phone hacking scandal

Last week’s eight arrests in England sharply increase the danger to News Corp. of potential multimillion dollar fines by U.S. authorities as part of the continuing investigation into alleged bribery of public officials under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The threat of prosecution under the FCPA constitutes the greatest danger of the phone-hacking scandal for Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. It could expose the company to tens of millions of dollars in fines and the risk of imprisonment of its executive officers.

What happened on the fateful night last May when Rupert Murdoch decided how News Corp. would manage its phone-hacking scandal?

The criminal investigation into British tabloid skullduggery turned full force on a second Rupert Murdoch publication Saturday, with the arrest of four current and former journalists from The Sun on suspicion of bribing police. A serving police officer was also held.

Amid the scandal at the company’s British newspaper unit, Chase Carey, News Corp.’s president, has increased his influence, presenting a steady and less polarizing figure. Some regard him as the emerging face of the company.

Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper company on Thursday agreed to pay damages to 36 high-profile victims of tabloid phone-hacking.

In an eagerly awaited appearance before the U.K.’s media ethics committee, Piers Morgan, who replaced Larry King on CNN, was visibly tense, sometimes hostile and often rejected characterizations of his actions made by inquiry lawyers as “nonsense.”

LONDON (AP) — CNN star interviewer Piers Morgan will talk about his former job as editor of one of Britain’s troubled tabloids at a judge-led inquiry into the practices of […]

British police on Wednesday made their 18th arrest in connection with the phone hacking scandal that has rocked Rupert Murdoch’s media business.

James Murdoch has resigned as director of News Group Newspapers Ltd. — publisher of The Sun — and Times Newspapers Ltd. — publisher of The Times and Sunday Times.

Lawyers for Scotland Yard and News Corp. disputed the suggestion that at least 28 employees of News Corp.’s U.K. newspaper unit as people who may have requested illegal voice-mail intercepts.

Called back to Britain’s Parliament after former News Corp. employees challenged his credibility, senior executive James Murdoch insisted he’d been kept in the dark about widespread phone hacking at his now-defunct News of the World tabloid, blaming two of his senior lieutenants for failing to warn him of the paper’s culture of criminality.

Evidence has mounted that top News International executives knew phone hacking was pervasive, casting doubts on James Murdoch’s previous testimony.

Jamie Pyatt, an award-winning editor at Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun, has been arrested on suspicion of police corruption. An ethics scandal at the Sun could mean further legal and financial problems for Murdoch’s global media empire, which has already had to write off $91 million in restructuring costs linked to the closure of its now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

New documents show Rupert’s former heir apparent had been told of the gravity of the phone-hacking scandal. Staying alive at News Corp. will require a Houdini trick.

More than 100 people demonstrated Friday outside the annual meeting on the lot of News Corp.’s Fox Studios in Los Angeles. British lawmaker Tom Watson asked CEO Rupert Murdoch whether he was aware that a person who had left prison was hired by News Corp. and hacked the computer of a former army intelligence officer.

Mark Lewis, a U.K. lawyer who represents the family of hacking victim Milly Dowler, has consulted with U.S. lawyers about bringing a case against the News Corp. board within the next couple weeks.

News Corp. was sent a letter by U.S. prosecutors investigating foreign bribery, requesting information on alleged payments employees made to U.K. police for tips, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

News International, Murdoch’s British newspaper division, said it hopes to reach agreement soon with the family of Milly Dowler whose phone was hacked by Britain’s now defunct News of the World newspaper.

The ABC sitcom won best comedy series, supporting acting Emmys for TV parents Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell and best writing and direction. AMC’s Mad Men won the best drama series award and Kyle Chandler was the surprise best actor winner from NBC’s Friday Night Lights. Alec Baldwin was to be part of an opening video for Sunday night’s ceremony airing on News Corp.-owned Fox. But he tweeted before the awards that the network had killed his joke about the hacking scandal in Britain involving the now-closed News of the World tabloid.

LONDON (AP) — An electic mix of celebrities, crime victims and former police suspects will take part in a judge-led inquiry into the state of Britain’s scandal-tarred press. Lord Justice […]

James Murdoch will have to return to the House of Commons to face more questions about phone-hacking, committee Chairman John Whittingdale said Tuesday. But the committee said News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch — who appeared alongside his son at a July 19 U.K. hearing that was televised around the world — was not being recalled.

Jonathan Chapman, the former director of legal affairs with News International, said Rupert Murdoch wasn’t being accurate when he told Parliament that he blamed the London law firm Harbottle & Lewis for failing to uncover the scope of the hacking scandal back in 2007.

Rupert Murdoch and his son James, accused by two former employees of misleading Parliament last month, will be hauled back to testify again — this time under oath. As the News Corp. phone-hacking and police-bribery scandal continues to unfold, the company is expanding its internal investigation, led by former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein.

News Corp.’s senior management is starting to think about what the company might do if James Murdoch stepped aside, sources inside and close to the global media empire said. With Rupert Murdoch’s younger son under increasing pressure from the phone-hacking scandal enveloping the company, News Corp.executives want to be prepared if he wants to “take a breather,” one News Corp source said.

James Desborough, the Los Angeles-based U.S. editor of the News of the World, was arrested Thursday by police investigating the phone-hacking scandal at the paper — becoming the first U.S.-based journalist arrested in the case.

In written testimony released by lawmakers today, former Murdoch lieutenants poked holes in the dramatic testimony delivered by their ex-bosses Rupert and James before Parliament last month, accusing them of misrepresentations, exaggerations and more.

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch’s stance came as the company reported that its net income fell in the last quarter by 22%, mainly because of the sale of money-losing social-networking site Myspace. The phone hacking scandal and questions about Murdoch’s control of News Corp. overshadowed the media giant’s results, which beat expectations when excluding the Myspace sale.

News Corp. executives will try to use a board meeting and full-year earnings this week to steer attention away from the scandal at the media giant’s U.K. newspapers unit and refocus investors on the company’s core operations.

News Corp. is facing about 35 privacy-invasion lawsuits against its News of the World, the tabloid at the center of the phone-hacking scandal. That is up from about two dozen in April.

CNN said it is standing by television host Piers Morgan amid growing media scrutiny over his past as a tabloid editor in Britain, where a widening scandal over reporting tactics has led to a re-examination of the tabloid-newspaper industry.

Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer of media giant News Corp., and his father, tycoon Rupert Murdoch, testified before a parliamentary committee about the widening allegations of phone tapping and bribery at the Murdoch-owned News of the World tabloid. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee said Friday it now wanted more information from the younger Murdoch because his testimony was disputed by former News of the World editor Colin Myler and Tom Crone, former lawyer for News Corp.’s British arm, News International.

The FBI is in the initial stage of a probe of News Corp. as investigators evaluate whether U.S. charges can be brought over claims employees hacked into a rival’s website and sought access to phone records of victims of the 9/11 attacks, a person familiar with the matter said.

An investigator hacking phones for News of the World reportedly targeted the mother of another murdered girl, possibly using a phone given to her by Rebekah Brooks.

NEW YORK (AP) — CNN knew Piers Morgan had a colorful past as a London tabloid editor when the network installed him as Larry King’s replacement this year, but surely […]