10 May 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Update 14 May 2012: Lord Justice Leveson has said he will not pursue action under Section 36 of the 2005 Inquiries Act against the Independent on Sunday. He added that a detailed ruling on the matter will be published on the Inquiry website.
The editor of the Independent on Sunday gave a staunch defence of his paper’s decision to publish an article about former News of the World editor and David Cameron’s ex-communications chief Andy Coulson’s shareholdings in News Corp.
In a robust performance, John Mullin said the paper had three sources for the story by the time he saw Coulson’s witness statement last Thursday.
“We have used nothing from Coulson’s statement,” he told the Inquiry.
Mullin, summoned by an order made by Lord Justice Leveson under section 21 of the Inquiries Act, refused to reveal the sources of the 6 May story, which claimed that Coulson held shares in News Corporation while he served as David Cameron’s director of communications, at a time when the government was deciding whether or not to approve the company’s takeover of BSkyB.
Lord Justice Leveson, who has been vocal about his distaste for leaks, told Mullin: “I am very anxious to ensure the evidence we are going to deal with is dealt with in an orderly fashion”, adding that there was a risk of disrupting “the process I’m trying to advance”.
Under the Inquiry protocol, witness statements are confidential. Over the course of the Inquiry, Leveson has issued restriction orders — under section 19 of the Inquiries Act — that prohibit witness statements from being published in whole or in part outside the confidentiality circle of Leveson, his assessors, the Inquiry team, core participants and their legal representatives.
Mullin said he was aware of the Inquiry’s restriction order regarding the publication of witness statements, but said he believed the order did not apply to the story, as none of the sources relied on Coulson’s statement.
Defending his paper, Mullin said: “the fact that the Inquiry is going on shouldn’t stop us from doing good, honest journalism.”
“My job is to put into the public domain the key question which has to be answered,” he said, adding that doing so before Coulson gives evidence is “perfectly defensible journalism”.
Mullin apologised to the Inquiry for any inconvenience caused, asserting that it was not his intention and that he and his paper are “motivated only by trying to get to bottom of the issue”.
Coulson is scheduled to give evidence at 2pm today.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
26 Apr 12 | Leveson Inquiry
In a second day of testimony before the Leveson Inquiry, Rupert Murdoch admitted that “one or two strong characters” were responsible for a cover-up of the phone hacking scandal at News International.
The News Corp chairman and chief executive explained to the court that he was “misinformed” and “shielded” from events that were taking place at the paper. Murdoch pointed the finger at “a clever lawyer”, who forbade people from reporting to News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks or chairman James Murdoch.
Despite the acknowledgement of the cover-up of the “cancer” that was prevalent in News International, Murdoch stressed to the court that the senior management of News Corp were not involved. He said:
“There was no attempt, at my level, or several levels below me to cover it up. We set up inquiry after inquiry. We employed legal firm after legal firm and perhaps we relied too much on the conclusions of the police.”
He added that when presented with information relating to a Guardian article in 2009 detailing unethical practices at the News of the World, the police said that the article was wrong. He said: “We chose to take word of police over guardian. We rested on that until beginning of 2011.”
After explaining that Colin Myler was hired as the editor of News of the World in 2007 to find out “what the hell was going on” in the newsroom, Murdoch admitted that he should have taken personal responsibility for ensuring that the brief was completed, and not delegated the duty to Les Hinton.
Murdoch also described his disbelief that law firm Harbottle and Lewis did not alert Rebekah Brooks that the problem was far more widespread than one rogue reporter: “I cannot understand a law firm reading that, and not ringing the chief executive of a company and saying ‘hey, you’ve got some really big problems’.”
The media mogul told the court that he had failed with now defunct News of the World. He said: “I am guilty of not having paid enough attention to News of the World, probably the whole time we owned it. It was an omission by me, and all I can do is apologise to a lot of people.”
Describing himself as “greatly distressed” by the closure of the News of the World, Murdoch admitted that the news paper and the journalistic practices operating within it were an “aberration”.
When asked by Jay why he closed the tabloid newspaper, rather than toughing it out, Murdoch told the court he “panicked”, but said he was glad he took that decision.
Murdoch explained “when the Milly Dowler situation was first given huge publicity, all the newspapers took it as the chance to make a really national scandal. You could feel the blast coming in the window almost.”
He added: “I’m sorry I didn’t close it years before and put a Sunday Sun in,” and described the “whole business” as “a serious blot on my reputation.”
Murdoch told the court he felt in hindsight should have had a one-on-one with Clive Goodman to establish if he was telling the truth that phone hacking was more widespread in the paper. Murdoch told the court he should have “thrown all the damn lawyers out” and cross examined Goodman. He added that if he decided Goodman was telling the truth he “would have torn the place apart, and we wouldn’t be here today.”
Turning to the controversial privacy case of ex-Formula One chief Max Mosley and Neville Thurlbeck’s blackmail of women involved in the case, Jay asked Murdoch if he really felt this kind of behaviour wasn’t something to worry about.
Murdoch replied: “A journalist doing a favour for someone, and someone doing a favour back is an every day occurrence.”
Leveson told Murdoch he considered that approach “somewhat disturbing,” asking the media proprietor to tell him if he believed this type of behaviour was seen as justifiable and acceptable common practice in the industry.
Murdoch replied: “It’s a common thing in life, way beyond journalism, for people to say I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. This seems to go beyond that.”
Seeing an opportunity to challenge continual assurances that Murdoch did not have any inappropriate relationships with politicians, Jay suggested it was interesting that “you scratch my back” was a common attitude, but not one Murdoch held with regards to politicians.
Referring to the BSkyB bid which caused so much controversy earlier in the week, Murdoch told the court he had never met, nor dealt with Jeremy Hunt.
When asked if he and his son James had discussed the replacement of Vince Cable with Jeremy Hunt, Murdoch told the court he didn’t believe they did. Following Hunt’s appointment to the bid, Murdoch denied that James Murdoch had said “we’ve got someone better now,” but told the court “we couldn’t have had anyone worse”.
Asked by Jay if he believed the bid was derailed as a result of the revelations that the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler had been hacked, Murdoch said he was unsure if it was related to the “Milly Dowler misfortune” but that he did believe it was as a result of the hacking scandal.
The inquiry will continue on 7 May
Follow Index’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry @IndexLeveson
02 Mar 11 | Uncategorized
Will the world change if, as we may be told any moment, Rupert Murdoch is cleared to buy the whole of BSkyB? After all, he already controls the company as the dominant shareholder. So should we care if the government allows him to consolidate that control, especially if some arrangement is found to prevent him turning Sky News into Fox TV?
It matters because for Murdoch this is like stepping on an escalator that will move him steadily and without a pause to a position of far greater and broader control of our media. BSkyB will deliver him large amounts of cash year after year for the foreseeable future, and will enable him to outbid everybody for everything.
We know his domineering tendency from the world of sport. He has bought cricket and Premiership football, for example. No one can compete at auction with the prices he is prepared to pay, and the sports themselves can’t resist what he gives them. The result is no doubt good coverage where his executives choose to deliver it, but these sports are steadily ceasing to be public activities and instead becoming branches of his empire. His people decide on which days matches are played, and at what time they kick off. His employees have a great say in making stars and don’t care about bit-part players (look at the state of lower-division football). And fewer people see these sports because Sky is expensive — far, far more people saw the Ashes won on free-to-air terrestrial television in 2005 than on Sky in 2009.
But sport is just the start. Sky Atlantic shows us that Murdoch is also determined to monopolise big-budget television drama. He has bought (no one can compete) Mad Men, The Sopranos, Treme, Six Feet Under, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones and many more. And he has also just bought Shine Group, the company behind Life on Mars, Spooks and Hustle.
The key to this growing dominance has been cash, and BSkyB will give him more and more of it. Murdoch talks about markets and want us to think he is out there competing, but competition is the last thing on his mind: he likes to own the market and in this country he is being allowed to buy it in big slices in a way that amazes foreigners. Even more amazingly, people in government take seriously his complaints that the BBC is in his way, and are prepared to meddle with the corporation accordingly.
So he just buys everything, and if you want to watch it you have to pay, say, £45 a month to see it at the moment. The more he buys, the less there is elsewhere, the more you are obliged to watch Sky to see half-decent television and the more he can charge. And the BSkyB cash will help enormously.
Even if he was an ethical operator with an established record of transparent and fair dealing in public life we would be extremely foolish to allow him to step on that escalator. He is none of those things. He is a sinister and ruthless businessman with hard-right political views who treats British politics and public life with contempt. Go here and do what you can to stop him. And/or be ready to join a demonstration.
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London. He Tweets at @BrianCathcart
02 Mar 11 | Uncategorized
Will the world change if, as we may be told any moment, Rupert Murdoch is cleared to buy the whole of BSkyB? After all, he already controls the company as the dominant shareholder. So should we care if the government allows him to consolidate that control, especially if some arrangement is found to prevent him turning Sky News into Fox TV?
It matters because for Murdoch this is like stepping on an escalator that will move him steadily and without a pause to a position of far greater and broader control of our media. BSkyB will deliver him large amounts of cash year after year for the foreseeable future, and will enable him to outbid everybody for everything.
We know his domineering tendency from the world of sport. He has bought cricket and Premiership football, for example. No one can compete at auction with the prices he is prepared to pay, and the sports themselves can’t resist what he gives them. The result is no doubt good coverage where his executives choose to deliver it, but these sports are steadily ceasing to be public activities and instead becoming branches of his empire. His people decide on which days matches are played, and at what time they kick off. His employees have a great say in making stars and don’t care about bit-part players (look at the state of lower-division football). And fewer people see these sports because Sky is expensive — far, far more people saw the Ashes won on free-to-air terrestrial television in 2005 than on Sky in 2009.
But sport is just the start. Sky Atlantic shows us that Murdoch is also determined to monopolise big-budget television drama. He has bought (no one can compete) Mad Men, The Sopranos, Treme, Six Feet Under, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones and many more. And he has also just bought Shine Group, the company behind Life on Mars, Spooks and Hustle.
The key to this growing dominance has been cash, and BSkyB will give him more and more of it. Murdoch talks about markets and want us to think he is out there competing, but competition is the last thing on his mind: he likes to own the market and in this country he is being allowed to buy it in big slices in a way that amazes foreigners. Even more amazingly, people in government take seriously his complaints that the BBC is in his way, and are prepared to meddle with the corporation accordingly.
So he just buys everything, and if you want to watch it you have to pay, say, £45 a month to see it at the moment. The more he buys, the less there is elsewhere, the more you are obliged to watch Sky to see half-decent television and the more he can charge. And the BSkyB cash will help enormously.
Even if he was an ethical operator with an established record of transparent and fair dealing in public life we would be extremely foolish to allow him to step on that escalator. He is none of those things. He is a sinister and ruthless businessman with hard-right political views who treats British politics and public life with contempt. Go here and do what you can to stop him. And/or be ready to join a demonstration.
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London. He Tweets at @BrianCathcart
