Rupert Murdoch & Jerry Hall : so much to discuss

One of the madder tales doing the rounds and which is bound to be repeated ad infinitum is the rumour that billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is dating the Texan model Jerry Hall. Jerry is pictured here with her former boyfriend Warwick Hemsley and with her daughter Georgia May Jagger during Sydney visits.
What could this newspaper obsessed mogul possibly have in common with fun loving Jerry?. Well according to Nick Davies in his best- seller Hack Attack about the recent hacking scandal, perhaps pillow talk could involve a discussion about how Rupert's tabloids hacked the phone of Bernard Doherty who was Mick Jagger's publicist when he was married to Jerry which provided a string of exclusive tales about the couple's divorce for the Murdoch newspapers.

Lord Leveson, Vile Perverts & Mayan Predictions

Did the good judge know what was coming ?. Lord Leveson leaped on a jet bound for Australia a few days ago after releasing the first part of his report into the hacking claims against Rupert Murdoch's newspapers that have seen dozens of journalists, police and public servants arrested.

King, Leveson Starr, Glitter & Max Clifford

 The Jimmy Savile scandal had already descended across Britain with over 400 assault claims about the dead DJ. Tabloids who just one year ago printed hand wringing eulogies about the track suited, cigar chomping Leeds' resident back pedaled like crazy.

One of those at the forefront of the decline of England's red tops into celebrity obsessed glossies propped up by sordid tales of sex was the celebrity agent Max Clifford who was the first port of call for those claiming they had been abused by a celebrity and who wished to sell their tale for a few thousand pounds.

Now Clifford has been arrested over alleged sex claims involving the Savile investigation.
Another arrested was the comedian Freddie Starr who spent time in Australia last year in 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.  Clifford shot Starr to fame when he sold a tale to a tabloid : Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster.

And with bizarre synchronicity, the former pop star Gary Glitter was also arrested and questioned by the very same Savile police on the same matter. It was Max Clifford  who sold stories of an alleged sex assault by Glitter, to the News Of The World. Glitter was found not guilty of the charge by a jury.

Rebekah Brooks & Flame Mitchell

Another show business identity who has tangled with Clifford is Jonathan King who spent time banged up by Her Majesty.
 Clifford represented  men who sold their stories of alleged abuse by King to several newspapers.

The world is soon to end according to the Mayans (and PM Julia Gillard).
Jonathon King produced a film Vile Pervert about his ordeals and time in jail (the judge labelled him a 'vile pervert' during the trial).
In Vile Pervert, King through song and dance warns Max Clifford of the certainty of Karma and makes predictions that several identities who reveled in his trial and jailing, would come to a sticky end.
To date several have including former News Corp executive Rebekah Brooks ( Flame Mitchel in Vile Pervert)  and Max Clifford (Waxie Maxie in King's film).
You can download or view Vile Pervert on line here.
In Sydney today Lord Leveson said he "was watching developments in the UK with interest".
Below is King's 1975 hit Una Paloma Blanca :

Madame Arcati & The News Corp Insider

Rumours of her demise were greatly exaggerated. Just a few weeks ago the British blogger Madame Arcati announced her retirement from public life. It was short lived.
Now she is back and has scored an exclusive interview with the former News Of The World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck.
Thurlbeck has had the privilege of now having his collar felt twice in the Great Hacking Scandal that has made the British publishing world exciting once more.

Read Madame's Thurlbeck interview here.

# Neville Thurlbeck has also joined the blogging world here. It's a good read. Our readers in the UK may be interested in his 2000 Mercedes SL280 that's for sale for £5,999. The same model sells for $27,000  (£17,000) in Australia. Anyone visiting for the London Olympics should snap up the bargain. The Shuttle has shipped an automobile out from the UK before. Freight costs approx $1000. It's easier than you think and pays for the trip !

# On the subject of the late News Of The World, was it Mr Thurlbeck who penned a scurrilous article that appeared about the Shuttle a couple of decades ago ?. On the front page no less and mistaking us for a character of dubious morals with a similar name who hailed from Glasgow ?

They coughed up a tidy sum three weeks later that paid for a holiday to Morocco and a brand new yellow Mini car, dubbed 'Rupert' in the great man's honour.

Murdoch awards himself first prize

It almost brings a tear to your eye. I'm sure they deserved it. The Sunday Telegraph has won the Newspaper Of The Year Award.

The award was presented to Sunday Tele editor Neil Breen by Rupert Murdoch in the annual News Ltd Awards.

The great media baron is reported as saying "he had enormous pride in the great examples of the quality journalism rewarded by the judges."

Irrelevant / Irreverent Facts : News Ltd & The Daily Telegraph are both owned by..err..Rupert Murdoch. It's the thought that counts.
Sadly, no posthumous award for the News of The World.

Kylie Minogue :Phone Hacked

Kylie Minogue supsects her mobile phone may have been hacked when she was suffering from breast cancer.in 2005.

Speaking to a London newspaper after receiving an honorary degree from Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford,  the singer says in response to being asked if her phone was hacked : "It may have been."
 
Kylie received an honorary Doctor of Health Sciences for her work to promote cancer awareness

Famous Last Words # 1

19th January 2011 James Murdoch Chairman News International speaking about the phone hacking scandal at the News of The World newspaper :

"You talk about a reputation crisis – actually the business is doing really well. It shows what we were able to do is really put this problem in a box."

8th July 2011:

Hugh Grant :Thumbs Up for Social Shuttle & Others

OK the title is an exaggeration.

We feel sure Hugh Grant would love the Social Shuttle even if when he asked your scribe one day what his occupation was and heard the reply (Australian journalist ) he responded "that's a contradiction in terms".

Grant was talking today on the Richard Bacon show on the BBC's
Radio Five Live which was broadcast from the offices of The Independent newspaper in London. He said he was still deciding if he should sue the News Of The World after being shown evidence by British police that he was a victim of phone hacking in the scandal sweeping the British media.

The actor is hopeful to see the end of tabloid newspapers : “We don’t need them  we don’t want them and the sooner they go out of business the better."

On the  tabloid's invasion of privacy he said: "They would go temporarily out of business because they rely almost entirely on stealing people’s privacy, but then I think they would actually be grateful because in six months, a year they would have to go back to being real journalists and they would feel good about themselves.”
 
 Journalist Nick Davies who first wrote of the hacking scandal and who wrote Flat Earth News, a book about media manipulation was also on the programme and said  Grant was "thinking along the right lines”.

Ironically, when Grant was busted in Hollywood with Devine Brown it was the making of his career. Never looked back really. We feel sure thousands of vicars all over the UK will rest easy if the NoTW goes to the wall plus websites like the Shuttle could only find a vastly increased audience (currently around 2000-2400 readers a day ).

# More news on the purported libel case that may be mounted by a Melbourne based celebrity against Facebook and it's founder Mark Zuckerberg. The Shuttle has read some of the legal advice on the case and Zuckerberg's words may come back to haunt him.

In the past week it has been revealed that Facebook hired a big PR firm to spread tales about Google. The escapade has completely backfired on Facebook.

Reading Facebook's introductions it goes to great pains, like many other social media websites, to point out that it cannot be held responsible for the content on Facebook as it is 'stored ' on outside servers which are not controlled by Facebook.

The Rumpole's advice is that the claim is nonsense as it attempts to avoid responsibility for publishing and a journalist, editor or publisher could make the same claim that their product is carried on outside newsstands etc.

But he also points to a speech given by  Zuckerberg in 2010 and where he proclaimed that "the age of privacy is dead". Our learned friend says the statement points to the 'intent' of the net tsar to re-write privacy laws without having the right to !.
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US  giants Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores have censored a book cover featuring Australian androgynous model, 19 year old Andre Pejic who has become the darling of the fashion world.


Read the story in the Mail Online.

Aussie Victim of Britain's Phone Hacking Scandal

James Murdoch who has just been appointed as third in command of the mighty News Corp's USA operations has said that the phone hacking scandal in Britain has been "put in a box". But that Pandora's Box threatens to burst open in unexpected ways.

Collateral damage may be far and wide and open up even more lawsuits from those not directly hacked but who have also suffered because of the illegal phone taps.

It's already been aknowledged that model Elle McPherson was one celebrity whose mobile phone voice-mail messages were illegally listened to by the tabloid  News of The World employees, but one of her innocent associates ended up being sacked because of it.

 Mary Ellen Field was the Australian brand manager, legal adviser and confidante of Elle who advised and worked on McPherson's hugely successful range of personalised merchandise that has earned the supermodel a reputed $60 million dollar fortune.

When Elle McPherson discovered that messages between her and her adviser Field were mysteriously ending up as gossipy items in the media, she sacked the firm Mary Ellen worked for. As has been since discovered, Field and her employer were innocent of revealing Elle's confidential information.

On Friday the ABC radio broadcaster Mark Colvin spoke to Field's lawyer Mark Lewis who has issued court proceedings in Britain against News Corp on Field's behalf and who described the recent offer from News for compensation as not being quite all that it seems

Lewis responded to Colvin's question on compensation : " It's only partially true. What has been said by the Murdoch companies is that if a claim can be proved, that they will then compensate the people but the criteria that had been set out by Murdoch - I mean, it's very different, I mean we have a position where they're sort of playing Australian Rules Football and the game we're playing is cricket; they're just two different criteria. "

Read the full transcript on ABC News PM here, listen to the broadcast and download podcasts of previous ABC shows.

 ** The UK's Dail Mail has run a story on Andrew Bolt's continuing court case in which he is being sued by 9 Indigenous folk in a piece headlined : ''They're not really Aborigines': Right-wing columnist sparks race row in Australia".

The case has brought Bolt some unlikely supporters like the Sydney Morning Herald's legal columnist Richard Akland and the top political website crikey.com.au, neither of which could be accused of leaning to the right in the political spectrum with many saying the case amounts to an attack upon free speech.


Bolt : ABC TV



In the past Bolt has questioned the veracity of Climate Change claims and if there really was a Stolen Generation- the practice of white 'protectors' forcibly removing Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander children to assimilate them into mainly white religious missions.

Aboriginal activists say the opposite as in this piece "An open letter to Andrew Bolt from a “half-caste”, “yella fella”, “half-breed” Kungarakan-Gurindji woman"
Read the full story at the Mail Online here.

HRH Prince William's cousin's new modelling career

Camilla Franks (centre)

Alesha Makim, daughter of Jane Ferguson and niece of the Duchess of York has established a new career as a model during the Rosemount Fashion shows at the Sydney Town Hall this week.

Jane Ferguson & daughter Heidi

Alesha Makim-William's cousin

At a special parade at the Paddington Inn as part of the Paddington Alive Festival, Alesha strutted the catwalk to show off some of Camilla Frank's wondrous caftans. Camilla has just opened in Paddington a few doors from the hotel and is one of Australia's low key fashion success stories with her caftan creations now available in 500 outlets throughout the world. 

Particular hot-spots : the South of France, the Mediterranean and the Greek Islands where hardly a luxury yacht or gin palace cruises by without a Camilla designer gown being sported by one of the well heeled ladies aboard. And she is opening her own boutique on The World, the ginormous luxury ocean liner.

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Hot news : As Paul Hogan's lawyers negotiate a deal with the Australian Tax Office that would allow him to return to LA,  various reports have surfaced about the bill the ATO has presented the Aussie larrikan-between $31 to $110 million dollars!

a friendly Freudian slip

    That's how writer Mandy Miami described the diminutive Mathew Freud in a British magazine many years ago, long before he became the "most influential public relations executive in Britain"  according to PR Week magazine. Freud is boss of Freud Communications: motto:  "Sometimes we upset people.."

   But what is this statement all about in the New York Times ?. According to the newspaper Freud says:

 “I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to,”

       Oh really ?. Shurley shome mishtake as the English satirical magazine Private Eye would say. Freud is referring to the boss of the US cable network Fox News, Roger Ailes.

      Rupert Murdoch had just heaped praise upon Ailes and his skilled management of Fox News and it's capture of every right-wing ratbag US viewer and it's slavish devotion to Republican Evangelism.
       Mathew Freud is also married to Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth.

       But what about his dad-in-law's UK publications The Sun or the News of The World which have been dragging journalistic standards down to gutter level  for over 2 decades ?. Not that they had far to fall.

       A little too close to home perhaps.

        Murdoch's British rags dole out tosh by the tonne each week but who could forget some shining moments like the 'Gotcha' headline of The Sun front page in 1982, celebrating the horrible death of 323 young Argentinian sailors in a useless war for the sheep-shagging Falklands Islands begun by the Murdoch adored Margaret Thatcher.

     And let's not even go near the once respectable Sunday Times which reached it's lowest point in 1983 when it published the hilarious Hitler Diaries which contained nonsense like ""Eva gave a glorious supper party tonight at the Bergdorf with boiled veggies. Hermann G. doped to the eyeballs as usual. Heinrich H. reports excellent results with Zyclon B (wife Margarete still an old cow).Tomorrow we take Poland. Dinner after with the Thyssens " or words to that effect.

        Despite being informed the diaries were a hoax, Murdoch published anyway declaring "we're in the entertainment business".

    Which is just what Fox News is. Entertaining to a point but with rather serious consequences. Along with Murdoch's worldwide media outlets it was a major drum beater for the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions.

     Where was Freud at that time ?. Probably hosting wonderful PR events at his Notting Hill house with guests like Prime Minister Tony Blair who was declaring that Saddam Hussein's (non-existent) WMDs were "45 minutes from London", a line fed to him by perhaps the former most influential public relations executive in Britain, Alastair Campbell and possibly dreamed up by a gossiping London taxi driver according to the newspaper of alleged repute, the Times (which previously promoted the bogus "45 minute" claim without question-owner: R.Murdoch)

     What is happening here ?.

      Fox News is horrendous, as can be seen just recently in one small example when a group of Los Angeles fire fighters who had travelled to Haiti under their own steam and expense were pictured dragging a 70 year old lady from the earthquake rubble on one TV network while at the same time the atrocious pill popping lard bucket and radio host Rush Limbaugh was interviewed on Fox telling Americans not to donate to the various Haitian relief funds as a solemn Sean Hannity nodded in agreement.

      The Sydney Morning Herald (article removed) speculates that Freud's statement is some sort of power ploy within the Murdoch family: "Authorised by the committee"as Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff puts it.. The committee being Lachlan Murdoch, Elisabeth and possibly presumptive heir James Murdoch. Or against James by the others. Wolff speculates that the statement has been released deliberately.

Mathew's great grand-dad Sigmund

 Perhaps Mathew Freud has dreams of taking over the News Corp empire with wife Elisabeth's help when Rupert kicks the bucket. After all with clients like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Nike (both still ripping off workers) the world would be Mathew's oyster with a global media empire to play with.

       Forget it Mathew. News Corp is a teetering financial dinosaur riddled with cancer and when Rupert is called to account before his maker it will crumble like the deck of cards it is, currently superbly juggled with a magician's skill and sleight of hand that has bedazzled bankers and money lenders worldwide. Settle just for the News of The World, it's more your style.

(Roger Ailes suggested Freud see a psychiatrist ! )