Daily View: What next for News International?
British newspaper commentators ask what is next for News International after Rupert Murdoch withdrew his bid to buy the remaining part of BSkyB.
Before being convicted of fraud, Conrad Black was himself a newspaper magnate. what he thinks should happen to the BSkyB licence:
鈥淎s it happens, I don鈥檛 see much practical difference to the public interest between his present effective control of BSkyB and his complete ownership of it. If, but only if, News Corp is reasonably found guilty of institutional criminality 鈥 and the potential accused deserves the presumption of innocence (however rarely it has accorded it to others) 鈥 its satellite telecasting licence should be revoked.鈥
But if the climate will ever be right again for News International to reignite its bid for the whole of BSkyB:
鈥淎t the heart of this question lies the issue of how the company can credibly rebuild its managerial core to convince politicians, regulators, customers and shareholders that it can exercise better ethical and commercial judgment.
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鈥淚t is not too outlandish to speculate that there will be no comeback this time without Murdoch digging out what remains wedged in the dark corners of the filthy ecurie: the alleged bribery to police, the hush money to victims, and a trail of family and employees who bear responsibility for both the hacking itself and the subsequent cover-up. What will be enough to make the company 鈥榝uture proof鈥? Selling the newspapers which symbolised Murdoch's rise to both political and commercial power in the UK is an obvious move and one which has already been informally mooted.鈥
Onto David Cameron's promised inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World, the its aims are too vague:
鈥淚 do not have great hope that the inquiry announced yesterday will deliver the prize. Its remit is wide and unavoidably abstract. To take one example of the difficulties when we move from the vague to the particular, Cameron stated yesterday that he supported "independent" regulation of the newspapers rather than self-regulation. When asked to explain the difference, he could not do so. I have spoken at many meetings where the relationship between the media and politics is the theme. The meetings go around in circles and always promise more than they deliver. This may be the fate of the inquiry.鈥
T against an over-reaction when deciding punishments for phone hackers:
鈥淔or years, and not only at News International, journalists have been indulging in squalid criminality, abetted by policemen. Can it really be true that a Royal protection officer was suborned? If so, the breach of trust is sickening. But that sordid era is now over, for which we should all be grateful. However belatedly, crime will end in punishment. Even so it is important that the necessary reforms do not compromise the freedom of the press. Revulsion, however justified, is a dangerous counsellor. Although everyone wants quick action, we also need judicious conclusions. Fortunately, there is every reason to suppose than Lord Justice Leveson is the right man to deliver them.鈥
if the enormity of the outrage will actually stop anything from changing:
鈥淭he problem with firestorms, like that following the phone-hacking revelations, is that they suck the oxygen out of debate. You鈥檙e only really allowed to express a narrow range of responses, from shock and horror to string 鈥檈m up; everyone piles in (except those who become curiously silent) - and no thinking gets done. Then, once the storm is over, exhausted as from the completion of a gigantic act of coition, no one much wants to talk about what it all meant. They prefer to sleep.鈥
