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

Would releasing the Sun info actually threaten anything? Couldn't the police then be like "ummm, we would like to see this file" to get what they had already read online? Or am I being fickle?

LATEST: Ex-News of the World editor Colin Myler and legal chief Tom Crone issue statement saying James Murdoch's evidence to select committee was 'mistaken'. More details soon …

6.47pm: James Murdoch's account to the Commons culture select committee about his involvement in agreeing the out-of-court settlement with the former head of the Professional Footballers' Association, Gordon Taylor, was mistaken, according to a statement issued by former News of the World editor Colin Myler and former News international legal manager Tom Crone.

The statement says:

"Just by way of clarification relating to Tuesday's CMS Select Committee hearing, we would like to point out that James Murdoch's recollection of what he was told when agreeing to settle the Gordon Taylor litigation was mistaken.

In fact, we did inform him of the "for Neville" email which had been produced to us by Gordon Taylor's lawyers."

The Neville referred to in the statement is Neville Thurlbeck, the paper's former chief reporter. In 2009, documents passed to the culture committee revealed that he read transcripts of 35 hacked telephone messages between Gordon Taylor and Jo Armstrong, a legal advisor at the PFA.

They were sent in an email to the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire by an unnamed junior reporter on the paper on 29 June 2005. In the email, the reporter says "Hello, this is the transcript for Neville". The committee was told by Guardian reporter Nick Davies this was Neville Thurlbeck.

Trying to gauge the exact significance of this. I note also that Miskiw is apparently heading back to the UK for police questioning.

The Murdochs lied to the select committee? What a massive shock.

I'm not so much sure it's that, but as NV said upthread, it's getting people to commit to positions in public, in front of a select committee, that later become unsustainable. It's because Rebekah Brooks painted The Sun newsroom as persil white that any revelations concerning The Sun will fray the fabric of her evidence.

Meanwhile, don't forget...the bag!

7.09pm: More news of the mystery bag belonging to Rebekah Brooks's husband which was found in a bin in an underground car park near the couple's home on Monday.

Charlie Brooks has said the bag – which contained papers and a lap top – is his and does not contain material connected with the phone hacking inquiry. My colleague Amelia Hill has a story on this soon. Here's a taste:

The Brooks's spokesperson David Wilson said that Charlie Brooks is currently "disappointed" that three days later, police are still refusing to return the bag but remains confident that, once they have established the bag is his, it will be returned to him.

"Police have been in touch and have asked for the passwords," he confirmed. "Charlie was hoping it would be returned before now but he is adamant that everything it is his computer and that there is nothing on it that is Rebekah's and nothing that has anything to do with the case [into phone hacking].

"He hopes it will all be returned without much more delay. It is in their [the police's] hands now but Charlie is confident they will return it in the fullness of time," he added.

james murdoch to be recalled to the sel com, lol

I was about to say! So maybe there will be something about that...

Love the new image on the Guardian front page:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Business/Pix/pictures/2011/7/20/1311192784970/James-Murdoch-at-phone-ha-007.jpg

BTW:

7.25pm: James Murdoch stands by what he told the select committee about the Gordon Taylor settlement, according to a statement by News Corp.

And in 40 years' time he'll look more like

http://images.newstatesman.com/articles/2011//20110721_119432497_w.jpg

ok now we got fun

Yeah, this is some bad newsie-wewsies for James

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5z4CJRFBKY

'then i guess that would be the first time somebody's lied under oath.'

Whoa, things firing up again:

8.33pm: A former News of the World executive has been sacked from the Sun, according to Sky News.

Meanwhile a full Guardian story:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/21/james-murdoch-select-committee-evidence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGMnnQUZ9R8

8.19pm: The top civil servant at the Department for Education (DoE) has confirmed that one of his senior officials believed his mobile phone was being hacked.

The allegation was raised with David Cameron by Labour MP Nick Raynsford, who said the official had been targeted while Andy Coulson was Downing Street's director of communications.

The confirmation comes in a letter from the permanent secretary of the DoE, Sir David Bell, to Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary.

The letter states that in July 2010 the official told the DoE security officer that "as well as media harassment by telephone and outside his home, he suspected his mobile phone had been tampered with, for the purposes of intercepting calls."

Bell adds that the official decided to deal with the matter himself. In a follow-up conversation, "the official confirmed that neither the police nor the mobile telephone company were able to identify any malpractice. He also confirmed that he no longer had concerns about phone tampering.

"I therefore concluded that no further action was appropriate, and that it was not necessary to inform either you or the secretary of state for education."

altogether was p impressed by jimmy at the hearing, lieing through his teeth for three hours with oleaginous poise

Prescient tweet from Matt Nixson the other day:

Gutted by @billybragg's new song. Massive massive fan for years. Now I'm not allowed to have a job anymore. 2:27 PM Jul 11th via web

Really sad how nasty Twitter has allowed people to become and how publicly. 2:32 PM Jul 11th via web

^ Not like that News of the World at all

Wait, this Matt Nixson who has just been sacked from the Sun - is he the same Matt Nixson that also works for... the Mail on Sunday???

ok that guardian front page is hilarious

soon to be a quandom quantum...

has this been posted already:

A former Fox News producer told the London Telegraph that the cable network had a "black ops" team that carried out "counterintelligence" on its enemies in the late-1990s. What people thought was a Fox News research department "was staffed by 15 researchers and had a guard at the door," Don Cooper, who helped launch Fox News in 1996, told the paper. "No one working there would engage in conversation."

A spokesman for Fox News vehemently denied the Telegraph report: "Each of these allegations is completely false. Dan Cooper was terminated six weeks after the launch of the Fox News Channel in 1996 and has peddled these lies for the past 15 years.

And the "brain room" referenced in the Telegraph piece "is nothing more than a creatively named research department," a Fox spokeswoman told The Cutline.

Hahah, some fun detail here...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/may/10/newsoftheworld.pressandpublishing

A little more about this sacking:

--

9.09pm: In a statement issued tonight in response to questions about the reported sacking of Sun features editor Matt Nixson, News Corporation confirmed that an employee had been sacked over his work at the News of the World.

"News Corporation's Management and Standards Committee can confirm that News International today (Thursday, July 21) terminated the contract of a member of staff in relation to his previous work at the News of the World.

The MSC is authorised to co-operate fully with all relevant investigations and inquiries in the News of the World phone hacking case, police payments and all other related issues across News International, as well as conducting its own enquiries where appropriate."

Nixson was appointed news editor of the News of the World in 2006 and became features editor the following year.

Tom Watson having a real pop at Peston on Twitter.

TomArgh, Stet beat me to it. Watson vs Robert Peston currently on Twitter has the potential to be as hilarious as Charles Arthur vs Sabu earlier.

Argh.

STILL can't read Sabu without thinking ee-cee-dub and getting disappointed remembering things didn't suddenly turn into a death match

About Nixson -- theoretically he'd be arrested as well, yes? Kinda find it hard to believe they'd just go 'oh he's fired for phone hacking' and nobody does anything, at this point.

Related, I suspect:

Marie X
ExNOTWjourno2 Marie X
I could have exposed them all publicly... However I chose to hand their names over to the police. :D M

Marie X
ExNOTWjourno2 Marie X
More people will lose their jobs in the coming week.. I cannot confirm or deny if I had a part to play. M

the sacking's interesting if he dimes coulson really

the james murdoch thing could be a pip tho

matt nixson's finest hour was when he was on a local paper where i worked for the opposition. after 9/11 he wrote their splash which I can still remember by heart: "scouts from finchley last week enjoyed views from the top of the twin towers - yesterday they were coming to terms with their destruction." the paper made it worse by running an ad for "twin towers language school" next to it on the front page.

RIP big man.

Not only a perfect splash of wrong (as it were), it makes it seem like the Scouts were the ones destroyed.

9.52pm: My colleague Nick Watts has more on the sacking tonight of Sun features editor Matt Nixson.

Matt Nixson, who has worked for the Sun for six months, was approached by four News International security guards at 6.30pm at the newspaper's office at Wapping. The guards asked him to leave the building because he was being dismissed. His computer was seized. News International sources stressed this was standard procedure and did not indicate any wrong doing during Nixson's time at the Sun. They said the evidence indicating wrong doing related to his time at the News of the World.

The evidence against Nixson was uncovered as part of the internal News International investigation run at Wapping by Will Lewis, the company's general manager, and Simon Greenberg, the director of corporate affairs. Lewis and Greenberg report to Lord Grabiner, the QC who is acting as the independent chairman of News Corporation's management and standards committee.

Also, lol.

feel a bit bad for nixson now: he was a very good reporter, that lapse aside, and incredibly driven. i think nick davies is right to stress how the culture in places like the notw corrupts.

yeah... this isn't that big of a thing rly. it shows NI is 'cleaning up' or whatever.

Based on his ability to talk Gordon Brown out of pursuing the phone-hacking issue and his knock-back of the allegations of Coulson hacking in Number 10 after a civil servant complained, I say we should be paying closer attention to Sir Gus O'Donnell.

@charleslavery Coulson will face perjury charges and stand trial in Scotland. QC Paul McBride met his client @ London's Matrix Chambers. #hackgate #notw

lol. imo the more shit that gets smeared on cameron and osborne the better. the tories will not enjoy it and will start to get restless -- it doesn't take much with them. this will do the trick nicely.

It's been a busy night. In other news, dumbshit here accidentally broke Lucian Freud's death news to one of his sitters. :-(

Lucian Freud was just about to spill the beans!!!

I believe I was addressing... not you.

Anyway, this'll be Coulson gwan dahhhhhhhhn. The silver lining in the permatanned cloud that is the Tommy Sheridan case.

Watson vs Robert Peston currently on Twitter has the potential to be as hilarious as Charles Arthur vs Sabu earlier.

someone post ed highs

http://www.theage.com.au/business/regulator-deals-blow-to-foxtels-bid-for-austar-20110722-1hrsr.html

^ Murdoch wants to increase his pay TV share here but the competition regulator disagrees. Probably not related to #notw but excellent timing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8653960/Phone-Hacking-emails-next-scandal-says-Tom-Watson.html

breaking us off a lil previews of the remix

I'm wondering what fallout this will all have on Aus's burgeoning NBN (new fibre internet national network) as far as media saturation goes. I would have had NI/Fox chokehold fears up til recently but now, who knows.