Murdoch newspapers fall for fake email

Barcelona News.Net
Friday 26th June, 2009

Australian Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull led the charge last Friday, claiming an email from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's office to the Treasury requesting favorable treatmnent for one of Rudd's associates, proved the prime minister had misled the Australian parliament and should resign.

Turnbull also had the Treasurer Wayne Swan under pressure with similar claims.

Boosting the opposition leader was a story on the front page of Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch's company, News Limited, on Friday June 19. The story was also run on the front page of other Murdoch newspapers across Australia.

"The Daily Telegraph can reveal Queensland businessman John Grant was offered financial support by Ford at the very time the car giant was desperately trying to secure a $550 million Government "loan," News Limited journalist Steve Lewis wrote.

"The Daily Telegraph has learned of a correspondence trail involving the office of the Prime Minister and Government officials responsible for a $2 billion scheme to help cash-strapped car dealers," wrote Lewis.

"The fresh allegations of high-level interference will send shockwaves through the Rudd Government and will feature prominently at a Senate hearing in Canberra today," said The Daily Telegraph story.

"Senior political advisers have been asking questions about several emails which suggest the Prime Minister was keen to ensure that John Grant Motors was considered for attention under the OZ Car scheme," said Lewis.

"Despite this, Mr Rudd denied as recently as Monday that he or his office had made representations on behalf of Mr Grant to help secure funding under the $2 billion scheme established last December," said the Telegraph.

Later on Friday at the Senate hearing Australian Treasury official Godwin Gretch was grilled over the affair. He told senators he recalled the first approach for assistance to Grant had come from the Prime Minister's office. He later admitted his recollection "could be entirely faulty," but that was his recollection.

The explosive testimony sent Turnbull into a spin, calling for Rudd's resignation.

The following day in a saturated coverage on the front page of the Murdoch newspapers across Australia, Steve Lewis writing under the name of each publication exposed the existence of an email linking the prime minister's office with the treasury official.

In the South Australian newspaper, The Advertiser, Lewis wrote, "An explosive email, which has been read to The Advertiser, reveals the Prime Minister "asked" if a $2 billion scheme could be made available to help his friend, Queensland car dealer John Grant."

"The Advertiser can reveal Mr Rudd's senior economics adviser, Andrew Charlton, wrote an email in February to the Treasury official in charge of the OZ Car scheme, Godwin Grech," the newspaper said.

The email sent on February 19, according to the South Australian paper said, "Hi Godwin, the PM has asked if the car dealer financing vehicle is available to assist a Queensland dealership, John Grant Motors, who seems to be having trouble getting finance. If you can follow up on this asap that would be very useful. Happy to discuss. A."

The same day News Limited published its story in the two thirds of newspapers it owns in Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called for an Australian Federal Police investigation to examine the authenticity of the email.

By Monday the AFP had established the email was a forgery. Turnbull came under pressure throughout this week for relying on a fake email, and promoting it. The whole matter was a hoax and even members of Turnbull's own party criticised his naivety.

Nowhere was there any criticism of the Murdoch newspapers for not authenticating the email before engaging in a mass publication of its content. It seems News was taken in, hook, line and sinker, and did far more to promote what turned out to be a fake email than Turnbull.

No doubt News and its journalist will be questioned by the Australian Federal Police as to how the "email" came into their possession, and how they were briefed on the events leading up to the senate inquiry.

News was in hot water just three months ago when it splashed nude photos of an Australian politician across the front page of its newspapers, days before an election the politician, Pauline Hanson, was contesting.

The photos taken of a young girl with a former soldier at a motel in New South Wales, were described as part of a "raunchy romp."

Hanson denied the photos were of her, denying the ex-soldier's claims that she had teamed up with him in February 1975, claiming she was married and was having her second child at the time. She denied the man's claim that she worked in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, said she had never worked in a grocery store, and had never dated a soldier. She also worked out that at the time of the romp she would have been 19, and on the soldier's version of events he would have been 16 or 17. She also advised the motel where the proceedings were said to have taken place in 1975, was not built until more than a decade later.

Despite the denials, the News publications stood by their story. "Sunday Mail editor Liz Deegan said this morning the paper was standing by the story," the Courier Mail reported on Monday March 16.

Deegan said the photographs had been carefully scrutinised before publication and were not doctored.

Sydney's Sunday Telegraph editor Neil Breen told Fairfax Radio the photographs were of Ms Hanson.

"I think there is absolutely no doubt,"' he said.

"I knew on Saturday when I had those photos ... that if I published something like that and they were wrong then I'm in huge trouble."

He said the newspaper's photograph experts had checked the images using computer software before they were published.

"You can see changes in the pixels ... if they've been doctored, and they weren't doctored," he said.

Six days after the publication of the photos Hanson lost her bid for a Queensland senate seat coming in a close third.

It was later established the person who "sold" the photos to News Limited was a conman, and the whole episode turned out to be a hoax. The photos were not of Pauline Hanson.

The Murdoch organization has had a long history of being caught out by fraudulent material. In 1983 its London newspaper The Times acquired the rights to what became known as the Hitler Diaries, a purported account by the Fuhrer of the Second World War, a multi-volume work spanning the years from 1932 to 1945. Amid much excitement The Times began a serialised coverage. It wasn't long before the diaries were revealed to be forgeries.

"The key elements of media brand building are credibility and trust," wrote Mark Day in April this year. "Consumers must be able to believe that the news content of their chosen program or print title is fact-checked and accurate and opinion is put forward by credible voices."

"A lack of credibility and repeated failure to report accurately and honestly can be a corrosive negative force in publishing," said Day, in an article in The Australian, coincidently the Murdoch group's flagship Australian newspaper.

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