After the three police investigations and thirty arrests that resulted from the News International scandal, the United Kingdom has begun a media ethics trial to investigate the influence and ethical issues surrounding the media. The previous criminal trial began after Murdoch’s tabloid “News of the World” hacked a kidnap-murder victim’s phone and the emails and phones of war veterans and their families.

The former British Prime Minister John Major – Conservative party premier from 1990 to 1997 – testified at the media ethics trial, known as the Leveson inquiry after Lord Justice Leveson was appointed to oversee the evidence.

Major claimed that Rupert tried to influence the government interactions with the European Union by asking Major at a private dinner to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union; Major refused.

Murdoch told the inquiry on 25 of April that he “[has] never asked a prime minister for anything.” Major responded that he assumes Murdoch meant, “he [Murdoch] has never asked for anything that would benefit him personally or his company…in my very limited contact with Mr. Murdoch his statement is on a strict interpretation literally true.”

Major went on to explain for what Murdoch seemed to ask. “Certainly he never asked for anything directly from me but he was not averse to pressing for policy changes. In the run-up to the 1997 general election in my third and last meeting with him on 2 February 1997 he made it clear that he disliked my European policies which he wished me to change.”

According to the former Prime Minister, Murdoch made the implication that if Major did not change his European policies the prime minister would lose the support of Murdoch’s media networks. Major stated, “so far as I recall he made no mention of editorial independence but referred to all his papers as ‘we’…Both Mr. Murdoch and I kept our word. I made no change in policy and Mr. Murdoch’s titles did indeed oppose the Conservative party. It came as no surprise to me when soon after our meeting the Sun newspaper announced its support for Labour.”

Shortly after the private dinner party where this conversation took place Murdoch’s two major papers backed Tony Blair in the 1997 general election; Blair won the election three months later.

News International, Murdoch’s news corporation, has since issued a statement in regards to Major’s comments. “News International titles did not act in unison in the 1997 election. The Sunday Times supported John Major, the Times was neutral, and the Sun and the News of the World supported Labour.”

Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have also testified at the inquiry about their relationship with the media mogul. Brown claimed that Murdoch’s papers undermined the British government’s efforts in Afghanistan.

Major made several comments about the influence of Murdoch and his media empire. “I do think parts of his press, parts of his media empire have lowered the general quality of the British media…I think the interaction that there has been with politicians has done no good either to the press or to the politicians.

“I think the sheer scale of the influence he is believed to [have] whether he exercises it or not, is an unattractive facet in British national life, and it does seem to me an oddity that in a nation which prides itself on one man, one vote, we should have one man, who can’t vote, with a large collection of newspapers and a large share of the electronic media outlets.”

Major claims that he has not talked about the conversation with Murdoch in the last fifteen years but since he was under oath at the inquiry he was bound by law and his word to talk about it.

Major and Murdoch also had meetings in 1992 and 1993 although neither party remembers what was discussed at those meetings. Murdoch claims that he does not remember the conversation at the private dinner with Major in 1997.

Before the meeting in 1993 Major’s press secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, sent out a memo stating that Murdoch has “made matters worse” and his papers “ceased to make rational criticisms of policy and are now simply anti-everything and [Major] in particular.”

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In front of a British government panel today, Rupert Murdoch denied that he tried to wield political influence or use his media holdings to further the business interests of News Corp.

“I take particular pride in the fact that we’ve never pushed our commercial interests in our newspapers,” Murdoch said at the media ethics inquiry brought on by the phone-hacking scandal at News of the World last year.

He was responding to questions about contacts between News Corp. and government officials in connection with the company’s attempted $12 billion takeover of BSkyB, Britain’s top satellite TV network.

But email messages released Tuesday indicate that News Corp. executives at least considered dispatching top editors of The Wall Street Journal Europe and The Times of London, both News Corp. holdings, to advocate the BSkyB deal.

The newly released emails, totaling 163 pages, were exchanged among News Corp. chief lobbyist Frédéric Michel, company officials and government aides. Several refer to Lord Matthew Oakeshott, a member of Parliament whom News Corp. perceived as key to influencing Vince Cable, the government minister who had the authority in the fall of 2010 to approve the BSkyB deal.

News Corp. execs were worried that Oakeshott wouldn’t be receptive to their overtures. In one email to James Murdoch’s aide, Matthew Anderson, and Rebekah Brooks, chief executive at News International, Michel described Oakeshott as “a difficult character [who] hates lobbying (and doesn’t like our empire either2026).”

So Michel, the lobbyist, suggested that they arrange a meeting between Oakeshott and James Harding, editor in chief of The Times. From the email, dated Oct. 12, 2010

On Oct. 18, Michel wrote that Oakeshott would also be “VERY receptive” to a message from Patience Wheatcroft, then the editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe.

That November, Wheatcroft left The Journal after she was named to the House of Lords as a member of the Conservative party, by Prime Minister David Cameron.

It is not clear whether Harding and Wheatcroft were actually asked to lobby Oakeshott.  A spokeswoman for Harding said that “there was never a meeting between James Harding and Lord Oakeshott,” but did not say whether News Corp. officials had asked Harding to have such a meeting. Wheatcroft did not respond to our requests for comment, nor did Oakeshott.

A News Corp. spokesman declined to comment on any of the emails.

Apart from raising questions about Rupert Murdoch’s claim that there was no use of his media holdings to further his company’s interests, the emails document a more general strategy to turn media coverage of the deal in favor of News Corp. in order to give political cover to the minister, Vince Cable, who could approve the deal.

Cable was removed from the bid approval process after he was recorded by journalists saying he had “declared war” on Murdoch. Cable was replaced by Jeremy Hunt, with whom News Corp. appears to have had more luck 2014 the emails point to close communication between Hunt’s aide and News Corp. about how best to push approval of the BSkyB buyout.

Hunt said Wednesday that he “didn’t know the volume of those communications or the tone” of the interactions between his aide and News Corp. The Guardian also reported Wednesday that in 2009 Hunt was at News Corp. headquarters in New York during the company’s meetings on whether to launch the bid.

News Corp. threw the support of its British newspapers behind Cameron’s Conservative party in the 2010 elections, shortly before the BSkyB bid was announced. Cameron has maintained that he had had no “inappropriate conversations” with Murdoch about the deal.

Competing news organizations and others had opposed the deal because they said it would further concentrate the media power of Murdoch, who controls 40 percent of Britain’s newspaper circulation. The bid was eventually put on hold when news of phone-hacking by Murdoch papers broke last summer and engulfed the company in scandal.

by Cora Currier ProPublica, April 25, 2012, 3:16 p.m.

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This weekend, five more journalists from a Rupert Murdoch-owned British tabloid were arrested as part of an ongoing bribery investigation. The arrested journalists, all from The Sun, were later released, and have yet to be charged with any crimes. (As The Wall Street Journal explained last summer, arrests in the U.K. are often made early in a criminal investigation, and may not be followed by any charges.)

But the arrests have once again raised questions about whether Murdoch’s News Corp. might face prosecution for bribery in the U.S. under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Reuters reported last week that U.S. authorities are “stepping up investigations” of the possible bribery by Murdoch employees. An FBI spokeswoman told ProPublica, “We’re aware of the allegations, and we’re looking into it.”

As we noted during the unfolding of the phone hacking scandal last summer, the U.S. has stepped up prosecutions of companies for bribery of foreign officials in recent years, and the fines for these violations can be steep. Companies can face prosecution by the Justice Department if they record bribery payments, or be pursued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fake record-keeping if they falsify documents to conceal the bribes.

The statute of limitations on civil Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges is five years. The New York Times reported Saturday that it was not clear when the allegations that led to the Sun arrests had taken place, “though some of those arrested have told friends that they were questioned on events from almost a decade ago.”

Those arrested at The Sun included the paper’s chief reporter, chief foreign correspondent and deputy editor. Last month, four other current and former Sun journalists were arrested, including the paper’s crime editor and former managing editor. A police officer, a member of the armed services and an employee of the Ministry of Defense were also arrested this weekend “on suspicion of corruption,” broadening the scope of the investigation from its original focus, bribery of police officers by journalists, to bribery of other officials as well.

The arrests were based on information provided by News Corp.’s Management and Standards Committee, an internal unit created in response to the phone hacking scandal last summer. The committee reports to Joel Klein, a former U.S. assistant attorney general and New York City schools chancellor who is now a News Corp. executive.

Our request for comment from News Corp. this morning was not immediately answered. In a January news release following the earlier arrests, the company reiterated its pledge “that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be repeated.”

The latest arrests, which were accompanied by police searches of the journalists’ homes, have prompted anger and frustration from some British journalists, directed at the police and politicians driving the investigation, and at News Corp. executives. ”Once again, Rupert Murdoch is trying to pin the blame on individual journalists, hoping that a few scalps will salvage his corporate reputation,” the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists told The Guardian.

The Sun’s associate editor, Trevor Kavanagh, called the investigation “a witch-hunt” that threatens press freedom, and said there was “nothing disreputable” about paying for stories. ”Sometimes money changes hands,” Kavanagh wrote in The Sun. “This has been standard procedure as long as newspapers have existed, here and abroad.”

Last summer, the phone-hacking scandal resulted in the closure of another Murdoch-owned publication, the 168-year-old British tabloid News of the World, but News International executive Tom Mockridge reassured staff this weekend that Murdoch had pledged his “total commitment” to continuing to own and publish The Sun.

Murdoch will reportedly fly to London this week.

The publisher of the shuttered News of the World has paid hundreds of thousands of pounds in phone-hacking settlements to celebrities, celebrity employees and politicians, including at least $200,000 to actor Jude Law and at least $63,000 to Guy Pelly, a friend of Prince Harry’s, according to the Guardian.

by Lois Beckett, ProPublica, Feb. 13, 2012, 2:46 p.m.

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What would you expect someone to pay you for revealing your deepest, darkest secrets? At what point does journalism turn into harassment? These are issues being explored and debated in The Leveson Inquiry, an examination of the British media that has gripped the UK.

The explosive scandal hit the public’s TV screens over the summer when it was revealed that tabloid newspaper The News of the World had been gaining much of its ‘exclusive’ information by hacking into the phones of many celebrities, politicians and victims of crimes. Private investigators had even been tailing people embroiled in the most news-worthy stories.

In some cases, the phone hacking had led to email hacking and had even given journalists access to private passwords and PIN numbers. More and more victims of the hacking came forward, an outcry broke out, and the paper finally closed down on July 10 2011, publishing its last edition.

Many of its editors and employees, former editor Andy Coulson in particular, denied all knowledge of the phone hacking, and many were arrested. Founder and Chairman of News Corporation and owner of News of the World Rupert Murdoch was also put into a tricky situation, jeopardising his takeover of BSkyB.

So what is the outcome of this huge story? On July 13 2011, Prime Minister David Cameron announced a two-part inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Leveson to investigate the role of the press and police in the scandal. It will also examine the current culture, practices and ethics of the media and govern the future of press regulation.

The inquiry opened on Monday November 14, with an introduction from Lord Justice Leveson himself saying: “The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this Inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?”

Among the key hearings were: JK Rowling, Sienna Miller, Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan. Possibly the lowest of the low, parents of abducted children were targeted. When 13-year-old Milly Dowler was abducted and killed in 2002, her parents would continually call her phone, hoping for some response about their daughter’s disappearance.

Almost unbelievably, Milly’s phone was also hacked, voicemail messages deleted from her inbox. Mrs. Dowler recounted how elated she was when she realized something had changed: “I rang her phone. It clicked through onto her voicemail, so I heard her voice and it was just like, ‘she’s picked up her voicemail, she’s alive’.”

The inquiry also heard from young actress, Sienna Miller. She told of a closely-guarded secret being revealed, meaning she was led to accuse her family and closest friends after an anonymous journalist rang her saying he knew all about it.

Her run-ins with the paparazzi were possibly the most shocking: “I would often find myself — I was 21 — at midnight running down a dark street on my own with ten big men chasing me and the fact that they had cameras in their hands meant that that was legal, but if you take away the cameras, what have you got?”

Miss Miller’s statement raises a valid point – where is the line? Is Britain to maintain its freedom of the media, meaning tabloid journalists are able to hound celebrities to breaking point just for that photograph of them lashing out? Or will a new, stricter policy be put in place, meaning they can’t publish anything they want by any means necessary? And will this hinder freedom of speech if it is put in place?

Either way, it seems something must be done to prevent further incidents. JK Rowling highlighted: “The attitude seems to be…you’re famous, you’re asking for it.” Is this now an excuse that is wearing a little thin?

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For nearly 3 hours, the emergency parliament hearing grilled Rupert and James Murdoch on News International’s role in the phone-hacking scandal Tuesday at Westminster, London. The hearing was an important part of what ex-Labour leader Lord Kinnock called a “real assessment of press ownership in the UK.”

The Commons culture, media and sport committee was responsible for the questioning and were prepared to dig deep into the cooperate procedures of the media empire that lead to such gross neglect of basic codes of journalism. Mr. Murdoch started out by saying “this is the most humble day of my life,” but kept his answers otherwise elusive as the hearing went on.

Several crucial questions came up — among them the issue of the top administration’s knowledge of the illegal activity, their financial track record, their vigilance in regard to accountability as well as the oversight of News of the World. Mr. Murdoch seemed frail and as the hearing went on, irritated by the detail and persistence of the committee member’s questions. James Murdoch on the other hand were quick to try explaining the actions and responses of the company in the longest phrases possible, insisting on finishing his trail of thought and elaborate on his father’s brief responses.

Key issues were pointed out during the process. Overall, Mr. Murdoch claimed he did not believe mistakes were made during the handling of the issue. He acknowledged that terrible wrongdoings were carried out and that mistakes were made in the course of the events but that the handling that followed was done with the best of intentions. He also made a point of saying that the News of the World was less than 1% of his company and that he employs people on trust to run his divisions.

Mr. Murdoch also emphasized that the UK greatly benefits from having a competitive press and a transparent society. On the question of public interest and the ethical concerns of investigative techniques, James Murdoch added that breaking the law is a serious matter that should be held accountable. On the question on whether NoW should not have been aware that phone-hacking is a crime, James Murdoch simply stated that he believed the company acted quickly once the problem was discovered.

The atmosphere at the hearing was tense. The Murdochs did their best not to incriminate themselves despite the fact that the nature of the committee was strictly in the interest of the public’s curiosity — in contrast to a court of law, the MPs was trying to extract new information about the circumstances of the allegations for their future report.

Mr. Murdoch reiterated on several occasions that not he nor his son had any part in the illegalities but it was clear that James had been aware of the payments to the police. The real question was the depth of his knowledge

Interestingly enough, Mr. Murdoch opened with an apology despite being denied an opening statement by the chair at the beginning. It is of course not without importance, as Iain Watson of the BBC News noted, that he needed to be summoned by the MPs and did not volunteer to give evidence. The initial apology was even further undermined by the fact that the Murdochs admit they were still financing Glen Mulcaire, the demon hacker who brought them down, making their apologies utterly insincere.

Finally, it seemed preposterous that a man known for his legendary grasp of his empire was painstakingly uninformed when having to answer questions about News of the World. Both men’s lack of knowledge of the paper’s basic structure was absurd and considering that most of the police bribery and phone tapping took place between 2002 and 2009, it is quite unimaginable that the top management were left clueless on the illegal procedures for obtaining news content. Why were questions not asked?

The hearing of Rupert and James Murdoch was conducted respectfully by the committee, albeit a few notes of sarcasm aimed at the duo’s cartoonish ignorance. The BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson blogged from inside the room: “It is hard to equate the man sitting a few feet away from me with the global media mogul feared by political leaders throughout my adult lifetime.” Public responses had also been carried out in a peaceful order with a row of protesters holding up signs shortly before the Murdochs addressed the committee. Peace was only broken for one dramatic moment when a man from the audience suddenly stood up and attempted to throw a paper plate of shaving foam in the face of Rupert Murdoch. The attempt was mostly thwarted – particularly by Mrs. Murdoch who rushed to direct the ‘pie’ at the assailant himself.

The result was ambiguous. MPs from the committee told BBC reporters that they believed the meeting had been ‘a good day’ for parliament and for democracy but so many questions remained unanswered. Murdoch played the part of victim of betrayal very well while his son, eager to make sure he didn’t come off as all-knowing, staled the session the best he could with his negations and tentative descriptions. Will the truth about Rupert Murdoch’s full involvement in the scandal ever see the light of day? Not without tangible evidence. And considering the tight-lipped inner circle of the Murdoch empire, such evidence seem only a fairy godmother away from a fairytale.

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Sean Hoare, former News of the World reporter and first to blow the whistle on the endemic phone-hacking at the paper, was found dead at his home on Monday, according to British media. Hoare, who was fired from NoW for alcohol and drug abuse, also went on the record to the New York Times, saying that Andy Coulson, former communications chief for the British prime minister and editor at NoW while Hoare was employed there, not only knew about the phone-hacking but actively encouraged the practice. Coulson has so far denied any knowledge of the matter.

The tragic news of Sean Hoare’s death is another shocking turn in the media scandal that has already engulfed the Murdoch media empire and threatens the stability of the British government. His body was found at his home in Watford near London, UK. According to local police, who has yet to confirm Hoare’s identity, “Upon police an ambulance arrival [...], the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.” Despite unexplained cause of death, the police does not suspect foul play.

His death is another bombshell in the unfolding events, arriving just after the high profile resignation of two top policemen of the Scotland Yard. Questions have been raised about the cosy relationship between NoW and the police department and whether it led to negligence on behalf of the official effort to get to the bottom of the phone-hacking scandal which has been years under way.

Hoare was the first reporter to officially confirm the claims of phone-hacking. He described in an interview with the BBC that he was personally asked by Andy Coulson, his editor at the time, to tap into phones – which makes Coulson’s insistence upon ignorance ‘a lie’, according to Hoare. Last week, he revealed to the New York Times that NoW reporters had access to police technology that locates people by using their mobile phone signals. The service was allegedly provided in exchange for payments to police officers. The use of “pinging” can pinpoint the location of a person using calculations of distances between phone masts.

The Guardian was able to publish further details about ‘pinging’ as Hoare explained the procedure of obtaining the target location. A reporter would ask a news desk executive about a person and “within 15 to 30 minutes someone on the news desk would come back and say ‘Right, that’s where they are.’”

“The chain of command is one of absolute discipline, and that’s why I never bought into it, like with Andy [Coulson] saying he wasn’t aware of it and all that. That’s bollocks,” told Hoare.

The unexpected death of Sean Hoare has come at the most critical time for the UK. British Prime minister David Cameron is under considerable pressure and has cut a 5-day-trip to Africa short to attend a special sitting of parliament Tuesday for an emergency discussion on the scandal. Opposition labour party members are accusing him of extreme failure of judgement when it came to hiring Coulson and some MP’s have even called for his resignation.

Rupert Murdoch, his son James Murdoch and former chief executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks are expected to appear at the parliament hearing as well. Considering the pressure, the exchange could turn out to be very dramatic.

Former colleagues have been remembering Hoare today through public statements and social media updates. David Yelland, former editor of the British tabloid the Sun tweeted “Sean Hoare was trying to be honest, struggling with addiction. But he was a good man. My God.”

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