Memo: UK minister lobbied for Murdoch takeoverReported by SeattlePI.com on Thursday, 24 May 2012 (on May 24, 2012)
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Memo: UK minister lobbied for Murdoch takeover
Associated Press
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Updated 11:36 a.m., Thursday, May 24, 2012
LONDON (AP) — A British minister in the hot seat for his alleged close ties to Rupert Murdoch's media empire did lobby Prime Minister David Cameron to back the tycoon's bid for satellite broadcaster BSkyB, according to a memo made public Thursday. Media Secretary Jeremy Hunt, whose close links to Murdoch's News Corp. have cast a cloud over his career, said in a Nov. 19, 2010, letter to Cameron that Murdoch's son James was "pretty furious" about the obstacles being put in the way of the New York-based company's bid for the lucrative pay-TV provider. The memo, whose existence was disclosed in testimony to a long-running U.K. inquiry into media ethics, showed the degree to which Hunt sympathized with the New York-based News Corp., which has since been plunged into scandal over phone hacking and other shady practices at its subsidiaries. Michel made 191 telephone calls and sent 158 emails and 799 texts to Hunt's office between June 2010, when News Corp. announced its bid to buy out other BSkyB shareholders, and July 2011, when the hacking scandal — which erupted at Murdoch's News of the World tabloid— forced him to drop the plan.
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