Pic*: In the pew … some, later in The Dock: Rupert and his minions attend church …
TT linked to this story off a news report … It is a brilliant analysis of the ‘Trial of the Century’. We point to it again … Rupert Murdoch’s money washed through the ‘trial of the century’ like a Rolls-Royce. The story behind the News of the World scandal was not about journalists behaving badly, but the power of money and its abuses
This was no ordinary trial.
It was unusual in its sheer scale: more than three years of police work; 42,000 pages of crown evidence; seven months of hearings; up to 18 barristers in court at any one time; 12 defendants facing allegations of crime spreading back over a decade.
But what made it most unusual was what it represented. First, this was a long-delayed showdown between the criminal justice system and parts of Fleet Street, in which the reputations of both was at stake. Beyond that, however, this was a trial by proxy, in which Rebekah Brooks stood in the dock on behalf of a media mogul and Andy Coulson acted as avatar for the prime minister, with the reputations of Rupert Murdoch and David Cameron equally in jeopardy. Officially, the trial was all about crime; in reality, it was all about power.
And just as the main players were absent from the court, so the real issues which for years had inflamed public opinion were not mentioned on the indictment – the perception that some news organisations were all too happy to invade privacy and ruin lives in order to sell more papers; that they regarded themselves as not only above the law but above the government, which would do their will or suffer for it; that they had poisoned the mainstream of public debate with a daily drip-feed of falsehood and distortion.
Read the full article, The Guardian, here
• Robin Lustig: Something is rotten What do you call an organisation, originally based in Sicily, that uses bribes and threats to buy influence and power? Here’s a clue: it begins with the letter M. Here’s another question: Whom did the Labour MP Tom Watson, at a parliamentary select committee hearing in November 2011, call “the first mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise”? Again, the answer begins with the letter M. That’s M for Murdoch. In this case, James Murdoch, the hapless son hung out to dry. Forget Andy Coulson. If you can, forget phone-hacking. The real scandal is how senior politicians — and police officers — allowed themselves to be used by a ruthless media tycoon for his own commercial ends. And if you think it’s all over, it’s not … • HERE
