Tough Times

Bowie's dead, Cuomo's off the hook for Moreland tampering, the Supreme Court is set to destroy public sector unions and Rupert Murdoch is getting married to Jerry Hall.

Tough times indeed.

Cuomo Gives $15 Million Subsidy To News Corporation After Receiving Book Deal Worth Up To $700,000

The Cuomo corruption continues apace:

New York’s state government has committed millions of dollars in taxpayer support to News Corporation for a real estate deal -- less than three years after a subsidiary of that company gave New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo a book deal worth up to $700,000. The commitment was disclosed in documents released by the Port Authority -- an agency jointly controlled by Cuomo and New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie.

The documents say the Port Authority, News Corporation and 21st Century Fox “have received commitments from New York State” for a “one-time payment of $15 million in 2016 and the utilization of a $15 million” state tax credit as part of the agency’s push to make the companies “anchor tenants” for 2 World Trade Center. The documents say the transactions are part of an initiative to reduce News Corporation’s and 21st Century Fox’s rent payments at the new building by $155 million.

...

This is not the first time the Cuomo administration has moved to help News Corporation. IBT reported that before Cuomo was given the lucrative book deal, he signed tax legislation in 2011 that News Corporation lobbied on and that was expected to help one of its online publications. And in 2012, while News Corporation lobbied Cuomo’s office, he backed an expansion of controversial film and television tax credits that have benefited News Corporation’s films.

Cuomo’s office did not respond to IBT’s questions about the 2 World Trade Center transaction or the book deal, instead referring inquiries to the Port Authority. Amid a sprawling federal probe of corruption in Albany, the New York governor recently denounced lawmakers for accepting personal payments that might raise questions about conflicts of interest.

You know the story's a problem when Cuomo's flying attack monkeys don't respond to requests for comment with some snark .

In this one, they let Cuomo's man at the PA, Patrick Foye, defend the deal.

There may be nothing illegal about this deal and the PA deal says that News Corporation will have to pay back the subsidy by 2021 but IBT reports it will still cost taxpayers $9 million bucks.

There has been no indication that the feds are looking at the Rupert Murdoch/Andrew Cuomo connection or the book deal Cuomo got in which he received somewhere near $700,000 for writing a book that sold very few copies.

But this still feels like just another example of Cuomo playing the system and the residents of New York for suckers.

Joel Klein Brought His Incompetence To News Corporation, Helped Rupert Murdoch Lose Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars

Buzzfeed with a post-mortem on Rupert Murdoch's Amplify digital education revolution:

Amplify, Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to disrupt the American education industry, had a lot going for it: a lot of hype, a lot of media attention, a lot of high-profile names, and a lot of money to spend. Then add to all that the fact that the education industry seemed especially vulnerable — dominated by big, cozy, slow-moving incumbents, just the way Murdoch likes it.

But none of that mattered in the end. As it turns out, Murdoch’s News Corp. couldn’t even make waves in the education world, much less disrupt it. During its short life, Amplify bled money, losing $193 million in 2014 alone.

On Aug. 12, News Corp. said it was in final talks to sell Amplify, had written down the value of the business by $370 million, and would wind down the education unit’s first and most ambitious project, a custom-made tablet computer that was supposed to revolutionize education technology. The venture lasted just three years at News Corp.

Amplify’s high-profile failure, despite the people and money backing it, is a sign of just how strange and difficult to navigate the education industry can be. The company underestimated almost everything about the industry: the deep entrenchment of the biggest players and the complexities of selling to school districts — not to mention the surprising political power of parents and teachers unions, who had a not-insignificant hand in the company’s troubles.

Amplify wasn't helped when news broke that their tablets set themselves on fire or broke when turned over.

Nonetheless, the Buzzfeed analysis is that Amplify thought they could "disrupt" the education world by going right at their competitors and getting districts to sign on to Amplify contracts but failed to grasp that they needed to build and develop relationships with districts and district personnel first.

Another reason for Amplify's failure?

Google beat them by offering cheaper hardware in their Chromebooks that came with built in keyboards (Amplify requires separate keyboards for the tablets) and offered more software  flexibility:

For one company, however, grabbing market share in the education business has been anything but slow. Google was hardly a blip on the education world radar in 2010, when News Corp. bought the testing company that it would eventually transform into Amplify. But more than half of all devices sold in education are now Google Chromebooks, outstripping even iPads in sales.

“Is the industry still ripe for disruption? Absolutely. The disruptor has been Google,” said Phil Maddocks, an industry analyst with Futuresource Consulting. “They’ve come from nowhere.”

Google Chromebooks had a lot of advantages over Amplify’s tablets. They are cheaper than almost any device on the market. They also come with keyboards — a necessity for many state tests, which are increasingly taken by computer, and a feature that is increasingly in demand for older students.

Chromebooks are also better suited to the “extremely fragmented” education market, where many districts and teachers prefer to piece together content and apps, rather than turning to one company for curriculum, apps, and devices. While Amplify’s tablet was technically “content-agnostic,” meaning it could run other companies’ software, it was envisioned as a “complete mobile learning system,” in the company’s words. It came designed to be bundled with Amplify curriculum, with hefty discounts for school districts if they bought Amplify’s content alongside it. That subscription cost an additional $99 a year.

“They were really offering only one solution,” Maddocks said. “In the past, when we’ve seen hardware try to link up with content, it hasn’t worked. It all comes back to the fragmentation of the [content] market — every district wants a different solution.”

Amplify also misread the competition - they thought Pearson and other textbook companies would be slow to move to digital.

They were wrong:

And despite how it had looked when News Corp. headed back into the education market in 2010, companies like Houghton Mifflin and Pearson were not as print-bound and slow to adapt as they had seemed. Houghton Mifflin, the biggest player in the elementary education space, made heavy investments in technology, and its sales are now mostly digital, though by a slim margin.

These were key mistakes that ought to cost Joel Klein his job at News Corporation, but as we see again and again, accountability is only for the little people.

Instead, they will cost other people at News Corp their jobs, even as Klein makes excuses for his poor leadership at Amplify:

In a long letter to Amplify staff announcing the company’s impending sale, Klein offered his own explanation. “Amplify’s work has been so innovative and transformative that we’ve been ahead of the market,” he said. “That, in part, helps explain what has happened with our tablet business.”

Ahead of the market?

Uh, uh - behind the market.

Chromebooks with keyboards are the way forward, not Amplify tablets.

Software flexibility potential is the way of the future, not "complete mobile learning systems" built into the hardware and available to access for a yearly fee.

The only way Amplify was "ahead of the market" is if you think that tablets that break easily are the way of the future.

More Klein incompetence, this time at News Corporation, but as is usual with Jeol Klein, there is no accountability for his failures.

Joel Klein keeps failing upward.

With Amplify A Financial Disaster That Loses Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars, What's Joel Klein's VAM?

From the NY Times:

Amplify, a much-heralded push by News Corporation into digital education, led by Joel Klein, a former New York City schools chancellor, is nearing an inglorious end.

News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said on Wednesday that it would take a $371 million write-down on the education division and would move to wind down the production of tablets for schoolchildren, a key part of the unit’s offering.

Moreover, News Corporation’s chief executive, Robert Thomson, said in an earnings call with analysts that the company was in an “advanced stage of negotiations” with a potential buyer for the remaining education business.

$372 million dollar write down on the ed division.

What's Joel Klein's value-added measurement for that?

While we're at it, what's his value-added measurement for the tablets that set themselves on fire or broke when they flipped over?

It's illuminating when you see this "accountability" people go through their own lives without any accountability.

NY Post Screws Freelancers

From this morning's Capital Playbook email:

--POST’s photo freelancer pay – Per Capital Media Pro: That the New York Post‘s new contract for photo freelancers has raised eyebrows over a clause in which a photog’s standard shift pay can be reduced or docked altogether if the paper isn’t happy with his or her work. “Publisher may elect to not pay Freelancer where Freelancer’s photographs are deemed unpublishable or incomplete by the Publisher,” reads the tabloid’s latest independent contractor agreement for photographers, which was shared by a source. “Publisher may also elect to pay Freelancer a reduced fee where Freelancer submits poor quality photographs or incomplete work that is published.” A Post rep didn’t respond to a request for comment.

This is of course the vision Rupert Murdoch and the Posties have for education too - discretion goes to those in power to decide whether something is of "value" or not.

Andrew Cuomo Continues To Cash In On His Memoir

From the Associated Press:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already made more than $500,000 on his recently published memoir and now a recently filed financial disclosure suggests he can expect at least $150,000 more.

The disclosure, filed Friday with the state, shows the Democratic governor expects to make between $150,000 and $250,000 this year off the book. The memoir, entitled "All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life," was published by HarperCollins last fall.

Cuomo's tax returns show he earned just under $377,000 for the book. The year before he made an $188,000 advance.

Cuomo's taxes also showed he made nearly $169,000 as governor and had some modest income from investments.

Cuomo's book is currently ranked 645,459 at Amazon.

As of April, there were just a little over 3,000 copies sold - and 13 audiobooks.

$377,000 + $188,000 + 150,000 - 3,000+ books sold  = a bribe from Rupert Murdoch.

More Damning Details In Cuomo Pay-To-Play Scandal

David Sirota and Matthew Cunningham-Cook follow up on their pay-to-play piece on Andrew Cuomo last night with this:

The Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have over the past 2 1/2 years received taxpayer-financed contracts to help manage the sale of more than $3 billion worth of bonds for New York state, according to a review of state records by International Business Times. The three banking companies secured this lucrative line of business during the same period they delivered more than $132,000 in campaign contributions to Gov. Andrew Cuomo through political action committees under their corporate control.

...

• JPMorgan’s PAC gave Cuomo $15,000 April 10, 2013, and the Cuomo administration announced the firm would serve as an underwriter on a $46 million bond issue May 30, 2013.
• Citigroup's PAC gave Cuomo $15,000 May 1, 2013, and Cuomo officials named the firm an underwriter on a $61 million bond June 19, 2013.
• JPMorgan’s PAC gave Cuomo another $10,000 July 2, 2013, and the Cuomo administration named the firm an underwriter on another $36 million bond in August 2013.
• Bank of America’s PAC gave Cuomo $15,500 July 2, 2014, just after the firm had been named an underwriter on a June 2014 bond. Cuomo’s administration would subsequently name the firm an underwriter on a separate $185 million bond in March 2015.

The contracts to the banks went through a non-competive bidding process.

Can you say cha-chinggg!!!

Sony, News Corporation, REBNY, now the banks - who doesn't Cuomo hit up in the Quid Pro Cuomo game?

I dunno if the feds are looking into any of this stuff, but to be honest, the amount of money Cuomo's taking makes the Skelos stuff look small.

Rupert Murdoch's Amplify Not Setting World On Fire

Joe Pompeo at Capital NY:

News Corp's newspaper revenues took another hit in the third fiscal quarter of 2015, leading the global media conglomerate chaired by Rupert Murdoch to emphasize growth in digital real estate services and book publishing.

The company's news and information revenues were down 9 percent year on year to around $1.35 billion, while advertising revenues in the segment fell 12 percent. Advertising revenues at News Corp's marquee American newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, were down 11 percent, the company's chief financial officer said Tuesday.

The bright spot?

Realtor.com, which News Corp acquired last year - revenue was up there 67%.

As for the education division:

Digital Education
Revenues in the quarter were $21 million, which was flat compared with the prior year. Segment EBITDA in the quarter improved $24 million, or 53%, from the prior year, primarily due to the impact of the capitalization of Amplify Learning’s software development costs of $12 million and lower operating expenses.

Amplify is not exactly setting the digital education world on fire.

Perhaps that's because Amplify's tablets set themselves on fire and/or break if they flip over?

In any case, how much value is Amplify's Joel Klein adding to News Corp?

Cuomo Gets $700,000 To Sell 3,008 Books

In the WSJ story detailing how Andrew Cuomo has tried to control an unauthorized biography that has been written about him and is set to be released soon is this:

The Democratic governor in April 2013 signed a book deal of his own with HarperCollins, worth more than $700,000. He planned a quick turnaround so it would hit before the 2014 election. It was slated for release before Mr. Shnayerson’s unauthorized biography went to print.

Mr. Cuomo’s book, “All Things Possible,” was a flop. His publisher had announced an initial print run of 200,000. To date, it has sold 3,008 hardcovers and 13 audiobooks, according to Nielsen BookScan data.

3,008 hardcovers sold out of the 200,000 initial print run.

Oh, and don't forget the 13 audiobooks.

For $700,000.

Nice work if you can get it.

Especially since Cuomo didn't actually write the book himself (staff did.)

How is this not a bribe from Rupert Murdoch?

Cuomo Gives Rupert Murdoch's FOX $52 Million In Film And TV Tax Breaks Through Empire State Development

Gannett's Joseph Spector obtained the record of tax breaks handed out by New York State between 2011 and April 2013 for film and TV production via Empire State Development.

A whopping $472 million dollars has been handed to film and TV companies to make productions in New York, with HBO topping the list with more than $91 million in subsidies, NBC coming in second with more than $83 million in subsidies and Rupert Murdoch's FOX receiving more than $52 million in subsidies.

Spector reports that the tax breaks can add up to 30% of total production costs and come at a price:

Critics said the money for the shows should be used instead to repair the state's infrastructure and fund services.

"Our roads and bridges are crumbling, and yet we're subsidizing Hollywood millionaires to do television productions. It does not make any sense," said Assemblyman Bill Nojay, R-Pittsford.

Conklin Supervisor Jim Finch said his Southern Tier town received $3 million when 500 people were displaced and 200 homes were destroyed in tropical storms Irene and Lee in 2012.

"That's baloney," Finch said when told of the money for Orange is the New Black. "They already make all the millions on the movies, and we get nothing back from the profits."

Before 2013, the state was able to keep the tax subsidy information private, but that changed with a new law passed in 2013.


Governor Cuomo has done quite well with donations from Hollywood movie moguls and the like, as reported by Bloomberg News back in September 2014:

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who added $2.1 billion to an incentive program for the movie and television industry, has collected almost $900,000 in campaign contributions from Hollywood since taking office in 2011.

Cuomo, who lured NBC’s “The Tonight Show” back to New York City from Los Angeles, collected $121,600 from Comcast Corp. and its NBCUniversal unit, campaign-finance records show. Paramount Pictures Corp. Chairman Brad Grey gave $35,000, while Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. Chief Executive Officer Michael Lynton and nine other executives donated a combined $45,200. Paramount’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Sony’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” are among productions that took advantage of New York’s tax-credit program, the most generous in the U.S.

“What makes this industry more special than any industry that would invest here if you paid them to do it?” said E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for New York State Policy in Albany, which opposes government subsidies. “The difference is, well, it’s high-profile and it’s really glamorous. And oh, incidentally, it’s run by people who are really savvy, generous political givers too.”

Cuomo, a 56-year-old Democrat, who ran for governor vowing to clean up Albany’s pay-to-play culture of corruption by limiting contributions, has instead reaped the benefits of a system that allows individuals to give as much as $150,000 per year -- and even more through limited-liability corporations. Federal prosecutors are also probing the Cuomo administration’s effort to stymie investigations by an anti-corruption committee he created and then disbanded before its term was finished. 

In addition, Cuomo got a book deal out of the Rupert Murdoch-owned HarperCollins that is worth somewhere between $700,000 and $880,000 dollars, with $188,000 already paid to Cuomo.

Cuomo refuses to reveal the book contract and won't say what the final total of compensation will be.

The book has sold fewer than 3,000 copies.

David Sirota at IBTimes reported that Murdoch's News Corp received millions in tax breaks out of the Cuomo administration after lobbying both before and after the book contract.

Add the film and TV production subsidies that Murdoch-owned FOX received to the tax breaks that Murdoch-owned News Corp received and there's enough money going from the Cuomo administration to Rupert Murdoch and then going from Rupert Murdoch back to Andrew Cuomo himself to make someone go "Hmmm...."

The Hollywood/Cuomo connections needs more scrutiny, that's for sure.

Of Course The News Corp Book Deal With Cuomo Was A Bribe

Sometimes it's fun to go back and look at something you wrote in the past and see if you were right.

Back in 2014, I wrote this over the news that Andrew Cuomo would be paid $700,000 for a book he was supposed to write for HarperCollins, the Rupert Murdoch/News Corporation-owned publisher:

How many copies of this book do you think Harper Collins sells?

Do they think there's a readership out there for Andrew Cuomo's memoir?

Or maybe they think fans of Chris Cuomo will buy it?

Andrew Cuomo has the reputation for being one of the biggest asses in politics.

I can't imagine the book sells more than a few thousand copies at best.

So why did Murdoch give Cuomo at least $700,000 in compensation for this memoir?

Notice when the contract with Harper Collins was signed - right after his first year in office.

That was when Cuomo and Harper Collins Rupert Murdoch were still best buds (as demonstrated by how Murdoch flack Fred Dicker treated Cuomo in the NY Post.)

Even then, Murdoch had to know that few copies of this book would be sold.

This was a bribe from Murdoch to Cuomo in the form of a book contract.

I can't wait for the book to come out and see how many copies get sold.

I suspect this Cuomo memoir will be up there as a loss-leader, along with Murdoch's other great loss leader, the NY Post.

Then, when it was revealed that HarperCollins was going to run 200,000 copies foe the first printing, I wrote this:

A 200,000-copy first run?

Just who is Harper Collins (owned by Rupert Murdoch, btw) planning to sell this book to?

Let's assume Cuomo's family, friends and loved ones buy some copies.

Let's assume too that suck-ups who work for him buy some.

Let's assume Billy Joel takes $30 out of his drinking fund and buys a copy too.

And let's assume Cuomo's consort, Sandra Lee, forces people in her coterie to plunk down the money for the book to try and drive some numbers.

How many copies sold is that?

Now I've been watching the Hillary Clinton book sales closely, because she got a huge printing for her book too - much bigger than Sheriff Andy got actually, and her sales have not been too good.

Here's Politico on June 17:

Officials with Hillary Clinton’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, insist her book has fared well amid reports of weak sales, and that it’s succeeded despite a dramatically altered retail landscape since her last memoir.

The book sold roughly 100,000 copies from the Tuesday when it was released through the following Saturday, according to a Simon & Schuster source. The source added that the book, titled “Hard Choices,” is debuting at No. 1 on the Indie Bestseller List, which reflects sales at independent bookstores.

The 100,000 figure for “Hard Choices” includes pre-orders and e-books, the publishing sources said. Those figures get rolled into the first-day sales.

The New York Times best-seller list, which will be released Wednesday, is another metric people are watching to see how the memoir is faring.

The first 1 million copies printed of the book were pre-ordered by bookstores, although that figure does not reflect how many were bought by customers.

...

 People close to Clintonland also said the market for books has changed greatly since “Living History,” noting the closure of several hundred Borders bookstores and dozens of Barnes & Noble outlets.

Not a great start for a book that got a $14 million advance.

And it's gotten worse since:

There’s hand-wringing and finger-pointing at Simon & Schuster over the soft performance of Hillary Clinton’s “Hard Choices,” for which she got a $14 million advance, sources said — and which was replaced at No. 1 on the best-seller list this week by an “exposé” about Hillary and Bill Clinton.

The former secretary of state’s tome sold 161,000 copies in its first three weeks, according to Nielsen BookScan — but 85,000 of those were sold in the first week. That number has dropped sharply to 48,000 and 28,000 in subsequent weeks, with the most recent numbers due out Wednesday.

Simon & Schuster shipped an optimistic 1 million copies to stores. Hillary reportedly got $8 million for her last book for the publisher, “Living History,” which sold 438,000 copies in its first week and more than 1.15 million overall.

Adding insult to injury, the new book was pushed from the No. 1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list this week by Edward Klein’s story of the Clintons’ pained relationship with Barack and Michelle Obama, “Blood Feud.” A source close to Hillary has blasted the book, along with its author, as “dastardly” and a combination of “pathological lying, hate and just flat-out creepiness.”
“There’s lots of finger-pointing going on at Simon & Schuster” over the very expensive Clinton deal, a source told Page Six.

Another insider said sales of 161,000 for “Hard Choices” would be “OK” for a normal book without such a big advance and expectations. “It’s an OK number — it’s very solid — a good amount to sell in three weeks,” the source said. “And the book is $35, significantly higher than most.” Also, BookScan only measures 85 percent of the print market, and not e-books.

A rep for Simon & Schuster did not respond to a request for comment. Reports have said the early numbers for “Hard Choices” reflect that it will not sell enough to cover Clinton’s advance, or to sell the million copies shipped, which are sent on consignment, with unsold copies ultimately going back to the publisher.

Now that's the Murdoch-owned NY Post ragging on Simon & Schuster for the absurd $14 million advance they handed Clinton for a book that not too many people planned on buying.

But the Murdoch-owned Harper Collins is likely going to have a mini-disaster on its own hands with the Cuomo book, because it's hard to see how if Hillary Clinton could only sell 161,000 copies of "Hard Choices," Andrew Cuomo is going to sell 200,000 first-run copies of “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life.”

Now I dunno, maybe all the Chris Cuomo groupies out there go out and buy the book and make me eat my words, but I just have a difficult time seeing the $700,000 advance and the 200,000-copy first run printing from Murdoch's Harper Collins as anything other than payback for Cuomo's corporate-friendly policies as governor, in particular Cuomo's pro-charter policies which Murdoch loves.

Murdoch has long been known to use his media outlets to reward friends and punish enemies - he keeps the NY Post open and operating despite its losing hundreds of millions of dollars for just that purpose.

I can't see any business reason why Harper Collins would pay Cuomo $700,000 in advance for his book and print 200,000 copies in the first run other than paying him back for stuff Sheriff Andy did that Rupert liked.

So far, Cuomo has sold less than 3,000 books of the 200,000 copy first printing.

He's disclosed $188,000 in payments from HarperCollins on his finance forms, though we do not now whether he's going to get additional payments for the book despite the poor sales because he refuses to release the contract.

All of this matters because Cuomo is in the middle of taking on the legislature over ethics reform, including increased disclosure of lawmakers' outside incomes, while he refuses to be transparent on his own.

Cuomo says he doesn't have to disclose anything because he's not subject to the same kind of corruptive influences that legislators are - except that David Sirota at IBTimes reported on Wednesday that the Cuomo administration was lobbied on multiple issues by News Corporation both before and after Cuomo signed his $700,000 book contract with the News Corp-owned HarperCollins.

The book deal Cuomo got from News Corporation starts looking an awful lot like a quid pro quo arrangement and/or bribe from News Corporation to Cuomo when you see that the corporation got millions in tax breaks and other goodies out of Cuomo.

How is that different than former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, now under indictment for corruption, taking bribes and kickbacks?

NT2 says it's not in their latest post called "Monetizing The Office":

“Shelly was paid 700k and Andrew was paid 700k. What did they do for that money?”

“Silver facilitated referrals to a law firm and Cuomo wrote a book.”

“Both of them monetized their office.”

“Nah. That can’t be.”

“Really? Would Cuomo have got a book deal without being Governor? Of course not.

Nobody would read a book about him if he wasn’t Governor.”

“Well, nobody seems interested in the book anyway,” we quipped.

“Cuomo personally received $700,000 or more for doing what? He didn’t write that book. You know that. He’s politically smart, but he’s not a reader or a writer. His staff wrote the book for him and that’s another problem.”

“But lots of governors do the same thing.”

“And lots of legislators are rainmakers. You can make the case that Cuomo’s monetizing of the Governor’s office was more egregious than Silver’s because he used staff to do it and it produced less value.”

“Produced less value?”

“Silver received 700k, right? That was for generating referrals for the law firm. And what was the value of the referrals? If he got one mesothelioma case, it might have been worth 100k to the law firm. If he got two it was worth 200k. We don’t know how many referrals he generated.  Maybe it was half a dozen. Maybe it was a hundred. But you know there was some value generated. Now think about Cuomo. He and his government staff produced a book that was worth what?  Well, the book tanked. That means that Cuomo was paid $700,000 for nothing of value.”

“Isn’t this just a bad decision by the publisher? They thought his book would sell. They took the risk on it and they were wrong. That’s the nature of their business.”

“That’s true. But how did the book deal come together. Did he write it and show it to them. No. He got a huge advance and that advance looks like a sweetheart deal. He got a huge up front payment. He’s getting a cut rate on purchases of the book that he can then provide to his supporters for promotional purposes. He also benefits from the promotion of the book by the publisher. He’s making out like a bandit. He monetized his office, didn’t he?”

“When you say it like that, it’s hard to disagree.”

“And we haven’t even mentioned the other side of it. What benefits accrued to the publisher? How did News Corp. benefit? Nobody has looked at that. Nobody has gone back 10 years like Preet did with Silver. What did Cuomo do in office as AG or as Governor that benefitted News Corp.  Silver directed a grant to a hospital for cancer research in 2005 and they called it a bribe in 2015. What did Cuomo do for News Corp during the last 10 years? I’ll bet you could find something, no?”

“This can’t be.”

“This is the world we live in. If Preet can make a case against Silver, he can make a case against Cuomo.”

I'm still skeptical that US Attorney Preet Bharara is going to do to Cuomo what he did to Silver, but it sure seems if Bharara decides to dig into Cuomo's business dealings with News Corporation, he'll find plenty of interesting items to scrutinize.

This News Corp/book deal stuff is in addition to the Moreland tampering that Preet is allegedly looking into already, as well as the subpoenas to donors that Cuomo's secretary, Larry Schwartz, had "pulled back" by the Moreland Commission even as they subpoenaed legislative targets.

Cuomo's pushing ethics reform this budget, claiming he'll shut the government down if the legislature doesn't give him what he wants on ethics reform (i.e., ethics reforms that pertain only to the legislature, not to statewide officials like the governor.)

Here's hoping the feds shut Cuomo himself down with a 7 AM visit and a car ride to central booking over all the criminality he's engaged in.

If they could get Silver on this stuff, you can bet they can get Cuomo too.

But will they?

If We Applied Education Reform Logic To Newspapers...

...Here's one that ought to be closed for "failure":

Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman's Thursday announcement that the tabloid is officially on the market, after 22 years of ownership by the billionaire real estate magnate, has media watchers wondering: Who would want to buy the thing?

The 96-year-old news organization's finances are tightly held, despite a very public circulation decline and numerous down-sizings that have characterized its most recent era.

But a source close to the News who's been briefed on its current finances told Capital it is believed to be losing around $20 million a year. A spokesman for Zuckerman said he would not comment on financials and that it was premature to talk about a timeline for a potential sale.

While online growth (nydailynews.com has been pulling anywhere between 26 million and nearly 40 million unique monthly visitors over the past year or so, per Comscore numbers) is a positive narrative—one that's put the News in the same orbit as the Daily Mail and other outlets making a big play for America's national advertising dollars—the print edition (which still brings in most of the money) tells a different story.

With readers flocking to computers and mobile devices amid an onslaught of competition from new-media players, average circulation for the six months ending Sept. 30, 2014, was 361,941 on Sundays and 281,907 on weekdays, down from 786,952 and 715,052 during the same period ten years earlier.

The numbers are stark - the DN has lost more than half its print circulation in the last decade.

And while the online DN site has seen growth, there's little money in that.

$20 million a year in losses is a "failure", no?

I mean, sure, online growth is nice, but isn't the bottom line always about actual revenue?

By that measure, the DN is a miserable failure, online growth notwithstanding.

The DN editorial board gets very pragmatic when it comes to "failing" schools, pointing out that the bottom line of test scores and graduation rates are the only things that matter when it comes to school measurement.

If we applied that same logic to the DN itself, the only thing that matters is the circulation and the numbers - therefore the DN is "failing."

It's time for a "turnaround specialist" to see if this "failing" newspaper can be turned around and if not, well, then it most be closed.

Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Wall Street Journal and the NY Post, is rumored to be in the market for the paper.

The Dolans - who are already doing such a magnificent job running Madison Square Garden - are also on the rumor list for potential buyers.

Finally I have heard Michael Bloomberg's name mentioned as well, although it seems to me the DN is a little down market for his blue blood.

If Murdoch acquires the paper, a merger with the NY Post (itself a multimillion dollar loser) is said to be in the offing.

In any case, whatever happens with the DN, the next time you see an editorial pontificating about "failing" schools with "low" tests scores and "poor" graduation rates, remember to apply the same bottom line logic to the "failing" Daily News itself.

Certainly the free market has.

Cuomo: I Can't Be Held Responsible For News Corp Quid Pro Quo Because I'm Ignorant

No, seriously, that's his excuse:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he knew nothing about a bill he signed -- a bill that News Corp. lobbied on before the company gave Cuomo a lucrative book contract. Cuomo was asked about the bill at an Albany press conference Wednesday after International Business Times reported that he backed initiatives helping News Corp. 

Questioned about the legislation he signed in September 2011, Cuomo declared: “I have no idea that [News Corp.] lobbied for it. I have no idea what it is, by the way.” 

The bill in question exempted online pay-walled publications from state sales taxes. State documents show News Corp. was one of only two firms to lobby on the bill. At the time, the Rupert Murdoch-led media company was making multimillion-dollar investments in the Daily -- a publication that would benefit from the special tax exemption. 

Prior to the IBTimes report, Cuomo challenged reporters to show how his book contract accepting cash from News Corp. presented a conflict with state business that he oversees. IBTimes documented state records showing News Corp. lobbying Cuomo’s office. Those records list the company lobbying on everything from tax policy to education policy to state contracts.

Caught red-handed taking dough from a company that directly lobbied his administration, Cuomo claims ignorance as an excuse.

Let us imagine how Attorney General Cuomo would react to such an excuse were he investigating a matter like this and the target said "Geez, I can't be held responsible because I didn't know..."

To make matters worse around this, Cuomo STILL refuses to release the contract he signed with News Corporation for his book deal - a book that has sold less 3,000 copies.

He is expected to be paid someone between $700,000 and $880,000 for the book and has already received $188,000 for it.

If he receives $700,000 for the book and it sells less 3,000 copies, News Corporation will be paying Cuomo more than $233 a book.

Considering the book lists at $30, that's an awful lot of dough Rupert Murdoch's paying Cuomo.

I bet he's happy he got some tax breaks and other deals from Cuomo on the side in addition to the memoir Cuomo wrote.

FOX News: Education Reformers Seek "Womb To Workforce" Data Tracking Of Every Child

The data collection stories have hit FOX News - and significantly, they have a negative frame:

A little-known aspect of Common Core should have students worried about what goes on the dreaded "permanent record," say critics of the national education standard.

Parents in Pennsylvania have written outgoing Gov. Tom Corbett to demand a moratorium on the collection of what they describe as sensitive and personal information on students, which they say is part of a federal database to track the development of every child. And education activists around the nation say it is part and parcel of the controversial campaign to impose a uniform, national standard for math and English.

...

The process, set to play out throughout the country in what critics call a “womb to workplace” information system, was originally developed by the Department of Labor and contains information on every U.S. citizen under the age of 26. Most of the information on individuals is collected while K-12 students are in school, and includes names, grades and information such as personality traits, behavior patterns and even fingerprints. The state of Pennsylvania was one of the early adopters of the data mining and contributed to the framework for a nationwide program.

Both groups allege that any state entity as well as outside contractors can access personal information.

“The personally identifiable information includes information on every student’s personality, attitudes, values, beliefs, and disposition, a psychological profile called Interpersonal Skills Standards and anchors,” reads the letter sent to Corbett on Monday. “This data has been illegally obtained through deceptive means without the parents' knowledge or consent through screening, evaluations, testing, and surveys. These illegal methods of information gathering were actually fraudulently called ‘academic standards’ on the [Pennsylvania] Department of Education website portal.”

Anita Hoge, a member of Pennsylvanians Restoring Education, said local districts may have a need to collect some personal information, but a state or national database is a danger.

“There are two problems with sharing data beyond the local district,” she said. “First, parents are not aware that FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] regulations now allow their children's data (personally identifiable information) to be shared to outside third party vendors. And, this data is being collected and placed on a data system that is shared with the feds. This first level of data collection and sharing is a violation of privacy.”

 “The second problem is that the data then becomes a ‘decision making model,’” she added. “This is where the violations of privacy are expanded for information to be used for ‘interventions.’ This is a civil rights violation.”

FOX owner Rupert Murdoch and his for-profit henchman Joel Klein want "womb-to-workforce" tracking of course - there's lots of money-making potential in it.

So it's interesting that a story about the "womb-to-workforce" data tracking with a negative frame shows up at Murdoch's FOX News.com.

This highlights the tension between the corporate masters looking to make billions from the privatization of education and the harvesting of student "data" with the need at the media level to make believe like they really don't want that stuff.


But of course they do - especially Klein, who has been touting data-tracking since he put his $95 million dollar ARIS boondoggle into place at the NYCDOE when he was chancellor.

Still, there's the need to look "populist" in Mr.. Murdoch's media - thus the anti-CCSS stories and now the data collection story with the negative frame at FOX News.

Doesn't mean the overall privatization strategy has changed any though at the corporate level - you can bet Murdoch, Klein and the rest of the merry reformsters at News Corporation still want top-down control, cradle-to-grave data tracking, complete standardization of curriculum and testing and the inevitable replacement of much that is human in the education system with technology.

It's just that that stuff doesn't play well with the FOX News audience.

Cuomo Sells Less Than 1,500 Copies Of His Memoir In First Two Weeks Of Sales

No wonder Governor Andrew M. Cuomo wants those quarantined for Ebola to spend their time in Cuomo captivity reading his book - no one else is:

Sales of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s memoir fell by more than 43 percent to 535 copies in its second week on shelves.

Mr. Cuomo’s latest book, “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life,” sold 945 copies in the week after its Oct. 15 release, according to BookScan, a subscription service that tracks sales at over 80 percent of book vendors in the United States but does not include e-books, which can increase sales by about 15 percent.

Rupert Murdoch's Harper Collins paid Cuomo $700,000 in advance for his book.

The book is already headed to remainder status, with Amazon charging $18.33 for it, Barnes and Noble $18.51 for it.

The cover price was $30.

Looks like Harper Collins is going to have to keep the book on sale through the next millennium to recoup the $700,000 they handed over to Cuomo as a bribe, er, advance for the book.

And let's not forget that they spent more money on the PR too - including "renting" Cuomo's donor list.

Alas, even Cuomo's political donors don't seem to want to buy the book.

Sales dropped 43 percent after Team Cuomo sold the list to Harper Collins.

On the plus side, Cuomo can commiserate with Christine Quinn about low book sales.

She too wrote a shiny little memoir back in 2013 before her mayoral run that nobody bought and fewer read.

When A FOX 5 Reporter Was Arrested For Child Molestation And Remained On The Murdoch Payroll

There's been a lot of outrage in the news tabloids this week that the Brooklyn Tech teacher accused of sexually abusing students hasn't been fired already from his teaching job.

The Brooklyn Tech teacher currently resides in Rikers Island, so it's not like he's teaching his classes at this moment, but the usual teacher trolls want him fired immediately because taking time to investigate any allegations made against a teacher takes too long and any teacher accused of doing anything needs to be fired from their teaching job immediately, truth of the accusations or allegations be damned.

Ironically, back in 2010 FOX 5 reporter Charles Leaf was arrested for allegedly molesting a little girl and was NOT immediately fired by the NY Post's parent company, News Corp (which also owned FOX 5.)

Now if Leaf had been a teacher, the NY Post would have tried him in the court of public opinion immediately, declared him guilty before his criminal trial and called for his firing within hours of his arrest.

But that's not what News Corporation officials did at the time.

Nope - instead they suspended him, pending further investigation into the matter.

Here's my blog post at the time noting that if Leaf had been a teacher, he wouldn't have gotten the same treatment from News Corp:

Saturday, October 9, 2010

But If He Were A Teacher, They'd Say Fire Him

An employee of Rupert Murdoch's Fox 5 TV station has been arrested on child molestation charges:

Acclaimed Fox 5 reporter Charles Leaf was suspended Friday after he was accused of molesting a 4-year-girl inside his New Jersey home.

The 40-year-old Leaf was arrested Thursday at his Wyckoff home on charges of aggravated sexual assault on a minor and endangering the welfare of children, authorities said.

"Fox 5 management is aware of the matter and that Charles Leaf has been suspended pending further investigation," said a station spokeswoman.

Notice how Fox 5 management has NOT fired the employee, but is rather suspending him first and conducting an investigation next to make sure the charges are true BEFORE they fire him.

That's a kind of due process and it makes reasonable sense to, you know, look into charges before you fire somebody.

And Fox is treating Leaf like this even though when he called in sick to work on Thursday, the day he was arrested, he never mentioned the arrest.

He simply asked "for a day off to deal with family issues."

Now if Charles Leaf were a teacher, the very same Murdoch media machine would be clamoring for his immediate dismissal sans investigation.

Allegations would be reason enough to fire him.

An actual arrest would be "proof" that he needed to be fired.

Even though every once in a while, the police arrest somebody on molestation charges who is actually, uh, innocent - even in the school system that the New York tabloids like to disparage so much.

Take this man:

After days of falsely being portrayed as a child rapist, a Brooklyn school custodian broke down in tears yesterday as the charges against him were dismissed.

"Just kill me," a distraught Francis Evelyn, 58, muttered to family members who tried to soothe him as he left Brooklyn Criminal Court.

Evelyn had been led out of Public School 91 in Wingate in handcuffs on Monday and spent two days in jail at Rikers Island after an 8-year-old girl said he had repeatedly molested her in a basement bathroom between Feb. 1 and March 9.

But the Trinidad native knew he was innocent.

"I went through hell," Evelyn later told Channel 7 news.

He said he would never forget being in jail - his first time ever behind bars, the station reported.

"They were threatening me, and tell me they're going to take me out, they're gonna cut my throat," he said. "It's their sister, their niece. It was hell."

His niece Hazel Smith told the Daily News her uncle was devastated.

"He's been stripped. You don't strip a good man. It's like my uncle, he was raped also," she said. "He has neighbors, he has kids. He's good inside his heart."

But she said the family held no malice for the accuser.

"She has something going on with her life and my uncle had to pay the price for it," Smith said. "I hope the child gets the help she needs."

Questions about the case quickly surfaced after sources said the second-grader had been abused in the past and had recently accused another student.

Tuesday night, prosecutors rushed to court to request that Evelyn be released on his own recognizance after initially asking for $150,000 bail.

"People are dismissing the charges due to insufficient evidence," prosecutor Roger McCreedy told Judge William Garnett yesterday as Evelyn clasped his hands and bowed his head.

"Dismissed and sealed," Garnett responded.

School officials reinstated Evelyn to his job a few hours later.

PS 91's widely respected principal, Solomon Long, has been yanked from the post he held for 16 years for allegedly failing to report an abuse charge the child previously made against another person.

Long remains exiled at a district office, pending an investigation. The principals union is calling for him to be returned to his post.

For his part, Evelyn has one wish for his future.

"I want my name to be cleared," Evelyn told Channel 7. "I want to walk the street with my head up."

In the Murdoch world, Evelyn's name would never be cleared.

It seems only if you're a Murdoch employee, like Charles Leaf (or Bill O'Reilly, for that matter), are you given the benefit of an investigation before they tarnish your reputation for life and call for your immediate firing.

The Leaf case has another parallel to the Brooklyn Tech case - like the Brooklyn Tech teacher who had been accused of beating a boy a few years before he was hired as a teacher by the DOE (though he was not convicted of any crime in the alleged incident), FOX 5 reporter Charles Leaf had a allegations of violence in his past:

POSTSCRIPT: Leaf sounds like a typical Murdoch creep. According to the DailyNews, this isn't the first time he has found trouble:

Known for his aggressive style, Leaf, an ex-Marine, began working for Fox 5 in 2006 and has won two Emmy awards, according to his profile on myfoxny.com.

Leaf previously worked as a TV reporter in several cities, including Denver, Detroit and Mobile, Ala.

It's not the first time Leaf's conduct has become the subject of unsavory headlines.

In November 1999, Leaf, then a reporter in Mobile, Ala., was sued by a local councilwoman who alleged that the newsman attacked her while trying to interview her for a story.

Frela Wojciechowski said in the suit that Leaf pursued her to her car after a meeting and slammed the door on her arms and legs when she refused to talk.

Leaf abruptly left the station, WPMI. The suit was later settled, and no criminal charges were filed.

I wanted to write this post about Charles Leaf (who has since been convicted of molestation and been sentenced to prison) and the Brooklyn Tech teacher to point out the hypocrisy of the tabloids in the Tech case, particularly the hypocrisy of the people at the NY Post.

When it's a teacher accused of sex crimes, they go after him with both barrels.

When it's an employee in a subsidiary news outlet of the NY Post's parent company News Corporation, they're completely silent - even as the accused was not immediately fired or dropped from the payroll.

Rupert Murdoch Looks To Buy More Stuff

It seems the hacking scandal mess has not deterred Rupert Murdoch from owning much more of the world than he already does:

The New York Times today is reporting that News Corp NWSA -0.22%. head Rupert Murdoch recently made a friendly bid to buy fellow media giant Time Warner TWX +17.07% for $80 billion. Time Warner’s Jeff Bewkes reportedly rejected the deal. News Corp. confirmed that it made the offer but the companies are not in discussion right now.

Murdoch is a mogul who is not easily deterred. This probably won’t be the end of his attempts to buy the company. We’ve seen a ton of media consolidation lately with Comcast CMCSA +0.29% buying Time Warner Cable TWC -0.02% (a spin-off of Time Warner) and AT&T T +0.58% buying DirecTV. A combined News Corp. Time Warner would mean a massive combination of the people who make the content that goes down the pipes being bought and sold in the other big deals. It would cut the number of major Hollywood studios down from six to five.

None of these deals have yet been approved of by regulators in Washington concerned with anti-trust issues. But Murdoch must feel very sure that a Time Warner purchase would be approved or he wouldn’t have made the offer. According to the NYT article, under the terms of the proposed deal, Time Warner would sell off CNN since the station competes directly with News Corp’s Fox News

The Telegraph says this caps a "remarkable turnaround" for Murdoch:

Time Warner has rejected Rupert Murdoch’s $80bn takeover approach, but the octogenarian has a longstanding record of getting what he wants in the end.

It would cap a remarkable turnaround for the man and for his businesses. This time three years ago, the Murdoch media empire had just been plunged in a crisis by revelations that the News of the World had hacked into Milly Dowler’s voicemail.

The British newspaper was a tiny part of a vast global business covering television, film, books, satellite broadcasting, business data and digital media assets, but its misdeeds were grave enough the reaction to them strong enough for commentators to claim Mr Murdoch reign as the world’s top media owner was at an end.

The key decision on the road to recovery was made less than a year after the Milly Dowler scandal broke. In June 2012, News Corp announced it would split. One company, ‘new’ News Corp would be the holding company for Mr Murdoch’s publishing assets, including his British tabloids, which were still toxic at the time.

The other new company, 21st Century Fox, would safeguard the more profitable television and film assets.

It seems evil just lives on and on and on...

Who Is The Intended Audience For Andrew Cuomo's Book?

State of Politics:

The publication of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s forthcoming book “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life” is being pushed back from August to Sept. 16, according to this publisher HarperCollins.

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning the book will receive a 200,000-copy first print — an unusually large run.

The book’s cover, also, was switched from a picture of Cuomo standing in front of a wood-paneled wall to a tighter portrait shot of the governor.

Cuomo’s financial disclosure forms and publicly available income tax records show the book deal is worth at least $700,000.

A 200,000-copy first run?

Just who is Harper Collins (owned by Rupert Murdoch, btw) planning to sell this book to?

Let's assume Cuomo's family, friends and loved ones buy some copies.

Let's assume too that suck-ups who work for him buy some.

Let's assume Billy Joel takes $30 out of his drinking fund and buys a copy too.

And let's assume Cuomo's consort, Sandra Lee, forces people in her coterie to plunk down the money for the book to try and drive some numbers.

How many copies sold is that?

Now I've been watching the Hillary Clinton book sales closely, because she got a huge printing for her book too - much bigger than Sheriff Andy got actually, and her sales have not been too good.

Here's Politico on June 17:

Officials with Hillary Clinton’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, insist her book has fared well amid reports of weak sales, and that it’s succeeded despite a dramatically altered retail landscape since her last memoir.

The book sold roughly 100,000 copies from the Tuesday when it was released through the following Saturday, according to a Simon & Schuster source. The source added that the book, titled “Hard Choices,” is debuting at No. 1 on the Indie Bestseller List, which reflects sales at independent bookstores.

The 100,000 figure for “Hard Choices” includes pre-orders and e-books, the publishing sources said. Those figures get rolled into the first-day sales.

The New York Times best-seller list, which will be released Wednesday, is another metric people are watching to see how the memoir is faring.

The first 1 million copies printed of the book were pre-ordered by bookstores, although that figure does not reflect how many were bought by customers.

...

 People close to Clintonland also said the market for books has changed greatly since “Living History,” noting the closure of several hundred Borders bookstores and dozens of Barnes & Noble outlets.

Not a great start for a book that got a $14 million advance.

And it's gotten worse since:

There’s hand-wringing and finger-pointing at Simon & Schuster over the soft performance of Hillary Clinton’s “Hard Choices,” for which she got a $14 million advance, sources said — and which was replaced at No. 1 on the best-seller list this week by an “exposé” about Hillary and Bill Clinton.

The former secretary of state’s tome sold 161,000 copies in its first three weeks, according to Nielsen BookScan — but 85,000 of those were sold in the first week. That number has dropped sharply to 48,000 and 28,000 in subsequent weeks, with the most recent numbers due out Wednesday.

Simon & Schuster shipped an optimistic 1 million copies to stores. Hillary reportedly got $8 million for her last book for the publisher, “Living History,” which sold 438,000 copies in its first week and more than 1.15 million overall.

Adding insult to injury, the new book was pushed from the No. 1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list this week by Edward Klein’s story of the Clintons’ pained relationship with Barack and Michelle Obama, “Blood Feud.” A source close to Hillary has blasted the book, along with its author, as “dastardly” and a combination of “pathological lying, hate and just flat-out creepiness.”
“There’s lots of finger-pointing going on at Simon & Schuster” over the very expensive Clinton deal, a source told Page Six.

Another insider said sales of 161,000 for “Hard Choices” would be “OK” for a normal book without such a big advance and expectations. “It’s an OK number — it’s very solid — a good amount to sell in three weeks,” the source said. “And the book is $35, significantly higher than most.” Also, BookScan only measures 85 percent of the print market, and not e-books.

A rep for Simon & Schuster did not respond to a request for comment. Reports have said the early numbers for “Hard Choices” reflect that it will not sell enough to cover Clinton’s advance, or to sell the million copies shipped, which are sent on consignment, with unsold copies ultimately going back to the publisher.

Now that's the Murdoch-owned NY Post ragging on Simon & Schuster for the absurd $14 million advance they handed Clinton for a book that not too many people planned on buying.

But the Murdoch-owned Harper Collins is likely going to have a mini-disaster on its own hands with the Cuomo book, because it's hard to see how if Hillary Clinton could only sell 161,000 copies of "Hard Choices," Andrew Cuomo is going to sell 200,000 first-run copies of “All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life.”

Now I dunno, maybe all the Chris Cuomo groupies out there go out and buy the book and make me eat my words, but I just have a difficult time seeing the $700,000 advance and the 200,000-copy first run printing from Murdoch's Harper Collins as anything other than payback for Cuomo's corporate-friendly policies as governor, in particular Cuomo's pro-charter policies which Murdoch loves.

Murdoch has long been known to use his media outlets to reward friends and punish enemies - he keeps the NY Post open and operating despite its losing hundreds of millions of dollars for just that purpose.

I can't see any business reason why Harper Collins would pay Cuomo $700,000 in advance for his book and print 200,000 copies in the first run other than paying him back for stuff Sheriff Andy did that Rupert liked.

Direct Evidence Of Corporate Criminal Activity By News Corporation Surfaces

From The Independent:

Detectives investigating possible corporate charges against Rupert Murdoch's media empire have obtained evidence to suggest that News International paid private detectives to unlawfully access the phone records of a leading IRA mole who lives under the protection of the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Senior Scotland Yard officers are analysing an invoice originally seized from a private investigator by the Metropolitan Police in 2007. The document – which dates from the time of the discredited original phone-hacking investigation – bills News International £850 for "Scappaticci phone records".

At the time the invoice was submitted, in April 2006, a senior News of the World executive had allegedly commissioned private detectives to find Freddie Scappaticci, Britain's top agent inside the IRA who was known by the codename "Stakeknife". David Cameron's former director of communications Andy Coulson was the newspaper's editor at the time. Last week, he was convicted of conspiracy to hack mobile phones.

It is understood the explicit request to be paid for obtaining confidential phone records makes the invoice unique amongst the files held by the Metropolitan Police (Met) – and central to possible corporate charges. The request is effectively asking, in black-and-white, to be compensated for a criminal offence.

... 

Last week, Coulson was convicted of conspiracy to hack mobile phones. Five other News of the World journalists pleaded guilty to similar offences. After an eight-month trial that made headlines around the world, former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was acquitted of four charges.  

However, the conviction of such a senior figure as Coulson has raised the possibility that News International – now rebranded News UK – could face a corporate charge, which may have serious consequences for the ability of the parent company News Corp to operate in the United States. The investigation into News UK as a "corporate suspect" caused pandemonium at the upper echelons of the Murdoch media empire when they learnt of the development two years ago.

Shortly after the company was informed it was under suspicion in May 2012, executives in the US ordered that the company dramatically scale back its co-operation with the Met. A News Corp analysis of the effects of a corporate charge, produced in New York, said the consequences could "kill the corporation, and 46,000 jobs would be in jeopardy".

Lawyers for the media giant pleaded with the Met and the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute the company, saying it would not be in the "public interest" to put thousands of jobs at risk.

Gerson Zweifach, group general counsel of News Corp, flew to London for emergency talks with the Met in 2012. According to Scotland Yard, he told police: "Crappy governance is not a crime. The US authorities' reaction would put the whole business at risk, as licences would be at risk."

I remain skeptical that corporate charges will be filed against News International/News Corporation or hopeful that even if they are, Murdoch's millions won't win the day for the evildoers, as they did in the Brooks case.

But it's becoming increasingly clear that if the Brits want to file corporate charges against Murdoch in the UK, the evidence is there to do so, and with the FBI grabbing 80,000 emails from News Corporation servers last week here in the U.S., there's a good chance the DOJ could mount a criminal case against Murdoch and News Corporation here as well.

7% Of FOX 5 NY On Air Personalities Have Been Accused Or Convicted Of Sex Crimes In Past Four Years (UPDATED - 2:00 PM)

I posted earlier about former Fox 5 NY reporter Charles Leaf getting sentenced to 26 years in prison on child molestation charges.

In the post, I wondered about the following:

Why isn't Campbell Brown screaming about the Leaf case and wondering aloud how many other Fox News employees are pedophiles?

Now Leaf is the only convicted pedophile that I know of at Rupert Murdoch's FOX News and and FOX affiliates, but he is not the only accused sex criminal at the company.

Let's not forget Ray Kelly's son, Greg, a FOX 5 anchor who was accused of rape, though police and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance declined to file charges against him.

The NY Times wrote up the story on Greg Kelly this way:

Manhattan prosecutors have decided not to file rape charges against a son of Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly after a two-week investigation of a woman’s accusation that he had attacked her late last year inside the Lower Manhattan law office where she worked, prosecutors said in a letter on Tuesday. 

The office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., concluded its inquiry into the accusation leveled against Mr. Kelly’s son Greg Kelly, a local television anchor, concluding that “the facts established during our investigation do not fit the definition of sexual assault crimes,” according to a brief letter to Mr. Kelly’s lawyer, Andrew M. Lankler. “Therefore, no criminal charges are appropriate.” 

...

The accusations came to light after the woman, who is in her late 20s or early 30s and whose name was not released, walked into the 13th Precinct station house on Jan. 24. She told the police that she had met Mr. Kelly, 43, on the street and had gone for drinks with him at the South Street Seaport a few days later, on Oct. 8. Afterward, she said, they returned to her office and he raped her. 

Police detectives initially interviewed the woman in the hours after she walked into the station house last month, law enforcement officials said at the time. But within hours, the Police Department had turned the investigation over to Mr. Vance’s office because of the conflict presented by the department’s looking into a sexual assault accusation against the commissioner’s son, who from the outset denied the accusations through Mr. Lankler. 

After the allegations became public, Mr. Kelly, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Reserves, took a leave from his position as an anchor of “Good Day New York” on the Fox station WNYW (Channel 5). 

OK, so here we have two FOX 5 on air employees accused of sex crimes in the last four years, one of whom was convicted on charges, the other not charged.

The FOX 5 NY news site lists 28 current on air personalities - including Greg Kelly, who still has his job despite the rape accusation.

2 out of 28 is 7% - which means 7% of the on air personalities at FOX 5 NY have been accused or convicted of sex crimes in the past four years.

Let's imagine that 7% of teachers working in NYCDOE schools were accused or convicted of sex crimes in the past four years (that would be about 5,600 teachers.)

How do you think Rupert Murdoch's FOX 5 NY affiliate would handle that story?

How would Murdoch's tabloids, the NY Post or the Wall Street Journal, handle that story?

What would frequent FOX News guest Campbell Brown say about those kinds of statistics?

And yet, here we have 7% of the on air personalities at FOX 5 NY accused or convicted of sex crimes in the last four years, one of whom has been imprisoned for child molestation, and we get silence from the FOXies over the sleaze at their station.

Silence too from professional teacher troll Campbell Brown.

It's amazing when you think about, really, because similar statistics for teachers would send both the FOXies and professional teacher trolls like Brown apoplectic about the dangers of teachers, but the reality is, you're far more endangered by FOX 5 NY on air personalities than you are by teachers.

And yeah, I know I'm stretching the Kelly sex crime thing and stretching the stats too - there have been more than 28 on air FOX 5 NY personalities in the past four years.

But this is just the kind of "stretching" that Murdoch media entities engage in when smearing teachers and the teaching profession. 

And the point I want to make in this post still stands regardless - you're far more endangered by FOX 5 NY on air personalities than NYC teachers.

The statistics bear this out.

UPDATED - 2:00 PM: The Daily News reports Greg Kelly is as sleazy as ever:

There is a time and a place for most things — but admiring your co-worker's body live on TV is neither of those.

An excited Greg Kelly could not contain his enthusiasm when colleague Anna Gilligan reported live from the newly renovated Action Park in New Jersey in a bikini.

Gilligan was there to show how the park had been transformed.

But if she thought the hardest part of her broadcast was going on one of the rides and then swimming live on TV, she was wrong.

After getting out of the water, a self-conscious Gilligan, who admitted it was "scary" that she had to strip to a two-piece on air, was subjected to some awkward comments from Kelly.

As she started the Tarzan ride, Kelly exclaimed: "Wow! here she goes, in a two-piece!"
 
And he couldn't contain himself.

As Gilligan climbs out of the water, he tells her: "First of all, nice bathing suit."

She ignores the remark, but Kelly's co-host Rosanna Scotto warns him to "stay appropriate."
He does not heed the advice and continues with his cringey remarks.

When Gilligan says she is about to go and put some clothes on, Kelly tells her "Hold on a second, no, not so fast Anna."

He then stutters to find a question to keep the presenter on air and receives another telling off from Scotto who even slaps him on the arm and tells him to "be nice and stop milking this shot."

Even then, he does not pick up on the clues and continues with the awkwardness.

The camera operator even gets involved by sparing Gilligan's blushed and cutting to a shot of the pool rather than the presenter in her two-piece.

When it goes back to the Fox 5 studio, a suitably embarrassed Kelly tells Scotto, "don't be so frowning at me."

Former Marine Kelly, the son of NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, was cleared of a rape allegation back in 2012 and thanked Scotto then for her support.

He has been hosting the breakfast program since 2008.

Greg Kelly, keeping it classy as always.

Same goes for FOX 5 NY - great idea to put the female reporter in a bathing suit so that Greg Kelly could ogle her publicly on air.