Sunday, July 10, 2011

The News Corp scandal might just turn out to be Keith Olbermann's all time favorite story.



Here is a partial transcript by Raw Story:

Current TV’s Keith Olbermann summarized the latest developments in the scandal before turning to Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff for commentary. Wolff began by saying that the elder Murdoch should really be out apologizing to everyone who has been harmed by his company’s actions, but “that’s not Rupert Murdoch.”

“This is a company that’s all about — it’s about power,” Wolff explained. “You hurt me, you diss me, we smack you down.” He added, “These people will do anything.”

“Is James Murdoch really at legal risk?” Olbermann asked.

“I think it’s an exaggeration, somewhat,” Wolff replied, but he quickly noted, “Anything could happen now. … The unimaginable is now occurring.”

“This is the snowball effect,” Wolff said, explaining that when it comes to Rupert Murdoch, “these politicians … in the UK have had to put up with this guy for a long time. He’s never been pleasant about it. He’s always extracted blood. So finally there’s an opportunity. ‘We can get rid of this guy.’”
Wolff concluded by saying that we can expect “new revelations every day” as “more shoes drop.”

You can almost see Olbermann salivating over the potential demise of Rupert Murdoch's empire.  I find it very hard to blame him.

(H/T to Politicususa.)

28 comments:

  1. angela4:30 AM

    Who wants to bet that some of the shoes that will drop are Murdoch's "reporters" hacking American war widows, crime victims families, liberal and conservative organizations and a democratically elected president in 2008?

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  2. Anonymous4:33 AM

    This is such wonderful news for journalism. Despite what the morons who watch Fox believe, real journalists ARE unbiased, ask probing questions, and do not rely on lies to sell a story. If this empire can be busted, the wheels come off the Fox bus of lies, and free speech can once again mean TRUE speech. Hallelujah! And not a moment too soon.

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  3. Think of the impact on our own 2012 election.
    Will the republican candidates bail on him or stay with him and risk being associated with him?

    I hope to see hannity and bill o on unemployment!

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  4. Linda19614:56 AM

    Karma!

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  5. Anonymous5:01 AM

    Love Keith! So glad he's back and can cover this story.

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  6. Anonymous5:17 AM

    Thanks Gryphen, I so enjoyed this post...

    Can't get Current TV.. from here.. :(

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  7. WakeUpAmerica5:41 AM

    It has to be a sweet moment for Olbermann. Revenge, they name is Murdoch.

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  8. Anonymous5:51 AM

    This family has done more than enough damage. Murdoch should have his citizenship (fast tracked by Newt Gingrich) revoked, and he should be deported. It is disgusting that he has more power than the President of the US, just because he is wealthy and ruthless. Faux "news" should be investigated too, for all the propoganda spread. Most of their reporters will be hard pressed to find jobs in a legitimate line of work. Who would hire O'Reilly, Wallace, Hannity and the rest of the boot lickers?

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  9. Anonymous5:52 AM

    ‘You’re Morally Bankrupt!’ Steve Coogan Goes After An Unapologetic NOTW Reporter

    ...Needless to say, Coogan wasn’t having any of it. “I think you’re walking PR disaster for the tabloids because you don’t come across in a sympathetic way,” he began, later attacking McMullen for being “morally bankrupt” and calling his claims that press freedoms allow their behavior “absolute BS.”

    Also on the panel was former BBC General Director Greg Dyke, who agreed with Coogan’s point on freedom of the press not being a good enough reason to allow tabloids to exist unregulated. “Broadcasting has always been regulated,” Dyke argued, “and broadcasting is doing a much better job than half of the tabloid press. What he’s talking about is tittle tattle.”

    McMullen fought back on both of their claims, arguing that the reason Britain did not have as many corrupt politicians as other countries was do to their tabloid journalists, and that Coogan’s arguments were invalid because “you’re in the green room talking about all the new houses you bought, oh we feel terribly sorry for you.” He also accused Coogan of trying to get himself into tabloid newspapers via public relations people. That’s when Coogan got personal. “This guy sat outside my house!” he exclaimed, explaining how tabloid journalists infringe upon the privacy of celebrities. It goes on from there.


    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/
    youre-morally-bankrupt-steve-coogan-goes-after-an-
    unapologetic-notw-reporter/

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  10. Shoes dropping ... shoes dropping. I love those words this morning. Any connection to Cheney? Maybe Keith O has even been a victim himself. Yes, isn't it fortuitious (sp?) that Keith found himself a new home just in time. Bring it on Keith!

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  11. AJ Billings.6:12 AM

    My sincere wish is that Murdoch himself is so tainted by this scandal that he's charged with complicity to deceive the British Metropolitan police for the deletion of voicemail.

    A bit O/T, but Gryphen, speaking of scandals, check out this scathing article on how "god's warriors" the teaparty patriots are threatening death and arson to journalists around the country.

    From
    http://www.politicususa.com/en/journalists-death-threats

    Quote:
    "A male journalist received a phone call from an irate conservative who informed him that unless he stopped criticizing the tea party, the true patriots of America would invade his home at night, tie him up and make him witness his wife and two daughters being raped and then dismembered before his eyes.

    The 48-year-old veteran told the caller he was calling the police and that was the last he heard from the caller for a week. At the end of a week, a letter arrived in his mailbox with a hand-drawn map of the route he took to drop his children off at school with a new warning that a firebomb would come through his living room window if he wrote one more article about the tea party.

    The writer has since relocated to an undisclosed city where he writes technology manuals for a software company."
    End quote

    It is perfectly in character that these christian terrorists are willing to threaten someone for exercising their 1st amendment rights to free speech.

    People like Palin, Bachmann, Allen West, and Sharron Angle believe this is THEIR god given country, and all the atheists, muslims, jews, blacks, and "other races" don't have the same rights, and are a threat to their perfect lily white WASP towns.

    A reprehensible snake like Murdoch feeds them lies every day on Fox and supports their cause.

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  12. Rural Juror6:15 AM

    I love the twinkle in Keith's eye and the little bit of smile he's trying to contain.

    I can't wait to hear the sound of all those shoes dropping!

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  13. Anonymous6:19 AM

    Murdoch Lands in London to Manage Scandal


    With a phone-hacking scandal widening, News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch is in London to manage the fallout personally. The embattled exec arrived at his U.K. newspaper division in the early afternoon on Sunday; TV footage showed him pulling up in a car with the final issue of News of the World in his hands.

    His arrival comes just as his top tier of executives is falling hard: On Friday, his protégée Rebekah Brooks addressed her former staff at the shuttered tabloid, claiming that she did not resign because she knew nothing about the hacking until The Guardian broke the story Monday. She also hinted that the motivation behind the hacking disaster will soon come to light, and will be "will be another very difficult moment for the company." Former royal editor Clive Goodman and former editor Andy Coulson have each been arrested.



    James Murdoch Under Fire

    Things for Rupert Murdoch's son James are looking worse and worse: Both News Corp. and its heir apparent could face charges under America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), in addition to running into trouble with the U.K.'s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which prohibits phone-hacking and any other communication interception. If the U.S. Justice Department finds that News Corp. indeed paid police for information, they could take down the company and James Murdoch under FCPA law, which would definitively prevent him from taking over his father's business. James has already admitted to misleading Parliament over the phone-hacking scandal and attempting to cover up hacking allegations with out-of-court settlements.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/
    articles/2011/07/07/murdoch
    -folds-news-of-the-world-amid-phone-hacking-firestorm.html

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  14. Anonymous6:25 AM

    I'm sure Keith has been Hacked too. All shoes must drop at the Murdoch compound. This needs to be GAME OVER for these LOW LIFES.

    ReplyDelete
  15. PollyinAK6:33 AM

    so..is the Karma.. not so much getting Beck and Palin off the show.. but the people who MAKE the show?

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  16. As others have asked - where are the teens, the many teens that she is going to positively influence with her book? The ones to whom she has a message to impart? Where or where are they?

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  17. Anonymous6:43 AM

    I wonder if FOX will ask Frequently Defeated Granny to start up her "Torturing History For Fun and Profit" tour again to distract people from this scandal?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous7:30 AM

    @ Blogger Daisydem said...As others have asked - where are the teens, the many teens that she is going to positively influence with her book? The ones to whom she has a message to impart? Where or where are they?
    ----------
    I am not a college-educated marketing person, but I knew her book would flop. I have teenagers, and they don't buy books. (especially from someone who teaches abstinence!-lol). They buy electronics and clothes.

    ReplyDelete
  19. hedgewytch7:43 AM

    That's the thing with Murdock and those Christian Dominionists who support what they've been doing - they really have no morals, they don't care a bit about who is being hurt by their actions - it's about the means to the end. (which is why Mr. Bachman lies about his Pray the Gay away therapy sessions his clinics "offer".) And they absolve themselves of any immorality or unethicalness - not to mention illegalities - because they feel they are entitled, we are the schumucks and deserve what we get. Well, Karma is kicking back - and we're gonna see how well that worked out in the end.

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  20. Anonymous8:37 AM

    I KNOW the News Corp scandal is my current favorite story. I can't get enough. I'm on every UK site, then come back to US sites and post the latest. I absolutely love it like a delicious banana split on a hot summer day.

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  21. And they'll still consider selling him that TV network?

    Are they insane?

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  22. Thanks for posting Keith O. My cable company doesn't provide Current as an option.

    This is the best story in a long time but I can only find limited coverage of it by U.S. broadcast news: CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC. And guess which cable news network has completely buried the story?

    I have no doubt this scandal reaches all the way to Murdoch but I don't expect a fair and complete investigation.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous9:50 AM

    CourtTV Founder Steve Brill Predicts Rupert Murdoch’s FCC Licenses Will Be Challenged

    CourtTV founder Steve Brill suggested that even if it turns out that knowledge of the criminal activity only existed at the editorial level, he still thinks it is likely that Murdoch’s FCC licenses to operate television stations in this country will be challenged.

    Brill noted that in federal communications law there is a clause that requires owners of television stations to be “of good character” in order to maintain their license to broadcast. Therefore, given Murdoch’s oversight of a company where such criminality was able to take place, Brill predicts:

    “I am reasonably certain that someone, maybe someone from the political left or whoever, is going to make a big deal of whether [News Corp. is] fit to have their FCC licenses under the current management.”

    Additionally, Nina Totenberg weighed in, suggesting the criminal culture that developed at the newspaper demonstrates the danger of one person, regardless of their politics, having too much power and proves the need for diversity in the media.

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/
    courttv-founder-steve-brill-predicts-rupert-murdochs-fcc-licenses-will-be-challenged/

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous10:43 AM

    Keith and Rachel would be the two very best to go after and document Murdoch/FOX in the United States.

    I would love seeing O'Reilly, Hannity and the gal w/the facelift that travels to Alaska to interview Palin (she's just been here!)put away forever. Greta whatshername, who has the lowest ratings of all of them on FOX.

    This is going to be fun to watch.

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  25. Anonymous10:55 AM

    So, do we think it's a coincidence that Fox just dumped Beck? They USED him to stir up and make public the tea party in order to influence the last election and they USED him to cause all sorts of strife in the USA.

    They knew they were going to "kill" News of the World, they had this planned. It just happened sooner than they wanted due to public outcry and advertiser pull outs and the scandal exploding bigger and bigger.

    I hope they are sweating bullets over how to control this from unraveling further.

    I want to know which political radio station the inmate listened to for 2 years before killing an elderly woman on his mission to kill our President (just last weekend), my guess is Beck!

    Look for some other scandal to surface in order to distract the media.

    I read that Rebecca Brooks had two senior editors from the SUN come in to pour word for word over the last edition to make sure nothing damaging slipped through. HA, they seemed to get their last digs towards her hidden in the word puzzle, brilliant!

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8628690/News-of-the-World-final-crossword-has-a-message-for-catastrophe-Rebekah-Brooks.html

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  26. Anonymous11:04 AM

    Why did Murdoch decide to kill the profitable 168 yr old newspaper instead of selling it? was it worth more as a tax write off and hopeful scandal killer? Was it so he could wipe all those computers clean?

    I certainly hope every one of those unemployed people feels free to "talk and share information", they owe no loyalty to Murdoch or Brooks.

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  27. Anonymous12:31 PM

    No wonder Murdoch is taking this very seriously, flying there to take care of things himself.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/8629180/Rupert-Murdochs-News-Corp-could-face-100m-bill-for-US-investigation-into-police-payments.html


    "FCPA experts told The Telegraph it would be "very surprising" if the DOJ didn't take action against News Corp, and would be likely to do so this week. Any FCPA probe against News Corp would damage its reputation and could further destabilisie James Murdoch's position as Rupert Murdoch's heir apparent.

    Experts said it would be likely to involve a "systematic and all encompassing" investigation of every one of its business units worldwide, to uncover unlawful bribery, legitimate payments wrongly accounted for, and to check whether sufficiently robust anti-corruption measures are in place.

    News Corp would have to bear the cost of the probe, which sources said would "easily cost north of $100m" and tie the organisation up in red tape for between two and four years."

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  28. Anonymous7:41 PM

    I've been riveted by this scandal. Keith did a fantastic job in that clip. (He looks genuinely happy to have found his new niche', he looks healthier and more focused than before, and he's loaded for bear)
    I'd like to know what, if any, link there may be to Princess Di's death, I have a feeling they got a LOT of dirt on her as well) and which Americans had their phones highjacked.
    They stooped at nothing to get "scoop", impedeing an investigation to a kidnapped and murdered teen, prying into the phones of fallen soldiers is just beyond the pale.
    I agree with the poster about closing shop instead of selling it. The perfect opportunity to try to scrub their hard drives and destroy evidence.

    Greed changes people. Ru Pert and his ilk can wipe their butts with money, and still wanted more money, influence, power, and ratings.
    The Butterfly effect and Karna always wins in the end.

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