Murdoch Government Hacking Scandal: The Guardian Prints What The NYT, WaPo, And US Broadcast News Avoid

Following up on Charles’ post, here is what you currently get when you type the words “murdoch government computer hack” into Google:

There should be two (2) things that strike the reader:

1) Holy crap. Rupert Murdoch’s people felt they were such studs that they could hack into the computers of the British government as if it were their fricking birthright. Why aren’t they in jail for this?

2) Look at the wide range of media covering this story. While the US broadcast media is as always missing in action, many US papers and magazines have the story — with the striking exceptions of the New York Times and the Washington Post.

And yes, I checked out the “709 related articles” and didn’t see anything by either paper:

Murdoch Stew 2: Now With Computer Hacking!

Rupert Murdoch‘s now fighting not only a two-front war in the phone hacking scandal, it’s branched out in America to include computer hacking as well:

The FBI is widening its investigation of News Corporation’s activities within the US to look at whether alleged computer hacking by one of its subsidiaries was an isolated case or part of a “larger pattern of behaviour”, Time magazine is reporting.

Time suggests that the FBI inquiry has been extended from a relatively narrow look at alleged malpractices by News Corp in America into a more general investigation of whether the company used possibly illegal strong-arm tactics to browbeat rival firms.

This is in reference to the Floorgraphics case, where Murdoch threw a ton of money at the Floorgraphics people to settle the civil suit that was in progress, then bought Floorgraphics immediately afterwards. But just because something’s been settled in civil court doesn’t mean it can’t be tried in criminal court if evidence of criminal wrongdoing exists — hence the FBI’s involvement.

That popcorn’s starting to smell really good right now.