Rupert Murdoch At Leveson: News Corp Boss To Testify On Ties With Government (LIVE BLOG)

The Huffington Post UK  |  By Posted: 25/04/2012 09:51 Updated: 25/04/2012 12:32

Rupert Murdoch is explaining his relationship to prime ministers past and present at the Leveson inquiry.

Follow our liveblog for up-to-the-minute developments:

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Murdoch's evidence to Leveson has finished. But they'll be more written evidence to delve through online soon.

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Murdoch is told about a journalists who claimed she experienced "constant bullying." He asks why she did not resign.

Leveson interjects, saying: "I think the problem with that might be that she needs a job".

Murdoch says he has "never heard of" allegations of bullying in News International. "They always strike me as a happy crowd."

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Murdoch says no allegations of bullying have been brought to his attention.

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@ paulwaugh : Leveson refuses to allow NUJ lawyer to ask Qs re NI's MSC collusion w cops. But Murdoch says MSC didn't reveal journo sources

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Murdoch says his journalists can join the NUJ at any point.

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@ rowenamason : Some of my channels are better than the BBC, some a lot worse, says Murdoch #Leveson

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He says Murdoch's accusation about Dacre: "I'm going to suggest you've made a mistake in reading something."

But Murdoch said he did not "see the difference," adding: "I think there's no doubt that maybe the Daily Mail and other newspapers were campaigning against it and against us.. That is a commercial reason. They said at the time in their public statement they felt in some commercial danger, if you like, if we succeeded."

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@ Peston : "I've spent hundreds of millions of dollars" on internal investigation, says Murdoch. Really? Can it really be that much. #leveson

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@ mlcalderone : Murdoch claims Huffington Post has just "a few" reporters -- he should come by the newsroom some time! #leveson

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Quite hilariously, Murdoch says his paper the Wall Street Journal is a "challenge to get through." Unsure if he meant it like that. He says they are adding more pictures to it.

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In fact there's more advertising opportunities occurring every year even then there are websites. So the rates stay very low. But it's a fact of life. We have to treat it as an opportunity. The Times of London, seven days a week, we put it on the ipad, we charge for it. Unfortunately apple takes 30% but that's another argument. That can be seen any corner of the world, so maybe there's an opportunity there.

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@ SamiraAhmedUK : Surprise! Rupert Murdoch in his comfort zone now as he blames BBC for its alleged role in declining newspaper sales. #leveson

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Murdoch says it comes down to an argument about intellectual property (but it is a bit unclear what he is talking about). And now, the predictable jibe at the BBC (which does do "great broadcasting").

He says the BBC's website is viewed by 12m people in Britain a week and "feel they have had enough news", saying this is taxpayer funded and affects newspaper circulation.

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@ benfenton : #murdoch apologises for repeating a private conversation with Jay?Leveson that reveals he likes Le Monde and The Times.

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@ PSbook : Murdoch tells #leveson he doesn't have a great understanding of technology. His purchase of Myspace would seem to support that.

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"We're spending a lot of money trying to, and succeeding, in presenting every word of our newspapers on modern tablets. There will be, I will be very confident in saying, that in a very short time.. there will be billions of tablets in the world."

He says other people read news on their smart phones (or as Murdoch refers to them a "smart telephone") but says he thinks printed presses can survive another 20 years with "small" circulations.

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"You said that I had at the very beginning a great understanding of technology. I don't... But the fact is that the internet came along, slowly developed as a source of news and now is absolutely in our space.

"I think it's been responsible for a lot of loss of circulation. I should ask the judge. This inquiry I presume is for the press in this country, not just the press in Fleet Street. We're seeing everybody under extreme pressure."

He adds: "People can send their blogs from Beijing and from the Cayman Islands and whatever you do you can't regulate that. I think you have a danger of regulating, putting regulations in place, which will mean there will be no press in 10 years to regulate."

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The News of the World, let's be quite honest, was an aberration and it's my fault.

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@ christopherhope : #leveson BREAKING MPs on the Commons' Culture Select Committee will publish their long-awaited report on phone hacking on Tuesday, May 1

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@ christopherhope : #Leveson BREAK Cabinet Office confirms Cabinet Secretary and Treasury Solicitor spoke to Leveson on Tues afternoon

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"We set up inquiry after inquiry, we employed legal firm after legal firm. Perhaps we relied too much on the conclusions of the police."

He says News Corp's response to being accused of collective amnesia was "disrespectful to parliament."

He says when he appeared at the select committee last July he said he was the right person to clear it up, and he did. "I have spent hundreds of millions of dollars.... Anything that looked faintly suspicious was passed to the police. That led to, I think, a dozen midnight arrests. Because of my pledge, not because of police. We went way beyond what they'd asked us to do.

"I remain greatly distressed that people who have been with me for 20 or 30 years.. My distress, it would be presumptuous to compare it with the immense disturbance, if you like, and hurt to the people who were arrested. I feel responsible for that but I'm glad we did it."

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@ RobDotHutton : Think Private Eye may need to increase its pagination next week. #leveson

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I think that historically this whole business of the News of the World is a serious blot on my reputation.

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"When the Milly Dowler situation was first given huge publicity, I think all the newspaper took this as the chance to really make a really national scandal. It made people all over the country aware of this..

"I panicked. But I'm glad I did. I'm sorry I didn't close it years before and put a Sunday Sun in. I tell you what held us back - the News of the World readers, only half of them read the Sun."

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@ MASieghart : Tim de Lisle resigned as Arts Editor of The Times when he was pressurised to run a big Sky plug #leveson

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"I don't have any other business interests. I certainly would ask or suggest, I don't think it needs suggesting, the editor of The Sun that it would be good to mention what's coming up in our new paper on Sunday. There is self-promotion in newspapers."

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These are known to be, um, not 100% accurate.

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@ tom_watson : I raised the blackmail point with Murdoch last year and he's claiming he still hasn't read the judgement. Outrageous. #leveson

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He says Andrew Neil, the former Sunday Times editor, doesn't "know the first thing he is talking about."

"Mr Neil seems to have found it very profitable to spread lies about me"

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From a press gazette story in December:

Lord Justice Leveson this afternoon condemned as outrageous an incident in which the News of the World threatened to expose one of the dominatrices involved in the Max Mosley sex party if they didn't cooperate with the paper.

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Rupert Murdoch is explaining his relationship to prime ministers past and present at the Leveson inquiry. Follow our liveblog for up-to-the-minute developments: ...
Rupert Murdoch is explaining his relationship to prime ministers past and present at the Leveson inquiry. Follow our liveblog for up-to-the-minute developments: ...
 
 
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Gavin Saunders
we only have each other
11:11 AM on 04/26/2012
Is that a rosary draped on Wendi's $60K handbag?
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Mickey Mouse 1
There are no lies or deceit on a chess board.
03:33 PM on 04/25/2012
Very illuminating to listen to the organ grinder and not the performing monkey. Nothing shocking: politicians court the attention of the newspapers/media to back their campaigns.
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redsquad
Shootin' from the lip
02:47 PM on 04/25/2012
I'm so sick of this self-appointed moral compass of the country deciding which way he'd going to 'steer' us "for own own benefit". That one man/family can wield so much power is a disgrace. He should buy a small island and set up his own country somewhere if he's so obsessed with power.
01:44 PM on 04/25/2012
rupert Murdoch does not understand the word ethics. The one thing that made democracy viable was a free and open press with ethics. Rupert Murdoch has destroyed it. He not only decides what elected officials and bureaucrats should do in England but he makes similar decisions in America. He is what the USSR would have wanted during the cold war. His papers contain illegally obtained information which is gossip and panders to the lowest but it also contains outright lies and while focusing on trash and fabricated news manages to deflect people from what is important. He is dangerous and his empire should be dissolved immmediately so we can have a free democracy again.
11:53 AM on 04/25/2012
I pray this idiot and his corrupt businesses are ousted from the UK and Europe. He is the closest you will get to a modern day Mafia.
11:52 AM on 04/25/2012
I'm so bored with the whole thing hacking, it seem's to me that the rich are getting richer getting large sums of money in conpensation. Yawn let's move on.
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jrfunkenstein
'It's a sad and beautiful world'
12:07 PM on 04/25/2012
Well at least with your contribution, things will continue to be as rotten as Murdoch wills.

Congratulations on turning a blind eye to corruption, crime and collusion.
12:44 PM on 04/25/2012
There is corruption everywhere government police,but it's ok for them to spy and hack into our e mails listen to our telephone call's big brother is watching .
O and by the way all newspapers are guilty of some form of hacking not just NI, they have not yet been caught.
northern git
fed up with all the political crap in life
11:33 AM on 04/25/2012
"I try very hard to set an example of ethical behaviour and make it quite clear that I expect it," he said.

what sort of crap is that

he expects it as long as not caught out
11:23 AM on 04/25/2012
with luck murdoch will bring not only his own empire down but the government . . . .
ThinkCreeps
Seriously, it's time.
11:11 AM on 04/25/2012
"I've never asked a politician for anything": you're right, Rupert - you don't ask - you tell 'em what to do