| ...[E]email messages released Tuesday indicate that News Corp. executives at least considered dispatching top editors of WSJ Europe and The Times of London, both News Corp. holdings, to advocate the BSkyB deal. The newly released emails, totaling 163 pages, were exchanged among News Corp. chief lobbyist Frà ©dà ©ric Michel, company officials and government aides. Several refer to Lord Matthew Oakeshott, a member of Parliament whom News Corp. perceived as key to influencing Vince Cable, the government minister who had the authority in the fall of 2010 to approve the BSkyB deal.
News Corp. execs were worried that Oakeshott wouldn't be receptive to their overtures. In one email to James Murdoch's aide, Matthew Anderson, and Rebekah Brooks, chief exec at News Intl, Michel described Oakeshott as "a difficult character [who] hates lobbying (and doesn't like our empire either")." |
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At www.propublica.org
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