Murdoch: Ouf! Is this meltdown?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

there is a reuters byliine on this account of how Brooks & Coulson ran the newsroom

[mangerton]

I'm sure I won't be the only person who suspects the hand of the PR company behind the 'anarchist' plant.

Mandryka, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

An appalling performance by both men

That's the exact description. R Murdoch has led News Corp for what, 40 years, and no-one has even suggested he wasn't up to it. But the very day he appears before a Commons Cttee, he suddenly looks and acts like a bumbling old man.

Aye, Right!!

Someone should have told him and his wee boy that the next Oscar ceremony isn't till next year.

That CM&S committee should be ashamed of itself.

[johnb]

Perhaps I am naive but I thought John Yates came across as pretty straight forward in the evidence that he gave to the committee today. The only time he looked uncomfortable was right at the end when someone picked up on an earlier comment of his that a number of police officers would go to jail as a result of the current investigations. He was asked to expand on his earlier comment and his body language when replying contrasted very strongly with that in the rest of the questioning, suggested he was very ill at ease with the question. That is probably understandable.

[Anna]

R Murdoch has led News Corp for what, 40 years, and no-one has even suggested he wasn't up to it. But the very day he appears before a Commons Cttee, he suddenly looks and acts like a bumbling old man.

In legal circles it is known as the "Know Nothing Senility Defence" which elicits sympathy for an Old Codger patently out of his depth and at the mercy of Machiavellian forces.

[mangerton]

In legal circles it is known as the "Know Nothing Senility Defence" which elicits sympathy for an Old Codger patently out of his depth and at the mercy of Machiavellian forces.

Exactly. But if you know that, and I know that, why don't the cttee and the assorted hacks?

Are they just being polite, and if so, why?

[Anna]

Exactly. But if you know that, and I know that, why don't the cttee and the assorted hacks?

Because obviously, mangerton, you and I are supremely intelligent!! But, notice re the question about "collective amnesia" he immediately shot back with "collective amnesia - you mean lying"

I'm sorry, but those two Murdochs, and now Brooks, just put up a smokescreen of "Honest Guv, if I knew something I'd tell you, I'm just an Honest Joe" and I was really disappointed with the questioning, not sharp or incisive enough.

[Mandryka]

Because obviously, mangerton, you and I are supremely intelligent!! But, notice re the question about "collective amnesia" he immediately shot back with "collective amnesia - you mean lying"

I'm sorry, but those two Murdochs, and now Brooks, just put up a smokescreen of "Honest Guv, if I knew something I'd tell you, I'm just an Honest Joe" and I was really disappointed with the questioning, not sharp or incisive enough.

I agree about the questioning, but I think expectations were too high, in any case. And the purpose of the committee has never been to give a barrister-style griling, for which most (all?) of its members aren't trained in any case.

Only Tom Watson asked penetrating questions, though he didn't get many satisfactory answers.

The judge-led enquiry will supposedly be tougher, though there may be four years of court cases before we get to that.

[Lateralthinking1]

Murdoch senior. The strange one-off illness of Ernest Saunders comes to mind. As for the others, I listen very carefully to their answers and look at their body language. You get hints of a bit of side-stepping here and there, even think "that sounds like a fib". Still, my mind struggles all the time with their plausible demeanour. They rarely come across as extremely dodgy. I find that somewhat unsettling. Perhaps I want them all to sound like Hayman. Or maybe it's my very ordinary class background. I don't know. Do others feel like this?

At the risk of sounding a bit sexist - I would probably say this about a man too - she seemed calm to the point of icy given the colour of her hair. It was very hard to square her manner with the culture we have read. I think what I find most questionable is what she didn't say rather than what she said. You have to see these few minutes alongside the years when she was easily identified as someone with significant roles in communication and yet steadfastly ensured that she was rarely heard speaking.

I just feel that there is more to her than perhaps we will ever know. There is something about that performance which shouts very loudly to me of the civil service as much as journalism. She seemed very at ease in defending Ken McDonald's chinese walls and used Help for Heroes as the example of The Sun being for the people. It could be my vivid imagination but the secret services kept coming to mind, even though I don't have any evidence for saying so. More instinct.

One thing that emerges is how MPs can often show their betters side in these committees. I thought Philip Davies did pretty well and you look at Tom Watson's approach to the elderly fella and he struck precisely the right note. I sometimes wonder whether the more effective elected representatives are the ones who aren't given the key roles.

[Mandryka]

Murdoch senior. The strange one-off illness of Ernest Saunders comes to mind. As for the others, I listen very carefully to their answers and look at their body language. You get hints of a bit of side-stepping here and there, even think "that sounds like a fib". Still - and maybe it is the part of me that is naive - my mind struggles all the time with their plausible demeanour. They rarely come across as extremely dodgy and I find that somewhat unsettling. Perhaps I want them all to sound like Hayman. Maybe its my very ordinary class background. I don't know. Do others feel like this?

At the risk of sounding a bit sexist - I would say probably say this about a man too - she seemed calm to the point of icy given the colour of her hair. It was very hard to square her manner with the culture we have read. I think what I find most questionable is what she didn't say rather than what she said. You have to see these few minutes alongside the years where she was easily identified as someone with significant roles in communication and yet steadfastly ensured that she was rarely heard speaking.

I just feel that there is more to her than perhaps we will ever know. There is something about that performance that shouts very loudly to me of the civil service as much as journalism. She seemed very at ease in defending Ken McDonald's chinese walls and used Help for Heroes as the example of The Sun being for the people. It could be my vivid imagination but the secret services kept coming to mind, even though I don't have any evidence for saying so. More instinct.

One thing that emerges is how MPs can often show their betters sides in these committees. I thought Philip Davies did prettyy well and you look at Tom Watson's approach to the elderly fella and he struck precisely the right note. I sometimes wonder whether the more effective elected representatives are the ones who aren't given the key roles.

This chimes with my own thoughts about Brooks - who, by all accounts, seemed to appear from nowhere. Her background is decidedly sketchy and no-one seems to be able to accout for what she did prior to joining NI.

I don't buy the Sorbonne story.

C4 news has just reported that Fox News went blank during one of Murdoch Senior's stumbling answers, then suddenly 'went live' again during those of Murdoch fils.

[mangerton]

They've all had quite a few days to get their stories straight, and they'll have had PR help too, I'm sure. Why were Rupert and James not questioned separately? I would have thought that would have been far more productive.

As for Rebekah's demeanour. could she perhaps have taken something?

Anna, with regard to our intelligence, you are of course quite correct. :ok::biggrin:

[Mandryka]

I was interested in one of R.M.'s answers to questions about his political influence. He said something along the lines of 'I wish they (politicians) would leave me alone' (sic). While I would never take this statement (or anything said by him) at face value, I can well believe that he was approached by politicos more often than he approached them.

[PJPJ]

Exactly. But if you know that, and I know that, why don't the cttee and the assorted hacks?

Are they just being polite, and if so, why?

Because, when Vaz and co grilled the policemen the other day together with a background of undisguised heckling and grandstanding from MPs it came across as disgraceful behaviour reminiscent of a 1950s prefects' meeting.

In what is supposed to be a secure place for people summonsed to answer questions, an attack on an 80 year old man (or, as the BBC has it, "attack") is bound to reduce the severity of questioning by any sane questioner.

[hackneyvi]

Still, my mind struggles all the time with their plausible demeanour. They rarely come across as extremely dodgy.

Until I began to see that the Dowler's are Murdoch's PR, that they've been used as the key rebranding tool; until I began to wonder why a man would be so tactless as to look distressed in front of parents of a murdered child; until I began to really think about why a man would introduce his relationship with his parents into the conversation with parents of a murdered child; and wondered if it wasn't strange that he should allude to parental dignity, whilst sonny boy holds his head in his hands; until I began to see that all for what I believe it is, I didn't believe Murdoch was dodgy. I felt it. I'd heard the bestial Sun and felt the bestial appetite of its stomach throughout my youth but I'd never believed it. Never believed how much it hated. How could anything hate so much in public and it yet be allowed?

After the Dowlers meeting and the other examples of PR from sundry grubbers, all my doubt is gone. Murdoch is the exploiter that his business has led us to feel he is. Ultimately, every action of The Sun or The News of the World which reflected horror on Murdoch stemmed from him.

It's terrible to see such degradation.

I'm reading Mr Sammler's Planet at the moment (and apologise for the 'rhetorical' tone that's blown through my own posts in the last few days; I sometimes find I reflect the writing I'm reading). I haven't reached it yet, but I know there's a point where someone questions a remark of Sammler's and says, something like:

"But I thought everyone was human?"

"No," says Sammler, "human is what some people become."

I don't believe now that Murdoch is a human being by any ordinary standard.

He wishes politicians would leave him alone?

Look, guys! He's just like you.

He's a sleazy journalist who bought and sold sleazy papers.

Plausible ... rarely come across as extremely dodgy

Murdoch has owned and sold The Sun for 40 years. He loses how much per annum on The Times, why? How would Murdoch differ from Richard Desmond if he didn't? Would you find him plausible then?

The Times is his PR.

Plausible ... rarely come across as extremely dodgy

I believe that what we thought was paranoid hyperbole about Murdoch is proved true. He is a beast who consorts and cavorts with others of his kind.

What is it the beast wants? I believe that it's the security of dominion.

[Lateralthinking1]

Because I believe that employment generally corrupts - by contrast, hard work purifies - I don't think that human is what some people come to be unless that is in old age and then only to a few. Of course, many start life human but they quickly grow out of it.

I think it is essential that all major figures in the largest media organisations here are brought regularly before the Committee. Perhaps every 18 months. This would be a meaningful reform.

Among the side-stepped issues today

- Mulcaire's legal fees (the Murdochs said they didn't know about them fully or understand the legal position - a note will be provided)

- Brooks's alleged recommendation of Coulson to Cameron (no, she said, that was Osborne's idea but she managed to evade questioning on what exactly she had said to him, suggesting more than she admitted)

- The exact relationship with the Conservatives (huge emphasis on her visits to No 10 to see Blair and Brown and that there have been none to see Cameron but the acknowledgment that she has been said to have met Cameron 26 times and saw the others about 6 times each year).

How many others did you spot?

[Osborn]

I'm sure I won't be the only person who suspects the hand of the PR company behind the 'anarchist' plant.

An appalling performance by both men...

Do you seriously believe that a PR advisor said to this immensely proud, mightily powerful media mogul: "Look squire, we've banged our heads together and got a whizz bang crackerjack wheeze that's guaranteed to keep you out of the Tower of London: - while you're answering serious questions live on TV around the world, a geezer we've hired will run up to you and throw a custard pie in your face and everyone will think you're a good sport for carrying on without a jacket..." It's absolutely inconceivable.

They weren't appalling. They were never under pressure, they and Ginger Slappa are very bright and there wasn't the slightest possibility that they might be caught out or ruffled in any way by the committee's feeble questioning.