for hacking. A key editor's computer equipment was destroyed, and e-mail evidence was lost. Internal advice to accept responsibility was ignored, former executives said.
You never know how these things might play out, but I'd be willing to bet a few dollars that Murdoch's days are numbered. Just a matter of time.
*Andrew Sullivan's take:
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the News Corp scandal was Rupert Murdoch's initial public response to it. Once it became clear that the crisis was of Fukushima proportions, Murdoch's decision to close down the entire NOTW while retaining the woman who edited it during its worst period struck me as, well, surreal if not creepily contemptuous of basic morality. Since when do the innocent have to do penance for the guilty? Brooks was guilty many times over - either of fantastic negligence or of direct criminality (and she has, of course, since been arrested). But Murdoch thought he could easily keep her in her position and cavorted around London with her beaming at his side, even as dozens of journalists who had done nothing wrong were escorted from their offices, which became a crime scene. Then there was the decision to appear in public in the back of a car with gym shorts on, his bare legs making Paris Hilton seem discreet. The grinning - like a Tom DeLay mugshot - was so out of touch you almost had to look away. It was only when Edelman took over the p.r. that Murdoch adopted the appropriate appearance of remorse and seriousness, and met with the parents of the missing, murdered girl, Milley Dowler, to apologize. Too little, too late.