"Reporters from the News of the World claim that wiretapping is very common in their company..."
"Everyone does it..."
Hall said:
"People in power have lost their self-control, and no one is investigating us."
This is a report just published in The Guardian, from an interview by Guardian reporter Nick Davis with Sean Hall, who previously worked as a reporter for the News of the World.
In this interview, Sean Hall also hinted that Andy Carlson, the former editor-in-chief of the News of the World, knew that newspaper employees had wiretapped their phone voicemails.
Andy Carlson had just resigned from his position as editor-in-chief of the News of the World because of the "wiretapping scandal". He had previously claimed that he knew nothing about the employees' wiretapping incidents.
At the same time, according to the revelation, Sean Hall and Andy Carlson previously worked together on the Next Column of the British Sun.
In 2003, after Carlson became the editor-in-chief of the News of the World, he recruited Hall to work for the News of the World.
In fact, in Barron's previous life, Sean Hall was the protagonist who broke the "wiretapping" incident again in 2010, and a year later, he was found dead in his home.
The police at the time claimed that the cause of his death was unknown, but ruled out homicide...
So at this time, through Barron's arrangement, his men "helped" Nick Davis, a reporter from the Guardian, to find Sean Hall and got this detailed revelation from him.
Sean Hall claimed that the actual situation of the "wiretapping" in the News of the World was much more serious than the results of the previous police investigation.
The "wiretapping" incident of News Corporation has not only intensified in Britain, but also attracted attention in the United States across the ocean.
On February 20, when related reports emerged in an endless stream and more and more people accused News Corporation's magazines of wiretapping, Murdoch's son James Murdoch was busy negotiating with those people to reach a settlement...
Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, issued a strongly worded statement on this day.
He warned the New York-based News Corporation that if it was found to be conducting wiretapping similar to that in the United States, especially involving victims of the 9/11 attacks or other Americans, it would face serious consequences.
He also encouraged relevant agencies to investigate to ensure that the privacy rights of Americans were not violated.
At this time, the Premier League Committee and the Premier League Company are negotiating with various platforms for the broadcasting rights in the UK for the next three seasons from 2007 to 2010.
Prior to this, according to the EU's resolution, it is not allowed to continue to allow a single TV station to monopolize the broadcasting rights of the Premier League. Therefore, all 138 games of the Premier League this time will be divided into 6 broadcast packages, and it is stipulated that no media shall monopolize more than 5 broadcast packages.
The participants in the competition this time include BSkyB (Sky TV), ITV (SEM Group), BBC, BT Sports (video platform under British Telecom), DailyVedio.com (video platform under O2 Telecom and Digital Future) and TV stations including Setanta in Ireland.
In fact, as a free public TV station, the BBC is often only interested in Premier League highlights, and participating in the competition for broadcasting rights is more symbolic.
But ITV, which has merged with SDTV and has the financial support of SEM Group, or more precisely, DS Group, can be said to be coming on strong.
BT Sports, DailyVedio.com and Setanta TV are more likely to obtain one or two of the six broadcast packages.
BSkyB, which has been cooperating with the Premier League since 1992, certainly has certain advantages in the competition. After all, they have made a lot of money on the paid sports channel by relying on the Premier League broadcasting rights...
At the same time, there are also disputes between ITV and BSkyB regarding the Premier League broadcasting rights - in fact, BSkyB snatched the Premier League broadcasting rights from ITV in 1992, and used some not-so-glorious means. At the beginning, the Premier League had not yet been officially established. ITV was the main player in the league copyright, and the contract amount was 44 million pounds for 4 years.
Greg Dyke, who was in charge of the copyright negotiations at ITV at that time, had keenly realized that the future live broadcast rights of this top league would be the biggest piece of fat in the British sports media and even the entire television media market.
In order to get this piece of fat, Dyke had close talks with the six core clubs that planned to establish the Premier League, and on the other hand, ITV's offer was also soaring.
However, the initial price of 80 million pounds for 4 years has increased by nearly two times compared with the past, and the final offer of more than 260 million pounds for five years was an astronomical figure that people thought could not recover the cost at all.
But even after doing this much homework, ITV still lost to Murdoch.
A phone call from Alan Sugar, the then Tottenham owner, who leaked intelligence changed everything.
BSkyB, who learned the news, decisively threw a bid worth more than 300 million pounds, and ITV, which once thought it had won the game, was out.
As for why the Tottenham owner provided intelligence to Murdoch?
Because a year ago, he learned that his newspaper competitor Maxwell was going to buy Tottenham Hotspur, so he helped his business partner Alan Sugar to bid and eventually succeeded.
This pre-foreshadowing eventually played a decisive role in the copyright war.
As a loser, Dyke was naturally very unwilling. ITV filed a lawsuit against BSkyB at the time, but facing Murdoch, who was extremely proficient in power games such as offensive and defensive alliances, this action was naturally futile.
It was not until 1998 that Dyke finally found an opportunity to retaliate against Murdoch.
Murdoch, who was in his heyday at the time, offered $1 billion to buy Manchester United, but this shocking deal was eventually aborted under pressure from all parties.
At that time, Dyke was one of the board members of Manchester United.
Back to the present, ITV once again stood on the stage with BSkyB to compete for the Premier League broadcasting rights, but this time...
Why did Barron detonate the "wiretapping gate" incident of News Corporation in advance?
One of the purposes was the broadcasting rights of the Premier League.
"The Labor government has always been too soft on Murdoch. I hope their so-called investigation will not become a formality in the end. As far as I know, the targets of News Corporation's eavesdropping are extremely wide. They not only seek news, but also commercial intelligence. In 1992, they obtained the Premier League broadcasting rights by relying on espionage..."
As a member of the opposition party, Joe Harriman took advantage of the "wiretapping gate" incident and went all out on TV shows - not only targeting the current ruling Labor Party, but also News Corporation...
She said:
"Everyone knows that the Premier League broadcasting rights for 2007-2010 are under competition, but I suspect BSkyB has received enough inside information. After all, the internal calls of the Premier League Committee are no secrets in front of them. Maybe they have heard some more explosive gossip..."
Yes, dragging BSkyB into the negative impact of the "wiretapping gate" is also one of Barron's plans.
It's not just Joe Harriman - in fact, her words are relatively subtle. The "secret deal" between the Premier League Committee, Premier League companies and Murdoch has also been hyped up by many tabloids...
Of course, News Corporation cannot help but fight back, but under the current circumstances, their newspapers are unlikely to be very persuasive.