One would think that, Sunday being the day of rest and all, there would be very little in the way of breaking or astonishing news. Sunday is supposed to be the day reserved for punditry and reflection in the news media.
Not so with this Tsunami currently washing up around the Murdoch Empire. The latest is the "arrest by appointment" of Rebekah Brooks, until yesterday CEO of News International and former Editor of News Of The World. How this bodes for the anticipated Tuesday Hearings is anyone's guess, but all bets are it can't be good.
And less than five hours later another bomb was dropped over London. This one in the form of the resignation by London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, over allegations of his involvement in the scandal and subsequent bribery charges. Although plainly stated (in this live-as-it-happened news conference), Stephenson was stepping down because he was concerned the focal point was no longer on the story but on him, time will only tell what the real set of circumstances are. The way things are going, it's almost impossible to speculate or even make stuff up.
So, in case you were feeling a need for a Rupertgate fix today, I thought I would run the initial news report (top player) on the arrest of Rebekah Brooks and the bottom player is the news leading up to the Stephenson Press Conference. Initially, it was thought to be just a press conference on the unfolding Brooks story by the Metro Police and the disclosure of Stephenson resigning was truly a bombshell.
As it seems to be true with this story, it is changing daily and almost hourly and there are hints the list of arrests will be considerably longer as the days go on. In the midst of all this, there are now very vocal calls for the removal of James Murdoch from the Board of Directors at News International as well as proposals for the breaking up of the Murdoch Empire in the UK and the very strong possibility, even among the British Press and punditry, that the story will be just as horrifying and nasty when it finally lands on our shores.
But you sort of guessed that, didn't you?
So here is your dose of Rupertgate from LBC in London for today, July 17. BTW - every news outlet in the UK and Europe (and one imagines the US) will be running the Hearings on Tuesday around 6:30 am PDT.
