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Berlusconi-owned Italian daily Il Giornale is revelling in press baron Rupert Murdoch’s discomfiture over in United Kingdom. Murdoch paper’s The Times has been highly critical of the philandering Italian PM’s antics in recent months. Now, however, the shoe is on the other foot as the Australian tycoon’s tabloid News of the World has been forced to pay over £1million in out of court settlements to public figures whose phones it has been accused of tapping. "Politicians, athletes, movie stars. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, targeted by a new kind of journalism invented by reporters of the Murdoch group,” laments the Italian daily. “Forget about the interminable stakeout, the chasing up of informed sources, the bread and butter of a reporter's job - Rupert Murdoch's journalists have other ways of finding big news". "We have the suspicion", an editorial darkly proclaims, "that this spying was not just a way of informing readers unlawfully, but also a way of giving (Murdoch) a weapon to use against his competitors". By “competitors,” it can be assumed Il Giornale is referring to that other press baron - Silvio Berlusconi.
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