British Politicians And Scotland Yard May Be Afraid To Take On Murdoch, But Not So The New York Times – It’s A Trans-Atlantic Newspaper War Aimed At The Jugular

Philip M. Stone September 8, 2010 Follow on Twitter

Rupert Murdoch makes no secret the editorial changes he has made at his Wall Street Journal are intended to topple The New York Times as America’s newspaper of record. But the “Gray Lady” until now has mostly ginned and bared it but suddenly with an investigative report months in the making she has sunk her teeth viciously into Murdoch in the UK some 3,000 miles away from the main New York battlefield. The resulting hoop-la has the UK government, Parliament, Scotland Yard, politicians and celebrities all in a tizzy and for a change it is Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid finding itself defending itself from newspaper allegations.

It is mostly a story of “where there is smoke surely there is fire, but where’s the fire” and the surface story is about whether the News of the World hacked into phone messages of leading politicians and celebrities as well as royalty, the latter offense for which a reporter and a private investigator went to jail three years ago and the then editor of the News of the World fell on his sword only to surface again as the lead spin doctor for the Conservative Party and he is now the head of the press office at 10 Downing Street.

The NYT investigation is mostly old stuff, but it also revealed that while Scotland Yard nailed those responsible for hacking into Royal telephones – that’s just not acceptable – there seemed to be a whole lot of other people whose phones were also hacked although the newspaper continually denied it and Scotland Yard allegedly, according to the NYT, did not follow up because it was afraid of the Murdoch press influence.  The NYT found a former employee who said “even the cat knew” there was wholesale hacking going on and Scotland Yard says it is reopening the case based on this “new evidence”. Already on Tuesday a Parliamentary committee was questioning the lead Scotland Yard investigator as to why the original investigation did not go further.

During the course of its investigation, written by three staffers over the course of several months and allegedly with the help of a private investigator, the NYT dutifully asked the News of The World for comment and Bill Akass, the newspaper’s managing editor, rejected in an e-mail any suggestion of a “culture of wrongdoing” and further, as the NYT wrote, “He accused the New York Times of writing about the case because of a rivalry with a competing media company.” 

There was no background paragraph by the NYT on that, perhaps because that rivalry is the real beneath the surface story. In New York the NYT and the Murdoch-owned Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, are slugging it out. It does make enquiring minds want to ask the NYT whether it would have spent so much time, effort and money on a purely UK domestic story if that newspaper war wasn’t taking place in New York? So what does the NYT have to gain from such a story?

Most people seem to forget that when Murdoch first made his entrance on the American scene starting in the early 1970s that he did so by buying tabloid newspapers in such cities as New York, Boston, Chicago and his first, in San Antonio, Texas. He then proceeded to make them as spicy as he could, bringing in Australian and British editors who had that experience in their own markets.

In those days the “established” US media considered Murdoch no better than a pariah to be shunned and not talked about in polite company. Some 40 years later, with a media empire in the US that includes the Fox movie studio, the Fox television network, the Fox cable news channel which leads the market, and yes, still the owner of the New York Post tabloid, the 79-year-old American, formerly Australian, citizen is the world’s pre-eminent media mogul.

But he has that tabloid newspaper background and the NYT motive may well be to remind Americans that a leopard doesn’t really change its spots – that in effect Murdoch wants to hide his true journalistic character from American eyes, but he is still up to underhanded tricks overseas. And this is the man who owns the newspaper that wants to topple the NYT from its perch!

The News of the World tried to stonewall when the NYT story broke but enough UK media picked up on the story that it was obvious it had to say something. So it then issued a statement, “A team of New York Times journalists, employing at least one private investigator, spent five months investigating the News of the World. They focused mainly on events that occurred in 2006 which, in co-operation with the News of the World resulted in two criminal convictions. The New York Times story contains no new evidence – it relies on unsubstantiated allegations from unnamed sources or claims from disgruntled former employees that should be treated with extreme skepticism given the reasons for their departures from the newspaper.”

That sounds just like what celebrities who are outed by the newspaper have their lawyers say afterwards! Not often we see that shoe on the other foot.

It will probably take some time to see where all the smoke leads, but the elephant in the room is really Rupert Murdoch and the power and influence his UK newspaper and broadcasting empire has upon the government  and, for that matter, the police.

Murdoch owns The News of the World which has Sunday’s largest circulation and The Sun tabloid that has the largest daily circulation. He also owns the up-market Times and Sunday Times and he is trying to buy the shares he doesn’t already have in the BSkyB broadcasting network. But it is the two tabloids that seem to wield the most political power and politicians live in fear of what those newspapers might say about them.

Five years ago Murdoch supported the Labor Party and Labor won the general election. Since then David Cameron, the new leader of the Conservative Party, courted Murdoch. At first Murdoch was said not to be too impressed with the new boy, but Cameron worked hard on him, hosting private dinners and the like. At the same time Labor wasn’t too friendly to Murdoch properties – among other things they made his BSkyB sell shares at a huge loss that had been bought in the competing ITV commercial network --  and eventually Murdoch became a Cameron fan. All four of his newspapers soundly supported the Conservatives in the May elections although it wasn’t actually enough to swing an outright Parliamentary majority --  the party had to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats – but the end result was what Murdoch wanted -- Cameron is now in  Downing Street. And who was among the first to have a private audience there – why none other than Murdoch!

Perhaps not hurting Cameron’s effort to get Murdoch on board was that as Conservative Party leader he hired as his press chief none other than trusted Murdoch lieutenant Andy Caulson, the News of the World editor who had to fall on his sword because of the conviction of his reporter and investigator who had hacked into royal mobile phones. Was there a Cameron-Murdoch deal there to have a Murdoch man in an influential position which also fulfilled a Murdoch-Caulson deal that he would be looked after stepping down as News of the World editor, an act which hopefully would put that embarrassing hacking story to sleep?

Caulson always denied he knew about any hacking which the NYT claims everyone in the newsroom really knew about. It was not just the Royals who were targeted, for which there had been convictions, but the NYT says there were scores of others – and now Caulson sits in 10 Downing Street as Cameron’s chief spin doctor. There is an old rule of thumb that if a spin doctor for 10 days becomes a media target then he should go because he has become the story when he should really be in the background, but Cameron insists vehemently that he is standing by his man.

So now daily there are senior Labor politicians calling for an inquiry into whether there was such telephone hacking, whether Scotland Yard knew about such hacking but was afraid to proceed because of the fear of how the Murdoch newspapers might go after the police; the Conservative government says it is up to Scotland Yard to decide what to do (a little Pontius Pilate going on there?) Scotland Yard says it has asked the NYT for all its details but executive editor Bill Keller has declined, so they’re asking him again, and Parliamentary hearings are already underway.

The point is the hacking story came and went three years ago. There had been Parliamentary hearings later but no one could get anyone, including senior executives at News International, to say they knew there was any hacking and there was no smoking gun delivered to show they did know. Once in a while the story resurfaced when the News of the World, while still denying any knowledge of such hacking, settled out of court for allegedly big money lawsuits by some who said they were hacked.

That, in turn, had other lawyers really chasing around because if they could get enough evidence to launch such lawsuits the feeling was the NOW would pay up to avoid details coming out in court – there are thought to be some 20 cases already in the pipeline. That is why the NYT story has caused such a stir – does Scotland Yard actually have that evidence but for reasons of protecting its relationship with the Murdoch newspapers it failed to provide that information to those concerned and the coalition government is not really interested in seeing all of this proceed?

One would love to be the fly on the wall in the offices of the NOW lawyers. The position is that the hacking of royalty was a once-off, and that no one in senior management knows anything about further hackings. If the NYT article does get Scotland Yard to release information it allegedly has on further such hackings, and investigations show executives knew more than they have told Parliament,  then the civil suits could really start adding up and that will hurt Murdoch where it hurts the most – in the pocket book.

And that surely is another big motive for the NYT story.

See also in ftm Knowledge...

Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation

News Corporation is a highly competitive media giant a global, multi-media footprint. From paywalls and pay-TV to tabloid troubles and new ventures the media industry watches Rupert Murdoch. Update includes family ties, succession plans and other News Of The World. 172 pages PDF (April 2011)

Order here

UK Newspapers

The newspaper market in the UK is among the worlds most competitive. The publishers are colorful, editors daring, journalists talented and readers discerning. ftm follows the leaders, the readers, the freebies and the tabloids. 83 pages PDF (October 2010)

Order here

The Privacy Issue

The privacy issue touches every aspect of media. From consumer protection and the rights of individuals to news coverage privacy is hotly debated. New media and old media stumble and the courts decide. ftm offers views from every side of the Privacy Issue. 37 pages. PDF (April 2010)

Order Here