Facing investigations and possible lawsuits on the both sides of the Atlantic, Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, announced Wednesday he will turn his entire media empire into a bank.
“Instead of people calling me a media mogul, they can now call me a banking mogul,” Murdoch said in an appearance on Fox News, which he also owns. “News Corp will become one of the biggest bank holding companies in the world, a bank that just so happens to do a bit of publishing, makes movies and other things.”
It’s Murdoch’s latest attempt to quiet the uproar over allegations that News Corp employees at the British tabloid News of the World bribed British police and hacked into the voicemails of celebrities, politicians, murder victims and those killed in terrorist attacks. He has already closed News of the World and backed off an attempt to buy British satellite TV provider BskyB.
Murdoch told British members of Parliament on Tuesday that he was an inattentive CEO who had no idea what was going on at his company, so he shouldn’t be held accountable for the actions of his employees.
This new move is an attempt by Murdoch to insulate himself and his underlings from all possible legal problems and to open the door to financial support from the U.S. and British governments.
“Tuesday night it occurred to to me that despite wrecking the global economy, selling investments that were destined to fail and betting against them, not one Wall Street banker has gone to jail,” Murdoch said. “They got billions in taxpayer funds, the clients got ripped off and the CEOs made out like bandits. That’s my kind of a business.”
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http://www.thechicagodope.com/2011/07/20/rupert-murdoch-to-turn-news-corp-into-a-bank/