nettime transcript of March 6 Murdoch meeting with The Sun's staff

[nettime's_fly_on_the_wall]

http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5026/transcript-rupert-murdoch-recorded-at-meeting-with-sun-staff


Mike Darcey: So, we met... we talked about one or two
things there. We had a bit of an update in both directions
in terms of state of play. I don't think we need to go
through all that again. But, in a way, one of the key
questions you left me with is you would really welcome the
opportunity to chat to Rupert, just to hear his views and
express your views to him, if that was possible, if he's in
town. He's in town, so he's come along today, and was happy
to come and meet you. I thought it would be a good chance
for him to hear how you're getting along, the state of play
at the moment, and give you the opportunity to ask him
questions you've got, any concerns that you have been
raising with us that you'd like to hear as well.

Rupert Murdoch: Yeah, look, please be just as honest as you
want to be, and I'll try and respond.

Graham Dudman (The Sun's former managing editor): Okay, can
I- If I could start by introducing myself. I'm Graham
Dudman, I was the managing editor for seven years, until a
couple of years ago. We spoke many times on the phone when I
was editing, and I just wanted to thank you today for your
time, appreciate that. We met earlier on this afternoon, all
of us, and I was given the job of just sort of introducing-
kicking it off. So, you will know that the people in this
room are the human cost of the decision that was taken -- we
believe in haste -- to set up the MSC and give it, what we
believe, was the sole aim of protecting News Corp at all
costs. We believe that we are the human cost of that
decision.

Until their arrests, everybody that you're looking at in
this room today was a loyal, hard-working employee devoted
to you personally, to The Sun, to News International and
everything that this company and you stand for, and have
been proud to work here -- proud to work here.

People are at different stages of their career. You can see
by just looking around this room. Some are at the beginning,
some are half-way through-ish, some are approaching the
final stages of their career. People are beginning to plan
their lives around News International. Other people have
given their lives to News International. Some faces you will
recognise, some you won't. One thing that everybody in this
room shares -- everybody in this room shares -- whether we
are 20-something, 30-something, 40-something, 50-something
or 60-something, is that we were arrested, thrown into
police cells, treated as common criminals in front of our
children, our families, and our neighbours, and our friends
and our colleagues, for doing nothing more than the company
expected of us -- nothing.

So, as I say, we met earlier today. We have some questions
that we would like to ask, we are very happy for you- to
hear what you'd like to say. We've got the questions simply
to give the meeting a kind of structure, some of the issues
that we would like to address in the limited time that we've
got, and I'm happy to kick off. Several of us-

RM: Can I just say first that I appreciate very much what
you're saying. I'd be saying the same thing if I was in your
chair. And I'm sure we've made mistakes. But it's hard for
you to see it this way. I'm just as annoyed as you are at
the police, and you're directing it at me instead, but never
mind. I mean, it is absolutely -- and we will be returning
to this as a paper, if we can get through a bit more of this
(Murdoch slaps table) -- what they're doing, what they did
to you, and how they treated people at the BBC, saying 'a
couple of you come in for a cup of tea at four in the
afternoon,' you guys got thrown out of bed by gangs of cops
at six in the morning, and I'm just as annoyed as you are.
But all I'd ask that you remember is that in that first
month, you said was panic, maybe there was panic that we
closed the News of the World, but we were working in the
belief -- I think rightly -- the police were about to invade
this building, and take all the computers out the way, and
just put us out of business totally. And everyone could have
lost out.

And it was done to protect the business. We thought,
protecting everybody, but that's how it started. And if you
want to accuse me of a certain amount of panic, there's some
truth in that. But it was very, very- I don't know- it's
hard for you to remember it, it was such- but it was- I was
under personal siege -- not that that mattered -- but it
was- the whole place was- all the Press were screaming
and yelling, and we might have gone too far in protecting
ourselves. And you were the victims of it. It's not enough
for me to say you've got my sympathy. But you do have my
total support. But go ahead, please.

GD: On that line of support, which is useful. [Redacted.]
In the event that any of us go to court, and in the event
that we are convicted of whatever offences we're convicted
of, what assurances can you give us about our individual
future at News 

nettime Ben Hammersley to the IAAC

[nettime's_fly_on_the_wall]

http://www.benhammersley.com/2011/09/my-speech-to-the-iaac/

   Last night I gave a speech to a meeting of the [10]Information
   Assurance Advisory Council, the UK's talking shop for government, law
   enforcement, security services, and private companies around the issues
   of cybersecurity and the like. The whole thing was under the Chatham
   House rule, so it's hard to write about, and most of the audience could
   have me killed. But here's the speech I gave. As I say at the
   beginning, it's very rare that I give a speech verbatim like this, but
   I had some very specific points to make.

   --

   This evening I am going to be break a habit of a lifetime, and use a
   prepared speech. Ordinarily, I come up on stage and have slides, and
   videos, and talk about geopolitics and killer robots and the future of
   the web.

   But tonight I've brought a written speech because I want to make a lot
   of points very carefully, and because you're all rather scary. The QA
   afterwards will be more relaxed.

   So.

   So, Hi. As Sir Edmund said, I'm a journalist, and technologist, and a
   writer and advisor to people. I'm a knowledge worker. I manipulate
   symbols for a living. To use the old phrase, I'm a futurist, and as the
   Californian thinker on such things, Kevin Kelly, recently wrote,
   Futurists have a dilemma, he said, as Any believable prediction will
   be wrong. Any correct prediction will be unbelievable.

   So I won't be making that many predictions tonight. You'd never believe
   me. Instead I'll try to describe the world as I see it from my own
   experience. In the words of the author William Gibson, the future is
   already here, just not evenly distributed. I'm going to try to fix
   that a little before the dinner gets cold.

   Now, earlier this year I give a speech in Geneva, where I painted a
   picture - perhaps an unfair one - of the world being split down the
   middle. Those who grew up before the cold war, and those who grew up
   after.

   My theme that day was that the world is currently run by a generation
   whose upbringing has left them intellectually unable to be deal with
   modernity.

   This isn't their fault. For someone to be in charge today, they're more
   than likely to be in their 50s or 60s. Which means that when the Berlin
   Wall fell they were most likely already steeped in an intellectual
   tradition that had bedded in quite far.

   But what happened after 1989 was, as we all know, devastating to that
   tradition. The end of the bipolar world - the end of history as
   Fukuyama had it - and the end of the relevance of 50 years of political
   and military planning.

   Instead, things got weird. Germany was reunited in 1990, and a few
   weeks later, on Christmas Day, the first web server was turned on.
   Nearly 21 years later, and the internet has destroyed and rebuilt
   everything it has touched. Hierarchies have been under attack from
   networks for 20 years now. History certainly didn't end, much to
   everyone's disappointment.

   We all know this. Everyone in this room has seen it happen, and from
   beautiful vantagepoints. Indeed, everyone in this room is probably of
   the generation of the people I'm talking about.

   You're all the same age, and upbringing, as the people that the digital
   generations are so upset with. Don't take it personally, but your peers
   are the sorts of baby-boomers that have been entrusted with the future,
   while they are obviously so deeply confused by the present.

   That's fighting talk, I know, but looking around, I think I might be ok
   this evening. You're all quite smart.

   Now, personally, I'm one of those terrible half-breeds. I'm 35, and so
   sort of third-digital-native, third-pathfinder. And despite the silly
   moustache and the tattoos, I'm also third-establishment - The Times,
   the Guardian, the BBC, Downing Street this afternoon, the FCO next
   week. UN fellowship, and the odd visiting lectureship, RSA, RGS and
   Chatham House. I may not look like, or even be, a good establishment
   man, but I can fake it.

   So, I've given myself a job. I've taken it upon myself to be the
   translation layer. The guy who tells the older guys what's going on
   with the younger guys, and explains to the younger guys why the weird
   decisions the older guys are coming up with are being made.

   And I look around here and I see people who do the same thing. This is
   good.

   In the time of revolution, and believe me this is a revolution - easily
   on a par with the renaissance, or the Enlightenment - the translator
   has a very important role to play. The communicator, the person who
   makes the facts palatable to all sides, is the only conduit through
   which real change can be made.

   And in this room today, there are nearly 100 of us.

   So this evening, let me help us remind ourselves of the facts at hand:
   As it's only through remembering the fundamental truths that