Fox News Parent to Pay $4.7 to Family of Murder Victim Whose Phones Were Hacked and Censors Emmy Show

No Comment from News Corp. on the Payment

In England the News Corp., the parent of Fox News and the owner of the Wall Street Journal has agreed to pay $4.7 million, part of which will go to charity, to the family of a 13 year old girl who mobile phone was hacked by one of its British newspapers.



Nws Corp. Head Rupert Murdoch
"Here's $4.7 million, please don't sue us.



The payments stem from allegations that in 2002 News of the World hacked the voice mails of missing 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who it turned out had been murdered. The revelation this summer that Ms. Dowler had been a target of phone hacking triggered widespread public outrage and escalated the scandal, which led to the July closure of the weekly tabloid and the resignation of two senior News Corp. executives. It also derailed a multibillion-dollar acquisition the company had planned to make.

A News International spokesman declined to comment. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.

In July, News Corp Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch met with and apologized to the Dowler family. He has also called the phone-hacking scandal generally a "major black eye" for the company.

In separate but related story, the News Corp. refused to allow actor Alec Baldwin to make a joke about the phone hacking scandal in a taped comic bit that was presented at the Emmy awards show, which was shown on the Fox television network.  The official line of the News Corp. was that it did not think the scandal should be trivialized by a joking reference to News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch listening in on a phone call.



Doesn't Apply to Fox News



Not exactly the “fair and balanced” or “we report, you decide” approach was it.  More like the “we don’t report so you can’t decide” attitude of a bully of a company that controls a large share of the media. 

Oh, and just for the record, the joke was not all that funny.