News of the World - Update!!!

Have The Mighty Fallen, Or Were They Pushed?

To recap:

1. News of the World broke into private voicemail accounts.
2. News of the World used the information they got there to make a load of cash by breaking stories no one else could get.
3. News International - NotW's parent company - is in big trouble with the British Government in relation to these activities (generally being reported as "hacking" - see our teammate Gyro Gearloose's post on this topic for a quick yet powerful debunking of this notion).
4. Rupert Murdoch may not be allowed to buy the rest of BSkyB as a result of this brouhaha, much to his chagrin.

What's that? They may not be allowed to buy the rest of BSkyB? It appears that News International has withdrawn its bid; but why?
Clearly it was to avoid the inevitable slap by the British Government, which was poised to say "NO" to the deal based on the immense furor over the badly mis-named hacking controversy by the now-defunct News of the World newspaper.


Why was the British Government - their equivalent of our Federal Government here in the USofA - so interested in this clearly distasteful and now-financially-ruinous behavior? and why are they still not forthcoming regarding the real reasons for their intense interests here?
The reasons are clear, feds of any nationality don't want anyone else poking around in other people's business - that's their job, and they don't like competition, and they just made a big clear expensive example of Murdoch and his brood.

Stay tuned for more!

Posted by Procrustes 17

News of the World

1. News of the World broke into private voicemail accounts.
2. News of the World used the information they got there to make a load of cash by breaking stories no one else could get.
3. News International - NotW's parent company - is in big trouble with the British Government in relation to these activities (generally being reported as "hacking" - see our teammate Gyro Gearloose's post on this topic for a quick yet powerful debunking of this notion).
4. Rupert Murdoch may not be allowed to buy the rest of BSkyB as a result of this brouhaha, much to his chagrin.

Why is the British Government - their equivalent of our Federal Government here in the USofA - so interested in this clearly distasteful and now-financially-ruinous behavior? and why won't they be forthcoming regarding the real reasons for their intense interests here?
The reasons are clear, feds of any nationality don't want anyone else poking around in other people's business - that's their job, and they don't like competition.

Posted by Procrustes 17

That's NOT Hacking!

Oh great, another old-line traditional media company gets in trouble for breaking the law and the rest of the oldsters writing it up call it "hacking" because they don't know any better and they figure everyone knows that hackers are all criminals and bad guys, so we might as well paint these guys with that same broad brush, right?

Paying a corrupt cop or security guard for phone numbers isn't hacking.
Guessing someone's voicemail password isn't hacking.
Deleting voicemails from someone else's voicemail isn't hacking.

Good grief, people, at least learn what the words mean before you use them! Don't they teach anything in journalism school any more? Did they ever teach anything in journalism schools?

What a bunch of chumps reporters must be - including the supposed reporters at NotW!

Posted by Gyro Gearloose