Murdoch

The past few months have seen an ongoing series of revelations that have rocked the Murdoch media empire. The News International phone-hacking scandal’s genesis began at the Murdoch owned, now-defunct News of the World UK newspaper.

A new website Murdoch Leaks: www.murdochleaks.org has been setup recently and is accepting information on criminality occurring at Murdoch publications.

Last Monday, Lulzsec hacked into The Sun, pinned a fake news story about Murdoch's death on the homepage and redirected the site to their Twitter page; they also bought down a number of other News Corp and News International websites.

Following this, on Thursday, the hacker known as 'Sabu'(who is rumoured to have connections with LulzSec and Anonymous) claimed to have 4gb worth of emails - or 'sun mails' that might blow up into a series of new revelations with regards to criminality in Murdoch outlets. This information was said to be procured during the hacking. It is not yet known whether Lulzsec will be releasing this information to the public. The Lulzsec twitter has posted, "We're currently working with certain media outlets who have been granted exclusive access to some of the News of the World emails we have."

The media scandal began in May 2000, when Rebekah Brooks (then known as Rebekah Wade) was appointed editor of News of the World; she worked there for three years before moving to the Murdoch-owned The Sun in 2003. During her three years as editor at News of the World, it was alleged that reporters working under her engaged in illegal phone-hacking, including the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

The international community was once again surprised by the action of @Lulzsec after the reporter Sean Hoare, the first person to blow the whistle on the News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who was linked to the paper's phone hacking scandal, was found dead in his home Watford, England on Monday. Hoare was an entertainment reporter for News of the World and The Sun media outlets.

Continuing their crusade for transparency and against corruption, The Lulz Boat crew hacked the page of The Sun newspaper, so that it displayed an article announcing the death of Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp, the massive media company that operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Australia, Asia and Latin America, and to which The Sun belongs to. Subsequently, the same newspaper page redirected the visitors to the Twitter feed @LulzSec, who gained tens of thousands of new followers in a few hours.

Murdoch, aged 80, has said to have ingested a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden last night, passing out in the early hours of the morning.

Another officer reveals that Murdoch was found slumped over a particulary large garden hedge fashioned into a galloping horse. "His favourite", a butler, Davidson, reports.

Former Murdoch chief Rebekah Brooks was arrested and detained last night by British police on charges of conspiring to illegally intercept communications as well as corruption, in the form of bribing police.

Brooks was apprehended by detectives working on Operation Weeting – the UK Metropolitan Police’s phone hacking investigation, and Operation Elveden – the investigation into illicit payments to police officers, a July 18 Guardian article reported.

Until recently, Brooks had been defended by both Rupert and James Murdoch from the very outset of the now-widespread hacking scandal that began within the Murdoch-owned newspaper News of the World.

One of the most contentious cases in the scandal so far is that of teenager Milly Dowler, who was abducted on her way home from school and subsequently murdered. Milly Dowler’s family’s phone messages were illegally intercepted by News of the World staff.

Mark Lewis, the lawyer for Milly Dowler’s family has questioned the timing of the arrest, as Brooks is due to be questioned by a parliamentary committee next Tuesday.

“Undoubtedly, she will have the option of saying on Tuesday ‘I’m sorry I can’t answer that because I’m under police investigation ‘,” he said. “The timing stinks...it gives the impression that those questions can’t be asked [at this time]...it looks deliberate.”

Liberal Democrat MP Adrian Sanders has also expressed grave concerns over the timing of the arrest, according to a July 18 article in The Age.

The House of Commons select committee maintained that it would not canvass material that affected any criminal investigation and Brooks now appears to be protected by that. Brooks has been offering to help the police since January, yet two days before she is due to stand before a parliamentary committee she was arrested.

Much ink has been spilled in the last 24 hours over the insurance file Julian Assange alluded to in his interview with John Pilger of New Statesman. In the event that something should happen to WikiLeaks or Assange himself, insurance files will be released which contain "504 files on one broadcasting organisation." There are also "cables on Murdoch and News Corp," Assange tells us.

Interesting possibilities for the scope of the leaks are vast and include technology, politics and the media. Each in turn.

Technology
News of the Wikileaks files comes at what might be an inconvenient time for Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corp., who is in the midst of launching his "new baby" in conjunction with Apple founder Steve Jobs. The baby is apparently worth $300M to Murdoch and comes in the form of an iPad-only publication called "The Daily" (Source).

News Corp. has also ventured into the domain of online education technology. In November 2010,