The criminal trial for News Corporation phone hacking is set to begin today. Eight defendants, including Rupert Murdoch's former protegé, Rebekah Brooks, and Andy Coulson, who left his job at a News Corp. publication to become Prime Minister David Cameron's director of communications, will be tried in a case that is expected to last until Easter.
The Guardian reports:
It was originally estimated to last four months but with at least 100 witnesses to be called, barristers have said they will need the extra time to make their respective cases.
All eight have pleaded not guilty to the charges and are fighting to prove their innocence in a trial that will attract worldwide attention and be particularly high profile in the UK, US and Australia, the main bases for Rupert Murdoch's global publishing operations.
It is the first of four trials involving newspaper journalists and others linked to the News of the World or the Sun following the Metropolitan police's Operation Weeting investigation into allegations of phone-hacking at the Sunday tabloid and two other Scotland Yard investigations instigated following the paper's closure in July 2011.
Beyond the criminal charges, the case may well expose a disturbingly cozy relationship between News Corporation, politicians and police.
In a related development, News Corporation has estimated the phone hacking scandal could cost the media empire $1.6 billion.
Think the corruption stops in the U.K.? The whole world will learn how these bogs operate. Their long-term contracts to keep competitive companies out. The payoffs, the hush-hush, the adulteries, the backstabbers, the blackmails, the control of other media outlets, secret files, questionable company-wide practices, paranoid suits, mob-like rule, etc.
To quote the late Karen Carpenter, “We’ve Only Just Begun.”
Grab that popcorn. We guarantee you 6,000 per cent that this will be an entertaining show.
NOTE TO RUTHLESS RUPY
The day you took over 20th Century Fox was the day it went all down hill. You were bad for business then, and bad for business now. News Corporation is the worst media company in the entire world. We will celebrate the day you retire, and based on what we see, it’s coming real soon.
Wake me up when they get here- I need a laugh, and Gutfeld trying to be smart doesn’t do it for me anymore.
