Is this the beginning of the end of Rupert Murdoch's media empire?

You just get sillier and sillier when you feel you've been slighted.

Once again, Ed Miliband leads the way. In a speech yesterday, he continued to cast himself as Mark Antony, standing over Caesar’s corpse to invoke the backing of the common man. His plea is that assorted power blocs be broken up.
The Murdoch media stranglehold is indeed excessive and the banks too monolithic. The time is right for an ethical version of the US assault on the curse of bigness, under which railroad companies and oil giants were dismantled. As Sir John Sherman, the architect of the Antitrust Act of 1890, put it: “We should not endure a king [ruling] over the production, transportation and sale of any of the necessaries of life.”
But while Mr Miliband is correct to highlight expenses crooks, there is little mention in his thesis of the creeping virus, endemic in Labour as in Conservative circles, of complicity with the powerful. Today, Rupert Murdoch faces a tyrant’s show trial. Any day now, he and his creatures may again be serving cocktails to their political lackeys.
The last bulwarks in this affair are the (much-maligned) judiciary and the media. Lord Justice Leveson, who knows every detail of Met procedure, is likely to run a tight inquiry. The media, especially on the Left, are less dependable. In the current hue and cry, it is possible to detect the descant of turkeys voting for an early Christmas.
Only weeks ago, the press were clamouring for much less privacy. Now the mood is for much more. Politicians, often with more to hide than straying footballers, will be only too happy to oblige with tougher rules and legislation.
If the current crisis results in a press that publishes only matters in the public interest, the upshot will be a cross between Woodworker magazine and a court circular recording the cordial trysts between politicians, media moguls and all the untouchables of public life.
So watch Rupert Murdoch wriggle in the dock today, but do not gloat too gleefully at his downfall. We may yet come to mourn his loss

The analysis I have seen indicates that both major parties are in it just as deep so neighter will score, but I have seen nothing to indicate that the Brits don't care about their corrupt insitutions.

I was actually talking about your comment re Izzythepush watching too much tv and not talking to people, which you presciently didn't include in your quoting of my message, nor answer

Buchanan then exhaled

He still seems to think that there's just two parties in England

Murdoch Aides Long Tried to Blunt Scandal Over Hacking
By JO BECKER and RAVI SOMAIYA
Published: July 18, 2011

LONDON — Two days before it emerged that The News of the World had hacked the cellphone of a murdered schoolgirl, igniting a scandal that has shaken the media empire of Rupert Murdoch, his son James told friends that he thought the worst of the troubles were behind him. And he was confident that the News Corporation’s $12 billion bid for the satellite company British Sky Broadcasting would go through, according to a person present.


Rupert Murdoch, center, with his son James, left, in London last week. They face questioning in Parliament on Tuesday over the hacking scandal.

Now, with their most trusted lieutenant, Rebekah Brooks, arrested on suspicion of phone hacking and paying the police for information, the broadcasting bid abandoned, the 168-year-old News of the World shuttered, and nine others arrested, Rupert and James Murdoch are scheduled to face an enraged British Parliament on Tuesday.

It is a spectacle that Rupert Murdoch’s closest associates spent years trying to avoid.

Interviews with dozens of people involved in the hacking scandal, including current and former News Corporation employees, 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 The News of the World, Britain’s best-selling tabloid. And once the hacking scandal escalated, they scrambled in vain to quarantine the damage.

In part, Wasserman said, that has to do with the role class plays in England. The upper-class papers - The Guardian, The Independent, Murdoch’s The Times of London - have higher ethical standards, but relatively tiny circulations. The tabloids are far more popular and populist, brimming with the anger of the lower classes, willing to accept any number of means to bring the powerful down.

Brooks rose in that world in part because she worked hard, and in part because she had no apparent squeamishness about pushing ethical boundaries. She disguised herself as a janitor to get access to excerpts from a Prince Charles biography. She arranged a hotel meeting with a possible boyfriend of Princess Diana, then made sure flowerpots and cupboards in the room were bugged. She used her platform, in a Nancy Grace way, to supersede the legal system; her campaign, via News of the World, to “name and shame’’ sex offenders led to extralegal fury and vandalism.

It was all acceptable to the public, Wasserman said, so long as it seemed clear that the newspaper was speaking for the powerless. When the story became News of the World itself - its connections to British political leaders, its payments to Scotland Yard - the calculation changed.

“These reporters were kind of the instruments of the underdog in society, pulling down the rich and powerful,’’ Wasserman said. “Suddenly, now it turns out that these people were doing the bullying.’’

The outrage over the hacking has something to do with a wrong done years ago to the family of a missing 13-year-old. But it also has quite a bit to do with frustration at one company’s proximity to power. News of the World could no longer claim to champion the little guy.

Ah, I see. Izzy is British, and you clearly don't think much of him/her.

Murdoch may lose grip on News Corp
business editor Peter Ryan and finance reporter Alicia Barry
Updated July 19, 2011 17:26:01/ABC News, Australia


Photo: Mr Murdoch will join his son James and former News International boss Rebekah Brooks in front of a British parliamentary inquiry. (AFP)

Analysts say Rupert Murdoch's grip on his global media empire could be slipping as the News Corp boss prepares for an interrogation by angry British MPs tonight and his share prices continue to fall.

News Corporation Class A shares trading on the New York stock exchange closed down more than 4 per cent, or 67 cents, to $14.96 this morning, and the Class B Voting shares were down by a similar amount.

Shares in the company fell another 4 per cent on the Australian share market yesterday, closing at a two-year low of $14.16.

Australian-listed News Corp shares bounced back 2.4 per cent to $14.50 by the close of trade, on reports that Rupert Murdoch may step aside from management.

However, a board director denied reports that a meeting had taken place to discuss the possibility of Mr Murdoch stepping aside. ...<cont>

Quote:

In part, Wasserman said, that has to do with the role class plays in England. The upper-class papers - The Guardian, The Independent,

This really is total bollocks neither The Guardian nor the Independent are 'upper-class' newspapers. You're confusing upper class, with not being as thick as ****. I can see why you have problems telling the two apart. Your sources are as uninformed as you are.

Thanks Msolga, something reliable from someone who can give us greater insight into Murdoch.

The board of the News Corporation might as well be named “Friends of Rupert.”

The independent directors — who have a fiduciary responsibility to the company’s shareholders — have remained silent amid the widening scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

Despite multiple arrests stemming from the phone hacking accusations so far, not one independent board member has made a statement denouncing the company’s dubious activities. Not one has publicly called for the resignation of top officials at the company. And not one has pushed for an outside investigation, although the company has started its own.
.
“This is a board that qualifies for an ‘F’ in every category,” Nell Minow, a member of the board of GovernanceMetrics International and founder of the Corporate Library, a governance firm, said without any hesitation. “It is the ultimate crony board.”

A spokeswoman for the News Corporation declined to comment.

Given the Murdochs’ tight rule over the company, crossing the family might seem futile. In reality, its directors serve at the pleasure of Mr. Murdoch, since the company was purposely set up with a dual-class stock structure that gives him 38 percent of the votes. (The New York Times Company also has two classes of shares.) Legally at least, the News Corporation directors are supposed to serve the interests of all shareholders.

Of the 16 board members, nine are technically considered independent. But few would truly qualify under any definition of good corporate governance.

One supposed independent voice, Kenneth Cowley, is a former News Corporation executive who has been on the board since 1979. Natalie Bancroft, an opera singer, was named to the board when the company acquired Dow Jones, mainly as a way to way to placate its former owners, the Bancrofts. Incidentally, the News Corporation picked Ms. Bancroft.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp independent directors are fully behind Rupert Murdoch, a board member told Reuters on Monday, as his iron grip on his vast media empire came under question because of the hacking scandal that already has consumed his London newspaper company.

His son James Murdoch's position as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting was thrown into doubt on Monday after minority investors called for a corporate governance health check of its board. Added to this was increasing speculation that Rupert himself may step aside from the CEO role at News Corp while retaining the chairman's job as the company seeks to contain the crisis.

There has been talk for the past few days that Chase Carey could take over from Rupert Murdoch, and Bloomberg reported that there had been discussions on Monday by independent directors on whether to replace Murdoch. That was denied by a board member who said the independent directors are fully behind the 80-year-old Australian-born media magnate.

The board member and another person familiar with the company's plans also denied a Bloomberg report that suggested the board is considering replacing Murdoch depending on his performance before the British Parliament committee on Tuesday. The report said the News Corp board met on Monday to discuss replacing Murdoch but both people denied this.

"There was no meeting of independent directors. This board totally supports the top management. We're united behind him," the board member said.

The second person said the board has had a succession plan in place for some time and it regularly reevaluates those plans. "Suggestions that a plan is being accelerated or implemented are inaccurate," the person said.