text: The episode entitled "Fraudcast News" on Sky 1, caused a Twitter sensation with hundreds of tweets per minute from people saying its screening was more than a coincidence. 
   
   It begins with Lisa Simpson publishing the first issue of her newspaper in which she labels power plant tycoon Montgomery Burns ‘a hateful man nobody likes’. 
   
   Mr Burns retaliates by purchasing every media outlet in Springfield, however the inhabitants of Springfield respond by creating a newspaper of their own. 
   
   Mr Burns is forced to acknowledge that "it’s impossible to control all the media, well unless of course you’re Rupert Murdoch”. 
   
   Viewers last night tweeted “the most excellent episode of the Simpsons today on Sky” and “Haha the Simpsons taking a dig at Rupert Murdoch, absolute brilliance! Kudos to the writers!” 
   
   “Anyone see "Fraudcast News" on Sky News just now? Ha! Hilarious! Complete coincidence I'm sure!” and “hahaha! Sky One broadcasting Fraudcast News, one of the best Simpson episodes ever tonight!” 
   
   Anyone see "Fraudcast News" ep of Simpsons on Sky News just now? Ha! Complete coincidence I'm sure! Allan Cavanagh 
   
   AllanCavanagh 
   
   “The Simpsons’ "Fraudcast news" is all about Monty Burns corruptly buying up the free press.... Oh the irony!” and “Rupert Murdoch: a real-life Mr. Burns’!” 
   
   A spokesman for Sky insisted the timing of the screening of the episode was purely a coincidence and had no relevance to Murdoch bid for BSkyB. 
   
   Read the latest on the phone hacking scandal. ||||| Rupert and James Murdoch on Tuesday were called to appear before British Parliament next week to anwer questions about the actions of their newspapers in the phone hacking scandal. 
   
   A spokesperson for News International, News Corp.’s British newspaper arm, issued a statement saying the company will cooperate, according to a reporter from Murdoch-controlled Sky News. 
   
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   “We have been made aware of the request from the CMS Committee to interview senior executives and will cooperate,” the company said. 
   
   The summoning from Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which was also extended to Rebekah Brooks, the CEO of News International, is not binding on the Murdochs — because they are not British citizens — the but will increase the growing public pressure on the company. Brooks is a British citizen and can be compelled to appear, wrote the Telegraph. 
   
   After first declaring the Murdochs and Brooks would appear, the committee’s chairman, John Whittingdale, told the BBC that there is “some confusion reigning” about if they will show. News Corp. said it awaits an official request. 
   
   The Murdochs and Brooks have been asked to appear before the committee July 19. ||||| LONDON — Shortly after Scotland Yard began its initial criminal inquiry of phone hacking by The News of the World in 2006, five senior police investigators discovered that their own cellphone messages had been targeted by the tabloid and had most likely been listened to. 
   
   The disclosure, based on interviews with current and former officials, raises the question of whether senior investigators feared that if they aggressively investigated, The News of the World would punish them with splashy articles about their private lives. Some of their secrets, tabloid-ready, eventually emerged in other news outlets. 
   
   Those damaging allegations, about two of the senior officers’ private lives, involved charges that one had padded his expense reports and was involved in extramarital affairs and that the other used frequent flier miles accrued on the job for personal vacations. 
   
   “If it is true that police officers knew their phones had been hacked, it is a serious matter that requires immediate investigation,” said John Whittingdale, the chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, which investigated phone hacking. “It would be shocking.” 
   
   The lead police investigator on the phone-hacking case, Andy Hayman, left the Metropolitan Police in December 2007 after questions were raised in the news media about business expenses he had filed and the nature of his relationship with a woman who worked for the Independent Police Complaints Commission. 
   
   At the time, Channel 4 News reported details of 400 text messages and phone calls that Mr. Hayman had sent to her. 
   
   John Yates, the assistant commissioner who has become a lightning rod for the police’s handling of the phone-hacking case, had reportedly used frequent flier miles earned in the line of duty to pay for flights for his relatives. 
   
   The outlets that reported these allegations have not been implicated in the hacking. 
   
   Members of Parliament will question Mr. Hayman, Mr. Yates and several other senior police officials at a hearing on Tuesday of the Home Affairs Select Committee to try to determine why the Metropolitan Police decided to strictly limit the initial phone-hacking inquiry in 2006. 
   
   One area of inquiry is whether the fact that the officials’ phones had been hacked had any impact on the scope of their initial investigation, according to two members of the committee. They are also concerned about whether the investigators had a conflict of interest because they themselves were victims of the people they were investigating. 
   
   Among the 11,000 pages of documents seized from the home of The News of the World’s phone-hacking specialist, Glenn Mulcaire, in August 2007, the investigators also found the names of Sir Ian Blair, then the Metropolitan Police commissioner, and at least two other senior police officials involved in the inquiry, according to several former senior Scotland Yard officials. The officials declined to reveal the names of the other investigators. 
   
   Sir Ian declined to comment on Monday. 
   
   In the autumn of 2006, the police notified only a handful of victims that their cellphone messages had been hacked, even though there was evidence that News of the World journalists might have gained access to the messages of nearly 4,000 people. The top police officials learned they had been hacked after an 8-to-10-page list of potential victims was assembled that fall for Mr. Hayman, several former Scotland Yard officials said. 
   
   In January 2007, Mr. Mulcaire and Clive Goodman, the paper’s royalty reporter, pleaded guilty to gaining access to the messages of aides to the royal family and were sentenced to prison. The inquiry was then concluded. For years after that, Scotland Yard officials, including Mr. Yates, insisted that there was no evidence of further hacking, a claim he repeated in 2009. 
   
   A Scotland Yard spokesman declined to discuss whether any senior officials’ phones had been hacked. “We will not comment on media speculation or give a running commentary on our investigation,” the spokesman said. 
   
   In an interview published by The Telegraph on Sunday, Mr. Yates apologized for the initial Scotland Yard inquiry, acknowledging that it was lax and ineffectual. “I have regrettably said the initial inquiry was a success,” Mr. Yates said. “Clearly now that looks very different.” 
   
   In Parliament on Monday, two Labour Party lawmakers, Chris Bryant and Tom Watson, accused Mr. Yates of lying and renewed calls for his resignation.
target: – Rupert Murdoch, son James, and News International CEO Rebekah Brooks have been asked to appear before British Parliament. The trio will answer questions about the News of the World phone hacking scandal should they show up one week from today; the summoning is not binding but does ramp up pressure on News Corp, Politico reports. More: The hacking scandal continues to widen. Five senior police investigators discovered their voicemail had likely been hacked in 2006, soon after Scotland Yard began its initial investigation into the matter, the New York Times reports. And the revelation raises some sticky questions, like: Could this have caused investigators to ease up on the tabloid out of fear their private lives would be exposed? Members of Parliament will question several police officials today to determine whether the hacking impacted the police inquiry, which was initially very limited, and whether those hacked experienced a conflict of interest. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown today accused Murdoch's media empire, specifically the Sunday Times, of hiring "known criminals" to gather personal details about his bank account, legal files, and taxes, the New York Times reports. Brown also believes the paper somehow got access to his son's medical records and passed it along to the Sun, a source says. Meanwhile, more reports are emerging that police officers were bribed for information on Brown, the royal family, and others, and that money was spent to secure a copy of the Green Book, which details the queen and Prince Charles' activities. In somewhat lighter Murdoch-related news, the Telegraph reports that the Simpsons episode that aired on Sky1 last night spoofed the scandal. In "Fraudcast News," tycoon Montgomery Burns buys up every media outlet in the town, leading Twitter users to note the parallels between the plot and Murdoch's plan to take over BSkyB.