It has been reported that Rupert Murdoch and his son had a very extended debate over whether or not to close the news of the world. It was the first UK paper Rupert owned but James felt it had to go. Not quite so painful when it appears they already have plans to launch a new Sunday Sun newspaper in its place, which would be more cost effective to produce because it would be done by Sun staff already producing a weekly paper. So the closure can be seen as taking advantage of an excuse to sack the News of the World people. It is considered that most of those implicated in the unacceptable behaviour have already left.
Possibly with the exception of the senior staff. I dont know what to make of the position of Rebekah Brooks, who seems to enjoy the support of both Murdoch(s) and the prime minister, but also some other notables. Today James was attacked in parliament for having sanctioned payments to people whose phones had been tapped on condition that they did not talk about it. You can construe that as an honest action because it is pretty standard practice everywhere nowadays to include a gagging clause when compensating anyone for anything. Or you can see it as an attempt to stop the matter spreading. It certainly had the effect of slowing down the disclosures we are having now.
It was reported on the news just now that there was a report (ass covering) News international had been busy destroying thousands of emails. My own immediate reaction to the announcemnt of the closure of the news of the world was to wonder if a team with sledge hammers had already been hired to smash every computer in the place into tiny pieces the minute the staff left.
We just had an item that questions were being raised over what NOW journalists might have been getting up to in the US. It would appear the Metropolitan police have lists of thousands of people whose phones have been hacked, but they already had them at the time they said there was nothing more to investgate and closed the previous investigation.
Jason, I dont altogether agree about the police bit. I dont think it will come as a surprise to learn that police sometimes tip off journalists about interesting news. If they have been taking bribes to suppress the whole case, that might be different. The Murdoch's too, might be entiely innocent of the phone hacking or even police bribery issues, but could go down if they are found to have attempted to cover it all up once they found out.
I say ...might be innocent of bribery.. because of a comment by Shirley Williams (nearly retired UK politician) on question time on the TV yesterday, where she said that in her youth as a journalist it was common practice to pay police for stories (though also saying she covered fashion or some such so she personally had no need to). I am sure she was telling the truth, which in effect means this is a long standing practice for newspapers and thus it becomes difficult to believe anyone in the industry could be unaware of it.
