Economy
Did Murdoch win?
our years ago Rupert Murdoch was on the brink. Now he’s resurgent. Martin Hickman, co-author of Dial M for Murdoch, asks whether the phone hacking scandal changed anything.
Let’s freeze-frame the moment. It’s 2.39pm on a July day in 2011 and the world’s most powerful media magnate is atoning. In front of British MPs, his wife, his PR advisers, and a global TV audience, Rupert Murdoch says: “This is the most humble day of my life.”
The billionaire is going before the Commons Media and Culture Committee because the “rogue reporter” excuse for phone hacking at his London newspapers has finally collapsed, like a tottering drunk.
People are bitching that the News of the World hacked into the phones of terrorists and murder victims, as well as actors and footballers. Murdoch’s UK newspaper group, News International, has closed the newspaper.
Detectives investigating hacking have arrested Rebekah Brooks, days after she quit as News International’s chief executive. They have also arrested Andy Coulson, another of the News of the World’s former editors.
David Cameron’s coalition government, who employed Coulson as director of communications, has called a public inquiry into the ethics of the press. A tougher system of newspaper regulation looks likely.
Worst of all, because of all the fuss Murdoch’s holding company, News Corporation, has dropped its take-over of Sky, Britain’s biggest commercial broadcaster. An £8 billion deal down the drain.
Murdoch is in a hole.
Fast forward four years. Murdoch has not been prosecuted. He and his family are £3 billion richer. David Cameron is back in Number 10, leading a majority government…
…and Rebekah Brooks is back in charge of his British newspapers.
Of all the big beasts in the tabloid jungle, only Coulson had to do time in chokey, at Belmarsh high security prison.
How did ‘The Digger’ dig himself out of trouble? Did the “phone hacking scandal,” which turned into an existential crisis in British public life, make any difference
• Byline: The Restoration of Rebekah … How Murdoch hacked the UK