The Official Newscorp/UK end of season finale/Rebekah Brooks did 9/11 thread

At Rupert Murdoch's tabloids, refusing to play ball meant being pushed to the sidelines. One reporter who said he went through that was Charles Begley, News of the World's Harry Potter correspondent in 2001 when Brooks was its editor.

The then 29-year-old reporter said he wore a Harry Potter costume to work and officially changed his name to that of the fictional boy wizard, all part of the paper's attempt to tap into the Pottermania sweeping both sides of the Atlantic.

On Sept. 11, hours after the fall of the Twin Towers, Begley was stunned to be chewed out by News of the World management for not wearing his costume. He said he was then ordered to attend the next news meeting in full Potter regalia.

can someone shop that shop of the 911 towers photo, with a plane in the background, so the guy is wearing a potter costume

you can just draw on glasses & a scar

Something to keep an eye on:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/20/phone-hacking-ni-murodchs

Jon Chapman, News International's former director of legal affairs, is understood to be preparing to write to the parliamentary committee looking into phone hacking in order to answer allegations made by his former employers, the Murdochs.

Chapman was one of a handful of senior and external legal advisers whose opinion on the extent of phone hacking at the newspaper group was called into question on Tuesday by James and Rupert Murdoch who appeared before MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee. The Murdochs offered what could be described as a "blame the lawyers" defence.

On gardening leave having left News International two weeks ago, Chapman could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. However, he is understood to be preparing to write a letter to John Whittingdale, the chairman of the culture select committee, to "set the record straight", according to sources close to situation.

Any evidence from Chapman is likely to be extremely important in offering an opposing view of the critical 2007 internal inquiry put forward by the Murdochs and former chief executive Rebekah Brooks to MPs on Tuesday.

wow that sounds like a hot lead, let's just wait for him to put down the trowel & come back inside to get to the bottom of this

"...gardening leave" ?

paid leave while under investigation or whatever

british synonyms for 'house arrest'

For lawyers it's usually a paid period where they can't work for a competitor.

"...bizarre gardening accident..."

Finally, something important:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrR3bnLApDs

on that note, ny mag ran with Wendi Daaaang as their headline

for wendi deng:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6deOgwlyLs

Even though it's animated, still too much info on the 'RUPERT IS VERY MUCH STILL ALIVE' bit.

nymag is awful sometimes

"gardening leave" can also refer to when people resign and take all their leftover vacation days in one lump at the end, so that they keep getting paid for (x) number of days even though they've already left

god that cunt with the pie needs curbstomping

wasn't there a whole thing about this, where NotW execs were claiming that legal privilege meant their lawyers couldn't spill the beans about anything, or even defend themselves against accusations?

Something like that, yeah.

Meantime, go California?

Jon Craig of Sky News reports that David Cameron has gone in to see the Conservative 1922 backbench committee to justify his response to the phone-hacking scandal, including his decision to hire Andy Coulson.

Craig says there was 40 seconds of "desk banging" when the prime minister entered the room, intended to give him the message: "Stick it up 'em, carry on and it'll be all right in the end!"

pretty much every member of the 1922 committee deserves to be locked in a 10' square room with 200 ferrets

We need an Americanism to replace 'desk banging,' obv.

i wish the 1922 committee meetings were televised

irrumatio xp

what i've always wondered is whose blood the goblets are filled with

xpost -- Ah yes, Latin America.

i've worked in westminster fwiw. if a shorter version of that article was in the telegraph or the guardian then he would have gone immediately because it would be the lead thing on the today show every day until he quit

― caek, Wednesday, 20 July 2011

?

there were shorter versions in the guardian all the time.

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/17/how-the-guardian-broke-the-news-of-the-world-hacking-scandal.html

btw mensch makes me think of a phrase of julie burchill's - explaining her support for thatcher - something about "mistaking cruelty for idealism"

Why are Mensch's adenoids not worthy of comment when Miliband's are?

yah it's not right that adenoidal tory mps and twittosphere LEGENDS get to be called MENSCH

http://www.alanconnor.com/log/2011/murdoch-pie-attack-i-was-there/

re: pie-thrower, i can't help but think...dude is only 26? he looks FKN AWFUL for his age :o

Mensch was saying to Jon Snow last night, in a comically diplomatic/poker-faced way that she was not a member of the 1922 committee because it is "not...really...representative of the views of MPs from my intake"

P big achievement to look like a more haggard version of Ricky Gervais while being 24 years younger than Ricky Gervais I guess

it is still amazing to me that somehow he managed to get the pie right in his own face

the guy has more talent than we thought i guess

that was wendi! after she slapped him she threw the plate back at him

They should be on a reboot of It's A Knockout.

All the "Thanks alot, pie idiot!" is a little OTT. I bet the hearing are getting more coverage today because of that stunt. No doubt even the articles that mainly focus on the pie are still explaining what it's all about, the non-pie aspect of it. The internet loves a backlash tho....

I don't think it's so much serious belief that it will have "played into RM's hands" or w/e, more just that it was a big deal to see him finally held to account and not the kind of thing you want derailed by facile student flashmob idiot shit

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/20/why-i-foam-pied-rupert-murdoch

Can't remember if this has been posted already? "Jonnie Marbles received no fee for this article" was funny, don't want another Max Gogarty on your hands

He said he "did it for all the people who couldn't", to which one of the 780-odd radged off commenters said "nobody asked you to"

I think "why I foam-pied Murdoch" as an article title still gives him too much credit, he got it on his jacket then got battered and pied by his wife, right?

the response might be OTT, because the internet sure loves a pile-on, but the anger is valid. the hearing didn't need any publicity, at least not in the UK. it was already top of the news material. today's stories should have been exclusively examining what the Murdochs and Brooks said to Parliament, and how it stands up to what we already know, and where the investigation will go next. instead a section of the press, especially the Murdoch-controlled section, has been able to change the focus of attention ever so slightly to the adventures of some mook who is so unbearable in real life that he has to pull softcore shite like this - and still fails at it - in order to get the attention he clearly craves.

If politics is all about tactics then this cunt is the Leeroy Jenkins of the anti News Corp movement.

my objections to him are as much aesthetic as political. oh you threw a cream pie how ~wacky~ and ~playful~ YOU CUNT.

This bit from a Forbes article I read is fuckin' killer:

At Rupert Murdoch's tabloids, refusing to play ball meant being pushed to the sidelines. One reporter who said he went through that was Charles Begley, News of the World's Harry Potter correspondent in 2001 when Brooks was its editor.

The then 29-year-old reporter said he wore a Harry Potter costume to work and officially changed his name to that of the fictional boy wizard, all part of the paper's attempt to tap into the Pottermania sweeping both sides of the Atlantic.

On Sept. 11, hours after the fall of the Twin Towers, Begley was stunned to be chewed out by News of the World management for not wearing his costume. He said he was then ordered to attend the next news meeting in full Potter regalia.

Shaken by the demand, Begley never showed up, and soon afterward parted ways with the paper.

Marbles didn't do it to protest against Murdoch, he did it to promote his 'comedy' act. Fuck him. It was one step below two old time music hall guys bursting in and going "I say I say I say" "I do not wish to know that, kindly leave the inquiry!"

I am still laughing at the idea of a Harry Potter correspondent.

Marbles is sub-Custos at best.

luckily, he's so obviously talentless and unlikeable that there's no actual danger that he'll successfully ca-
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Media/Pix/pictures/2009/3/6/1236368746637/Piers-Morgan-001.jpg

lol

apparently CNN is going big on the murdochs, but very very small on their man piers having been a NOTW editor?