Eideard

Rupert Murdoch faces revolt from his own staff…after journalists angry at the arrest of five senior colleagues accused the company of throwing them to the wolves.

The 80-year-old media mogul is due to fly into Britain this week to address workers at his Wapping plant and reassure them of his commitment to his remaining UK newspaper titles. But he is likely to receive an angry reception after five more journalists on The Sun were arrested as part of Operation Elveden – the police investigation into allegations of bribery.

The arrests early on Saturday morning were the second batch in a fortnight and sources close to the investigation have indicated that they are unlikely to be the last.

Journalists at The Sun yesterday accused the company’s Management Standards Committee (MSC), which handed a huge amount of information to detectives, of allowing a “witch-hunt” to take place.

One angry journalist said the MSC were behaving like “reptiles” in order to protect the reputation of Mr Murdoch’s parent company in the United States.

Ten senior journalists on the paper have now been arrested and bailed as detectives probe allegations that they illegally paid police officers and other public officials for information. But staff at the paper said many of the allegations were “pathetic” and related to matters many years ago where reporters had bought drinks for contacts in the pursuit of legitimate stories…

One source at Wapping said: “There is a real feeling of anger, deepening anger but also defiance about what is going on. But there is not the mood for a strike, as people are loyal to the paper but perhaps not the people who run it…”

It has also now emerged that the Sun’s parent company News Corp could face an investigation by officials under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The law allows American companies to be fined hundreds of millions of dollars for illegal activities overseas.

It would be pleasant change in political practices on the part of governments in both the US and UK to offer Murdoch something more than a powder puff spank on his poo-poo. He probably owns more politicians in the British Parliament than Exxon-Mobil does in the US Congress.

Two leading members of the lyin’ bastards club

Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry have been accused of telling TV viewers blatant untruths about Barack Obama.

The candidates deny their TV commercials are deceitful and dishonest but both ads selectively quote the president to make it appear he is saying one thing when he is saying another.

The advertisements have been widely scorned for crossing a line from a longstanding practice of political campaigns pushing the truth to its limits, over to misrepresentation. One ad appears to show Obama admitting he will lose next year’s election if he talks about the economy. The other has him calling American workers lazy.

Romney’s campaign ad is airing on TV stations in New Hampshire, which holds its primary in January. It shows the president saying: “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” But Obama’s words were from his 2008 campaign, and he was quoting a statement by a strategist for his Republican opponent, John McCain, who was the one on the back foot over the economy.

Perry’s ad shows a short soundbite of Obama saying: “We’ve been a little bit lazy I think over the last couple of decades.”

The ad switches to Perry saying: “Can you believe that? That’s what our president thinks is wrong with America – that Americans are lazy. That’s pathetic.”

But a viewing of Obama’s full statement shows that he was saying the US government had been lazy in attracting foreign investment.

Darrell West, director of governance studies at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution in Washington, said that Romney and Perry had gone further than previous campaigns in misrepresenting the truth.

“Those ads are blatant misrepresentations,” he said. “They are much more egregious than what we’ve seen in the past. Typically candidates have tried to be close to the truth because they know journalists are paying attention, but with all the problems of the news industry politicians have concluded they can get away with murder…”

But West acknowledged that politicians are less concerned about being exposed by reporters. “Politicians think that the news media have completely collapsed, based on the financial crisis, and so they are acting as if there’s no accountability and they can say whatever they want,” he said.

West makes a great point about American journalists having as little integrity as Republican candidates. Since their employers are either corporations controlled by Republicans or clown who consider news as entertainment – or both – there’s little encouragement for any of them to point out any of the lies or liars.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

A band of right-wing activists ransacked an Indian television station in the country’s financial hub of Mumbai in an assault their party said was an act of retaliation against the channel’s “bias” against their veteran leader…

“We are not denying it. They were angry,” said Sanjay Raut, a federal lawmaker from Shiv Sena. He accused the channel of insulting his party head, Bal Thackeray, a fiery Maharashtrian leader.

“This brand of politics is flourishing in Mumbai for more than 40 years now. It’s a paradox in India’s democracy that these parties have always endorsed attacks at those who do not subscribe to their parochial, medieval thoughts. Targets have been Bollywood films, Valentine’s Day celebrations, non-Maharashtrians, and non-Hindus.”

Madeline Earp, Asia research associate for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Hindu nationalists, and Shiv Sena in particular, have indeed been responsible for previous attacks, and such violence is part of a broader trend of impunity for attacks on journalists in India, including killings…

Earp said “it’s good to see local police are making arrests following this attack, because aggressive investigation and prosecution are desperately needed to protect Indian journalists from incidents like this one. “

Of course, local and national TV stations in America needn’t have such fears.

Not that teabaggers aren’t loony enough to burn down a station. It’s just that our media wimps are too lame to ever do anything with enough backbone to provoke a lynch mob.

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Daylife/Reuters Pictures

Gang violence is surging in Mexico, where 40,000 soldiers have been deployed across the country to root out drug cartels. Beheadings, attacks on police, and shootings in clubs and restaurants are a daily occurrence in some regions.

One of the worst areas for the violence has been the border city of Juarez, where thousands of Mexican troops are now trying to re-establish control.

Driving into Mexico’s most dangerous city is slightly nerve-wracking, to say the least. Murder, kidnapping and extortion on a grand scale. Ciudad Juarez has not exactly been the safest place.

So the first time you cross that bridge over the Rio Grande, which divides Mexico and the United States, there is a slight flutter in your stomach. Then you see the soldiers. Juarez has been flooded with troops. Thousands have arrived in the past few weeks, under direct orders from the president.

“The army is in control of the police station,” police spokesman Mauricio Mauricio says. “They have the order of the president of Mexico to take control.”

Matthew Prices reports from the front lines. A few hours drive from my home in New Mexico.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) prides itself in being “committed to improving the state of the world”. So what kind of an event was it amidst a global economic crisis?

The WEF organisers claimed a record number of participants this year, despite the high-profile cancellations of a string of bankers and politicians. But the event did not feel packed.

Davos still served its two main purposes: debating and networking.

Cramming lots of business people, social activists, young high-achievers and leading-edge innovators into a narrow space is bound to result in a lot of wheeling and dealing.

“When I took the shuttle bus today, I began to chat to this guy. Turned out he needed exactly the kind of product we make, so within three minutes I just about had a deal,” a young executive told me. “Maybe next year I should just stay in the shuttle bus for a day and drive around and around, talking to interesting people.”

Indeed, Davos gives access like no other place. Chief executives can compare notes with no corporate lawyers in sight. Social entrepreneurs can bend the ears (and prise open the wallets) of corporate titans. And politicians can meet discretely without anybody being the wiser.

“This Davos is better,” said Wenchi Chen, chief executive of HTC-Via. “It’s back to what is most fundamental – for business, government and human beings.”

Last time I was in Davos was long before the WEF was a glimmer in some hotelier’s eye. Couldn’t afford to stay in town, then. either.

And at Davos – you could do the same with the press and pimply webcasters.

It is not often that the world wakes up to the same headlines right around the globe. But that is what happened last week when the news media told the story of the international economic system going into a tailspin.

The collapse of investment banks and a huge global insurance company had media outlets using terms like “Wall Street meltdown”, “an economic 9/11″, even the “end of capitalism”…

To hear much of the global media tell it the economic crash blindsided the world, including banks, regulators and even those who had been reporting the financial world to the public.

“I don’t think anyone saw this coming, least of all the financial press,” Ryan Chittum from the Columbia Journalism Review, says. “Should financial journalists be fortune tellers? No. But should they have done a better job of reporting that the structure of Wall Street was such that something like could have happened and clearly the answer is yes…”
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Through half a decade of war, a team of 100 Reuters correspondents, photographers, cameramen and support staff have strived to bring the world news from the most dangerous country for the press.

This is their testimony – bearing witness to ensure the story of Iraq is not lost.

Click on the photo to get to the slideshow.