Murdoch's World by David Folkenflik Read Free Book Online Page A

of the World ’s upscale sister paper the Sunday Times by posing as a cleaning woman at the presses to grab an early copy of the paper and rewrite it for her own publication’s editions.
    Soon after Brooks took over News of the World in 2000, eight-year-old Sarah Payne was abducted and killed, her body left in a field. Thetabloid dedicated giant headlines to the crime, but Brooks wanted to do more. It adopted a“name and shame” approach. Over a two-week period, it published the names, addresses, and photographs ofeighty-three convicted sex offenders, a figure all the more impressive given that it appeared in print only once a week—on Sundays.
    On one day, the front-page headline, “Sign Here for Sarah,” kicked off a campaign for what Brooks called “Sarah’s Law.” Brooks wanted legislation requiring authorities to allow parents access to the registry of criminal sex offenders living nearby. She became a confidante and champion of the girl’s mother,handing over a mobile phone from the paper. You can use it for anything—call me anytime , the editor told her. The two women would stay in touch for years. Sara Payne, the mother, became an occasional columnist for the paper.
    The tabloid’s “name and shame” approach won the attention of readers and some politicians but the decision proved controversial with civil libertarians, lawyers, and some police officials. Mobs showed up outside the homes of many people whose names were published. One sex offender identified in the paper committed suicide. At the height of the public frenzy,Dr. Yvette Cloete returned to her home in Wales to find the word “paedo” (for the British rendering, paedophile) scrawled in red paint on her front door. She was a pediatrician, not a pedophile, apparently the target of mistaken and misspelled identity.
    A mob chased a family with no links to pedophiles from their home. Three hundred people appeared at the home of another man whose sole transgression was to sport a neck brace much like the one worn by a sex offender who lived nearby. And a full-scale riot broke out outside the apartment of a pedophile in the coastal city of Portsmouth. Under duress from officials, the paper backed down on “name and shame” but not on its campaign for “Sarah’s Law.” The disappearance and death of Milly Dowler in 2002 sparked similar concerns and fed the paper’s crusade.
    Over time, Brooks became known for her news judgment, at once calculating and impulsive. But she became memorable for her ability to endear herself to those in positions of influence and power. Inside News Corp, she stood alone in her ability to ingratiate herself with not just Rupert but his adult children, too. In the testosterone-drenched alleys of Fleet Street, Brooks proved memorable for her wrath to those who challenged her.
    Labour MP Chris Bryant never forgot what happened to him in the months after he asked her unwelcome questions at parliamentary hearings in 2003. A few months later, pictures surfaced ofBryant clad only in briefs from a gay online dating site. The Mail on Sunday , a tabloid rival to the News of the World and the Sun owned by Associated Newspapers, broke the story. But Bryant contended the Sunday Times and Sun feasted on it, quoting from his randy messages to other men in consensual private exchanges through the site. At a moment when online dating was just starting to seep into the public consciousness, the exposure of Bryant’s pseudonymous cyber come-on provided rich material for the British tabloids. But it lacked a public policy component or even the reliable hook of hypocrisy: Bryant was unmarried, openly gay, and had pushed for the government to relax laws cracking down against sexual activity by gays in public places. The coverage from News International’s titles felt like payback time.
    The payback arrived in person as well. Bryant felt the sting of