Serco making money from the noble act of volunteering

A privatised future that gives us all a chill, writes Zoe Williams in the Guardian: It is pointless at this stage to pretend to be surprised that charities are facing …£100m worth of cuts to their local authority funding, although it is ironic that the sector most flattered by “big society” rhetoric should be the…

Was Murdoch also given the nuclear codes?

Here in Australia, we need to know when our political leaders met key figures in the Murdoch empire (and other media players) and why they met: The extraordinary access that Cabinet ministers granted Rupert Murdoch and his children was revealed for the first time yesterday, with more than two dozen private meetings between the family…

How many people failed to deal with Murdoch hacking?

Far too many and the question is why: The former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Lord Macdonald was warned by his own employees as far back as 2006 that there were a “vast array” of News of the World phone-hacking victims. Lord Macdonald, who has since been hired by the newspaper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, was…

Poor little Murdoch hacks don’t like being challenged

Get used to it. Wendy Bacon, professor of journalism at the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney, writes today that the empire is feeling real pressure for the first time in living memory: On Thursday, with News Corporation awash in allegations of criminality and failed corporate governance, I sent an…

The Guardian’s Nick Davies on how Murdoch punishes friends and enemies

Speaking on Democracy Now!: JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Nick Davies, many of us here in the United States who watched the hearings this week were really surprised at the extent to which the members of Parliament really were dogged in their questioning and fairly confrontational in their questioning. Could you explain to us the degree of…

So this is the culture inside News Limited

As the Australian Murdoch empire begin a comical defence of its glorious and ethical journalistic traditions – “What? Us? With an agenda? We’re just here to hold governments to account!” – a far more honest account of life inside the empire by Michael Williams, Senior Lecturer Print and Online Journalism at the University of Central…

The glorious Afghan war is money down the drain (into the pockets of thugs)

This is what US/Australian/British liberation looks like: A lack of U.S. coordination compounded by Afghan foot-dragging has stymied efforts to track billions of aid dollars poured into Afghanistan’s economy in the past decade, providing potential opportunities to launder money and finance the insurgency, according to Afghan officials and a new U.S. government audit. The audit,…

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