Murdoch's World (53 page)
Authors: David Folkenflik
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Painstakingly annotated documents sat undisturbed:
Don Van Natta Jr., Jo Becker, and Graham Bowley, “Tabloid Hack on Royals, and Beyond,”
New York Times Magazine
, September 5, 2010.
Page 126
News of the World
had agreed to pay: News of the World
memorandum of contract with “Paul Williams,” unsigned, dated February 4, 2005, CMS report attachment JCP 27. This account is supplemented by information disclosed in the Linklaters letter on behalf of News Corp Management and Standards Committee to John Whittingdale MP, August 15, 2011; Crone, email to Myler, May 24, 2008; transcript of Pike notes of call with Colin Myler, May 27, 2008, CMS report, attachment JCP7.
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Mark Lewis demanded documents:
Mark Lewis, interview by author.
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Myler wasn't happyâit was a mess:
Transcript of Pike notes of call with Colin Myler.
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first true corporate reckoning:
Silverleaf, letter, June 3, 2008.
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Under British law:
British lawyers, interviews by author. The characterization draws on Theodore Eisenberg and Geoffrey P. Miller, “The English Versus the American Rule on Attorney Fees: An Empirical Study of Public Company Contracts,”
Cornell Law Review
, January 2013.
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“drew a line in the sand”:
Julian Pike, record of attendance, June 3, 2008, CMS report, JCP 8.
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“wanted to be vindicated or be rich”:
Pike, record of attendance, June 6, 2008, CMS report, JCP 11.
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“it is as bad as we feared”:
Colin Myler, email to James Murdoch, June 7, 2008, contained in Linklaters letter to Whittingdale, December 12, 2011.
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“no worries”:
James Murdoch, email reply, June 7, 2008, contained in Linklaters letter, as above.
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James Murdoch waved Crone and Myler:
Tom Crone and Colin Myler, testimony to CMS, September 6, 2011; James Murdoch, testimony to CMS, November 11, 2011.
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sick of the drip, drip, drip:
Transcript of Julian Pike notes of call with Tom Crone, June 10, 2008, CMS report, JCP 13. “CM was moving towards telling Taylor to fuck offâon the end of drip dripâdo a deal.”
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Murdoch approved payments:
James Murdoch, testimony to CMS, July 19, 2011.
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It took Nick Davies until July 2009:
Nick Davies, “Murdoch Papers Paid £1m to Gag Phone-Hacking Victims,”
Guardian
, July 8, 2009.
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announced he had conducted a review:
Statement by Assistant Commissioner John Yates, July 9, 2009.
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News International put out a slashing statement:
News International Statement on
Guardian
article, News Corp, July 10, 2009.
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Jonathan Rees, a private investigator:
Nick Davies and Vikram Dodd, “Murder Trial Collapse Exposes News of the World Links to Police Corruption,”
Guardian
, March 11, 2011.
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Rusbridger sent warnings:
This section is drawn from Alan Rusbridger, interviews by author; and
Guardian
reports.
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Rusbridger urged Bill Keller:
Alan Rusbridger; Bill Keller, interview by author.
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whose reporters developed their own reporting:
Don Van Atta Jr., Jo Becker, and Graham Bowley, “Tabloid Hack Attack!”
New York Times Magazine
, September 5, 2010.
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filed a complaint:
Letter from
News of the World
managing editor Bill Akass to
New York Times
public editor Arthur S. Brisbane, September 17, 2010, as reproduced in “Public Editor's Journal,” September 18, 2010.
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Lewis and his clients had overstated their case:
David Hooper, interview by author.
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she had warned the head of the parliamentary panel:
“Statement by Baroness Buscombe, Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, on New Evidence in the Phone Message Hacking Episode,” remarks at Society of Editors Annual Conference in Stansted, November 15, 2009.
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Buscombe apologized the next year:
Prior statement, updated July 2010.
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reporters and private eyes were assigned:
Letter from Tom Crone to House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media, and Sport, December 1, 2011; author's interviews of Mark Lewis and Tom Watson MP; Nick Davies, “News of the World hired Investigators to Spy on Hacking Victims' Lawyers,”
Guardian
, November 7, 2011.
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News International established a fund:
James Robinson, “News of the World Phone Hacking Victims Get Apology from Murdoch,”
Guardian
, April 8, 2011.
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revelations raised the questions from Watergate:
Andrew Neil, interview by author.
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enjoyed sauntering through newsrooms:
Three former News Corp newspaper editors, interviews by author.
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some of them would go awry:
Representatives of institutional investors in News Corp, including CalPers and Amalgamated Bank, interviews by author; outside corporate governance analysts, including Nell Minow, interviews by author.
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wrote down the value of the
Wall Street Journal
and Dow Jones:
Felix Gillette, “Rupert Murdoch, News Corp, Dodge Phone Hacking Ruin,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April 18, 2013.
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Elizabeth Murdoch walked off with more than $200 million:
News Corp Annual Report 2011, p. 14.
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News Corp sold the social media website MySpace:
“Specific Media Acquires MySpace from News Corporation,” News Corp press release, June 29, 2011; Dawn C. Chmielewski and Jessica Guynn, “News Corp Sells MySpace for $35 Million,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 30, 2011.
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Rupert Murdoch wanted to invest $28 million:
Matthew Cranston, “Cowley's Cunning: How We Got $9m out of Canberra,”
Australian Financial Review
, September 24, 2011; “Why News Corp. Invested $30 Million in Cow and Chicken Farms,”
Business Insider
, December 6, 2012.
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Elisabeth suggested Fox import:
Wolff,
Man Who Owns the News
, Kindle edition, location 1737.
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Fox News . . . profits standing at roughly $900 million a year:
Estimates from SNL Kagan for 2011, as cited in “State of the Media 2013,” the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence on Journalism, March 18, 2013.
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jurors took just seven hours:
Caroline Davies, “Milly Dowler Murder: Levi Bellfield Convicted,”
Guardian
, June 23, 2011.
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a series of grievous wrongs:
Nick Davies and Amelia Hill, “News of the World Hacked Milly Dowler's Phone During Police Hunt,”
Guardian
, July 4, 2011.
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“Prime Minister, if I could ask you”:
Transcript of press conference in Kabul, Prime Minister's Office, July 5, 2011.
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“an obsession of one newspaper”:
House of Commons Official Report, House of Commons debates, July 6, 2011.
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offered little protection:
“300 Alleged Phone Hacking Victims: Phone Hacking: The Victims and Possible Victims,”
BBCNews.co.uk
, May 15, 2012; Lisa O'Carroll, “From Prince Charles to Milly Dowler,”
Guardian
, November 29, 2012.
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“a dispassionate sociopathic act”:
Steve Coogan, written statement to Leveson Inquiry, posted November 22, 2011.
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in commerce he accepted the rules:
Author search of IMDB and
Amazon.com
databases.
Chapter 12
This account of the creation of Sky and the takeover of British Satellite Broadcasting to form BSkyB draws on many previous accounts, especially Sky's corporate history:
http://corporate.sky.com/about_sky/timeline
; Pearson's corporate history:
www.pearson.com/about-us/our-history.html
; Chenoweth,
Rupert Murdoch: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Media Wizard
; Ghemawat,
Games Businesses Play
,
chapter 7
, “Entry and Deterrence: British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky.”
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its first radio transmission in 1922:
Caroline Crampton, “Ninety Years of BBC Radio: Listening Back Through Time,”
New Statesman
, November 14, 2011.
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“He basically stole a march on them”:
David Gordon, interview by author.
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the succession games Rupert Murdoch played:
Author interviews with associate of Lachlan Murdoch and two former News Corp executives; accounts of family dynamics in Shawcross,
Murdoch;
and Wolff,
Man Who Owns the News
.
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tossed the five-year-old Rupert:
Chenoweth,
Rupert Murdoch
, pp. 36â37.
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Elisabeth Murdoch worked at News Corp's basic cable channel:
Sarah Ellison, “The Rules of Succession,”
Vanity Fair
, December 2011.
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“the management trainee”:
Emiliya Mychasuk and Peter Fray, “The Sky's the Limit,”
Sydney Morning Herald
, November 8, 2003.
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“She's ambitious, she's aggressive”:
Ali Cromie, “Liz Murdoch, Caught in the Death Star,”
BRW
magazine, December 3, 1999.
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He had been a gawky youth:
Author interviews with Halla Timon, childhood friend of James Murdoch, and two Harvard College classmates; Jon Rees, “A New Star Is Burning Bright in Asia's Sky,”
Scotsman
, January 22, 2001.
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A photographer for the rival
Sydney Morning Herald: “A Chip Off the Old Block?”
BBCNews.co.uk
, November 4, 2003.
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the wedding toast of his college friend:
John Koblin, “Jesse Angelo: Rupert Murdoch's Main Man,”
Women's Wear Daily
, February 3, 2011.
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Newspapers had to give away their articles for free:
A former senior editor at a News Corp newspaper, interview by author.
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His father had been consistently blocked:
James McGregor, former Dow Jones China CEO, interview by author; China Central Television consultant Jim Laurie, interview by author; Dover,
Rupert Murdoch's China Adventures
.
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all three children of Rupert and Anna:
This account of family dynamics based on author's interviews with one current News Corp executive, three former News Corp executives, and one associate of Lachlan Murdoch. Useful detail can be found in Wolff,
The Man Who Owns the News
.
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young Grace and Chloe would share:
“A Conversation with Rupert Murdoch,”
Charlie Rose Show
, July 20, 2006.
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gave each of the six children $160 million:
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, “Rupert Murdoch Files for Divorce,”
Financial Times
, June 13, 2013.
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James Murdoch traveled to Edinburgh:
James Murdoch, “The Absence of Trust,” 2009 MacTaggart Lecture,
www.geitf.co.uk/sites/default/files/geitf/GEITF_MacTaggart_2009_James_Murdoch.pdf
.
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the James MacTaggart for whom the event had been named:
Matt Wells, “Who Was James MacTaggart?”
Guardian
, August 21, 2005.
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He spoke presciently:
Rupert Murdoch, 1989 MacTaggart Lecture,
www.geitf.co.uk/sites/default/files/geitf/GEITF_MacTaggart_1989_Rupert_Murdoch.pdf
.
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leading public officials:
Correspondence from Murdoch aides to Sununu and other White House officials, George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.