Saturday, Nov 23rd
Last update01:49:31 AM GMT
Journalism Glance
Nailing Rupert Murdoch for his employees’ phone tapping or bribery would be a little like bringing down Al Capone for tax fraud, or George W. Bush for torture. I’d be glad to see it happen but there’d still be something perverse about it.
The Fox News Channel is endless propaganda for war, and various other deadly policies. As Robin Beste points out,
Olbermann pointed out that Rupert’s crew will do anything to you to get you to do what they want. He speculated that this is why nobody whistle blows on Fox News and News Corp. Until Keith Olbermann brought it up, I had never really thought about why so very few former Fox employees talk about their time at News Corp after they leave.
I have always thought that part of the reason for the silence was that there are very few television jobs available. Most people aren’t as lucky as Keith Olbermann. They don’t have the ability to do both news and sports. Jobs are scarce, so don’t go burning your bridges. It does seem to be the case that many in the media are rightfully afraid to cross News Corp. The culture there seems intent on destroying all enemies, real or imagined.
Yahoo! has been accused of changing its terms and conditions to allow it to read its customers' private emails.
The world's biggest email provider says that by signing up to its service, users are giving their consent for both their outgoing and incoming mail to be analysed for information to sell targeted advertising.
Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to persuade the Labour MP who led the campaign to expose News of the World phone-hacking to back off, friends of Mr Brown said last night.
Well-placed sources said Mr Blair, who has close links with the paper’s owner Rupert Murdoch, wanted Mr Brown to get his ally Tom Watson to lay off the News International (NI) title, but Mr Brown refused.
Pakistan has lashed out at America's top-ranking military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, on Friday, saying that its relations with the US have been further damaged by his remarks blaming the Islamabad government for the killing, torture and murder of a Pakistani journalist.
The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff shocked Islamabad by saying publicly what US officials had confirmed only in private: that the Pakistani government had "sanctioned" the killing of Syed Saleem Shahzad, the investigative reporter for Asia Times Online whose mutilated body was found on 30 May in a canal 40 miles from the capital. He had been writing about jihadist infiltration of the Pakistani military.
In America, we hold some truths to be self-evident: our news should report facts, and our personal communications should be private. Given the scandal rocking Britain over Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid paper News of the World and his huge influence over US media, both of these notions could be in jeopardy.
James Murdoch announced today that amidst a growing furor, News of the World will cease publication on Sunday. Far from resolving the problem, this radical step raises the question of just how deep this scandal goes. The Murdoch-owned paper The Sun has faced similar allegations of phone hacking this year, and no investigation has yet been conducted to see if similar abuses occurred at Murdoch-owned papers here in the United States.
A federal appeals court has overturned part of a 2008 loosening of U.S. media-ownership rules that made it easier to own a newspaper and a broadcast outlet in a single market.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said on Thursday that this cross-ownership portion of the Federal Communications Commission's order had failed to meet notice and comment requirements set out by law.
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