News Corp rejects separating top jobs

By BBC

A majority of News Corp shareholders have voted against separating the roles of chairman and chief executive, both currently held by Rupert Murdoch.

Mr Murdoch's family owns about 12% of News Corp but, because of the dual class shareholding structure, has 40% of the voting shares in the company.
Two-thirds of votes cast, excluding the Murdoch family, wanted to separate the roles and have an independent chairman.
A resolution to change the shareholding structure was also rejected.

"There are plenty of media stocks to buy if they don't like this one," Mr Murdoch told the meeting.
"When you buy the stock, you know what the company is. If you don't like it, don't buy the stock."
Julie Tanner of the socially responsible Christian Brothers Investment Services proposed the resolution calling for an independent chairman.
"While Mr Murdoch claims that the interests of his family are in line with those of all shareholders, this vote proves that most independent shareholders would disagree," she said.
There was also support from about two-thirds of non-Murdoch votes for eliminating the distinction between voting and non-voting shares.

Corporate governance issues were raised after the phone-hacking scandal at News Corp's newspapers emerged last year.
"The failure of internal controls has had real and lasting repercussions," Julie Tanner said.
"It has shuttered a newspaper, launched criminal investigations, cancelled the BSkyB acquisition, eroded public trust and tarnished the company's reputation."

'Seized opportunity'
"This has been a difficult period in our company's 58-year history," Mr Murdoch told shareholders at the meeting in Los Angeles.
"We've acknowledged the serious wrongdoing that occurred in the United Kingdom," he said, adding that the company had "seized the opportunity to make amends" and to improve corporate compliance.

He said that the problems at its UK newspapers were not found in News Corp's other divisions.
Mr Murdoch also pointed out that News Corp's shares had risen 45% in the last 12 months.
News Corp has previously announced plans to split into two companies, separating its broadcasting and publishing businesses, with Mr Murdoch to chair both groups.

He told the meeting that the split would take time, and that there would be details on the executive leadership and board membership by the end of the year.

Phone hacking: Rebekah Brooks walked away 'with £7m pay-off'

Rebekah Brooks received a pay-off worth more than £7m following her resignation as News International chief executive last year, it emerged last night.

As part of her pay-off, the 44 year-old reportedly received cash, pension payments and an allowance for legal fees.

Sources also suggested she retained use of a chauffeur-driven car after she resigned following her more than 20 year career with NI.

It also included “substantial” clawback clauses, which entitle NI to recover some of the payment from the former newspaper editor in certain circumstances, the Financial Times reported.

The former head of Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper operation, who is awaiting trial next year on multiple charges in relation to the phone hacking scandal, joined NI in 1989.

Formerly Rebekah Wade, she was the editor of two of Mr Murdoch's newspapers, the News of the World and then the Sun, before taking on executive roles in the tabloids' publisher, NI.

The Telegraph
By Andrew Hough

News Corp. Nominates Alvaro Uribe, Colombia President Involved In Wiretapping Scandal, To Board

By Roque Planas, The Huffington Post

News Corp. plans to welcome the newest member to its board of directors on Tuesday: the former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.

For Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate, still reeling from a phone hacking scandal, Uribe is an odd choice, many journalists and press advocates say. Under Uribe's command, Colombia's intelligence service became mired in an illegal wiretapping scandal. Several ex-intelligence agents and former aides to Uribe now face criminal charges or investigations from the public prosecutor’s office, which accuses them of illegally spying on Supreme Court justices, journalists and human rights activists. Uribe, a controversial conservative leader, himself lashed out at journalists he perceived as critical during his two-term presidency from 2002 to 2010.

“It’s ironic that someone who has such an adversarial relationship with the press would be elected to the board of a media company,” Carlos Lauria, senior Americas program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told The Huffington Post. “His accusations endangered the lives of local reporters.”
News Corp. declined to comment on Uribe's appointment or his relationship with the press. The company did share a written statement submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission in September, describing Uribe as a potential addition to the board with meaningful international political experience. News Corp. contacted a spokesperson for Uribe on behalf of The Huffington Post, who did not respond to requests for comment.

Uribe, a highly popular political figure, is credited with restoring security to Colombia by dealing a near-fatal blow to the FARC, Latin America’s longest-lasting insurgent group. Formed in 1964, the Marxist rebels aimed to overthrow the Colombian government. The tactics they adopted, such as kidnapping hostages for years at a time and using the drug trade to finance operations, have blackened the group's name. The United States classifies the FARC as a terrorist organization.
Uribe left office in 2010 with an approval rating of 80 percent, according to Gallup.
But Uribe also polarized the country. Approaching his goal of defeating the FARC with zeal that for some bordered on the messianic, Uribe publicly painted certain journalists, social activists and human rights defenders as collaborators with leftwing terrorism when they criticized his policies.
The environment Uribe created made covering the Colombian government's half-century-old conflict even more dangerous, says reporter Hollman Morris, an investigative journalist and 2011 Harvard Nieman Fellow. Morris and his brother Juan Pablo Morris took cameras into the Colombian countryside during the years under Uribe to document atrocities.
That work involved interviewing members of the FARC -- something that infuriated Uribe. In 2009, Uribe publicly accused Morris of using journalism to be a “permissive accomplice of terrorism." Morris had interviewed four hostages in FARC captivity.
Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists hammered Uribe in a statement, saying the baseless accusations endangered Morris’ life by opening him up to retaliatory violence.
“Every report we did, we knew we were going to be threatened,” Morris told The Huffington Post. “Uribe made us into enemies of the country.”
The former president repeatedly lobbed similar accusations at other journalists, activists and union leaders, according to Human Rights Watch. He has continued the pattern since leaving office.
In 2010, senior vice president and executive news director for Univision Daniel Coronell, then a columnist for Semana, a Colombian news magazine, sued Uribe for slander after being accused of ties to organized crime in a series of tweets. Coronell had penned a column implicating Uribe’s sons in shady business dealings (they denied wrongdoing).

In August, Uribe accused Washington Post correspondent Juan Forero of being a “great sympathizer of the FARC” who had “defamed” his administration with a report on the illegal actions of the Colombia’s intelligence service, the Department of Administrative Security (DAS).
The Committee to Project Journalists’ Lauria calls the intelligence service’s abuses one of the “worst threats to journalism” during the Uribe administration. The DAS was like the CIA, FBI and U.S. Secret Service rolled into one, answering directly to the president.
Semana reported in 2009 that the DAS had illegally wiretapped and spied upon Colombian Supreme Court justices, journalists and other government critics. Panicked DAS agents fearing for their jobs sold off classified material to guerrillas, drug traffickers and foreign governments when the incoming administration of President Juan Manuel Santos announced two years later that it would close the agency down, Semana reported.
But DAS didn’t just illegally tap journalists’ phones -- it also threatened them with death, according to Semana.
Semana obtained a DAS manual from the public prosecutor's office in 2009 reportedly outlining how to make a threatening phone call to Claudia Duque, an independent journalist who reported that the DAS had interfered with an investigation into the murder of Jaime Garzón -- a popular political humorist and television journalist comparable to Jon Stewart. Semana reported that Duque’s name, phone number and email appear on the top of the manual, which instructs the agent making the call not to stutter and to keep it under 49 seconds.
Duque received the call on Nov. 17, 2004, according to Semana.
“We tried to tell you in every way we could. Now not even armored cars or lousy police reports will help you. We have no choice but to go after what you most love," the DAS agent said, going on to say he would rape Duque’s 10-year-old girl, according to Semana. “Your daughter is going to suffer. We’re going to burn her alive. We’re going to scatter her fingers around the house.”
Uribe's relationship with the press makes him a potentially eyebrow-raising addition to the News Corp. board. The company’s reputation was gravely damaged last year when it was reported that its London tabloid News of the World had culled its scoops for years by illegally hacking the voicemails of celebrities, an underage murder victim and the relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The revelation led to 50 arrests, torpedoed News Corp.’s $12 billion bid to take over British Sky Broadcasting and prompted criminal charges against eight of the defunct paper’s editors and journalists.
“It’s a funny thing for two people with illegal wiretaps in their recent past to be getting together,” Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America said in a telephone interview, referring to Uribe and Murdoch, News Corp.'s CEO. The Washington Office on Latin America is an advocacy organization that promotes human rights.
News Corp.'s board is asking its shareholders to elect Uribe to the board of directors at the group's annual meeting in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The move could again cast light on a board that some News Corp. shareholders wanted to sue, alleging it had failed to provide the oversight needed to stop the U.K. phone hacking scandal from occurring.

A spokesman for News Corp. declined to comment on Uribe’s nomination to the board, but forwarded a proxy statement the company shared with investors and the SEC on Sept. 4, which says:

Mr. Uribe brings to the Board strong leadership skills gained from his distinguished political career and service as President of Colombia. He offers the Board a valuable international perspective on political and governmental matters.

Uribe’s defenders point out that the Colombian courts haven’t charged him with wrongdoing in the DAS scandal, and no evidence demonstrates that Uribe gave direct orders to follow journalists, tap their telephones or threaten them with death.
“No smoking gun has emerged,” said Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America. The DAS’s flagrant illegality may owe to a few overzealous leaders who overstepped their bounds in pursuit of the FARC, he added.

But for political scientist Claudia Lopez, whose research helped uncover links between Colombian Congress members and rightwing paramilitary groups, there’s no need for direct evidence.
“To me it seems like inverted logic,” Lopez told The Huffington Post. “The DAS is an institution that answers directly to the presidency. It should be assumed that Uribe was giving the orders.”
Lopez viewed Uribe’s nomination to the board of News Corp. as ironic, but drew a distinction between the media company and the DAS.
“News Corp., as far as I know, never threatened anyone with death,” Lopez said. “Institutions that answered directly to Alvaro Uribe did.”

Glenn Mulcaire forced to reveal who gave phone-hacking order

Investigator used by the News of the World told to reveal who told him to hack Max Clifford assistant's phone

Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator used by the News of the World has been forced to reveal who ordered him to hack the phone of an assistant to PR Max Clifford in compliance with a supreme court order.

He was due to hand over the information in relation to the hacking of the phone of Nicola Phillips phone at 4pm on Wednesday.

But a high court judge, Mr Justice Vos ruled this information should only be handed to her barrister, her solicitor and to the Metropolitan police and could not be shared by other litigants who are suing News International over alleged phone hacking.

He will hold a separate one-day hearing to determine how widely the Mulcaire witness statement could be shared on 30 July, he said.

Lawyers acting for 50 phone-hacking victims argued at a case management conference hearing on Wednesday that this information could be critical to their claims.
Vos agreed there was some merit in their argument, but said he did not want to make "a knee-jerk decision" as he could "foresee there are difficult questions that affect his rights, his article 6 rights".
Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights relates to an individual's right to a fair trial.
Mulcaire, who was jailed in 2007 for charges in relation to hacking of phones of members of the royal household, had argued that disclosure could leave himself open further prosecution.

Lisa O’Carroll
The Guardian

Rupert Murdoch's phone-hacking scandal: A timeline

Murdoch built a media empire on newspapers, and now one — News of the World — could be his downfall. A chronography of when and how things went awry

published by THE WEEK

An electronic-eavesdropping scandal that started at Rupert Murdoch's Sunday tabloid News of the World is rapidly escalating into a full-fledged conflagration that threatens Murdoch, his global media empire, and the British government — and has already resulted in the arrest or resignation of several previously untouchable figures. How did allegations of listening in on the voicemails of the royal family snowball into a threat to one of the world's most powerful media titans? Here, a timeline of key events in the News Corp. phone-hacking scandal:

1843News of the World is first published, by John Browne Bell

1969Australian Rupert Murdoch buys the newspaper, his first toehold in Great Britain

1984Murdoch revamps News of the World from a broadsheet to a tabloid format

1989Rebekah Wade (she married horse trainer Charlie Brooks in 2009 and took his name) is hired at News of the World, as a secretary

2000Wade becomes editor of News of the World at age 32, making her Britain's youngest national newspaper editor

March 2002Milly Dowler, 13, disappears on a walk home in a London suburb. Days later, private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, working for News of the World, allegedly starts intercepting Dowler's cellphone voicemail messages, and erasing them to make room for more. The deletion of messages gives Dowler's family and the police false hope that Dowler is alive, until her remains are found in September 2002.

January 2003Wade becomes editor of sister News Corp. paper The Sun; her deputy since 2000, Andrew Coulson, becomes editor of News of the World
March 2003Wade tells a committee of the lower house of Parliament that News of the World has paid police officers for information; parent company News International says that is not common practice.

November 2005News of the World publishes a story on Prince William's knee injury, with confidential information that leads royal court officials to complain to police about intercepted voicemails. The police open an investigation.

August 8, 2006Mulcaire and News of the World royal-family editor Clive Goodman are arrested for phone-hacking

January 26, 2007Mulcaire and Goodman are jailed for six and four months, respectively. Coulson resigns as editor of News of the World, claiming "ultimate responsibility" for the hacking, but denying any knowledge of it.
May 2007News International lawyers conclude there is "no evidence" Coulson knew about Goodman's illegal activities. Coulson is hired as communications director for the Conservative Party and its leader, David Cameron.
December 2007James Murdoch, son of Rupert, becomes chief executive of News Corp.'s European and Asian operations

June 2009Rebekah Wade is named CEO of News International, effective in September. She marries Charlie Brooks; then–Prime Minister Gordon Brown (Labour) and current Prime Minister David Cameron (Tory) attend the wedding.
July 2009The Guardian reports that several News of the World journalists had intercepted the voicemails of celebrities and politicians, with the knowledge of senior staff, and that its parent company had paid more than $1.6 million to settle phone-hacking cases that could have unearthed evidence of broader hacking at the paper. Scotland Yard says it isn't reopening the case.

February 2010The House of Commons Culture, Media, and Sports Committee issues a scathing report saying it's "inconceivable" that News of the World managers didn't know about the "near industrial scale" phone-hacking at the tabloid.
May 2010Cameron becomes prime minister, and hires Coulson as his media chief.
September 2010The New York Times publishes a report, based on information from several former News of the World reporters and editors, that Coulson knew about and regularly discussed phone-hacking during his tenure; the Times article is also critical of Scotland Yard's efforts to investigate the hacking.

January 21, 2011Coulson resigns as Cameron's communications chief.
January 26, 2011Scotland Yard opens a new investigation of News of the World phone-hacking, citing new evidence.
April 2011Recently fired News of the World senior editor Ian Edmondson, chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, and senior journalist James Weatherup are arrested on phone-hacking charges. The tabloid acknowledges its role in hacking from 2004 to 2006, apologizes, and sets up a compensation system for unidentified victims.
June 23, 2011Levi Bellfield is convicted of the murder of Milly Dowler, after a tabloid-saturated trial. Police arrest freelance journalist Terenia Taras.
July 4, 2011The scandal starts in earnest, after The Guardian reports the hacking and erasing of Milly Dowler's voicemail messages.
July 5, 2011The list of alleged targets of News of the World hacking grows to include victims of the July 7, 2005, terrorist attack in London. The BBC reports that News International had turned over evidence that Coulson apparently signed off on paying police for information.
July 6, 2011The Daily Telegraph reports that News of the World had hacked the phones of families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cameron says he is "revolted" by the allegations.
July 7, 2011News International Chairman James Murdoch announces that News of the World is closing after a final July 10 edition.
July 8, 2011Coulson is arrested, and Goodman is arrested again, this time for bribing police officers.
July 10, 2011The last News of the World hits newsstands. Rupert Murdoch arrives in Britain to take charge of the mushrooming scandal, telling reporters that Rebekah Brooks is his "top priority."
July 11, 2011The scandal spreads to other Murdoch papers, including The Sun and Sunday Times, as Gordon Brown accuses the papers of illegally obtaining his personal financial records and the medical records of his 4-year-old son with cystic fibrosis.
July 13, 2011Rupert Murdoch withdraws his long-sought bid for TV powerhouse British Sky Broadcasting, which days earlier was widely considered a done deal. News Corp. will retain its 39 percent stake in the company.
July 14, 2011Murdoch, his son James, and Rebekah Brooks agree to testify before a parliamentary committee on July 19. The FBI opens an inquiry into allegations that News of the World tried to intercept the phone records of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York. Former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis is arrested.
July 15, 2011Brooks resigns as News International CEO. Her predecessor, Les Hinton, resigns as chairman of Murdoch's Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
July 17, 2011Brooks is arrested. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, the highest-ranking U.K. police official, steps down, following the police-bribery allegations and revelations that he had hired Neil Wallis as a communications consultant.
July 18, 2011Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner John Yates, who made the decision not to reopen the phone-hacking investigation in 2009, resigns. Bloomberg reports that News Corp. directors are considering replacing Rupert Murdoch as CEO with chief operating officer Chase Carey.
July 19, 2011Rupert and James Murdoch deny any knowledge of the hacking before a skeptical parliamentary committee; Wendi Murdoch saves husband Rupert from a shaving-cream pie in the face with a swift, brutal counterattack against the thrower. Brooks testifies separately, issuing similar denials. News Corp.'s stock rises.
July 28, 2011
New evidence surfaces suggesting that News of the World hacked the voicemail of Sara Payne, whose daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000. Payne had worked closely with the newspaper trying to pass tougher child protection laws, and the paper's editors had issued her the phone that was allegedly hacked. This is "the final indignity for the paper's former editor, Rebekah Brooks, who claimed to be a 'dear friend' of Payne's," says Jonathan Harwood at Britain's The First Post. Separately, a judicial inquiry is opened to determine if the country needs to update its laws regulating the media.
August 2, 2011
British police arrest their 11th suspect in the News of the World investigation. Journalist Stuart Kuttner, 71, is charged with conspiracy to intercept communications and corruption. In his former role as managing editor of the paper, Kuttner authorized all payments in the editorial budget, including any made to private investigators like Mulcaire. Separately, Jonathan May-Bowles, the British comedian who hit Murdoch with the shaving-cream pie, is sentenced to six weeks in jail for the attack.
August 10, 2011
Greg Miskiw, a former News of the World editor, is the 12th person arrested in the investigation. (He is quickly released on bail.) Murdoch vows to do "whatever is necessary" to prevent another scandal from upsetting his empire. And despite the bad press, News Corp.'s earnings for the April-to-June quarter top expectations.
October 21-24, 2011Murdoch fends off shareholder anger and revolt at News Corp's annual meeting. Sons James and Lachlan are re-elected to the News Corp. board, with more than a third of voting shareholders opposed.
November 3, 2011Scotland Yard says that 5,795 people likely had their phones hacked by News of the World.
November 4, 2011Police reportedly arrest a Sun reporter, Jamie Pyatt, in connection with the investigation of police bribery, Operation Elveden.
November 14, 2011Prime Minister Cameron opens a wide-ranging inquiry into the "culture, practices, and ethics of the press," headed by Lord Justice Levenson, an appellate court judge. Phone-hacking victims will testify.

February 11, 2012Police arrest five senior staff members at The Sun, along with three other people, in connection with Operation Elveden, bringing the police-bribery arrests to at least 20.
February 26, 2012Rupert Murdoch launches The Sun on Sunday to replace News of the World. He's accompanied by son Lachlan, in a sign that James Murdoch may be out as News Corp. heir apparent. The inaugural edition sells 3.26 million copies.
February 29, 2012James Murdoch steps down as chairman of News International, keeping his position as deputy chief operating officer at News Corp., focused on international TV operations.
March 13, 2012Rebekah Brooks is arrested for a second time, along with husband Charlie Brooks, News International security chief Mark Hanna, and three others, all charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in connection with the phone-hacking investigation, Operation Weeting. Five of the suspects, including Brooks, are released on bail.
April 3, 2012
James Murdoch resigns as chairman of BSkyB, the British satellite broadcaster partially owned by News Corp. The position was his "last major executive role in the British media," says John F. Burns at The New York Times.

Sources: AFP, BBC (2), Bloomberg, CNN (2), First Post, Guardian (2) (3) (4), Huffington Post (2), Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, New York Times (2), Politico, Reuters (2), Telegraph (2), Wikipedia (2), The Wrap

The Wall Street Journal Europe Publisher Andrew Langhoff orders partial destruction of print archive

From The Wall Street Journal Europe History

Andrew Langhoff Scandal

"In 2008 The Wall Street Journal Europe moved headquarters from Brussels to London, after 25 years of residence in the capital of Europe, after its parent company Dow Jones & Company was purchased by Rupert Murdochs News Corp. The newly appointed Wall Street Journal Europe Publisher/Managing Director Mr. Andrew Langhoff ordered the partial destruction of the print archive to facilitate the move from Brussels to London. A group of interns found the pictures published in this blog in the garbage cans outside the Wall Street Journal offices on the street in Brussels. This blog was created to save the historic pictures of The Wall Street Journal Europe and to find out who was portrayed in the pictures. If you recognize people in the pictures feel free to post their names or to add some comments."

http://www.wallstreetjournaleuropehistory.blogspot.co.uk/