The Official Newscorp/UK end of season finale/Rebekah Brooks did 9/11 thread

Yes, but your admin errors really ARE admin errors.

John Yates has just given a public statement about his resignation

aka Yates' whines lodged

The ExNOTWJourno2 Twitter feed is making something of this:

Boss of the parent group of UK mobile phone networks Orange and T-Mobile is standing down for "personal reasons"

yah that is what my brother is working on, it's some wild wild stuff

I'm with T-mobile, do you think I could use this as grounds for ditching my contract with them.

A new rush of things:

17.41 The IPCC says it is investigating four senior officers or former officers.

Quote We have today received referrals from the Metropolitan Police Authority about the conduct of four current or former senior Metropolitan Police officers. The matters referred involve:
• The conduct of the Met Commissioner in carrying overall responsibility for the investigation into phone hacking
• The conduct of Assistant Commissioner John Yates: in his review in July 2009 and overall role in relation to the phone hacking investigation; and in his alleged involvement in inappropriately securing employment for the daughter of a friend;
• The conduct of two former senior officers in their role in the phone hacking investigation.

17.33 Breaking: IPCC investigating claims John Yates inappropriately secured employment for Neil Wallis's daughter

The IPCC says it is investigating John Yates for his role in the phone-hacking investigation but also for securing inappropriate employment for the daughter of a friend. Our crime correspondent Mark Hughes says that that friend is understood to be Neil Wallis.

17.30 More info on the social engagement with Rebekah Brooks inadvertently left off the list released by Downing Street last week. Apparently it was Cameron's birthday party.

T-Mobile and Orange just merged about a year ago, so is it an Orange person or a T-Mobile person?

Vodafone are on the African jolly with Cameron BTW.

More info on the social engagement with Rebekah Brooks inadvertently left off the list released by Downing Street last week. Apparently it was Cameron's birthday party.

Holy shitbags, this is a gift that'll keep on giving.

haha otm that's a narrative right there

And now this?

BREAKING Former and current DPPs (Ken Macdonald and Keir Starmer) to give evidence to MPs on home affairs select cttee tomororrow

Sources close to the company said they expected Alexander to be followed out of the door by a "wave" of senior executives.

Though I gather this is the same Macdonald mentioned earlier.

Sky's Mark Yates says that the IPCC are not confirming that the daughter of Neil Wallis, the former NOTW deputy editor, was the person who gained employment thanks to John Yates.

"happy birthday dave!!!"

"a... shit sandwich! just what i always wanted!"

More info on the social engagement with Rebekah Brooks inadvertently left off the list released by Downing Street last week. Apparently it was Cameron's birthday party.

oh maaaaaaan, amazing

"admin error"!!! just HAPPENED to be dave's b'day!

But, but, his birthday is in October?

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.

Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, is said to have been found dead at his Watford home.

Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but the force said in a statement: "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.

"The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."

???

oh christ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/news-of-the-world-sean-hoare

News of the World phone hacking whistleblower found dead

Death of Sean Hoare – who was first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson knew of hacking – not being treated as suspicious

shit got real-er

And now this?

BREAKING Former and current DPPs (Ken Macdonald and Keir Starmer) to give evidence to MPs on home affairs select cttee tomororrow
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 18 July 2011 11:54 (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

IIRC Ken Macdonald was an adulterer, what did NOTW have on him?

Speaking to a Guardian reporter last week, Hoare repeatedly expressed the hope that the hacking scandal would lead to journalism in general being cleaned up and said he had decided to blow the whistle on the activities of some of his former News of the World colleagues with that aim in mind.

He also said he has been injured at a party the previous weekend while taking down a marquee erected for a children's party. He said he had broken his nose and badly injured his foot when a relative accidentally struck him with a heavy pole from the marquee.

Hoare also emphasised that he was not making any money from telling his story. Hoare, who has been treated for drug and alcohol problems, reminisced about partying with former pop stars and said he missed the days when he was able to go out on the town.

dear lord there is a freight of insinuation in these three paragraphs.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/charlotte-harris-a-star-witness-who-risks-prosecution-is-an-unlikely-liar-2070650.html

guys if somebody wanted Hoare out of the way this probly wasn't the best week?

what a weird coinkydink tho

Not suggesting that - dude had some issues and 24/7 news cycle probably not adding much value to his mental health. As far as speaking out about Coulson, though, he was the canary in the mineshaft.

Must have been a hell of a pole to break a nose and injure a foot at the same time.

Hmmm...

ExNOTWjourno2 Marie X
RIP Sean.. Now i'm really going to go for the jugular.

And from our founder:

tomewing Tom Ewing
"The death is not being treated as suspicious, except by everyone reading about it."

18.19 Sean Hoare, who has reportedly been found dead, made fresh allegations against the News of the World last week in the New York Times.

"A former show-business reporter for The News of the World, Sean Hoare, who was fired in 2005, said that when he worked there, pinging cost the paper nearly $500 on each occasion. He first found out how the practice worked, he said, when he was scrambling to find someone and was told that one of the news desk editors, Greg Miskiw, could help. Mr. Miskiw asked for the person’s cellphone number, and returned later with information showing the person’s precise location in Scotland, Mr. Hoare said. Mr. Miskiw, who faces questioning by police on a separate matter, did not return calls for comment."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FZ2FA-epcE&feature=player_detailpage#t=70s

HackneyAbbott

IPCC investigating the Met Police top brass. I wouldn't worry too much, if I was Yates and co. IPCC a toothless tiger.
2 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

toothless tigers usually arent congenitally toothless tho

nick davies has a warm farewell piece for sean hoare up:

he had bought, sold and snorted cocaine with some of the most powerful names in tabloid journalism. One retains a senior position on the Daily Mirror. "I last saw him in Little Havana," he recalled, "at three in the morning, on his hands and knees. He had lost his cocaine wrap. I said to him, 'This is not really the behaviour we expect of a senior journalist from a great Labour paper.' He said, 'Have you got any fucking drugs?'"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b7DgOeMnW4

guys if somebody wanted Hoare out of the way this probly wasn't the best week?

then again, if you wanted him out of the way and knew the police also had a vested interest in his removal, really the sooner the better - especially if you know the police will report it as 'not suspicious' no matter what

^^^also no idea how long he'd been there before they found him, yes?

Inquest, when?

I notice that this thread has managed to spend even less time on the defense review than the mainstream media. Do people really have nothing to say? (I spent my afternoon with journos and people waiting to lose their jobs) It's another tory attack on Scotland, but this time it leaves British armed forces in an impossible position.

this is not the uk politics thread!

Think you're looking for the other thread dowd

xp

DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

I thought this was the new UK pol thread and the other was locked! sorry about that - I guess the silence on the other confused me.

The previous DEM-CON threas was locked, that one is the new one.

Ah, I must have got lost between the two.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/mystery-bag-bin-rebekah-brooks

would be some real poetic justice in people rooting through a tabloid editor's bins preceding their downfall

it does sorta sound like the least believable story as yet presented in this saga

http://www.foxnewsuk.com/

blowing whistles in heaven now

NYTimes goes in. HUGE amount of allegations, go nuts. Plus plenty of roffles:

Mr. Dacre, The Daily Mail editor, told his senior managers that he had received several reports from businesspeople, soccer stars and public relations agencies that the News International executives Will Lewis and Simon Greenberg had encouraged them to investigate whether their phones had been hacked by Daily Mail newspapers . “They thought it was unfair that all the focus was on The News of the World,” said one News International official with knowledge of the effort. The two men have told colleagues they did not make such calls, but two company officials disputed that.

Mr. Dacre confronted Ms. Brooks over breakfast at the plush Brown’s hotel. “You are trying to tear down the entire industry,” Mr. Dacre told her, according to an account he relayed to his management team.

Ms. Brooks, whose tenacity is legendary, was not deterred. At a dinner party, Lady Claudia Rothermere, the wife of the billionaire owner of The Daily Mail, overheard Ms. Brooks saying that The Mail was just as culpable as The News of the World. “We didn’t break the law,” Lady Rothermere said, according to two sources with knowledge of the exchange. Ms. Brooks asked who Lady Rothermere thought she was, “Mother Teresa?”

re: dacre, thought this was interesting:

Asked whether unlawful newsgathering techniques could ever be justified, he said: "Goodness me, deep waters. I have considerable sympathy that if there's a great public interest then those methods can be justified."

However, he added later: "I don't think you should ever use hacking or blagging as a [public interest] defence because they're criminal offences."

like how much room is he leaving here for diff readings of 'if there's a great public interest' - like there is an obvious defence when it's regarding genuine journalistic enquiry, but given that the daily mail peddles a lot of gutter bullshit about cellulite and celebrity affairs that, y'know, there's a great public interest in, it's p interesting.

Mr. Murdoch was attending a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in early July when it became clear that the latest eruption of the hacking scandal was not, as he first thought, a passing problem. According to a person briefed on the conversation, he proposed to one senior executive that he “fly commercial to London,” so he might be seen as man of the people. He was told that would hardly do the trick, and he arrived on a Gulfstream G550 private jet.