Advisers to News Corporation shareholders say they are “deeply troubled” by the performances of Rupert and James Murdoch at the Leveson inquiry into media ethics.
US shareholders are said to be worried that the Murdochs’ testimony this week has raised new questions about the management of the company and posed potential threats to other areas of its media empire.
Michael Pryce-Jones, senior policy analyst with Change To Win (CtW), a US advisory group that works with pension funds with over $200bn in assets, said the Murdochs’ testimony raised two immediate concerns for shareholders: the future of the firm’s control of broadcaster BSkyB and the ethics of top management.
“The big question is what does this mean for BSkyB,” he said. “Sky is one of their best assets.”
===============
Also see: Murdoch watch – apocalypse when? and Murdoch watch – signaling the end
The Money Party RSS
No way could Murdoch claw his way out of this pit unscathed. The big question coming up is will he step down voluntarily, or will his pride force him (or his son) into a OJ-esqe circus trial where even having it at all is a major defeat.
The other thing I wonder is who is selling him down the river? Are the elites so sick of him that they want him gone, or are they just sidelining it due to the strong case against? I always wonder at the “back room pool” that goes on during these public squirmfests.
Who is selling down the river?
The first certified member of the U.S. power elite to take a shot across the bow of Rupert’s empire was non other than U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller in July 2011:
“I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans. If they did, the consequences will be severe.” Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, July 12, 2011 (8 days after the July 4 Guardian piece that broke the scandal)
Fox News was over the top in agitating the budget crisis of 2011 that led to the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating. There was no reason for this crisis, it was damaging in a number of critical ways, and Murdoch focused his raw power in ways that he had not since he helped lie the nation to war in 2003.
Rockefeller was appalled by the faux budget crisis and was on record as condemning the tactics that led to the Iraq invasion. In June, 2008, he said, ““In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.” Fox was a full partner in this very deception.
I think that the more rational faction of the elite saw Murdoch as an out of control screw ball who could whip up enough of the masses to do great damage, a nihilist with a $33 billion media empire.
This didn’t just pop into Rockefeller’s head. He issued a press release and let matters alone after calling for a DoJ investigation, which he got immediately.
Now the connection between British Murdoch and U.S. Murdoch has come full circle with shareholders here looking to the scandal there as a means of throwing him out. BSkyB is the data they need for the Delaware court hearing the main case to remove Murdoch from the board. The imperative will come in the form of the British reglator Ofcom saying Murdoch is not a “fit and proper” owner of a British television network. Ofcom doesn’t need to wait for a conviction on this. The agency has it’s own task force gathering evidence from the Leveson hearing. When they’ve had enough, Murdoch will be tarred and that’s that. There will be a sell off of the News Corp components and there will not be another Murdoch, I suspect.
My thoughts, anyway.
The Money Party RSS
