TV News LIES

Rupert Murdoch's most long-serving and trusted servant has followed in the footsteps of Rebekah Brooks and fallen on his sword.

Les Hinton, 67, who has worked for the tycoon for 52 years, has resigned from his post as chief executive of Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal.

A former News of the World journalist who made phone-hacking allegations against the paper has been found dead. Sean Hoare had told the New York Times the practice was far more extensive than the paper acknowledged when police first investigated hacking claims.

Hertfordshire Police said the body of a man was found at a property in Langley Road, Watford, on Monday morning. A police spokesman said the death was currently being treated as unexplained, but was not thought to be suspicious.

Former Fox News executive Dan Cooper has claimed that a special bunker, requiring security clearance for access was created at the company's headquarters to conduct “counterintelligence” including snooping on phone records:

After helping chairman Roger Ailes create the Fox News channel in 1996, Cooper was fired for doing an anonymous interview with New York Magazine:

Scotland Yard has admitted it employed Neil Wallis, a former executive at the News of the World, as an adviser to the commissioner until September 2010.

Wallis was employed to advise Sir Paul Stephenson and John Yates on a part-time basis from October 2009 to September 2010. During this time the Yard was saying there was no need to reopen the phone-hacking investigation – a decision made by Yates despite allegations in the Guardian that the first police investigation had been inadequate.

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.