MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan Spotlights Rupert Murdoch's Most 'Unremittingly Toxic' Legacy

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan slammed the “very real wake of destruction” that Rupert Murdoch is leaving behind as the billionaire media baron prepares to step down as Fox Corp. and News Corp. chair.

“It’s difficult to sum up Murdoch’s unremittingly toxic and pernicious record, to encapsulate the sheer power of Murdoch to do damage to our politics, our media, our world,” Hasan wrote in an essay published on the MSNBC website on Sunday, an adapted version of a monologue he gave on his show in April.

Murdoch’s Legacy Includes Giving Airtime to Climate Denialism and the Far Right

As billionaire Rupert Murdoch announces he will resign as head of his media empire, we speak with Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of the watchdog group Media Matters for America, about the right-wing mogul’s influence on journalism and politics over the last seven decades. The 92-year-old Murdoch will step down as chair of Fox Corporation and News Corporation in November, with his son Lachlan to head both companies that control Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post and more. Carusone says as the elder Murdoch steps back, it’s important to “make sure that his legacy doesn’t get sugarcoated, that we are really cognizant of the scale of damage that he’s created,” which includes climate denialism and the growing influence of the far right in politics. Carusone also warns that Lachlan Murdoch is more conservative than his father, with a “nihilist” worldview that could make Fox News and other properties even more extreme.

The Rupert Murdoch Retirement Myth

Rupert Murdoch’s preferred mode of transportation has always been the shock wave. Where other media moguls might carefully plot with a compass and protractor a safe and steady path through the minefields of life and commerce, Murdoch has always relied on the high torque of a jet. Moving with the stealth of a predator, giving no advance notice on his destination, by the time he blows by, roar and rumble are the sole artifacts of his supersonic passing.

CNN Torches Rupert Murdoch With Sickening Supercut Of Fox News At Its Worst

CNN’s Abby Phillip gave longtime Fox boss Rupert Murdoch a fitting send-off by airing an extended supercut of the right-wing network’s lowest moments.

“His legacy is outrage porn: partisan red meat stoking relentless culture wars,” she said of Murdoch, who on Thursday announced that he was stepping down as chair of Fox Corp. and News Corp. 

She said Fox News began as what was arguably a “noble vision” of a center-right news network with views from outside the media bubbles of New York and Washington.

Playbook: Trump vs. the Murdoch empire, part XVII

While we often point out that making the debate stage is the most important hurdle for any Republican aspirant running in the primaries, hosting a presidential primary debate is enormously important to television networks. But for the Murdoch empire, beset by upstart rivals, it is existential.

RUPERT MURDOCH and DONALD TRUMP are the two most important sources of information for Republican voters, and in the last eight years they have waged war for supremacy. Sometimes they use each other (Trump gets airtime, Fox gets ratings), sometimes they are closely aligned (as in a general election against the Democrats), and sometimes they are openly hostile to one another (during primary season in 2015-2016 and again today when Fox and other Murdoch entities search for an alternative to Trump).

Rupert Murdoch twice discussed CNN with AT&T CEO

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Rupert Murdoch telephoned AT&T Inc <T.N> Chief Executive Randall Stephenson twice in the last six months and talked about cable network CNN, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday.

According to one of the sources, the 86-year-old executive chairman of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc <FOXA.O> offered to buy CNN in both conversations.

Rebekah Brooks Returning To News Corp After Phone-Hacking Scandal

LONDON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Rebekah Brooks will return to her old job heading Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper division, according to the Financial Times and New York Times, just over a year after being cleared of criminal charges in a phone-hacking scandal.

Her return to News Corp could be as soon as early September, the Financial Times said on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Rupert Murdoch Tape Reveals Angry, Dismissive News Corp Chief

A secret recording of Rupert Murdoch reveals that the News Corp chief was angry and dismissive about investigations into corruption at his British newspapers.

The recording, which was obtained by the British network Channel 4, was taken behind Murdoch's back during a meeting he held with staffers at The Sun, his biggest UK title, earlier in 2013. The paper has been beset by a string of arrests in connection with an inquiry over illegal payments to police officers. Murdoch has been blamed for many of the arrests because, in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, he set up a special committee that has handed over information about potential illegality at his company to the police.

Leveson Report Published: New Body Regulating British Press And Backed By Law Recommended

The long-awaited report from the Leveson Inquiry into the ethics and practices of the scandal-scarred British media was published on Thursday.

In the report, Lord Justice Leveson called for a new government law to back an independent regulatory body overseeing the press, which he said had acted in ways that "at times, can only be described as outrageous."

The Guardian said that it would be the first press law in Britain since 1695.

How Rupert Murdoch's Creation Is Destroying the Republicans

Poor Mitt Romney has become a Republican punching bag as leaders within the party denounce his post-election comments about how President Obama won re-election by promising government-funded "gifts" to minority groups and young voters. As Republicans jab Romney though, they're missing the larger, more pressing point: They don't have a Mitt Romney problem. They have a Fox News problem.

Romney's "gifts" put-down echoed the infamous claim Romney made during the campaign that 47 per cent of Americans see themselves as "victims" and are overly dependent on the government. With the campaign concluded, lots of fellow Republicans now feel free to bash Romney:

Rupert Murdoch: Chris Christie Must 'Re-Declare' For Mitt Romney 'Or Take Blame'

Publishing titan Rupert Murdoch sent New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie what appeared to be a warning message on Friday, telling Christie to reaffirm his support for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney "or take blame for next four dire years."

The admonition, by way of a tweet from the Murdoch's verified Twitter account, was presumably in reference to the warm relationship Christie, a Republican, showed with President Barack Obama this week, as the two toured New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Rupert Murdoch: Paid Sick Leave Rules Will Kill Small Businesses

Rupert Murdoch doesn’t care if you’re feeling under the weather.

The billionaire head of News Corp. on Sunday came out against a proposed New York City law that would force some local businesses to grant employees more paid sick time. Murdoch criticized The New York Times on Twitter for a Sunday editorial in favor of the city proposal, which would affect more than 1.2 million workers.

A web of privilege supports this so-called meritocracy

Shortly after Mitt Romney's failed 2008 campaign for the Republican nomination his son Tagg set up a private equity fund with the campaign's top fundraiser. One of the first donors was his mum, Anne. Next came several of his dad's financial backers. Tagg had no experience in the world of finance, but after two years in the middle of a deep recession the company had netted $244m from just 64 investors.

Tagg insists that neither his name nor the fact that his father had made it clear he would run for the presidency again had anything to do with his success. "The reason people invested in us is that they liked our strategies,'' he told the New York Times.

Class privilege, and the power it confers, is often conveniently misunderstood by its beneficiaries as the product of their own genius rather than generations of advantage, stoutly defended and faithfully bequeathed. Evidence of such advantages is not freely available. It is not in the powerful's interest for the rest of us to know how their influence is attained or exercised. But every now and then a dam bursts and the facts come flooding forth.

Dial M for Murdoch

A successful politician must be able to deny the obvious: “I am not a crook” or “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” It was the British courtesan Mandy Rice-Davies, testifying during the 1963 scandal over her friend Christine Keeler’s simultaneous affairs with the British War Minister John Profumo and a Soviet naval attaché, who is credited with the definitive response to such lies. Told that her own lover, Lord Astor, denied ever having met her, she supposedly replied, “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”

Prime Minister David Cameron told the BBC in April that “the idea there was some grand bargain between me and Rupert Murdoch—that is just not true.” The devastating May 1 parliamentary report, which concluded that Murdoch “is not a fit person” to run a major public company, offers a vivid example of why political connections have always been so important to the media mogul’s business model. The very phrase “not a fit person” is a clear signal to Ofcom, the British broadcasting regulator, which has the power to take away Murdoch’s broadcasting franchise here. Yet the sharp divisions among the select committee—whose five Conservative members all voted against the report, which passed thanks to the one Liberal Democrat and five Labour members—have blunted the report’s force while at the same time underlining just how much was at stake when Murdoch gave Cameron’s party his backing.

David Cameron: there was no grand deal with Rupert Murdoch over BSkyB

David Cameron has insisted there was "no grand deal" with Rupert Murdoch over the BSkyB bid in exchange for support for his party.

"The idea there was some grand bargain between me and Rupert Murdoch – that is just not true," he said on the BBC1 Andrew Marr programme.

The prime minister indicated he regretted attending a Christmas party at the Oxfordshire home of the then News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, in December 2010, and admitted discussing matters with James Murdoch, but insisted he did not have "inappropriate conversations with anyone about this".

The Sunday Times reported that Brooks, who is under investigation by Scotland Yard for her alleged role in the phone-hacking affair, was ready to disclose text messages and emails between herself and Cameron. The move could be embarrassing for the prime minister, who is believed to have been in regular contact with Brooks by text when she was NI chief.

Cameron delivered a robust defence of his government's actions following the publication at the Leveson inquiry of 163 pages of emails, which detailed the close relationship between the Murdochs and their staff and the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and his special adviser Adam Smith over the BSkyB bid.

Rupert Murdoch may be a monster but David Cameron and co are far worse

I know we're all ending this week desperate to find common ground with Rupert Murdoch, so I hope to be of assistance. After all, arguably the most striking feature of the News Corp boss's testimony before the Leveson inquiry was his radioactive contempt for the politicians with which he has been so inconveniently saddled. As someone who has long treated a change in government as the shuffling of junior personnel, Murdoch appears to have concluded that you really can't get the staff any more. And as an electorate that has concluded that you really can't get the overlords any more, we might ironically sympathise.

The list of things for which you could blame Rupert is hardly under-aired at present, but only the most piously naive would think self-interested politicking was worthy of a place on it. Blaming Murdoch for attempting to influence policy in his commercial favour is like disagreeing with gravity. He should be expected to behave like a rapacious corporate monster because that is what he is.

Where people have a right to expect far more, however, is from those notionally elected to look after their interests. The trouble with the Christian right is that it tends to be neither, runs a popular diss, and you could say the same for our "political elite". They are as cackiavellian as they are bottom-flight.

Indeed, Murdoch's contempt for politicians seems largely borne of the embarrassing ease with which he is able to persuade them to fawn over him. "I wish they'd leave me alone," he lamented of a succession of prime ministers during last year's select committee testimony.

Rupert Murdoch: I was the victim of phone-hacking cover up

Rupert Murdoch used his testimony before a U.K. inquiry on Thursday to portray himself as the victim, not perpetrator, of a cover-up over phone hacking — a twist that could certainly anger those suing his company for invading their privacy to sell newspapers.

The 81-year-old media magnate apologized. He said he had failed. He noted that the corporate cleanup of the British phone hacking scandal had cost his New York-based News Corp. hundreds of millions of dollars and transformed its culture.

“I failed, and I'm sorry about it,” Mr. Murdoch said, adding later: “We are now a new company altogether.”

Mr. Murdoch's two days of testimony, which began Wednesday, marked his attempt to corral the scandal that has rocked Britain, tainted senior politicians, prompted top police commanders and media executives to resign and affected large swathes of his media empire.

It boiled over in July after it became clear that journalists at Mr. Murdoch's now-shuttered News of the World tabloid routinely broke the law in pursuit of scoops, with Murdoch-friendly police and politicians turning a blind eye to a litany of abuses including illegal espionage and bribery.

Rupert Murdoch to testify about his political influence in UK

LONDON—He was long considered one of the most important power brokers in British politics. Now, with his influence shriveled by Britain’s phone hacking scandal, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is returning to the U.K. to face questions about his ties to the country’s most senior politicians.

It could be an uncomfortable few days for Britain’s ruling class.

Murdoch is “not somebody you’d like to get into a battle with,” said Steve Fielding, the director of the Center for British Politics at the University Nottingham. “I don’t think he thinks that he has very much to lose.”

Rupert Murdoch’s appearance before Lord Justice Brian Leveson’s inquiry this week is expected to focus on the network of personal and professional ties that have bound his newspaper and television operations to some of the most senior politicians in the United Kingdom.

Those ties have frequently come under criticism, with many observers saying British politicians were scared of crossing Murdoch because of his company’s domination of the British media landscape.

Leveson Inquiry: 'Culture Of Illegal Payments' At The Sun; Rebekah Brooks Tipped Off About Extent Of Hacking Probe

LONDON (AP) -- Rupert Murdoch's top-selling U.K. tabloid, The Sun, had a culture of making illegal payments to corrupt public officials in return for stories, a senior police officer said Monday, as Murdoch announced that the paper's first-ever Sunday edition had sold more than 3 million copies.

Sue Akers, a Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner, told Britain's media ethics inquiry that the newspaper openly referred to paying its sources and that such payments had been authorized at a senior level.

Her comments came the day Murdoch's company paid former teen singing sensation Charlotte Church 600,000 pounds ($951,000) in a phone-hacking settlement for violating her and her family's privacy.

Akers said Sun journalists had paid not only police officers but also military, health and other government officials. One official received a total of 80,000 pounds over several years, Akers said, and one journalist had been given more than 150,000 pounds in cash to pay his sources. She said payments went far beyond acceptable practices such as buying sources a meal or a drink.

Akers said "a network of corrupted officials" had provided The Sun with stories that were mostly "salacious gossip."

The schools crusade that links Michael Gove to Rupert Murdoch

On a freezing November day in 2010, the education secretary, Michael Gove, turned out in east London to inspect a desolate stretch of dockside ground near City airport, where Rupert Murdoch had offered to build an academy school.

The cabinet minister was accompanied by Rebekah Brooks, then News International chief executive, and an entourage of other top Murdoch staff, including James Harding and Will Lewis.

Despite the unprepossessing venue there was no mistaking the company's enthusiasm for the project. Murdoch described himself in a speech as the saviour of British education, thanks to his company's "adoption of new academies here in London".

It was a high-water mark of the love-in between Gove, Murdoch and the Conservative government. Gove, a former Times journalist, had previously gone out of his way to flatter his own proprietor, writing that Murdoch "encourages … free-thinking".

Shortly after the Docklands visit, the phone-hacking scandal disrupted these close relations. News International's proposed academy was quietly abandoned. Newham council says nothing was subsequently done to fulfil Murdoch's promises.