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Sunday, July 15, 2012, 5pm ET.
Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain
Chat with Martin Hickman about his new book, hosted by our friend Spocko.
Dial M for Murdoch uncovers the inner workings of one of the most powerful companies in the world: how it came to exert a poisonous, secretive influence on public life in Britain, how it used its huge power to bully, intimidate and cover up, and how its exposure has changed the way we look at our politicians, our police service and our press.
Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers had been hacking phones, blagging information and casually destroying people’s lives for years, but it was only after a trivial report about Prince William’s knee in 2005 that detectives stumbled on a criminal conspiracy. A five-year cover-up then concealed and muddied the truth. Dial M for Murdoch gives the first connected account of the extraordinary lengths to which the Murdochs’ News Corporation went to “put the problem in a box” (in James Murdoch’s words), how its efforts to maintain and extend its power were aided by its political and police friends, and how it was finally exposed.
The book is full of details which have never been disclosed before in public, including the smears and threats against politicians, journalists and lawyers. It reveals the existence of brave insiders who pointed those pursuing the investigation towards pieces of secret information that cracked open the case.
By contrast, many of the main players in the book are unsavoury, but by the end of it you have a clear idea of what they did. Seeing the story whole, as it is presented here for the first time, allows the character of the organisation which it portrays to emerge unmistakeably. You will hardly believe it.
MARTIN HICKMAN has worked for the Independent since 2001, and has driven the paper’s coverage of the phone hacking scandal. He was named Journalist of the Year by the Foreign Press Association in 2009. (Penguin Books)
2 Comments
Thank you, Elliot, I’m looking forward to this Book Salon.
DW
Even overseas the Murdoch empire has protected Mitt Romney from normal background checks. Amazing to watch as reporters and editors avoid clawing into the Mittster’s lies about his personal history.
It took Occupy Security to dig in. The worst of it is hideous.
– Mitt Romney — fatal accident at Beaulac revisited
– foolmoon.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/337209/all/Mitt_Romney_fatal_accident_at_.html
Romney drove very badly indeed. As badly as Dick Cheney pointed his bird gun. He was 100% responsible for killing Leola Anderson in 1968 and has lied about it ever since with Team Lying support.
There was no “drunk priest,” no “Albert Marie” despite the Mittster’s Team Lying success spoofing Michael Kranish and Steve Helman and the rest of our copycat corporate press.
Bishop Jean Vilnet was the other driver. Sober. Sitting in a Left Turn lane on N524 when Romney plowed him head-on. Talked with photographer Andre Salarnier in the Bazas hospital after the wreck.
The project had to be located totally outside corporate press. Murdoch is the most obvious pro-corporatist mogul, but all of the big media companies have similar politics.
Romney’s anti-Catholic aggression early-on led us to analyze the Andre Salarnier photos from the accident aftermath. Romney and his people are shameless liars — apparently the most of them and every chance they get to lie to us “Gentiles.” This has expanded to fake web sites and professional google-tweaking schemes. It’s like dealing with techie-gangsters out of Eastern Europe.