News of the World phone hacking scandal

[Sectionfive]

I might have got confused/missed something but I'm sure brookes was saying she was in contact with murdoch every other day as editor. Regardless of the question of how he was not made aware of alot of the issues in this regular contact it kind of goes against the whole argument he was stressing that it was such a small part of his business that he had very little active role in it, not sure if she was talking about James Murdoch though?.

Murdoch said he would speak to the editors of The Times every day but might ring the editors of the Sun and NOTW only once a month, direct contradiction of Brooks.

There were quite a few points where he did look like he (senior) was completely out of the loop but also a significant amount of feined ignorance, they were all pretty convincing though.

He could snap out it fairly quick when he wanted. Long pauses and dithering but would be very sharp the second 911 came up. I have no doubt he knows how many pens the buy in tbh.

 

[Leo]

rupert and wendi have two kids, she's half his age, isn't she? gotta give the old geezer some credit there.

 

[Sectionfive]

rupert and wendi have two kids, she's half his age, isn't she? gotta give the old geezer some credit there.

young enough to play with Brown's kids :slanted:

Here's Rusbridger and Campbell on Charlie Rose


http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11782

 

[baboon2004]

never heard r brookes speak before but she surprisingly came across quite sympathetically (must have had good pr training beforehand), though the complete 'who, me?' amnesia was farcical. lots of sketchy details overall and not enough grilling for specificity.

Just heard her speaking - in a way I guess it's not a surprise, as every report on her seems to suggest she was brilliant at making all her minions at NotW feel like a special confidante. not even sure it's training - she's possibly naturally very gifted at eliciting whatever reaction she wants, and she was in the right industry for sure with that skill...

re grilling, yep would be interesting to see a top barrister set loose on her.

Edit: I think she'd make a bloody brilliant Lady Macbeth.

Edit 2: This is better questioning.

 

[Sectionfive]

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/

 

[muser]

Murdoch said he would speak to the editors of The Times every day but might ring the editors of the Sun and NOTW only once a month, direct contradiction of Brooks.

I noticed that was a bit of a poor mistake since I'm guessing she was watching them talk before hand.

I think the most telling thing about brookes was her little self-assured smiles between sentances

 

[mistersloane]

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/

Louise Mensch is a psychopath. Psychopath. Psychopath. Psychopath. She really frightens me.

 

[mistersloane]

I don't mean that in a light sense either, I think she really is a psychopath, I'm not just being idly misogynistic. The interview where she knows she's pulled Morgan into the argument by deliberately lying under Parliamentary privilege is just terrifying. She's smiling as she's doing it. It's like looking into the future.

 

[Sectionfive]

Eh, Would outside people getting access to NI computers not throw a big spanner in any future investigation?

ding

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/21/lulzsec-wont-publish-news-international-emails

 

[IdleRich]

It's not the releasing of stolen emails that could potentially compromise the operation though is it, it's surely the fact that someone has claimed to have been able to get in and monkey around with what's in there. If that's really the case then NI can deny that anything which makes them look bad is really theirs.

Strangely enough we've got that Piers Moron autobiography kicking around in my flat in the bog. From the bits I've glanced at I'm not able to form an opinion on whether he hacked phones or not but I hope he goes to jail.

 

[Sectionfive]

It's not the releasing of stolen emails that could potentially compromise the operation though is it, it's surely the fact that someone has claimed to have been able to get in and monkey around with what's in there. If that's really the case then NI can deny that anything which makes them look bad is really theirs.

Yeah I know, like proving more then one person had access to the smoking gun etc

 

[Tentative Andy]

Prob showing my ignorance here - but going back to the select committee hearings, if it is later proven that something said by the News International people in their testimony was untrue, are there any legal implications to this (i.e. similar to perjury)?
I ask because although obv a lot of what they said was made up of evasive non-answers, there did also seem to be some fairly direct & unequivocal denials, especially from Rebekah Brooks. This surprised me slightly because their press statements leading up to it had mainly come across as carefully phrased non-denial denial type stuff.

 

[Sectionfive]

I assume they would have had to be under an oath for anything like that. Unless there is sanctions for misleading parliament that would apply to non MPs too.

Not sure though.

 

[crackerjack]

Prob showing my ignorance here - but going back to the select committee hearings, if it is later proven that something said by the News International people in their testimony was untrue, are there any legal implications to this (i.e. similar to perjury)?

Good question. And JM's statement has now been contradicted by ex-ed of NoW and top legal officer.

Just by way of clarification relating to Tuesday's CMS Select Committee hearing, we would like to point out that James Murdoch's recollection of what he was told when agreeing to settle the Gordon Taylor litigation was mistaken.

In fact, we did inform him of the "for Neville" email which had been produced to us by Gordon Taylor's lawyers.

There was talk beforehand that they might be put under oath. Sfaik, that didn't happen, in which case I guess it's not perjury, though I'd imagine it could have serious consequences if he ever sits a F&PP test.

 

[Tentative Andy]

^ Thanks for the info folks. Yeah I saw that about JM's statement being contradicted, interesting stuff.

 

[crackerjack]

From the best-connected man at the BBC

@Peston
Robert Peston
There has been a dismissal of a Sun journalist tonight in relation to investigations into hacking etc by News Corp. Will give you more soon

 

[Tentative Andy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/21/james-murdoch-select-committee-evidence

"The statement came as something of a bombshell to the culture, sport and media select committee, which is now expected to seek an explanation from Murdoch.

Committee chairman John Whittingdale told the Guardian: "We as a committee regarded the 'for Neville' email as one of the most critical pieces of evidence in the whole inquiry. We will be asking James Murdoch to respond and ask him to clarify." "

So he seems to have dug himself into a bit of a hole.

 

[crackerjack]

and Sun features ed has been sacked

Meanwhile, the Onion has got the juice

Here are some scoops they obtained from hacking victims:

Hugh Grant—Majority of incoming calls are from people asking to order food from the Indian restaurant whose phone number is one digit off
David Cameron—Phone contained bootlegged Wallace And Gromit episodes
Margaret Thatcher—Eats KFC up to four times a week
Gordon Brown— Voice mail password is "coolguy"
Rod Stewart—Vodafone is offering great rates if he decides to upgrade to a smartphone with data plan today
Rowan Atkinson—Sadly, he doesn't have a very silly outgoing message at all
Elton John—Discovered David Furnish is not really just his roommate
Rupert Murdoch—Found out that he would publicly denounce the phone-hacking allegations, but that, really, it was okay to keep on doing them

http://www.theonion.com/articles/news-corp-under-fire-for-cell-phone-hacks,20975/

 

[hucks]

and Sun features ed has been sacked

Yeah, as flagged by Peston on twitter.

And this is from Tom Watson's twitter

I'm sorry @Peston but you are being spoonfed stories. The Myler statement creates a crisis at NI. You have form. Stop being a patsy.

Oof.

 

[crackerjack]

Yeah, as flagged by Peston on twitter.

And this is from Tom Watson's twitter

I'm sorry @Peston but you are being spoonfed stories. The Myler statement creates a crisis at NI. You have form. Stop being a patsy.

Oof.

There's been a few grumbles about Peston and his closeness to Will Lewis. Seems almost every time he mentions WL it's with the rider that he only joined NI last summer. But I don't understand this – is Watson saying Peston's flagging this up to (unwittingly or otherwise) distract attention from the Myler/Crone story?