By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--July 8, 2011
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A Democrat smear campaign is already afoot to drag FOX News into the mire of the Rupert Murdoch-owned, News of the World, scandal.
“RENEWED GLOBAL CALLS FOR FOX BOYCOTT: Fox has given Palin & Bachmann far too much legitimacy and has been singularly responsible for the steadily eroding and inane media “news” circus America has had since the Nov. 2000 general election,” Pete Thottam, a Los Angeles based activist wrote in an email to the West LA Dem Club and progressivecaucusdp{at}yahoogroups.com, among others today.“...It began with the revelation that one of the many victims of the voicemail-hacking by the paper was Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl who was murdered in Surrey in March 2002. (The Economist online, July 7, 2011). “On July 4th the Guardian reported allegations that Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working with News of the World journalists, had hacked into Dowler’s voicemail in the days after her disappearance, removing some messages to free up space when her account became full. The effect was to make her family think she might still be alive.” “Other dreadful allegations followed. The relatives of people killed in the terrorist attacks in London of July 2005, and of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, might also have been targeted. News International acknowledged that it has passed e-mails to the police that appeared to document illegal payments to police officers by News of the World journalists. Even worse was alleged by some MP’s in a heated parliamentary debate on July 6th. “Mr. Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 for hacking voicemail messages of members of the royal household, along with Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s royal correspondent. At the time, and for a long time afterwards, executives at News International insisted that Mr. Goodman was a lone, rogue operator. In the past few months that defence has collapsed, amid a deluge of civil cases brought by the lengthening list of hacking victims, pay-offs and the arrest of more journalists. James Murdoch acknowledged that the defence was untrue, and that he himself had approved out-of-court settlements with some hacking victims without having “a complete picture”. This was “a matter of serious regret”, he said.” Tarred with the scandal is London’s Metropolitan Police, accused of both being paid for information provided to journalists and of failing for several years to notify potential victims of hacking and failing to pursue leads. The burgeoning scandal of News of the World reaches all the way into Downing Street. Andy Coulson, former communications chief for David Cameron was arrested yesterday by detectives investigating alleged phone hacking and illegal payments to police during his tenure as News of the World editor. Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party is demanding a public inquiry into “the culture and regulation of the press”; Cameron agrees that there ought to be one or more inquiries.Meanwhile it’s not only the fevered competition dancing around the dead as the proverbial doornail corpse of the News of the World. Progressives in America are already dressing up the corpse for a last dance at Fox News.
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