The long-awaited criminal trial of former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, who face conspiracy charges related to hacking the phones of murder victims and celebrities alike, is slated for this September. According to a rumor spreading around News Corp, things could get salacious.
Only two years after Wendi Deng leapt up to punch an activist smashing a pie into Rupert Murdoch during a parliamentary hearing, Murdoch has filed for divorce from Deng, his wife since 1999 and his third overall. Though the news may come as a surprise to some, those who have been paying attention have probably noticed that the couple have been drifting apart for some time now—and their 38-year age difference seems to be the least of their concerns.
Rupert Murdoch is thisclose to finally cleaving his entertainment properties from the dying, scandal-ridden newspaper side of the business. Today he announced a new logo: A pair of chopsticks on a plate? Two lasers streaking across a black sky? A broken saucer?
As the violence between Israel and Palestine headed into its fifth day last night, owner of various awful news properties Rupert Murdoch asked a very thought-provoking and interesting question about the media's coverage of the conflict.
The Daily, News Corp's big fancy well-funded "iPad newspaper" project, was never really a good idea from day one. A once-daily, hugely expensive, geographically nonspecific newspaper that is not available on the internet: just not a great business plan. Now, a year and a half after the launch, the reality appears to be crashing down.
Shoes, dropping, everywhere: British prosecutors announced they're charging eight new and very high profile people with criminal phone hacking in the endless News Corp tabloid phone hacking scandal. The biggest names: former News of the World Editors Rebekah Brooks (a top lieutenant and trusted confidante of Rupert Murdoch) and Andy Coulson (who went on to become the spokesman for British prime minister David Cameron). Five other former NOTW editors and reporters were also charged, along with private eye Glenn Mulcaire, who was heavily involved in the phone hacking.
The Daily is a daily newspaper that is available only on iPads. This was, and remains, a terrible business model. Consider:
This week, News Corp announced that it would spin off its publishing division, thereby sequestering the moldy old newspapers and other not-so-good-but-romantic businesses in their own little quarantine area, while the moneymaking TV and entertainment properties shed the dead weight and continued to print money. It's a common-sense move that News Corp executives not named "Rupert Murdoch" have been advocating for for years. But with all due respect to the mean old man, he's organizing this thing all wrong.
Ink may run in Rupert Murdoch's icy veins, but he's dumping his first love—newspapers—for the bitch-whore of film. News Corp. announced today that all of its newspapers and publishing assets (the dying, scandal-ridden ones) will be spun off into a new stand-alone company called Papers'n'Shit, leaving its film and television assets to make fistfuls of money unmolested by dinosaur media.
The deliciously slow-falling dominoes of the News Corp phone hacking scandal continue to falllllll: Rebekah Brooks, former News of the World editor, News International boss, and Rupert Murdoch bestie, is going to be charged with "conspiring to pervert the course of justice" for attempting to conceal documents and data in the hacking case. Brooks' husband and several others are being charged as well. Brooks denies the charges.
It looks like the biggest guillotine thus far has fallen (again) in the News Corp phone hacking scandal: British police have reportedly arrested Rebekah Brooks—former editor of the tabloids News of the World and The Sun, as well as former CEO of News International, News Corp's UK newspaper division, and a close friend and confidante of the Murdoch family. Brooks resigned from News International last year and was arrested last summer in the earlier stages of the phone hacking investigation. She was given a hefty going-away package last year.
The neverending News Corp phone hacking scandal continues to chip away at the Murdoch family's prestige. James Murdoch—son of Rupert and onetime heir to the company throne—is stepping down as the head of News International, News Corp's UK publishing arm. He'll be, ah, setting up shop here in New York in order to "Focus on expanding international TV businesses," according to the company.
News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch's puzzling Twitter feed of spontaneous crank missives turned out this surprising political position this afternoon: "Carried interest tax racket. Billions over many years. Why and where has Obama been?" If we're translating this correctly, he's calling the controversial carried interest tax loophole, which is in the news thanks to Mitt Romney's comical tax history, a "racket" that his cost the Treasury billions of dollars in revenue over the years, and he's wondering why Obama hasn't pushed to eliminate it. Will the tycoon allow us the honor of correcting him?
Old Arab-hating literary tycoon Marty Peretz is putting his beloved Washington treasure The New Republic — the "in-flight magazine of Air Force One," according to a movie about how much of its content was completely fabricated — on the market, again. Who should purchase this esteemed leftist journal of moderately regulated capitalism and hella warmaking?
Ancient Australian fertility god Rupert Murdoch has joined Twitter, and so far he is really bad at it. Not that it has stopped the news media from exhaustively covering his Twitter exploits—which so far include scrubbing a Tweet off of his timeline after it apparently offended people—and for getting completely hoaxed by a fake Wendi Deng account.
