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News Corp. vs. Fox News? (the Rosen story gets even more bizarre)
News Corp. vs. Fox News?
Posted by Ryan Lizza
<...>
But there was one person who was not satisfied with this account: Lawrence A. Jacobs, who was the actual legal counsel for News Corp. back in 2010 when Justice allegedly sent the notification....Privately, Jacobs and News Corp had heated conversations over the weekend in which the company’s former lawyer demanded that News Corp. clarify its position on the matter. Perhaps there was a letter and fax and e-mail; by Sunday, though, News Corp. had reversed course and issued a new statement, first reported by the Los Angeles Times yesterday afternoon. But even then, News Corp.’s response was surprisingly deferential to Eric Holder’s Justice Department: “While we don’t take issue with the DOJ’s account that they sent a notice to News Corp., we do not have a record of ever having received it. We are looking into this matter.”
Why would News Corp., which is not often soft on the Obama Administration, be so quick to agree with the Justice Department in this case, especially when Justice’s leak seemed designed to undercut some of the outrage emanating from Fox News?
Here’s one theory: News Corp.’s deference to Justice is related to the phone-hacking scandal, centered in the U.K., that has engulfed the company since 2011, when the story broke. While there has been little attention paid of late to any legal liability News Corp. might face here in the United States, Bloomberg Businessweek recently noted the following:
Nathaniel Brown, a spokesperson for News Corp., declined to comment on the status of its talks with Justice over the hacking case, and Justice did not return a call for comment on this aspect of the case Monday evening. But if News Corp. is indeed in the middle of settlement negotiations with Justice, Fox News going to war with Holder could put the two companies in an awkward situation. News Corp. would need the indulgence of prosecutors presumably trying to extract enormous sums of money from Rupert Murdoch’s company, while holding over his head the potential of prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. At the same time, Fox News has every incentive—as well as a responsibility—to be harshly confrontational with a Justice Department that has crossed a dangerous legal line with one of its reporters, a line no other recent Administration has been willing to cross.
- more -
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/news-corp-vs-fox-news.html
Posted by Ryan Lizza
<...>
But there was one person who was not satisfied with this account: Lawrence A. Jacobs, who was the actual legal counsel for News Corp. back in 2010 when Justice allegedly sent the notification....Privately, Jacobs and News Corp had heated conversations over the weekend in which the company’s former lawyer demanded that News Corp. clarify its position on the matter. Perhaps there was a letter and fax and e-mail; by Sunday, though, News Corp. had reversed course and issued a new statement, first reported by the Los Angeles Times yesterday afternoon. But even then, News Corp.’s response was surprisingly deferential to Eric Holder’s Justice Department: “While we don’t take issue with the DOJ’s account that they sent a notice to News Corp., we do not have a record of ever having received it. We are looking into this matter.”
Why would News Corp., which is not often soft on the Obama Administration, be so quick to agree with the Justice Department in this case, especially when Justice’s leak seemed designed to undercut some of the outrage emanating from Fox News?
Here’s one theory: News Corp.’s deference to Justice is related to the phone-hacking scandal, centered in the U.K., that has engulfed the company since 2011, when the story broke. While there has been little attention paid of late to any legal liability News Corp. might face here in the United States, Bloomberg Businessweek recently noted the following:
In the U.S., the Department of Justice continues to investigate News Corp. under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), a law that makes it illegal for U.S. companies to offer gifts or payments to government officials overseas to gain a competitive edge. “Certainly, within News Corporation, there remains a persistent, if not a paranoid, fear that the Department of Justice is going to move against them,” Wolff says. “The ultimate resolution has yet to take place.”
In 2011, News Corp. hired D.C. law firm Williams & Connolly to handle the FCPA investigation. In March, the Wall Street Journal reported that in addition to looking into the phone-hacking and police bribery charges in London, the DOJ has also been investigating allegations that Journal employees in China gave gifts to government officials in exchange for information. According to the Journal, the federal probe is nearing completion—possibly setting the stage for Williams & Connolly and the government to begin negotiating a settlement. “You hire Williams & Connolly because it says, ‘We are local, we get the game, and we are innocent. Oh, and by the way, if we’re not, we can work out a deal,’” says Levick, the crisis management fixer in Washington.
Nathaniel Brown, a spokesperson for News Corp., declined to comment on the status of its talks with Justice over the hacking case, and Justice did not return a call for comment on this aspect of the case Monday evening. But if News Corp. is indeed in the middle of settlement negotiations with Justice, Fox News going to war with Holder could put the two companies in an awkward situation. News Corp. would need the indulgence of prosecutors presumably trying to extract enormous sums of money from Rupert Murdoch’s company, while holding over his head the potential of prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. At the same time, Fox News has every incentive—as well as a responsibility—to be harshly confrontational with a Justice Department that has crossed a dangerous legal line with one of its reporters, a line no other recent Administration has been willing to cross.
- more -
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/news-corp-vs-fox-news.html
The entire story is fishy, and the media reaction is suspect. The rush to defend Fox is bizarre. Fox lied to Lizza. Expect more CYA stories from the media this week, and they'll still be suspect.
Background on Jacobs' resignation.
By Jim Edwards
Behind the Resignation of Murdoch's Top Lawyer: $656M in Defeats
News Corp. (NWS) senior evp/general counsel Lawrence "Lon" Jacobs resigned June 8, a move the New York Times linked to the celebrity phone hacking scandal at owner Rupert Murdoch's London tabloids. But there's a case to be made that it's the supermarket antitrust fiasco wot done it, as Murdoch paper The Sun might have put it.
The phonetap affair has, at most, cost News £40 million in legal fees and settlements to people such as actress Sienna Miller.
By contrast, Jacobs' resignation came just two days after a judge signed off on the last of three massive antitrust cases involving News America Marketing, Murdoch's grocery coupon empire. Those settlements have cost News $656 million to date -- more than the company's profits from the movie Avatar, at one point. And it came on the same day that News was handed a defeat on all counts in a federal appeals court case aimed at silencing a former whistleblower whose information provided the basis for those cases in the first place.
During his tenure, Jacobs supervised this trifecta of failure:
$125 million: To tiny Insignia Systems (ISIG), which accused NAM of anticompetitive practices.
$500 million: To Valassis (VCI), which accused NAM of forcing clients to choose its services or face price rises if they gave business to Valassis.
$29.5 million: To Floorgraphics Inc., which alleged NAM hacked into its computer systems (sound familiar?) to steal competitive information.
Jacobs' staff fought all three cases with the same counterproductive strategy: fight, fight, fight, no matter how ridiculous or trivial the position, up until the last minute, when defeat seemed certain. At that point, from the weakest possible bargaining position, News caved and settled.
- more -
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-42748951/behind-the-resignation-of-murdochs-top-lawyer-$656m-in-defeats/
Behind the Resignation of Murdoch's Top Lawyer: $656M in Defeats
News Corp. (NWS) senior evp/general counsel Lawrence "Lon" Jacobs resigned June 8, a move the New York Times linked to the celebrity phone hacking scandal at owner Rupert Murdoch's London tabloids. But there's a case to be made that it's the supermarket antitrust fiasco wot done it, as Murdoch paper The Sun might have put it.
The phonetap affair has, at most, cost News £40 million in legal fees and settlements to people such as actress Sienna Miller.
By contrast, Jacobs' resignation came just two days after a judge signed off on the last of three massive antitrust cases involving News America Marketing, Murdoch's grocery coupon empire. Those settlements have cost News $656 million to date -- more than the company's profits from the movie Avatar, at one point. And it came on the same day that News was handed a defeat on all counts in a federal appeals court case aimed at silencing a former whistleblower whose information provided the basis for those cases in the first place.
During his tenure, Jacobs supervised this trifecta of failure:
$125 million: To tiny Insignia Systems (ISIG), which accused NAM of anticompetitive practices.
$500 million: To Valassis (VCI), which accused NAM of forcing clients to choose its services or face price rises if they gave business to Valassis.
$29.5 million: To Floorgraphics Inc., which alleged NAM hacked into its computer systems (sound familiar?) to steal competitive information.
Jacobs' staff fought all three cases with the same counterproductive strategy: fight, fight, fight, no matter how ridiculous or trivial the position, up until the last minute, when defeat seemed certain. At that point, from the weakest possible bargaining position, News caved and settled.
- more -
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-42748951/behind-the-resignation-of-murdochs-top-lawyer-$656m-in-defeats/
Anyone who jumps to Fox Noise's defense deserves to get burned.
Rupert Murdoch Has Gamed American Politics Every Bit as Thoroughly as Britain's
John Nichols on July 16, 2011
Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch has manipulated not just the news but the news landscape of the United States for decades. He has done so by pressuring the Federal Communications Commission and Congress to alter the laws of the land and regulatory standards in order to give his media conglomerate an unfair advantage in “competition” with more locally focused, more engaged and more responsible media.
It’s an old story: while Murdoch’s Fox News hosts prattle on and on about their enthusiasm for the free market, they work for a firm that seeks to game the system so Murdoch’s “properties” are best positioned to monopolize the discourse.
Now, with Murdoch’s News Corp. empire in crisis—collapsing bit by bit under the weight of a steady stream of allegations about illegal phone hacking and influence peddling in Britain—there is an odd disconnect occurring in much of the major media of the United States. While there is some acknowledgement that Murdoch has interests in the United States (including not just his Fox News channel but the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post), the suggestion is that Murdoch was more manipulative, more influential, more controlling in Britain than here.
But that’s a fantasy. Just as Murdoch has had far too much control over politics and politicians in Britain during periods of conservative dominance—be it under an actual Tory such as former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major and current Prime Minister David Cameron or under a faux Tory such as former Prime Minister Tony Blair—he has had far too much control in the States. And that control, while ideological to some extent, is focused mainly on improving the bottom line for his media properties by securing for them unfair legal and regulatory advantages.
- more -
http://www.thenation.com/blog/162083/rupert-murdoch-has-gamed-american-politics-every-bit-thoroughly-britains#
John Nichols on July 16, 2011
Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch has manipulated not just the news but the news landscape of the United States for decades. He has done so by pressuring the Federal Communications Commission and Congress to alter the laws of the land and regulatory standards in order to give his media conglomerate an unfair advantage in “competition” with more locally focused, more engaged and more responsible media.
It’s an old story: while Murdoch’s Fox News hosts prattle on and on about their enthusiasm for the free market, they work for a firm that seeks to game the system so Murdoch’s “properties” are best positioned to monopolize the discourse.
Now, with Murdoch’s News Corp. empire in crisis—collapsing bit by bit under the weight of a steady stream of allegations about illegal phone hacking and influence peddling in Britain—there is an odd disconnect occurring in much of the major media of the United States. While there is some acknowledgement that Murdoch has interests in the United States (including not just his Fox News channel but the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post), the suggestion is that Murdoch was more manipulative, more influential, more controlling in Britain than here.
But that’s a fantasy. Just as Murdoch has had far too much control over politics and politicians in Britain during periods of conservative dominance—be it under an actual Tory such as former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major and current Prime Minister David Cameron or under a faux Tory such as former Prime Minister Tony Blair—he has had far too much control in the States. And that control, while ideological to some extent, is focused mainly on improving the bottom line for his media properties by securing for them unfair legal and regulatory advantages.
- more -
http://www.thenation.com/blog/162083/rupert-murdoch-has-gamed-american-politics-every-bit-thoroughly-britains#
CONFIRMED: Fox News Hack James Rosen Is A Political Operative, Not A Journalist
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022897356
6 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
