A Jolly Good Time

A British High Court Room saw the Murdoch media empire humbled as never before last week. It was the first of what’s likely to be many “Pay-Up Days” for Rupert and his minions. After years of denials and reported cover-ups, the Murdochs were passing out cash like Halloween candy. In carefully worded and vetted statements one potential lawsuit after another was settled, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of pounds in many instances, plus legal and court costs of course. Lots of big entertainment names, political types and the occasional ordinary person who got caught up in their mess.

Two very significant factors stood out for us. One was new: News Group News, the umbrella entity for the Murdoch London based newspapers caught up in the hacking scandal, as much as admitted that their senior executives were involved. In a statement the lawyers for the victims said, “News Group News has agreed to compensation being assessed on the basis that senior employees and directors of NGN knew about the wrongdoing and sought to conceal it by deliberately deceiving investigators and destroying evidence.” 

While that falls under the usual legal cover, “doesn’t admit nor deny,” it’s pretty clear that “documents relating to the nature and scale of the conspiracy, a cover-up and the destruction of evidence by News Group” in the hands of the victim’s legal counsel, has Murdoch painted into a corner. It’s pretty clear that a culture of deceit is at the core of the Murdoch organization and that it seeps down from the very top staining every corner of his vast domain. 

The second thing that popped out for us is not new, but it may be the first time it has emerged in a formal legal setting. Apparently two of Murdoch’s gossip sheets, The News of the World and The Sun, had a field day with details of the back and forth that went on between Jude Law and his ex-wife Sadie Frost. Of special interest to those of us on this side of the pond is that Law had his phone hacked while he was at JFK Airport on Long Island. We had heard that before, but never in a legal setting. It’s important because the laws regarding hacking are very different in America. 

The Murdoch Empire is headquartered in the United States. The parent company, News Corp, is a Delaware corporation and fully subject to the laws of the United States. Rupert Murdoch is a United States citizen. The Murdoch Empire is largely in America. Murdoch moved into the US in the early 70s with one newspaper and soon followed up by founding the Star a trashy supermarket tabloid; adding the New York Post, not much above that. Then came television, motion pictures and The Wall Street Journal, most devoted to spewing his sensationalist trademark views of the world.

By hacking Jude Law in the United States, Murdoch has put it all at risk. There will be no carefully vetted settlement in this case. Like the ethically challenged at Enron, Adelphia and others in our recent past, the Murdochs may very well be facing jail time.