Friday, 8 July 2011
Is Murdoch free to destroy tabloid’s records?
Here’s some News of the World news to spin the heads of American lawyers. According to British media law star Mark Stephens of Finers Stephens Innocent (whom The Times of London has dubbed “Mr Media”), Rupert Murdoch’s soon-to-be shuttered tabloid may not be obliged to retain documents that could be relevant to civil and criminal claims against the newspaper—even in cases that are already underway. That could mean that dozens of sports, media, and political celebrities who claim News of the World hacked into their telephone accounts won’t be able to find out exactly what the tabloid knew and how it got the information.
If News of the World is to be liquidated, Stephens told Reuters, it “is a stroke of genius—perhaps evil genius.”
Under British law, Stephens explained, all of the assets of the shuttered newspaper, including its records, will be transferred to a professional liquidator (such as a global accounting firm). The liquidator’s obligation is to maximize the estate’s assets and minimize its liabilities. So the liquidator could be well within its discretion to decide News of the World would be best served by defaulting on pending claims rather than defending them. That way, the paper could simply destroy its documents to avoid the cost of warehousing them—and to preclude any other time bombs contained in News of the World’s records from exploding.
“Why would the liquidator want to keep [the records]?” Stephens said. “Minimizing liability is the liquidator’s job.”
That’s a very different scenario, Stephens said, from what would happen if a newspaper in the U.S. went into bankruptcy. In the U.S., a plaintiff (or, for that matter, a criminal investigator) could obtain a court order barring that kind of document destruction. In the U.K., there’s no requirement that the estate retain its records, nor any law granting plaintiffs a right to stop the liquidator from getting rid of them.
Alison Frankel @'Reuters'
If News of the World is to be liquidated, Stephens told Reuters, it “is a stroke of genius—perhaps evil genius.”
Under British law, Stephens explained, all of the assets of the shuttered newspaper, including its records, will be transferred to a professional liquidator (such as a global accounting firm). The liquidator’s obligation is to maximize the estate’s assets and minimize its liabilities. So the liquidator could be well within its discretion to decide News of the World would be best served by defaulting on pending claims rather than defending them. That way, the paper could simply destroy its documents to avoid the cost of warehousing them—and to preclude any other time bombs contained in News of the World’s records from exploding.
“Why would the liquidator want to keep [the records]?” Stephens said. “Minimizing liability is the liquidator’s job.”
That’s a very different scenario, Stephens said, from what would happen if a newspaper in the U.S. went into bankruptcy. In the U.S., a plaintiff (or, for that matter, a criminal investigator) could obtain a court order barring that kind of document destruction. In the U.K., there’s no requirement that the estate retain its records, nor any law granting plaintiffs a right to stop the liquidator from getting rid of them.
Alison Frankel @'Reuters'
Murdoch closes down the News of the World after 168 years
In a fittingly sensational finale, the 168-year-old paper will print its last edition on Sunday after claims that it hacked the phones of a murdered girl and the families of dead soldiers, and that it paid police for stories.
"Having consulted senior colleagues, I have decided that we must take further decisive action with respect to the paper," said Murdoch's son James, chairman of News International, the British newspaper wing of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
"This Sunday will be the last issue of the News of the World," he added.
The final edition would be free of advertising and proceeds would go "to causes and charities that wish to expose their good works to our millions of readers", he said in a statement.
"These are strong measures. They are made humbly and out of respect. I am convinced they are the right thing to do.
"While we may never be able to make up for distress that has been caused, the right thing to do is for every penny of the circulation revenue we receive this weekend to go to organisations - many of whom are long-term friends and partners - that improve life in Britain and are devoted to treating others with dignity."
One devastated staff member said the announcement went off like a "nuclear bomb" in the offices of Britain's second biggest selling newspaper, whose diet of kiss-and-tell stories sold 2.7 million copies a week.
Its closure sparked immediate speculation that Rupert Murdoch was offering the paper as a sacrificial victim to save his bid for control of pay-TV giant BSkyB, which is the subject of an upcoming government decision.
The BBC quoted sources as saying Murdoch would replace it with a Sunday version of The Sun, his daily tabloid, which is Britain's biggest selling newspaper.
Prime Minister David Cameron - who had himself faced pressure for his ties to Murdoch - said the closure of the News of the World should not distract from an ongoing police investigation into the hacking.
"What matters is that all wrongdoing is exposed and those responsible for these appalling acts are brought to justice," Cameron's Downing Street office said in a statement.
He repeated his pledge to hold public inquiries into practices at the News of the World and into an earlier botched police probe into the issue.
Cameron's former media chief Andy Coulson was editor of the tabloid at the time of much of the hacking, while the premier has faced scrutiny for his friendship with Rebekah Brooks, News International's chief executive.
The Guardian reported that Coulson will be arrested on Friday over suspicions he knew about the hacking.
Sky News reported that although News of the World employees were told Brooks offered to resign last night, she did not leave her job.
News International said she did not offer to quit, but had discussed her resignation with Rupert Murdoch.
A reporter at the tabloid who spoke to The New York Times anonymously said there was widespread anger in the newsroom and a belief that Brooks sacrificed the staff to save her position as chief executive of News International.
The unnamed reporter said: "If she had gone at the start of the week, we'd all still be employed. I hope she's worth it for Rupert."
But James Murdoch repeated his father's earlier defence of Brooks, saying he was confident she was not aware of hacking during her own stint as editor.
"I am satisfied that Rebekah, her leadership of this business and her standard of ethics and her standard of conduct throughout her career, are very good," Murdoch said in a television interview.
Two hundred staff will lose their jobs at the paper and they have been told they can apply for other jobs within News International.
News of the World associate editor David Wooding described the atmosphere in the newsroom when the closure was announced was as "if a nuclear bomb had gone off".
"Everyone was standing around looking dazed. Everyone kept saying - how could it get any worse?" he told the BBC.
In his statement, James Murdoch admitted that the paper had lied to parliament and to the public in its earlier statements on the long-running scandal.
He said that if allegations that a private investigator working for the tabloid hacked the voicemail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl who was later found murdered, were true, they were "inhuman".
"The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed when it came to itself," he added. "Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued."
He said the conviction in 2007 for phone hacking of the paper's royal correspondent Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had failed to cure the problem.
But the death blow for the News of the World came on Thursday when veterans' charity the Royal British Legion dropped its campaign partnership with the paper over claims in the Daily Telegraph that an investigator hired by the tabloid may have accessed the voicemails of relatives of dead soldiers.
Supermarket giant Sainsbury's, mobile phone operator O2, energy supplier Npower and high street stores Dixons, Boots and Specsavers had joined a growing list of companies to pull advertising from the paper.
Meanwhile, Scotland Yard said up to 4000 people may have had their voicemails accessed by the News of the World and added that it was probing claims that the paper had paid policemen for information.
@'SMH'
Thursday, 7 July 2011
Wintermute - Spatial Perception
- Wintermute – Cell Cycle [Katakis Dub]
- Marcus Intalex – Make A Raise [Soul:R]
- digital goon – Unite (Wintermute Remix) [digitalGEWITTER Dub]
- Spectrasoul – Lost Diciple [Shogun Audio]
- Mefjus – Far Too Close [Neosignal Dub]
- Ulterior Motive – Tesla [Subtitles]
- Disphonia – Collapsed [M-Atome Dub]
- Icicle – I Feel You [Shogun Audio]
- Basher – Devotion [RAM]
- SPY – Go With The Flow [RAM]
- Needrux, Hardy & Solho – First Cut [Dub]
- Audio – Sanctum [VIRUS]
- Wintermute – Out Of Scale [Katakis Dub]
- C4C – Bermuda [Quarantine]
- Neonlight, sH1 & Wintermute – Perpetuum Mobile [WIP/Dub]
- Ulterior Motive – Seven Segments [Subtitles]
- Billain – Kontra [Citrus Dub]
- Rockwell – BTCRSH [Shogun Audio]
- Misanthrop – Latitude [Neosignal]
- Mefjus & Neurobi – Ghost Facial [Dub]
- Phace – Basic Memory [Neosignal]
- Basher – Transmissions [RAM]
- Epidemic – Stomata [WIP/Dub]
- Neonlight – The Frozen Tape [TRIM Dub]
- Noisia – Reurgitate [Vision]
- Polarity – Centershock [Mindtech]
- Wintermute & Needrux – Untitled [WIP / Dub]
- Noisia & Phace – Program [Vision]
- Fourward & Mefjus – Shitdrum [TRIM Dub]
The Police and the Tabloids
From Alan Bennett’s diary for last year:
I give my details, and my address and phone number, to a constable who, when I get back home, duly rings with the incident number. Ten minutes later, less than an hour after it has occurred, the doorbell rings and on the doorstep is a rather demure girl: ‘My name is Amy. I’m from the Daily Mail. We’ve just heard about your unfortunate experience.’@'LRB'
I close the door in Amy’s caring face, tell a photographer who’s hanging about to bugger off (‘That’s not very nice’) and come in and reflect that though the theft is bad enough more depressing is that someone in the police must immediately have got on to the Mail, neither the bank nor M&S having either my private number or the address. I just wonder how much the paper paid him or her and what the tariff is – pretty low in my case, I would have thought…
Years ago when Russell Harty had been exposed in the tabloids he was being rung in Yorkshire every five minutes. His solicitor then agreed with the local police that he should have a new number, known only to the police. Ten minutes later a newspaper rang him on it.
Syd Barrett on Pink Floyd's first recording session: 'The tracks sound terrific so far, especially King Bee'
(Click to enlarge)
Transcript
Dear Jen, you are a little dish. I'll tell you everything that happened at the recording. We took all the gear into the studio which was lit by horrid white lights, and covered with wires and microphones. Rog had his amp behind a screen and Nicki was also screened off, and after a little bit of chat we tested everything for balance, and then recorded five numbers more or less straight off; but only the guitars and drums. We'r going to add all the singing and piano etc. next Wednesday. The tracks sound terrific so far, especially King Bee. [Illustration]
When I sing I have to stand in the middle of the studio with ear phones on, and everyone else watches from the other room, and I can't see them at all but they can all see me. Also I can only just hear what I'm singing.
[Illustration]
I hope you got home alright Jen, and that you had a good time. You wouldn't have been able to come in to the recording and anyway it went on till after midnight, and would have been a whopping drag for you.
It was a nice thing to be which was tra tra la. (do not bother to interupt)
Do what you want Jen. I love you very much and want to hear from you and you are very pretty.
I am a bit fed up with everything today and I want to be in Cambridge or Greece but not in London where all I do is spend money and travel. The sun is shining though.
Love, Roger.
@'Letters of Note'
Bonus Audio
Rebekah Brooks admits to paying police (2003)
Rebekah Brooks (neé Wade) admitting to paying police for information, before Andy Coulson silences her. This was in front of a select committee in March, 2003.
'We have paid the police for information in the past.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/mar/12/sun.pressandpublishing
'We have paid the police for information in the past.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/mar/12/sun.pressandpublishing
AuAnon Anonymous Australia
20 yrs ago, Julian Assange was a hacker in trouble w the law & Rupert Murdoch was a world leading publisher. Oh, how the tables have turned.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
The late, great Dennis Potter on the Dirty Digger
When groundbreaking television writer Dennis Potter learned he was dying of cancer, he sat down with Melvyn Bragg for a final interview. The subject of media mogul Rupert Murdoch came up.
Why I set about hitting the News of the World where it hurts – its advertising
Like many people, I've learned to live with a generalised, low-level irritation about the content of some of the tabloids. The sexism, the xenophobia, the hypocrisy: you wish you could change these things but, for the most part, you accept them as the price you pay for a free press.
But on Monday night, years of irritation were transformed into rage for me by the suggestion that one tabloid, the News of the World, had paid a private investigator who hacked into the mobile phone of a missing 13-year-old girl, Milly Dowler. Worse, it is alleged that he deleted messages from her voicemail, giving her parents false hope that she might be alive – with the tabloid all the while running interviews with those parents in which they spoke about their hope.
There is only one sane reaction to this: utter revulsion. I knew that hundreds – maybe thousands – of people would be feeling the same way, and I also knew that this time it wouldn't only be the lefties, the liberals and the hand-wringers who would want something to change, who would be looking for something they could do. It would be all of us.
That evening I began tweeting (@the_z_factor), knocking around a few ideas with friends: egging NewsCorp's offices? Going to the shops on Sunday and turning over all the copies of the paper? It didn't seem enough. The only way to show the company how people really felt was by hitting them where it hurts: their wallets. And while I didn't think I could reach their regular readers to ask them not to buy the paper, I realised who I could influence, with a following wind and enough people behind me: their advertisers.
I went on to the News of the World's website. There were a couple of advertisers there, but most were behind the paywall. I tweeted them anyway. Immediately, my tweets were retweeted. And again. I roped in Andy Dawson (@profanityswan) – he was angry too, I knew, and more importantly he has a big following on Twitter. He researched more advertisers for me, and we began sending out tweets, telling people to send their own messages rather than retweeting ours for maximum effect. I made a Word document, stored it online and started sending out links to it. The activity was building; I was transfixed by my computer screen, and the dog didn't get an evening walk.
Tony Kennick (@thegreatgonzo) got involved. He had an idea: we could build a web page with "tweet me" buttons, to make things even easier for people. By Tuesday morning it was up and running, and by 11am Roy Greenslade had linked to it on his blog.
That's when things really started to take off. Messages of support began flooding in, as well as offers of help; @EroticPuffin looked up email addresses for executives at the companies and supplied an Excel file ready for mail merge, and various people sent new advertisers for us to add to the list and new ways for people to make a difference.
It's times like this when Twitter really comes into its own. As a truly democratic forum, everyone can get involved and have their say, and it's easy to share information and ideas. And because it's all so public, it's very hard for companies to ignore public pressure or hide behind rhetoric. For every 5,000 tweets with a funny cat photo there's a moment like this, when Twitter remembers what it can really do.
It was truly astonishing to see how angry all sorts of people were with the behaviour of the News of the World, and how eager they were to do something about it. To the Republic of Twitter, now finding its voice on this subject, it clearly wasn't an ethical minefield, or a thorny legal issue, but a simple case of right and wrong. Morals, as they used to be called. The depths Rupert Murdoch's paper has sunk to – and questions are now being asked about other police investigations, including that into the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman – is extraordinary.
Democracy, if it is to function properly, requires a free press. A free press holds the government, the judiciary and other public figures to account. The "tax", if you like, for having a free press is the tabloids. And as a concept, they're fine; they're not for me, but then neither is quiche, and I don't need to ban it. But is what's going on here an expression of democracy in action? No, it isn't. Sections of the press now have a far greater influence on government policy than we voters do, and if the hacking revelations are anything to go by they may well have enjoyed a great deal of influence over the police, too. Is that OK by you? What I discovered on Monday night is that it really, really isn't OK by me.
There's a facile argument that says: "The tabloids only behave as they do because people want to read the stuff they print" – as if, in a way, it's our fault. But every business in the land responds to demand from its market; every business in the land needs to make a profit. Most of them, though, manage to stay within the law.
Melissa Harrison @'The Guardian'
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