Roger Ailes Repositions Fox News. Murdoch Sons’ News Corp. Re-Election Opposed. James Murdoch and his brother Lachlan, sons of billionaire Rupert Murdoch, should be replaced on the News Corp. (NWSA) board to improve accountability at the company, an Australian pension fund group said. The brothers and four other board members shouldn’t be re- elected because the company needs “credible skilled outside directors,” the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, whose members manage more than A$250 billion ($244 billion) in pension assets, said on its website.
The council also wants a “genuinely independent” chairman, rather than Rupert Murdoch in that role and chief executive officer. News Corp. has been embroiled in a scandal since July over revelations its News of the World newspaper hacked a murdered girl’s voicemail. That led to the closing of the U.K. tabloid, executive resignations and the scrapping of a bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc.
(BSY) ‘Clear Message’ Split Roles News Corp. fell 45 cents to $15.48 at 4 p.m. New Claims. Bc.com Video Player. Palestinians plan mass rally in support of UN statehood bid. TV News Outlets Ignore Keystone XL Email Release. The environmental group Friends of the Earth released e-mails this week revealing a cozy and collaborative relationship between TransCanada Corporation lobbyist Paul Elliott and an employee at the U.S. State Department, the agency currently weighing approval of TransCanada's permit application for the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
A New York Times report notes that the emails show the State Department official providing "subtle coaching and cheerleading" for TransCanada: A State Department official provided Fourth of July party invitations, subtle coaching and cheerleading, and inside information about Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton's meetings to a Washington lobbyist for a Canadian company seeking permission from the department to build a pipeline that would carry crude from the oil sands of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
So far, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS and NBC have ignored the story. Rupert Murdoch should be voted off News Corp. board, advisors say. An influential consulting firm is advising that shareholders vote News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and 12 others off the board of directors of the media giant at its annual meeting later this month. Calling the phone-hacking scandal that led News Corp. to close its British News of the World tabloid and has led to government probes of the company both in England and the United States, a "failure of board stewardship," Institutional Shareholder Services said Monday that an overhaul was necessary.
News Corp. is scheduled to hold its annual meeting on Oct. 21 in Los Angeles. "The company’s phone-hacking scandal, which began its public denouement in July 2011, has laid bare a striking lack of stewardship and failure of independence by a board whose inability to set a strong tone-at-the-top about unethical business practices has now resulted in enormous costs — financial, legal, regulatory, reputational, and opportunity — for the shareholders the board ostensibly serves," ISS said.
Fox Business launches war on 'anti-corporate' Muppets. Do we really have to do this? C'mon. I mean ... c'mon: It ain't easy being green, but according to Fox Business, Kermit the Frog and his Muppet friends are reds. Last week, on the network's "Follow the Money" program, host Eric Bolling went McCarthy on the new, Disney-released film, "The Muppets," insisting that its storyline featuring an evil oil baron made it the latest example of Hollywood's so-called liberal agenda.Bolling, who took issue with the baron's name, Tex Richman, was joined by Dan Gainor of the conservative Media Research Center, who was uninhibited with his criticism.
"It's amazing how far the left will go just to manipulate your kids, to convince them, give the anti-corporate message," he said. Here's my question. How the hell do conservatives find time in their day to get outraged about all the things they insist they need to be outraged about? Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you all that the Muppets aren't anti-corporate leftists and/or communists. Mr. 15 Years & Smears With Fox News.
As Fox News celebrates its 15th anniversary, Media Matters looks back on 15 of the network's most outlandish smears since 2004. Fox News: Kerry Just Loves His Manicures. Loves them! On October 1, 2004, Fox chief political correspondent Carl Cameron wrote a fake news story about Sen. John Kerry receiving a manicure before a debate and included false quotes like "'Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate! ' Fox News: Scientists Are Liars. Fox News hasn't let the fact that 97 percent of the world's climate scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that human activity is very likely to blame stop them in their quest to make sure their viewers think science, facts, and reality are figments of the left's collective imagination. Following the 2009 release of hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Fox repeatedly claimed that the emails showed scientists "fudging data to make their case for global warming.
" In 2003, George W. Democrats Need to Take on the Tea Party. Rep. Maxine Waters (Getty Images) Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. says that it's important for Democrats to up the ante during these arduous political times and points out that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) left the Tea Party surprised when she let loose on its members. I am pleased to report the sighting of an artifact so rarely seen among Democrats that it has become the stuff of legend and conjecture, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster.
It is called a spine. Said spine was briefly glimpsed a little over a week ago at a "jobs summit" in Inglewood, Calif. in the person of Rep. Maxine Waters. Her words left the Tea Party Patriots sputtering about the need to play nice. Read Leonard Pitts' entire column at the Miami Herald. Behind the Story: Page One. Jonathan Ross: I was a phone-hacking victim | Media. Phone hacking: Jonathan Ross has claimed his phone was targeted – but not just by the News of the World. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex Features Jonathan Ross has said he is convinced his phone was hacked – but not just by the News of the World. The chatshow host said he was told by police that his number and that of his wife, Jane Goldman, had been found by officers investigating the phone-hacking scandal at the News International paper.
"I know I had my phone hacked, the police contacted us and told us that my number, my wife's number was on the list of one of the guys' information," Ross told Richard Bacon on BBC Radio 5 Live on Wednesday. As part of the Metropolitan police's phone-hacking investigation, Operation Weeting, officers are informing people whose names appear in documentation seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who formerly worked for the News of the World.
"It's a horrible feeling," said Ross. "If I break the law I expect to be punished for that. Al Jazeera Director Resigns Following Wikileaks Release Showing Close Ties To U.S. Government. REPORT: Economists Shut Out Of Debt-Ceiling Debate. On August 2, President Obama signed the Budget Control Act, a controversial compromise bill that raised the nation's debt ceiling in order to avoid default while also cutting government spending by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. Many economists criticized the deal, saying that budget cuts would only weaken the economy and further drive up unemployment. But their voices were largely absent from CNN's, Fox News', and MSNBC's coverage of the debt-ceiling negotiations. Of the 1,258 guest appearances during segments that discussed the issue in the month leading up to the debt deal, only 52 -- or 4.1 percent -- were made by economists.
View a larger chart here . The definition of "economist" used in this study is broad -- it includes any guest with an advanced degree in economics or who has served as an economics professor at the college or university level. During the 2011 debt-ceiling debate, hundreds of non-economists appeared on cable news. View a larger chart here . The Other Media Crisis: Irrelevance. Writing about government ineptitude or corporate corruption can feel like shaking your fist at the cosmos. The only spot of optimism for me is young people.
The twentysomethings I know are not discouraged. Why bother, anymore, railing against government ineptitude or exposing corporate corruption? These days, it feels like shaking your fist at the cosmos. There’s been much gnashing of teeth about the crisis in journalism–shrinking news staffs, closing newspapers, the rise of unreliable blogs, etc. But there’s another crisis we should be more worried about: the structural disconnect between the press–often flattered as the “fourth estate,” an essential pillar of free societies–and our political system. How New York Times columnist Paul Krugman gets out of bed each morning is beyond me. And poor Charles Blow, another Times columnist. The Roberts court, possibly Bush’s most appalling legacy, also appears immune from scandal. Am I discouraged? “America”: Consumerism and the End of Citizenship. News Of The World Lawsuits Continue To Grow. LONDON — More than 60 people have filed court papers alleging their phones were hacked by the News of the World, a lawyer said Thursday, amid preparations for a group lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch's now-defunct tabloid.
The claimants include movie stars, politicians and parents of two child victims of horrific violent crimes. Lawyer Tamsin Allen, who represents some of the plaintiffs, said 63 claims have been filed against the newspaper's publisher. A test case by a handful of lead claimants – including Hollywood star Jude Law, former soccer star Paul Gascoigne and Sheila Henry, whose son died in the 2005 London transit bombings – will begin at the High Court in January.
The lead claimants have been chosen to represent the types of people allegedly targeted by the tabloid's scoop-hungry journalists – politicians, athletes, celebrities and ordinary citizens thrust unexpectedly into the spotlight. Rupert Murdoch's the Daily has 80,000 paying subscribers | Media. Rupert Murdoch launches the Daily. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Rupert Murdoch's iPad-only newspaper the Daily has 80,000 paying subscribers – a sixth of the number he said the publication needs to break even – the publisher revealed on Monday. Greg Clayman told US website AdAge that the Daily has 120,000 weekly readers on average, with 80,000 people paying either 99¢ a week or $39.99 a year to read the digital paper since its launch in February. He said the figures showed readers "responded well" to paying for online content – with 15% of trial readers becoming a paid subscriber – and revealed that the Daily would be available on tablet computers running Google's Android software in the near future.
"The numbers are telling us people are responding well to original content designed for the platform. Premium content seems to work well on a tablet device," Clayman told AdAge. He said at the time that the title would need 500,000 paying subscribers to become viable. Murdoch pays Dowlers £3m for phone hacking - Crime, UK. The huge payout, which The Independent understands is to be divided between Milly's family and charities designated by them, comes after Mr Murdoch held his head in his hands in a meeting with the teenager's parents this summer and repeatedly apologised for the interception of her voicemails by his News of the World.
The revelation in July that the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire accessed Milly's mobile phone on behalf of NOTW after her disappearance in March 2002 – and that messages were deleted from her phone, giving her family false hope that she was still alive – was a tipping point in the hacking saga, unleashing a wave of public anger and revulsion which ultimately forced the closure of the 168-year-old tabloid.
The revelation sparked an unprecedented risis in the Murdoch empire. The main principles of the settlement between NI and the Dowler family have been agreed and the package is expected to be finalised in the coming days. How the case unfolded 21 March 2002 14 April 2002. Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid. UK lawyer to start News Corp action in U.S. Democracy Is Now Un-American. This tactic of inducing public distrust of government is not only cynical, it is schizophrenic. For people who profess to revere the Constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document.– Mike Lofgren, former GOP Congressional staffer After two and a quarter centuries of progress which saw expansion of the franchise from land-owning white men to blacks, women and eighteen year-olds, many conservatives have decided they have had quite enough “more perfect union,” thank you, and have accelerated their efforts to shrink participation in democratic elections.
In recent days, American Thinker posted “Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American,” by Matthew Vadum, reflecting conservative concerns about too many of “those people” participating in government of the people, by the people, and for the people. But American Thinker‘s title says it all: Murdoch And The Vicious Circle. Murdoch And The Vicious Circle As the phone-hacking scandal threatens Rupert Murdoch’s empire, people are opening up about the fear he instilled in British society.
And while denial is still rife inside News Corp., the author hears how its supposedly hands-off chairman spawned a culture of coarseness and brutality. By Sarah EllisonVanity Fair October 2011 EMPIRE FALLS? I realized the extent to which phone-hacking paranoia had spread when my lunch date sat down, turned off his cell phone, removed the battery, and laid the dismantled device before him on the table, like a small but dangerous animal he had temporarily stunned.
“You know, there’s a program that can listen to your conversations through your phone if the battery is in and the phone is on, even if there is no live call,” he said. The British made plenty of lame jokes—“I needed to check my messages, so I called the News of the World”—but the uneasiness, and sense of invasion, were palpable. It didn’t ring true. Like this: News Corp. Columnist Holding Press Conference On "Why The GOP Must Win White America For Victory In 2012. Peter Brimelow, a columnist for News Corp.'s MarketWatch, has been announced as one of three speakers at a press conference discussing "Why the GOP Must Win White America for Victory in 2012. " The press release explains : On September 9, The National Policy Institute will present a comprehensive, yet simple, strategy for a Republican victory in 2012--Win the White vote. "The Majority Strategy" is based on the GOP expanding its traditional White voting base, as opposed to continuing its failed "outreach" programs to racial minorities.
Peter Brimelow of VDARE.com, radio host James Edwards, Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, and NPI's Richard Spencer will speak. The conference will take place from 1:30 to 3 PM in The National Press Club's Holeman Lounge. NPI will also release two detailed reports, the first of which summarizes the Majority Strategy and is available online for download. Fox's Bolling Is A Toxic Combination Of Conspiracy Theories And Hate. Moving Planet | A day to move beyond fossil fuels. How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory | Rolling Stone Politics. Republican Party Leader Rush Limbaugh Lays Down The Law: Don’t Work With Obama (VIDEO)
When Did CNN Become a Shill for GOP Extremism and the Tea Party? | News & Politics. CNN Responds to Activists on Tea Party Alliance. News Corp shareholders file new allegations. How Think Tanks Are Reshaping Journalism. Greta Van Susteren Calls Tucker Carlson ‘A Pig’ Over Sarah Palin Post. Fear incorporated - Listening Post. Shockingly Petty: News Corp. Outlets Attack Obama Over Paper Clip.
Murdoch Empire at Risk | Business. When you talk too much for Twitter. Woodruff: With Poverty on the Rise, Are Reporters Getting the Whole Story? | The Rundown News Blog. Scandal Clouds James Murdoch’s Path - Russell Adams and Jessica E. Vascellaro - Media. Sean Hannity linked to scam artist billionaire Stanford. MSNBC Has Devoted Zero Prime Time Segments To Occupy Wall Street. CNN NBC | Michele Bachmann | HPV vaccine fail.
Spin. Targeting You With Phony News. O'Reilly slams National Council of La Raza as 'a pretty radicalized group' that 'opposes any kind of border security'