Britain’s Phone Hacking Scandal Finds Evidence of Cover Up; Fox News Parent Looks Worse Every Day

Even Their Lawyers Are Attacking Them

In its simplest terms, the phone hacking scandal in Britain involves a newspaper owned by the News Corp. that also owns Fox News in the U. S. hacking into cell phones to both write and possibly influence the news.  The News Corp. has always maintained that this was the work of just one person, and that no one at the paper knew about this or sanctioned it.






Now a “smoking gun” has appeared in the form of a letter from a jailed editor of the News of the World (NOTW)  about the hacking. 

Previously secret papers show that Rupert Murdoch's most senior lieutenants paid the NOTW's disgraced royal editor, Clive Goodman, £243,000 in compensation soon after he had made damaging accusations against the company and its senior staff.

           



Doesn't Look Like a Letter



These included the claims that phone hacking was widely discussed at NOTW editorial meetings until Mr Coulson "banned" mention of it. Mr Goodman also alleged in a letter to the company that Mr Coulson promised him "a job at the newspaper" after he came out of prison if he "did not implicate the paper or any of its staff" in his mitigation plea.

The “Mr. Coulson” mentioned is Andy Coulson, who was terminated by the paper in question, and then amazingly given a position as spokesman for the Conservative party, ultimately joining the Conservatives in government as Press Secretary. 

And in a related development, the New Corp. lawyers turned against their former client.



News Corp. Lawyes Accusing the News Corp.
Are Lawyers Supposed to do That?



Rupert Murdoch's own lawyers launched an extraordinary attack on him and his son yesterday by accusing News International of misleadingly using their advice to give his company a clean bill of health on phone hacking.

How bad is a company when its own law firm accuses them of impropriety?

While the NOTW is a sister company to Fox News, there is no connection between Fox News and the NOTW, other than a credibility issue.  Does anyone who is familiar with Fox News doubt that a sister publication would illegally hack cell phones and then cover up the practice?  And does anyone believe that these latest revelations will see a retraction in the editorial section of the Wall Street Journal (owned by the News Corp) from their position of stoutly defending their former executive and their parent corporation?  Really, anyone?