Today is the last trading day of the year on the New York Stock Exchange, barring any dramatic surprises shares in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation will end the day near the year’s highs. If you are lucky enough to own NewsCorp shares you will have benefited from a rise in value of over 10% this year, well outperforming a stockmarket that has flatlined.

Not that you would realise it if you only listened to the BBC or read the New York Times and The Guardian. The latter in particular always slants financial stories about NewsCorp as if there was widespread shareholder unrest with the Murdochs. Story after story on the media and finance pages of The Guardian quotes shareholders and financial advisers with doom laden sentiments about the Murdochs. Most of those quoted turn out to be activists with political rather than financial priorities…

The fact is that Rupert Murdoch owns the number one daily newspaper in America, The Wall Street Journal. NewsCorp also owns the number one news channel, the incredibly successful and profitable Fox Network. Sky franchises in the UK, Italy, Germany and Star TV in Asia are the pay-TV leaders generating phenomenal subscription revenues. Murdoch also owns the content via television production companies and movie studios. This year Super Bowl on FOX was the most watched TV show in America ever. Even after selling MySpace at a loss, he has dared to launch a new online-only news business, The Daily. Hit movies like Avatar and Black Swan generate colossal ticket sales, American Idol still brings in the ratings, globally Murdoch owned newspapers are still a cash-cow despite him closing the News of the World. In 2011 revenue rose to $33.4 billion, while adjusted operating income increased 12% to $4.98 billion. Cashflow which the owners of the loss making New York Times and Guardian can only dream…

Guardian Media Group is losing a £1 million a week, Mirror Group shares have halved in value this year and the firm has introduced a pay freeze for all workers. Based on the NewsCorp share price alone, the Murdochs finish the year a few billion richer than they started it. Despite what you may read in The Guardian or hear on the BBC, the Murdochs are very far from being against the wall and the left hates that.

No one ever got rich betting against Rupert Murdoch….

What does the former Chief Reporter of a defunct newspaper do for cash? Well if the online ad service Gumtree is anything to go by, becoming a chauffeur is the way forward…

Neville Thurlbeck, currently on bail after being arrested by Operation Weeting, is offering a “stylish, immaculate chauffeur driven Mercedes S500 available for weddings in Surrey/South West London. £125-£150.” He’s also trying to sell the “lovingly maintained” car and rent out his luxury Harrow-on-the-Hill apartment.

He’s going under the name “Ned” these days…

There are 22 articles currently listed on Google News regarding this morning’s Education Select Committee. They all mention the appearance of Rod Bristow, president of Pearson UK. The publishers own the exam board Edexcel, as well as the Financial Times.

While the Telegraph, Times, Guardian, BBC and PA are running with the grilling that Bristow got, there is absolute silence, once again, from the FT’s Education Correspondent Christopher Cook.  It’s not as if he hasn’t been filing copy, a piece by him about other matters went on the website at 3:51 pm. Plenty of time until deadline though…

They say that history is written by the victors, but that hasn’t stopped the Indy’s Steve Richards trying to buck the trend. Upon reading his “Gordon is still great and should come back and teach us all how to save the world” piece, you could be forgiven for thinking his copy was filed after the festive sherry was passed around the Indy office, but something else piqued Guido’s interest. There are mentions to previous Prime Ministers, as well as their biographies. The whole thing reads like one long job application…

Is Steve lining himself up to write the book?

It’s now been confirmed that Piers Morgan will be before Leveson’s show trial next week. Some weekend reading for Mr Jay:

The former Mirror and News of the World editor will be under oath. First question: “How do you explain how you came to be listening to Sir Paul McCartney’s voicemails?”

Who said perseverance never got you anywhere? After no fewer than ten days of calling his office, the Guardian diarist Hugh Muir finally got his answer to whether Eric Pickles would attend the Young Britons’ Foundation annual conference. Muir, who doesn’t like the fact YBF don’t like the NHS, ran diary story after diary story demanding an answer. There were at least four that Guido can see. Guido hears that Pickles opened his speech to the young right-wingers on Saturday with:

“I understand that a man that I’ve never met, who writes for a paper I’ve never read, is fascinated to know whether I would attend this conference. Well, I’m delighted to attend”.

When doorstepped this morning, Vince Cable ruled out resigning saying: ”I’m just getting on with my job as I always do.” So he limps on to fight, and lose, another day, but that’s not to say he hasn’t been banging his steel mug against the bars of his cell this weekend. With Clegg initially saying he was behind the national interest, Cable’s voice on the outside, also known as the spectacularly irritating Matthew Oakeshott, was deployed to stir things up.

The Observer reported: “One of Vince Cable’s closest allies, Lord Oakeshott, has refused to rule out a possible resignation by the business secretary. Cable’s comrade Will Hutton had clearly had a direct earful too: “He will speak out aggressively against Cameron’s veto; his decision is whether to resign to do so or say so in office, courting his sacking.” Will Hutton being wrong about something comes as no surprise, but him making something up would. Yet again Cable has clearly threatened that often cited nuclear bomb, yet failed to push the button. When push comes to shove, he’s yellow to his core…

The Leveson Show Trials have a busy day and first up it’s notorious former News of the World stinger Mazher Mahmood:

He’s been given the full black-out screen for his evidence today. Not round these parts though…

What does the Guardian do when it gets a story wrong? Not just any story, but one so embellished that it forced the closure of a rival newspaper, yet has now unravelled completely. The detail that sealed the fate of the News of the World was that they had deleted Milly Dowler’s voicemails, leaving her family with false hope. Now the Guardian has conceded that fellow phone-hacker David Leigh’s allegations were way out — the voice-mails were deleted before the Screws, to their shame, went anywhere near the message inbox.

In October Rusbridger told Leveson: “We note with encouragement that, since the start of your inquiry, two other newspaper groups have decided to publish regular corrections and clarifications columns on page 2.” They quietly put their damning retreat out late on Friday night. On page ten…

Another day and another good secret camera sting. This time it’s the Telegraph catching out exam board officials briefing teachers, for cash, what will be in the exams in order for their pupils to up their grades. Nearly every other paper has picked up the scoop, except one. The FT…

It’s not their education correspondent Chris Cook’s ongoing grudge against Gove that is the issue this time, instead the answer lies significantly above his pay grade. Pearson PLC who own the FT also owns Edexcel – one of the the exam boards named in the Telegraph story. Move along people, nothing to see here…