Joe Hildebrand, a columnist for Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp. in Australia, has come under fire for a series of tweets that mock the mentally handicapped, the “retarded,” the Irish, and blondes. It all started with a tweet about airport personnel, but Hildebrand’s reaction to criticism of his remark escalated into a full-on “politically incorrect” display of shamelessness that had one colleague calling him “a disgrace.”

CEO of News Corporation and global media titan Rupert Murdoch rang in the New Year by finally joining Twitter, tweeting via his iPad. The media mogul has fast drawn hundreds of followers in the span of only a few hours, and the first people he has has personally chosen to follow are Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter and Mark Pincus, the founder/CEO of Zynga, the online game company best known for Farmville. According to his tweets, he appears to be celebrating with Dorsey at a “huge NY eve do”.

Lachlan Murdoch, the eldest son of News Corp head Rupert Murdoch, is having his turn in the glare of the media spotlight, denying that he was present when a News Corp executive allegedly offered former National Party senator Bill O’Chee a “special relationship” if he voted against government legislation regarding digital television.

James Murdoch, son of News Corp head Rupert Murdoch, has resigned as director of News International’s News Group Newspapers Limited (which publishes The Sun) and Times Newspapers Limited, (which oversees both The Times and Sunday Times). The younger Murdoch has also faced pressure to step down as chairman of satellite broadcasting company BSkyB, in which [...]

Not even the wealthiest 1% is safe from the wrath of Socially Conscious Elmo. News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch was delivering a speech on technology and public education in San Francisco (of course) today when he was repeatedly interrupted, despite being the keynote, by various members of what is being called the “Occupy Sesame Street” movement, whose demands are better public education and the halting of privatization in the education industry.

The News of the World phone hacking scandal is making its way to the U.S. as lawyers representing the hacking victims are going after the now-defunct paper’s parent company, News Corp., claiming that the allegation brought against the tabloid broke U.S. law in additional to laws in the UK.

According to Sky News, court proceedings will be taking place in New York City… and could mean bad news for company head Rupert Murdoch, given that, “as a US-based organization, News Corp and its directors could be held responsible.”

Bloomberg TV’s Betty Liu recently spoke with billionaire media mogul Ted Turner about a number of things he’s probably been mulling over the last few days: President Obama’s new plans to raise taxes for the very wealthy and what the future may hold for fellow very wealthy people Rupert Murdoch. Basically: Very wealthy people things.

“Nobody likes to pay more taxes,” said Turner. “At least, except Warren Buffett likes to pay more taxes. He’s the only one.”

News Corp executive James Murdoch has officially turned down a $6 million bonus given to him by the company, saying it would be inappropriate to accept it in the midst of continuing investigations into the widespread phone hacking scandal.

Apparently, when your company is being accused of a mass conspiracy involving phone hacking and a widespread cover-up of said phone hacking, it doesn’t exactly translate to a viable stock option. Needham & Co. today downgraded News Corp. stock to a “hold” in the midst of new allegations of wrongdoing and continuing government investigations.

Shares of News Corp. rose Thursday–up nearly 17 percent by 1 p.m.–as traders reacted to Rupert Murdoch’s quarterly earnings conference call Wednesday afternoon. On the call, Murdoch vowed to remain in place as CEO despite the ongoing investigation into the company’s involvement in phone hacking, and reported a healthy profit. “We have the most robust balance sheet in our history,” Mr. Murdoch said, reporting 2.7 billion dollars in earnings for the fiscal year that ended June 30, up from 2.5 billion the year before.

On Time‘s Swampland blog today, Massimo Calabresi reveals something interesting about Viet Dinh, the man handpicked by Rupert Murdoch to oversee News Corp.’s internal probe into allegations of phone hacking. During his first week at Harvard, Dinh began a long, ongoing friendship with Preet Bharara — who just so happens to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the person leading the U.S.’s investigation into News Corp.

Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of embattled mogul Rupert Murdoch, has announced she will not be joining the board of her father’s News Corp. company at this time. Her father had originally announced his daughter’s plans to seek a position on the board following the sale of her company, Shine Group, to News Corp. back in March. Her brother Lachlan and James Murdoch are both currently on the company’s board. Unlike her father and brother James, Elisabeth has not been a focus in the ongoing investigations into the family’s part in an alleged phone hacking scheme to obtain information about story subjects.

Adweek‘s Michael Wolff, who has previously used organized crime as a metaphor to explain Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp., expands on the “mafia” metaphor in a new article that portrays Murdoch as the ultimate boss around whom the entire corporate structure has been built. “It’s an organization all about doing what Rupert wants you to do, or doing what you imagine Rupert wants you to do, or doing what you imagine your boss imagines Rupert wants done. There are few companies as large as News Corp. that are so devoted and in thrall to one man.”

The Guardian reports this morning that Stuart Kuttner, former managing editor of the now-defunct News of the World and a man, it has been said, whose “DNA is absolutely integrated into the newspaper which he has represented across the media with vigour” has been arrested in the still-widening phone hacking and police bribery scandal. The Guardian‘s Amelia Hill reports Kuttner, 71, did not know when he reported to a London police station for questioning that he was to be taken into custody. “Kuttner is believed to have been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to section 1 (1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977, and on suspicion of corruption contrary to section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906.” (The paper notes those are the same charges facing former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks)

Yesterday, we shared New York magazine writer Frank Rich‘s article chronicling his own and others’ experiences with what he referred to as “bullying” on the part of Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp and its employees. Rich accused the company, which he referred to as a “media colossus,” as routinely resorting to intimidation in its continued attempts to maximize power and silence critics. Rich paid a visit to Joy Behar‘s HLN show to discuss his experiences further and to issue a warning that the “whole Murdoch culture” has spread to the United States.

New York magazine’s Frank Rich has offered an in-depth look at how Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp. — currently deeply embroiled in a hacking scandal involving the company’s now-defunct UK newspaper News of the World — also had a hand in several less-than-aboveboard practices on this side of the pond.

In 1976, at the dawn of his career, Rich found himself working for the Post when the paper was sold to a then little-known (here in the States, at any rate) Murdoch. The crux of Rich’s piece lies not in bolstering the “us versus them” narrative espoused by many in the “mainstream media,” but on zeroing in on how the Murdoch empire systematically abuses power in order to further an agenda, even if this abuse should happen to break the law.

Current TV host Keith Olbermann, writing for The Guardian, describes the experience of being hired–and fired–by Rupert Murdoch. “From my vantage point,” Olbermann writes, “the most important fact remains that, after my exit, Rupert had to keep paying me not to have to work for him: $800,000 over the next eight months. It was the best job I ever had.” Olbermann, who was hired by Murdoch to be part of an expanded Fox Sports cable effort that included Olbermann hosting a nightly show to compete against ESPN’s legendary SportsCenter–an effort Olbermann describes as one of Murdoch’s “first abject failures in American television.” Olbermann says the failure was the result of multiple mistakes on the part of bosses at News Corp.: “for once, Murdoch’s mafia failed him.”

For Piers Morgan–and his bosses at CNN–the recent interest in his time as a tabloid newspaper editor in London (including, for a time, at the now-closed News of the World) has made for some fascinating television, most notably an on-air debate with a British MP who’d mistakenly accused Morgan of “bragging” about printing stories based on phone hacking (she’s since conceded she “mis-read” Morgan’s book, and has apologized). But as The Wall Street Journal reports this morning, Morgan’s time in the tabloid trenches was carefully explored before he was hired to replace Larry King–including a “careful reading” of the very memoir that MP Louise Mensch seemed to have skimmed. “Before signing him,” The WSJ‘s Lauren Schuker writes, “CNN executives carefully read his books and thoroughly questioned him about his journalistic habits and ethics, a person close to the network said.”

That “smoking gun” that was supposed to link CNN’s Piers Morgan directly to phone hacking and other outrageous practices of the U.K. tabloid press? Well, not so much. As we reported Tuesday, a British blogger claimed to have a recording of Morgan that–he said–”contracts” Morgans flat denials that he ever “hacked a phone, told anybody to hack a phone or published any story based on the hacking of a phone.” As it turns out, that recording’s a 2009 interview Morgan gave to the BBC, appearing on a radio show, Desert Island Discs.The host, Kirsty Young asked Morgan about “all that nasty down-in-the-gutter stuff” that Morgan was exposed to by being a tabloid newspaper editor. He never says that he personally was involved in any of it.

In a bizarre twist to the story, the mission to find evidence of CNN’s Piers Morgan engaging in dirty tabloid behavior has become something of a side quest to the current News Corp hacking scandal. Morgan has denied any hacking, and, with the exception of alleged audio confessions, nothing has surfaced. Tonight, the Daily Beast thought they had finally found the holy grail of the Murdoch scandal– an old BBC interview where he admits it went on, but notes that “not a lot of that went on,” and “the net of people doing it was very wide.”

In addition to Republican presidential pledges, tonight on Real Time Bill Maher re-tackled another subject he addressed last week: the woes of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. To help him grasp just what kind of power Murdoch’s built up over the years, Maher invited British writer/producer/marketing expert Martin Lewis on the program.

In a clear sign the U.K. hacking scandal has indeed landed on this side of the Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal reports Friday the Justice Department “is preparing subpoenas as part of preliminary investigations into News Corp. relating to alleged foreign bribery and alleged hacking of voicemail of Sept. 11 victims, according to a government official.” The WSJ‘s source says subpoenas “would broadly seek relevant information from the company,” which owns the Journal.

Chris Wallace spoke with Don Imus this morning and shared his thoughts on Michele Bachmann‘s headaches and the News Corp. phone hacking scandal. While Imus found some laughs in each story, Wallace said Bachmann’s migraines should not disqualify her from running for President and insisted Fox News is giving plenty of attention to the controversy with its parent company.

There are several methods of dealing with a much-publicized scandal, some less advisable than others. Issuing a public apology for mistakes or poor judgment? Pretty much always a good idea. Holding individuals responsible for their roles and dealing with them accordingly? Usually works out pretty well. Publishing a tacky, potentially offensive cartoon making light of serious allegations AND life-threatening poverty? Oddly enough, that rarely ever works.

And, yet, that’s precisely what the Times of London did when it ran an editorial cartoon, marked “Priorities…”,depicting three starving, ethnically ambiguous children sitting nude in the sand. One of the doe-eyed children looks mournfully out at the viewer, cradling his distended stomach and announcing that he has had “a bellyful of phone-hacking.” Any guesses at to what company owns the Times of London?

Yesterday, the testimony of Rupert and James Murdoch was briefly interrupted when a man attempted (and failed) to throw a shaving cream “pie” into the elder mogul’s face. Many have described the attempted pieing harshly, calling it “stupid,” “pointless,” and “a waste of time” (these aren’t direct quotes of anyone in particular, I’m just making an educated guess that someone somewhere said those things) while the perpetrator himself, a comedian and activist named Jonnie Marbles, has written an explanation in The Guardian in which he says he “did it for all the people who couldn’t.” That’s a nice sentiment, but many people (again, educated guess) are wondering just what exactly he thought was going to happen. Well, Mediaite is proud to bring you a glimpse into an alternate world where Jonnie Marbles had indeed pied Rupert Murdoch.