Rupert and The News

From Wikipedia:

News of the World:

The News of the World was a national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom by News Group Newspapers of News International, itself a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and was the Sunday sister paper of The Sun. After 168 years in print, the last edition of the paper was published on 10 July 2011. The newspaper concentrated on celebrity-based scoops and populist news. Its fondness for sex scandals gained it the nicknames "News of the Screws" and "Screws of the World". It had a reputation for exposing national or local celebrities as drug users, sex freaks or criminals, setting up insiders and journalists in disguise to provide either video or photographic evidence, and phone hacking in ongoing police investigations. Sales averaged 2,812,005 copies per week in October 2010.  On 16 September 2010, it was announced that the online website of the paper would be placed behind a paywall.

The editor Andy Coulson resigned on 26 January 2007 over the royal phone tapping scandal.   He was succeeded by Colin Myer, a former editor of Sunday Mirror who had latterly worked at The New York Post.   Previous editors of the paper include Piers Morgan and Rebekah Wade, who replaced Phil Hall in 2000. On 7 July 2011, News International announced that the News of the World would be permanently closed that week, the last issue being produced on Sunday 10 July 2011. The closure was in response to the developing phone hacking scandal, after a private investigator allegedly hacked into the phone of murdered British teenager Milly Dowler, possibly interfering with the police investigation and causing distress to the girl's parents. The allegations led to a public backlash and the loss of advertising revenue, as a number of companies advertising with the paper pulled out pending an investigation. The scandal deepened when the paper was alleged to have hacked into the phones of families of soldiers killed in action. As a result of the scandal, James Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corporation, Europe and Asia, announced on 7 July 2011 that the 10 July 2011 edition of the paper would be the last.

On 8 July 2011 former editor Andy Coulson was arrested by police investigating phone hacking and corruption allegations. On the same day ex-NoW royal editor  Clive Goodman, jailed for phone hacking in 2007, was also arrested over similar corruption claims.

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From Wikipedia:

Rupert Murdoch: 

Beginning with one newspaper in Adelaide, Murdoch acquired and started other publications in his native Australia before expanding News Corp into the United Kingdom, United States and Asian media markets. Although it was in Australia in the late 1950s that he first dabbled in television, he later sold these assets, and News Corp's Australian current media interests (still mainly in print) are restricted by cross-media ownership rules. Murdoch's first permanent foray into TV was in the USA, where he created Fox Broadcasting Company in 1986. In the 2000s, he became a leading investor in satellite television, the film industry and the Internet, and purchased a leading American newspaper, The Wall Street Journal..

Rupert Murdoch was listed three times in the Time 100 as among the most influential people in the world. He is ranked 13th most powerful person in the world in the 2010 Forbes; ' The World's Most Powerful People list. With a net worth of US$6.3 billion, he is ranked 117th wealthiest person in the world.

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The Thoughts and Words of Rupert Murdoch:

I am amazed that CNN can't get its act together.

I think a newspaper should be provocative, stir 'em up, but you can't do that on television. It's just not on.

I'm a catalyst for change. You can't be an outsider and be successful over 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place.

Much of what passes for quality on British television is no more than a reflection of the narrow elite which controls it and has always thought that its tastes were synonymous with quality.

No one's going to be able to operate without a grounding in the basic sciences. Language would be helpful, although English is becoming increasingly international. And travel. You have to have a global attitude.

The buck stops with the guy who signs the checks.

The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.

There is so much media now with the Internet and people, and so easy and so cheap to start a newspaper or start a magazine, there's just millions of voices and people want to be heard.

You fuckwit! You bastard! Get this fucking newspaper out! (to Sunday Times executive on first night of printing at Wapping, 1986 (from Neil Chenoweth's Virtual Murdoch)

Fuck Dacre. Publish! (orders to Sunday Times executives to go ahead with printing the [fake] Hitler Diaries in 1983, although told the historian Lord Dacre – asked to vet them and initially happy – now had doubts [from Robert Harris's Selling Hitler] )

I try to keep in touch with the details... I also look at the product daily. That doesn`t mean you interfere, but it`s important occasionally to show the ability to be involved. It shows you understand what`s happening.

In motivating people, you`ve got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example - and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved.

Our reputation is more important than the last hundred million dollars.

Much of what passes for quality on British television is no more than a reflection of the narrow elite which controls it and has always thought that its tastes were synonymous with quality.

You can`t build a strong corporation with a lot of committees and a board that has to be consulted every turn. You have to be able to make decisions on your own.

News.. communicating news and ideas, I guess.. is my passion. And giving people alternatives so that they have two papers to read and alternative television channels.

The Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years. Someone the other day said, "It's the biggest thing since Gutenberg," and then someone else said "No, it's the biggest thing since the invention of writing."