News Corp.’s Soft Power in the U.S. (a News Corporation division twice came under US investigation)

Over the last month, many Americans watched from a distance in horror or amusement as it became evident that the News Corporation regarded Britain’s legal and political institutions as its own private club.

That could never happen in the United States, right?

As it turns out, a News Corporation division has twice come under significant civil and criminal investigations in the United States, but neither inquiry went anywhere. Given what has happened in Britain with the growing phone-hacking scandal, it is worth wondering why.

Both cases involve News America Marketing, an obscure but lucrative division of the News Corporation that is a big player in the business of retail marketing, including newspaper coupon inserts and in-store promotions. The company has come under scrutiny for a pattern of conduct that includes below-cost pricing, paying customers not to do business with competitors and accusations of computer hacking.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/media/news-corps-legal-trail-in-the-us.html?pagewanted=all

more like iron fist kind of power if you ask me.

he was just going through the motions, so the assumption that the "U.S. government was not in Murdoch's hip pocket" would be incorrect.



Thanks for the thread, alp.