This morning, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, appearing on Fox Business, explained why he hasn't covered the phone hacking scandal involving Fox News parent News Corp.
Of course, Wallace hasn't been alone at Fox in looking the other way as Rupert Murdoch's media empire stumbles through its sweeping crisis; it took Bill O'Reilly more than two weeks to finally mention the story.
Surveying the story, Wallace was adamant: The Murdoch's had done “just fine” testifying before Parliament, they didn't know anything about the hacking, and no, he wasn't just being a News Corp. toady.
The irony though, was that while defending News Corp.'s chiefs, and insisting there's no evidence to personally link them to the hacking, Wallace's word choice was that the Murdochs didn't “kn[ow] anything about this.”
So true!
Time and again on Tuesday the Murdochs admitted to members of Parliaments that they were unaware of many, many things. New York compiled a helpful list of 38 instances when either James or Rupert Murdoch insisted they “didn't know” the answer to crucial hacking questions.
Here's a sampling:
1) Whether the individuals who gave the committee evidence in 2009 knew at that time what had been going on. —James
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3) That a judge had made clear that News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck had set out to blackmail two of the women involved in the case. —Rupert
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4) Why the employees of his U.K. company wouldn't bring the charge of blackmail, which can result in a fourteen-year prison sentence, to his attention. —Rupert
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14) Exactly how much he paid Professional Footballers' Association CEO Gordon Taylor in a hacking settlement. —James [It was £700,000.]
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25) If anyone is intentionally misleading him and the company. —James
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26) Exactly how many millions it would take to require a settlement authorization from the full board of News Corp. —James
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28) How big a group it was that was involved with criminality. —Rupert
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29) Whether the cash payments that were made by the News Corporation companies to informants for stories were registered with the appropriate tax authorities. —Rupert
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32) Whether the settlements were paid by News International, by News Corp. or by News Group Newspapers. —James
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35) If News International paid Clive Goodman's legal fees for his trial in 2007, or who signed off those payments. —James
But yes, other than constantly being unable to recall key facts surrounding the scandal, the Murdochs did just fine, according to News Corp. non-toadie Chris Wallace.