News Corp. ex-counsel denies being alerted to probe of Fox reporter

[ProSense]

News Corp. ex-counsel denies being alerted to probe of Fox reporter

By Joe Flint

The former general counsel of News Corp., parent company of Fox News, said his office never got any notification from the U.S. Justice Department in 2010 that it had subpoenaed communications records of Fox News reporter James Rosen.


In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lawrence "Lon" Jacobs -- who was News Corp. general counsel at the time -- said "we never got it" when asked about a report in the New York Times that the Justice Department had alerted News Corp. via fax of its probe into Rosen. The department was investigating Rosen for his reporting on North Korea and had accused him in an affidavit of violating the espionage act.

Jacobs said of the fax that "there is no record that it was ever received" and went on to say that if he had learned of a Justice Department investigation of a Fox News reporter, "the first thing I would have done is call (Fox News Chairman) Roger Ailes." Jacobs left News Corp. in 2011.

News Corp., meanwhile, issued a statement saying, "While we don't take issue with the DOJ's account that they sent a notice to News Corp., we do not have a record of ever having received it. We are looking into this matter."

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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-fox-news-news-corp-justice-20130526,0,5620683.story

DOJ Notified News Corp. About Phone-Record Seizure
By DEVLIN BARRETT

The Justice Department notified the parent company of Fox News more than two years ago about its seizure of phone records belonging to one of its reporters, a Fox official said Saturday.

The parent company, News Corp NWSA +0.67%., didn't tell Fox about the notification, the Fox official said.

This new detail helps clear up a mystery at the heart of the continuing controversy over the government's actions. Over the past week, officials at Fox have denied they were notified of the phone-record subpoenas, while law-enforcement officials insisted they were. It appears the reason for the discrepancy was that the notice was sent to News Corp.

A News Corp. spokeswoman confirmed the company was notified in August 2010 and said it was looking into the matter.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323975004578505973554415696.html

Fox learned about the subpoena nearly three years ago
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022902690

[limpyhobbler]

1. a thrilling revelation. nt

[ProSense]

3. Yeah,

"a thrilling revelation."

...someone should tell the News Corp officials cited in News Corp's WSJ.

[hrmjustin]

2. I don't believe a word Fox says.

[ProSense]

4. Behind the Resignation of Murdoch's Top Lawyer: $656M in Defeats

By Jim Edwards

Behind the Resignation of Murdoch's Top Lawyer: $656M in Defeats

News Corp. (NWS) senior evp/general counsel Lawrence "Lon" Jacobs resigned June 8, a move the New York Times linked to the celebrity phone hacking scandal at owner Rupert Murdoch's London tabloids. But there's a case to be made that it's the supermarket antitrust fiasco wot done it, as Murdoch paper The Sun might have put it.

The phonetap affair has, at most, cost News £40 million in legal fees and settlements to people such as actress Sienna Miller.

By contrast, Jacobs' resignation came just two days after a judge signed off on the last of three massive antitrust cases involving News America Marketing, Murdoch's grocery coupon empire. Those settlements have cost News $656 million to date -- more than the company's profits from the movie Avatar, at one point. And it came on the same day that News was handed a defeat on all counts in a federal appeals court case aimed at silencing a former whistleblower whose information provided the basis for those cases in the first place.

During his tenure, Jacobs supervised this trifecta of failure:
$125 million: To tiny Insignia Systems (ISIG), which accused NAM of anticompetitive practices.
$500 million: To Valassis (VCI), which accused NAM of forcing clients to choose its services or face price rises if they gave business to Valassis.
$29.5 million: To Floorgraphics Inc., which alleged NAM hacked into its computer systems (sound familiar?) to steal competitive information.
Jacobs' staff fought all three cases with the same counterproductive strategy: fight, fight, fight, no matter how ridiculous or trivial the position, up until the last minute, when defeat seemed certain. At that point, from the weakest possible bargaining position, News caved and settled.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-42748951/behind-the-resignation-of-murdochs-top-lawyer-$656m-in-defeats/

Rupert Murdoch Has Gamed American Politics Every Bit as Thoroughly as Britain's

John Nichols on July 16, 2011

Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch has manipulated not just the news but the news landscape of the United States for decades. He has done so by pressuring the Federal Communications Commission and Congress to alter the laws of the land and regulatory standards in order to give his media conglomerate an unfair advantage in “competition” with more locally focused, more engaged and more responsible media.

It’s an old story: while Murdoch’s Fox News hosts prattle on and on about their enthusiasm for the free market, they work for a firm that seeks to game the system so Murdoch’s “properties” are best positioned to monopolize the discourse.

Now, with Murdoch’s News Corp. empire in crisis—collapsing bit by bit under the weight of a steady stream of allegations about illegal phone hacking and influence peddling in Britain—there is an odd disconnect occurring in much of the major media of the United States. While there is some acknowledgement that Murdoch has interests in the United States (including not just his Fox News channel but the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post), the suggestion is that Murdoch was more manipulative, more influential, more controlling in Britain than here.

But that’s a fantasy. Just as Murdoch has had far too much control over politics and politicians in Britain during periods of conservative dominance—be it under an actual Tory such as former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major and current Prime Minister David Cameron or under a faux Tory such as former Prime Minister Tony Blair—he has had far too much control in the States. And that control, while ideological to some extent, is focused mainly on improving the bottom line for his media properties by securing for them unfair legal and regulatory advantages.

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http://www.thenation.com/blog/162083/rupert-murdoch-has-gamed-american-politics-every-bit-thoroughly-britains#

[hrmjustin]

5. Thanks for posting this, I did not know this stuff.

[ProSense]

6. It's interesting stuff. n/t