Murdoch’s holdings that are involved:
News Corp.
News International
The Sun
The Sunday Times
News of the World (UK tabloid)
Dow Jones
Wall Street Journal
(Metropolitan Police) ;-]
(Prime Minister Cameron) >:0
Additional Murdoch holdings:
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Network
New York Post
20th c Fox
the Star (tabloid)
The Weekly Standard
Fox News Channel
DirecTV
Intermix Media
MySpace.com
KTTV - Channel 11 Los Angeles
2000
Rebekah Brooks, then editor of NoW, gives a phone to the mother of 8yo Sarah Payne, a little girl who was abducted (7/1/2000) and then murdered by a pedophile. On 7/28/2011, The Guardian revealed that
NoW had hacked into this mother’s phone, probably the very phone NoW had given to her.
Rebekah Brooks, then editor of NoW, gives a phone to the mother of 8yo Sarah Payne, a little girl who was abducted (7/1/2000) and then murdered by a pedophile. On 7/28/2011, The Guardian revealed that
NoW had hacked into this mother’s phone, probably the very phone NoW had given to her.
2002
Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working for News of the World (NoW), hacked the cell of missing 13 yo Milly Dowler and deleted messages after listening to them. Without knowledge of content of all the messages & thinking Milly must have deleted her messages, the family is given false hope that she is still alive. The girl’s remains are found 6 months later.
Rebekah Brooks (then Rebekah Wade) is Editor of NoW at that time.
- Andrew Coulson is Rebekah’s deputy.
Rebekah Brooks becomes editor of The Sun
Andrew Coulson becomes editor of NoW
Rebekah tells a lower court of the British Parliament that NoW paid bribes to police officers for information. News International (the parent company) stated this is not common practice.
2005
NoW publishes a story about Prince Williams knee injury
- The information was obtained by hacking the Prince’s cell phone.
Glenn Mulcaire along with Clive Goodman, the NoW royal-family editor, are arrested for phone hacking.
2007
Mulcaire and Goodman both serve a few months in jail.
Andrew Coulson resigns as editor of NoW taking responsibility for the phone-hacking, but denying any knowledge.
Andrew Coulson is hired as communications director by the Conservative Party and its leader, David Cameron.
James Murdoch (Rupert’s son) become Chief Executive of News Corp.’s European and Asian operations.
2009
The Guardian reports that NoW journalists had hacked the voicemails of several celebrities and politicians - with the knowledge of senior staff - and that News International had paid $1.6 million to settle the cases that would have unearthed further cases of hacking by the paper. Scotland Yard stated that it was not reopening the matter.
Rebekah Brooks is named CEO of News International
She marries Charlie Brooks (a horse trainer)
- Wedding guests include: Prime Minister Gordon Brown (Labour) and (his successor as Prime Minister) David Cameron (Tory)
The Culture, Media and Sports Committee of the House of Commons issues a report stating that it is inconceivable that NoW managers did not know about the large scale phone-hacking at the tabloid.
David Cameron becomes Prime Minister.
- Cameron hires Andrew Coulson as his media chief.
The NY Times publishes a report based on information from numerous former reporters and editors of NoW that Andrew Coulson knew about the phone-hacking and often discussed it during his tenure at NoW. The Times articles is critical of Scotland Yard’s handling of the phone-hacking investigation. (Sean Hoare is a source for NY Times.)
January 21, 2011
Andrew Coulson resigns as communication’s chief for Prime Minister David Cameron.January 26, 2011
Scotland Yard opens a new investigation of the phone-hacking by NoW citing new evidence.
April 2011
NoW acknowledges its role in hacking from 2004-2006.
NoW apologizes and sets up a compensation system for unidentified victims.
NoW senior editor Ian Edmondson, chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and senior journalist James Weatherup are fired and then arrested on phone-hacking charges.
June 23, 2011
At the end of a long trial, a man is convicted of the murder of Milly Dowler the 13 yo girl who was killed in 2002.Terenia Taras, a freelance journalist, is arrested and then released without being charged after 7 hours. She is the ex-girlfriend of former News of the World assistant editor Greg Miskiw and she contributed to a few articles over a 6 year period.
Who’s Who in the U.K. phone hacking scandal:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2084083,00.html
July 4, 2011
The Guardian reports the hacking and erasing of messages by NoW from the cell of Milly Dowler, the deceased girl. (This begins the current public Murdoch scandal.)
The Guardian references that Sean Hoare had told the NY Times that Andrew Coulson encouraged him to hack the phone messages of the 13yo girl in 2002.
July 5, 2011
It is reported that the list of NoW hacking targets included victims of the July 7, 2005 terrorist attack in London.
The BBC reports that News International turned over evidence that Andrew Coulson signed off on bribing police for information.
July 6, 2011
The Daily Telegraph reports that NoW hacked the phones of families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. July 7, 2011
James Murdoch, chairman of News International, announces that News of the World will cease publication with its July 10th edition.July 8, 2011
Andrew Coulson is arrested.
Clive Goodman is arrested for bribing police officers.
July 10, 2011
Rupert Murdoch arrives in London to take charge of the scandal stating that Rebekah Brooks is his top priority.July 11, 2011
Gordon Brown (former Prime Minister) makes accusations that The Sun and The Sunday Times illegally obtained his personal financial records and the medical records of his 4yo son who is dealing with a serious illness. (Sometime during this week) Sean Hoare, former reporter at The Sun and NoW, told NY Times who reported on the 11th about the use of police technology by the News Desk at NoW to hack cell phones; e.g., used pinging of signal to determine location of phone. Stated police were bribed. Sean shows up at interview with The Guardian with broken nose and injured foot that he states he received in an accident on July 4 at a children’s party.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/news-of-the-world-sean-hoare
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/world/europe/12hacking.html?scp=6&sq=sean%20hoare&st=cse
July 13, 2011
Rupert Murdoch withdraws his bid for the takeover of British Sky Broadcasting (TV) which had been considered a fait accompli. News Corp. retains its 39% interest.
July 14, 2011
Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch agree to testify at a parliamentary hearing beginning July 19.
The FBI investigates allegations that NoW hacked phone records of victims of 9/11.
Neil Wallis, former executive editor of NoW, is arrested
The Guardian reports that Sean Hoare was interviewed by the police “under caution”; meaning he was being treated as a suspect.
Also, Paul McMullan (former NoW staffer) who told The Guardian that hacking was prevalent was told by detectives that they wanted to interview him.
July 15, 2011
Rebekah Brooks resigns as CEO of News InternationalLes Hinton, former CEO of News International, resigns as chairman of Dow Jones and as chairman of The Wall Street Journal.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Sean Hoare, the Sun and NoW reporter who blew the whistle and started this current investigation, is found dead at his home. He had not been seen for a couple of days.
(Apparently, when he did not show up for work, the police were called to go to his house.)
- It was reported that the police arrived and found the body in the morning around 10:30 am. The body was removed. A couple later arrived after noon which it is assumed were family members of Sean. The police left the house and did not return until many hours later, around 9pm, at which time they had a detective team conduct their forensics(?). It was implied that the police were not acting in a manner that showed intent to discover who the murderer is and the news medium was reporting that this may have even been a suicide as Sean had heartily partaken of alcohol and possibly drugs in earlier years and may have gone through rehab. Some defended him that he worked in obtaining stories from the R&R crowd and that was part of the scene - rather than that he was someone who struggled with deep depression.
Rebekah Brooks is arrested.
- The police discover that she had thrown her laptop, cell phone and papers in the trash near her home.
NY Times publishes an article that states over the years, News Corporation has paid out about $655 million to make embarrassing charges of corporate espionage and anticompetitive behavior go away.
Monday, July 18, 2011
John Yates resigns as Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner. In 2009, he had made the decision not to reopen the phone-hacking investigation of that period. It is said that he reviewed only a small amount of evidence before coming to his conclusion.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Investigative hearing begins before parliament.While Rupert Murdoch is responding to questioning in which he denies any knowledge of or responsibility for any phone hacking by his staff, a strange man comes up to him and shoves a pie plate full of shaving cream into his face. Murdoch's wife Wendi jumps up from her seat immediately behind Rupert and aggressively grabs ahold of and throws a punch at the assailant smearing him with the shaving cream as well.
- Stories follow about Mrs. Murdoch: Wendi grew up in China where she was befriended by a visiting American couple who helped her obtain a student visa and move to California where she worked in their home and studied at Cal State Northridge. The wife suspected the husband of having an affair with Wendi and demanded that she move out. The husband soon followed her, divorced his wife and married Wendi. They lived together for only 4-5 months as Wendi was then found to be having an affair with a man closer to her own age, but remained married for 2 years 7 months which allowed Wendi to obtain her green card. She then obtained her MBA from Yale and landed a job at Fox TV and then moved to Star TV (part of News Corp.) in Hong Kong. There she met Rupert Murdoch in 1997 when she was 29 and he 66. They married in 1999 and had 3 daughters. She has fought for her daughters to receive stock shares of News Corp. that would be equal to that of Rupert’s other children upon his death. Rupert's other children and family members continue to battle with Wendi Murdoch to lessen the assets to be given to the children she had with Rupert.
Paul Stephenson states that, in addition to Neil Wallis, 10 other former News International employees currently work in Scotland Yard’s media relations office out of a total staff of 45.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
News Corp. announces it will no longer pay legal fees for Glenn Mulcaire, former private investigator for NoW.
Cameron separating himself from Coulson.
July 21 ff
Hearings continue
Thursday, July 28, 2011
The Guardian reports that NoW had hacked into the phone of the mother of an abducted 8 yo girl (Sarah Payne) who was murdered by a pedophile in 2000.
- Due to the murder, News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks launches a crusade for a sex offender's law in Britain known as "Sarah's Law." Brooks repeatedly mentioned the campaign in her testimony to Parliament, calling it an example of the good that the News of the World had done.
- The murdered girl’s mother grew so close to the paper, and to Brooks, that she wrote a column for its final issue, paying tribute to its campaign stating: "The NOTW team supported me through some of the darkest, most difficult times of my life and became my trusted friends. One example of their support was to give me a phone to help me stay in touch with my family, friends and support network, which turned out to be an absolute lifeline."
- As it is believed that the phone that was hacked was given to the mother by Brooks, her claims of being in the dark as to criminal hacking activities at the paper is again being called into question.
- Scotland Yard has reportedly discovered that Glen Mulcaire’s notes have referrred to this matter. Brooks released a statement that the cell phone was provided by NoW, not by Brooks personally and implied that Mulcaire acted on his own.
Glenn Mulaire, former PI for NoW, releases a statement through his attorneys that he "acted on the instructions of others." This contradicts the claim by top News Corp. and News International officials that Mulcaire and Clive Goodman, the royal reporter also jailed for phone hacking in 2007, were rogue elements within the News of the World who acted alone. Mulcaire also said he was "effectively employed" by the News of the World from 2002 to 2007.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
NY Times states that Piers Morgan (who recently took over Larry King's CNN talk show) was the editor of British tabloid The Mirror from 1995 to 2004. Mirror is owned by Trinity Mirror group and is a competitor of Murdoch's talboids. Morgan denies knowledge of any hacking at The Mirror during his tenor; however, he resigned after faked photographs were published with an article containing accusations that British troops beat Iraqi detainees after the 2003 invasion. Now there is speculation that Morgan knew that The Mirror had hacked voicemail of messages left by Paul McCartney on Heather Mills' phone in 2001.
