Exhibit A:

NEW YORK POST LAWSUIT: Shocking Allegations Made By Fired Employee
First Posted: 11-10-09 11:49 AM | Updated: 11-10-09 01:00 PM

The New York Post editor fired after speaking out against a cartoon depicting the author of the president's stimulus package as a dead chimpanzee has sued the paper. And as part of her complaint, Sandra Guzman levels some remarkable, embarrassing, and potentially damaging allegations.

Guzman has filed a complaint against News Corporation, the New York Post and the paper's editor in chief Col Allan in the Southern District Court of New York, alleging harassment as well as "unlawful employment practices and retaliation."

As part of the 38-page complaint, Guzman paints the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house and Allan in particular as sexist, offensive and domineering. Guzman alleges that she and others were routinely subjugated to misogynistic behavior. She says that hiring practices at the paper -- as well as her firing -- were driven by racial prejudices rather than merit.

And she recounts the paper's D.C. bureau chief stating that the publication's goal was to "destroy [President] Barack Obama."

The most outrageous charges, however, involve Allan. According to the complaint:

"On one occasion when Ms. Guzman and three female employees of the Post were sharing drinks at an after-work function. Defendant Allan approached the group of women, pulled out his blackberry and asked them 'What do you think of this?' On his blackberry was a picture of a naked man lewdly and openly displaying his penis. When Ms. Guzman and the other female employees expressed their shock and disgust at being made to view the picture, Defendant Allan just smirked... [N]o investigation was ever conducted and the Company failed to take any steps to address her complaints."

Guzman's complaint goes on:

"On another occasion, upon information and belief, Defendant Allan approached a female employee during a party at the Post, rubbed his penis up against her and made sexually suggestive comments about her body, including her breasts, causing that female employee to feel extremely uncomfortable and fearing to be alone with him."

And finally: "... [W]hile serving as the top editor at the Post, Defendant Allan took two Australian political leaders to the strip club Scores in Manhattan..."

Guzman alleges that while at the paper, misogynistic and racist behavior was directed at her specifically. According to the complaint, she was called "sexy" and "beautiful" and referred to as "Cha Cha #1" by Les Goodstein, the senior vice president of NewsCorp. After doing an interview with Major League Baseball star Pedro Martinez, she says Allan asked her whether the pitcher "had been carrying a gun or a machete during the interview" -- a line Guzman said was racist and offensive.

When she would walk by certain offices at the paper, Guzman alleges, editors would routinely sing songs from West Side Story -- a nod to her Hispanic heritage -- including the tune: "I want to live in America."

Guzman also makes the following allegations to supplement her case that the Post harbored an environment that was offensive to women and minority employees.

"A White male senior editor sexually propositioned a young female Copy Assistant, telling her that 'If you give me a blowjob, I will give you a permanent reporter job.'"

"The last five employees who were recently terminated by Paul Carlucci, the Publisher of the Post.... Have all been black and/or women of color."

A spokesperson for the paper said they would comment once they had adequate time to review the suit, which they were sent early on Tuesday. Of Guzman being let go from her job, the spokesperson wrote: "Sandra's position was eliminated when the monthly in-paper insert, Tempo, of which she was editor, was discontinued, reflecting the dramatic decline in ad sales across our industry."

In an email to the Huffington Post, Guzman explained her reason for filing the lawsuit as follows: "It's not easy standing up to discrimination, but sometimes you have to do what you feel is the right thing to do in your heart."

Guzman was fired from the Post in early October for what editors claim was a failure to attract more readership to her monthly in-paper insert, Tempo. (The paper had terminated the section.) But allies of Guzman insist that it was retribution for her decision to speak out months earlier against a cartoon the paper had published by Sean Delonas. That controversial illustration depicted two befuddled policeman -- having just shot the chimp twice in the chest -- saying: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." The assumption was that President Obama was the rabid primate.

In the complaint, Guzman said that multiple editors knew that the cartoon was offensive, but didn't do anything about it. It was, she alleges, par for the course when it came to the paper's coverage. Guzman alleged that she had once learned that the Post had planned to run a cartoon in the newspaper depicting Jews as sewer rats. She also alleged that "Charles Hurt, the Post's Washington D.C. Bureau Chief and a high ranking journalist at the newspaper, had confirmed to Ms. Guzman that the Post had such a policy in place, telling her that the Post's 'goal is to destroy Barack Obama. We don't want him to succeed.'"

Hurt did not immediately return a request for comment.

Guzman ended up publicly airing her dissatisfaction with the illustration. Over the subsequent months, she alleges, her job was made increasingly difficult. Allan, she alleges, refused to allow her to cover a private White House reception with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor despite the fact that she'd be the only reporter at the event (Guzman and Sotomayor are friends). Guzman ended up doing a freelance piece instead. Allan also "denied Ms. Guzman" a proper performance review while management began questioning her expenses, she alleges. Ultimately, she was fired.

The complaint is in response to that firing.

"This is an action for declaratory, injunctive and equitable relief, as well as monetary damages, to redress Defendants' unlawful employment practices and retaliation committed against Plaintiff, including Defendants' discriminatory treatment, harassment and unlawful retaliation against Plaintiff, due to her race, color, national origin and/or gender and complaints of discrimination," the complaint reads. "...Behind the trumpeted headlines and within the four walls of the Post exists a hostile work environment where female employees and employees of color have been subjected to pervasive and systemic discrimination and/or unlawful harassment based on their gender, race, color and/or national origin."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/1 ... 52314.html

Exhibit B:

Murdoch could block Google searches entirely

Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google's search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online. [????????????????? Smart business move ]

In an interview with Sky News Australia, the mogul said that newspapers in his media empire – including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal – would consider blocking Google entirely once they had enacted plans to charge people for reading their stories on the web.

In recent months, Murdoch his lieutenants have stepped up their war of words with Google, accusing it of "kleptomania" and acting as a "parasite" for including News Corp content in its Google News pages. But asked why News Corp executives had not chosen to simply remove their websites entirely from Google's search indexes – a simple technical operation – Murdoch said just such a move was on the cards.

"I think we will, but that's when we start charging," he said. "We have it already with the Wall Street Journal. We have a wall, but it's not right to the ceiling. You can get, usually, the first paragraph from any story - but if you're not a paying subscriber to WSJ.com all you get is a paragraph and a subscription form."

The 78-year-old mogul's assertion, however, is not actually correct: users who click through to screened WSJ.com articles from Google searches are usually offered the full text of the story without any subscription block. It is only users who find their way to the story through the Wall Street Journal's website who are told they must subscribe before they can read further.

Murdoch added that he did not agree with the idea that search engines fell under "fair use" rules - an argument many aggregator websites use as part of their legal justification for reproducing excerpts of news stories online.

"There's a doctrine called fair use, which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether... but we'll take that slowly."

Murdoch's attitude towards the internet - which appeared to have thawed when he bought social networking site MySpace for $580m in 2005 - has stiffened more recently.

Over the summer, Murdoch had announced that he planned to introduce website charges by next year - but last week it emerged that his controversial plans had been delayed, saying that "I wouldn't promise that we're going to meet that date".

Additionally, it emerged that MySpace, which has struggled in the face of competition from Facebook in recent years, was due to fall short of its targets in a lucrative search deal with Google – a slip that could cost the site more than $100m in payments from the internet advertising giant.

In the Sky News Australia interview, Murdoch underlined his feelings towards those companies by listing a litany of names of those that he felt were overstepping the boundaries.

"The people who simply just pick up everything and run with it – steal our stories, we say they steal our stories - they just take them," he said. "That's Google, that's Microsoft, that's Ask.com, a whole lot of people ... they shouldn't have had it free all the time, and I think we've been asleep."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/no ... och-google

Exhibit C:

alleged

Do you like Rupert Murdoch's journalism Peeps

i dont think i have ever read one of his papers

well you're missing out

Rupert Murdoch's a journalist?

those are his papers and network, are they not?

Bob Kraft owns the New England Patriots. I would hardly call him a football player.

bump

Why?

Someone should tell dickfan it's not funny.

that hurts, mickey.

I lol'd.

Not that I agree with harassment in any way, but if this was such a big problem to her, why did she stay so long? Why is she suing over being fired from such a horrible enviornment. . . i don't get it.

CNN and MSNBC are liberal outlets for the Democrats, FOX News is the only fair and balanced media source.

oh, missed this. i was watching some youtube clips of hannity and beck and remembered this somewhat funny topic (Robert Kraft as a football player response especially) that and also i always liked the so it was just an amalgamation of factors i guess.

Pfffft, we all know who's the closest to the Crypt Keeper.

Spoiler: show

The Times is a good newspaper...
...with no thanks to Rupert Murdoch

The Sun is a bad newspaper...
...largely due to Rupert Murdoch

The Sun is horrific. I especially lol at the fact that its back to doing what it does best - being wedged up David Cameron's shytepipe.