Sunday Round Up: News of the World, Rupert Murdoch, Wayne Rooney, Katie Price, Grand National
This Sunday Katie Price calls for the head of Channel 4, Wayne Rooney sees his Sky programme axed, and plenty of headlines are made following the News of the World's apology for phone hacking.
The Observer claims that Rupert Murodch attempted to persuade former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to ‘cool’ the News of the World phone hacking investigation, while he was still in office. The paper claims that Murdoch attempted to use his political influence to have Labour MP’s back away from the investigation and relayed messages to Brown through a third party.
The Telegraph reports that up to 100 people could have been targeted by the News of the World phone hacking and that further arrests are likely. Meanwhile, The Daily Star Sunday claims that the bill faced by the News of the World after its apology for the phone hacking of celebrities and politicians could be as high as £40 million. The BBC has come in for criticism, with claims that it attempted to cover up the death of two horses during the Grand National live coverage yesterday. The Mail on Sunday says that complaints were made to the corporation following commentator Mick Fitzgerald’s description of the two dead horses who fell at the fourth hurdle, one breaking its neck, as ‘obstacles’. One horses was then covered by tarpaulin, without any mention of the deaths. Having recently been dropped as a brand ambassador for Coca-Cola, Wayne Rooney’s programme, Street Striker, has been axed by Sky. The Mail on Sunday also reports that just a week after his foul mouthed rant down a broadcasting Sky camera, which saw him handed a two-match ban, his Sky produced programme will no longer be made. Katie Price has demanded the sacking of channel 4 boss David Abrahams, claims the Mail on Sunday, after he admitted to giving the okay to broadcast a joke made by Frankie Boyle about the model and her disabled son Harvey. The ASA ruled that the joke should never have been broadcast this week, which has led Price to demand that Abrahams be removed from his post. Finally Newsquest Herald & Evening Times has claimed that it has seen a 9% spike in its online figures over the first three months of 2011 with an average of 3.7 million visits per month and page impressions rising to 24 million.