Murdoch plans to launch Sun on Sundays

by David Silverberg

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch promised the U.K. a Sunday edition of the tabloid The Sun will launch soon, according to local media.

He said, as reported by the Guardian: “We will build on the Sun’s proud heritage by launching the Sun on Sunday very soon.” He went to say News International had a duty to launch the Sun on Sunday in order “to expand one of the world’s most widely read newspapers and reach even more people than ever before”. “Having a winning paper is the best answer to our critics,” he noted.

Visiting the Sun newsroom recently, Murdoch also stood by his staffers. He backed members of staff arrested by saying “everyone is innocent unless proven otherwise.” Nine journalists were arrested this month after information was passed to the police by an internal body to deal with inquiries into telephone hacking and police corruption.

He also lifted all staff suspensions, BBC News writes.

Media commentator Steve Hewlett said Murdoch was facing the kind of “ructions” in his company he had never seen before, BBC News adds.

“What he’s trying to say to the people here is ‘look we really are on the same side’, but the fact is he is between a rock and a hard place and these are both of his and his company’s own making,” he said.

Murdoch’s News International faces new inquiry

by Lynn Herrmann (Guest Contributor/Digital Journalist)

Rupert Murdoch’s scandal-plagued News International is undergoing a new inquiry over its journalism standards, a probe which began several weeks ago and includes The Times of London newspaper.

Sources familiar with the probe say lawyers for News International are handling a broad inquiry into the company’s journalism practices, including personal interviews with certain journalists and reviewing email and financial records, Reuters reports.

Linklaters, the legal firm heading the investigation, is also looking for information which investigators for the US government might use as evidence of violating America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1977 law pertaining to the bribery of foreign officials.

News Corp has confirmed the inquiry, although the corporation has released few details. “As is widely known, a review of journalistic standards is underway at News International with Linklaters assisting in the process,” a company spokesman said, according to Reuters.

The latest probe began “a number of weeks ago,” the spokesperson added, and is being controlled by News Corp. executive Joel Klein, a former assistant attorney general at the US Justice Department and independent director Viet Dinh, who has also worked at the justice department.

Included as well in the inquiry is Murdoch’s Management and Standards Committee, a unit formed by Murdoch in charge of corporate response to the phone hacking scandal and alleged illegal payments by some of the company’s journalists, a scandal which led to the demise in early July of Britain’s leading tabloid, News of the World.

At least a dozen News of the World executives and journalists have been arrested in the scandal, on allegations they gave illegal bribes to police for tips and intercepted mobile phone messages. To date, none have faced criminal chargesSince then, allegations of wrongdoing and misconduct have spread throughout the UK’s media institution. Publishers for the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, competitors of Murdoch’s empire, have also announced separate probes of journalism procedures, the Globe and Mail reports.

Additional interviews with journalists from London’s The Sunday Times are set to begin in September, and another independent inquiry is set to begin next month as well, led by a British judge.

According to the Telegraph, the Royal Courts of Justice will hold an inquiry over the scandal. Murdoch, his son, James and leading senior politicians, including Prime Minister David Cameron are likely to be questioned over political ties to News International.In another blow to Murdoch’s empire resulting from the phone hacking scandal, Wireless Generation, the software education branch of News Corp, has had a $27 million contract with the state of New York returned over concerns of “vendor responsibility.”

“In light of the significant ongoing investigations and continuing revelations with respect to News Corp., we are returning the contract with Wireless Generation unapproved,” said Thomas DiNapoli, NY State Comptroller, The Telegraph reports.The computer system was being billed as helping track pupil’s test scores, an issue teachers’ unions have protested, as a result of the hacking scandal.

Murdoch bought Wireless Generation last November for $360 million, and just weeks before the purchase, Klein, a former New York schools chief, joined News Corp.

How willful blindness infects corporate culture across the world

by David Silverberg

An expert on willful blindness explains why companies, such as News Corp, have a difficult time rooting out poisonous practises harming their brand. Margaret Heffernan also suggests a few tips for cleaning house.

When the Murdochs appeared at a British hearing to face the phone-hacking questions in person, James Murdoch was asked if he heard about the term “willful blindness.” He stumbled over his words and asked if there was a specific question about the phrase. He wasn’t sure how to answer. Here was a quick way to summarize the News Corp scandal and the Murdochs were having none of it. Were they being willfully blind to, well, their own company-wide blindness?

I spoke spoke to Margaret Heffernan to learn more about this epidemic in corporate culture. The author of Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril, Heffernan often comments on the many disgraces befalling businesses across the world.In large organization like News Corp, the problem goes beyond personal failures.

It’s structural, she points out. “It is impossible as chief executive to know everything going on, but it’s part of his responsibility to ensure what is important comes to top.”

She believes News Corp was surrounded by yesmen. Very few staffers could have felt that they had power or the prerogative to ask some hard questions, Heffernan adds. “Everyone was dependent on the Murdochs. That doesn’t create an environment where someone will bring you bad news.”

Willful blindness is not just severely affecting a transparent workplace in the West. Heffernan says companies across the world have always turned away when they saw under-handed activities, whether they’re Chinese factories making dangerous products or genocides spreading across Africa. “I’d love to point out a place immune from willful blindness but I can’t.”

How does this blindness spread so widely? Heffernan refers to a psychological theory called diffusion of responsibility – lots of people see what someone else sees and figures “Surely someone will do something, but I don’t have to.” Also called the bystander effect, we see it often during public crimes, but also in any industry you can name. Who wants to out themselves as the whisteblower, right?

Says Heffernan, “Speaking up takes courage and with the rise of social media it’s easier to be a whistelblower, look at WikiLleaks. But companies can save themselves grief by approaching their employees and listening to their problem.”

Combatting willful blindness is surprisingly simple, she points out. She likes what Anita Roddick did as CEO of The Body Shop: when staff were first hired, she gave them a red envelope and told them to write anything in the envelope that made them uncomfortable. It could be anonymous if they preferred. Roddick assured staff she would read everything sent to her in red envelopes…and she did.

“This is more than a symbolic gesture,” Heffernan notes, “Roddick implemented an easy way to identify the problematic processes and individuals within her company.”
News Corp could steer itself in the right direction by opening their eyes and ears to their internal complaints. It won’t be pretty. But it’ll be worth it. “These companies need to solve problems before they get out of hand,” she says.

“If companies can create processes and an environment to allow people to speak up, they are limiting the risk of things going wrong but they are also surfacing problems they wouldn’t see any other way,” she says.

Heffernan is next working on a book about the U.S. banking collapse, due out in 2013. She’ll investigate why competition doesn’t pan out like it’s supposed to in this sector. And if she continues to write books on the endemic problem of willful blindness, she won’t be running out of material anytime soon.

This article was originally published on Digital Journal [Link]

What will Murdoch’s iPad magazine The Daily look like?

by David Silverberg

The Daily, an upcoming iPad-only magazine from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, has delayed its launch but already the Web is buzzing with rumours of what this unique media property will look like and how it will function.

Scheduled to launch this Wednesday, The Daily has been delayed for several weeks, or even months, according to media reports. iPad owners will have to wait a bit longer to their hands on the iPad-specific publication created by Murdoch’s News Corp.

But at the very least, hints of The Daily’s looks and function are being revealed on the Web. Damon Kiesow of Poynter.org said he got a sneak peek of the source code of its recently-launched companion website, The Daily.com. The front page is dominated by photos, and Kiesow spotted two headlines that may or may not relate to actual articles: “Oprah’s Biggest Gamble” and “A Bridge Too Favre.”

He also said The Daily may include an embedded video player and “the availability of Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit and Newsvine article sharing options.”

AdAge found out other details: The Daily will include a multi-story front page, but “magazine-style layouts within, as well as graphics that take advantage of the iPad’s capabilities in terms of rotating, pinching and swiping and video culled from News Corp. outlets.”

Ads will also be super-sized. AdAge quotes Porter Gale, VP-marketing at Virgin America, saying: “This will allow us to use images that can be turned around in a 3-D motion and that’s going to make it much more creative and memorable.”

One hundred writers, editors and designers have been hired to work on the project. Subscriptions will cost 99¢ a week after a two-week trial through Apple’s App Store.

Apple’s iPad is the sole device to offer The Daily at launch, although AdAge reports Murdoch is planning to spread The Daily to other tablet devices, such as Android and BlackBerry devices.

Andy Chapman, head of digital trading at WPP’s Mindshare, is optimistic about The Daily’s chances: “This will be a good temperature check for the marketplace for what consumers’ financial threshold is for good content. We’re all waiting to see where the audience gravitates.”

This article was originally published on DigitalJournal.com