Mayne: it’s time for Rupert Murdoch to go
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After 10 unrelenting days of the most ferocious and damaging global attacks on a public company that the world has ever seen, media mogul Rupert Murdoch granted this interview to his own paper, The Wall Street Journal. In a performance that would make the old Iraqi Information Minister proud and will become legendary in PR circles, the disgraced 80-year-old News Corp executive chairman claimed the crisis was handled “extremely well in every possible way”, involving only “minor mistakes”. As for the reputational damage in Britain, it’s “nothing that will not be recovered. We have a reputation of great good works in this country”. Huh! The more likely scenario is that News Corp will be hounded out of Britain completely. Markets know best and News Corp shares resumed their decline today as investors fret that they are being led by a delusional dictator who has blundered on every key decision over the past 10 days. How on earth did Rupert think he could thumb his nose at the entire British political class and declare himself unavailable for next Tuesday’s parliamentary grilling? That’s what he first tried last night, before receiving a formal legal summons that led to a backflip and a commitment to front up after it dawned on him that such a display of contempt would have signalled the end of his ability to be a fit and proper person to hold any shares in BSkyB. Elisabeth Murdoch has reportedly gone to war with Rebekah Brooks, telling friends she has “f-cked the company”. Indeed, Rupert’s decision to stand by the odious character known in Private Eye as the Wicked Witch of Wapping was a monumental error of judgment. Instead, the Murdochs voluntarily walked away from a cash cow newspaper that gives News Corp considerable power in the UK. This was also a huge mistake as it effectively was a massive admission of guilt, totally contradicting years of denial. If Rupert was going to dramatically fly into London, it should have been to fire Brooks, force favoured son James Murdoch to stand aside as chairman of BSkyB and immediately give at least $2 million dollars to Milly Dowler’s family. Instead, he’s been pictured smiling with Brooks coming out of flash restaurants, making an astonishing contrast to those pictures of Milly Dowler’s family meeting with a clearly concerned David Cameron at 10 Downing Street. While one of the dodgiest tabloid journalists in history remains Rupert’s chief executive in the UK, the only executive who appears to have been fired this week is long time News International lawyer Tom Crone. Having fired his New York-based chief general counsel Lawrence Jacobs over an unrelated blunder last month, the Dirty Digger finds himself embroiled in his biggest ever legal and reputational scandal without an in-house lawyer of note. And with the cops and politicians crawling all over allegations of cover-ups, perjury and claims of perverting the course of justice, it will be very hard for Rupert to find a UK law firm that will put its name to the sorts of threats, editorial campaigns, litigation and heavy political negotiations he usually employs in these circumstances. The ongoing investigation reached a new level of farce yesterday when it emerged that Andy Coulson’s former deputy, Neil Wallis, had been arrested. This same bloke was paid about $50,000 to be a spin doctor for the police over the past couple of years, at the same time PC Plod was refusing to re-open is botched investigations into phone hacking. Amazing! News Corp has traditionally exerted much control over British politicians and senior police. Now it is at war with both and cannot possibly avoid widespread convictions responding to fundamental institutional corruption that has degraded Britain’s democracy. Indeed, where can Rupert turn for help when he is at war with all governments in the UK, the US and Australia? Minority governments will end up proving a major problem for News Corp because it is especially despised by the junior partners in Australia and the UK, namely the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. Liberal Democrats leader and UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg gave a speech last night calling for sweeping media reforms that are clearly targeted at undermining News Corp. He described the atmosphere at Westminster as “a little like an end to the dictatorship when everyone suddenly discovers they were against the dictator”. This is now becoming a real possibility. Surely News Corp’s independent directors and Rupert’s adult children can’t sit back and do nothing as Rupert’s continues with his steady stream of catastrophic strategic blunders. The performance next Tuesday represents his “last chance saloon”. Rupert himself has rarely been questioned by independent sources in public about the hacking scandal. The last time was at the 2010 News Corp AGM when we had this exchange.
All this from a bloke who today told The Wall Street Journal: “When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right.” This goes to the core of the problem: Rupert Murdoch has totally built News Corp around a culture of encouraging mischief making and dodgy journalism. He rewards and promotes questionable characters, which makes him utterly unable to fix a scandal around unethical conduct. Sorry Rupert, but after dictating for a record 58 years, it’s time to go — for the good of the 87.35% of News Corp that is not owned by your family. Resign as CEO and chairman and bring back Peter Chernin to fix up the mess. |
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62 Comments
Good to see that exchange Steven. I assume UK parliamentary committee has that. So he did not bother to keep up to date on issue and no one who worked for him wanted him to see any counter arguments to those he was running.
Sorry that should have been ‘Stephen’. Our press is dominated by an integrated multinational media company that turns out to have had amongst its ranks of senior editors and managers people who presided over a culture that saw no problem in hacking into phones and paying police officers. Of course there is a political problem.
Spot on Stephen.
The writing has been on the wall for some time… in fact its been a bathroom wall.
Why should anyone be surprised that Rupert thought he could get away with the hacking scandal and subsequent cover ups?
As detailed in Michael Wolff’s recent book ‘The Man Who Owns The News’ – (which was commissioned by Murdoch during his ‘legacy awareness’ phase in 2007) this is the same delusional/arrogant/senile? man who explained to his daughter Prudence that he dyed his hair bright orange in the privacy of his own bathroom rather than having it professionally coloured because he didn’t want people to know he was having his hair treated!
We are witnessing the sad but welcome decline of a brilliant, tyrannical and unethical businessman and it seems no one within the family or his circle has the anatomy to stand up to him.
His performance the other day with his arm around Rebekah Brooks declaring she was his top priority in this repulsive but cleansing scandal underscored both his senility and/or delusional state, plus it must be said on the evidence available, a possibly a pathetic infatuation (or maybe its just just red top bonding).
As for the obnoxious James Murdoch who boasted about putting this matter ‘in a box’ in virtually the same breath as lecturing the BBC, Guardian et. al. in his now famous Edinburgh speech on TRUST, of all subjects, one’s thoughts turn to what those wise characters of yesteryear - and by the way the inspiration for Simpsons - might say:
Bulwinkle: ‘Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of the box’
‘Mmm….. guess I need a new box!”
stephen even you dont get it mate
dont start blaming rebecca brooks or james murdoch or anybody else
rupert murdoch is to blame end of story
im surprised you are giving him a get out of jail card by looking for patsies for him
like i said yesterday, he should purchase a toothbrush and tootpaste and get ready for some time in jail
the sooner that happens the better
julia gillards comments yesterday whilst correct are like all the other comments coming from other politicians and commentators in this country and else where
they are 30 odd years to late
I know you’ve got it in for Rupert (admirably so), but maybe you need to calm down a little. News Corp will still be there running Sky and papers for some time to come.
It’s good to see all the parliamentarians speaking out against News now, but I also resent their craven submission prior to the NotW scandal.
It was only, what, a few weeks ago that Bob Brown was being flayed alive in the media for suggesting that News Ltd wasn’t an unbiased purveyor of facts.
News Ltd’s 70% ownership of the printed press in Australia makes it unlikely that the same criminal activity took place here. However, when that 70% is pushing a single political barrow and is prepared to misrepresent and suppress any opposing political views, we have a real problem with our democracy.
An inquiry into this level of political influence cannot come quickly enough. Gillard has nothing to lose since News Ltd’s machinations have helped push her poll figures to rock bottom. Bob Brown has consistently spoken out, having endured a long-running vendetta against the Greens.
This organisation has had a pernicious, corrosive effect on our democracy. The sooner it is dismantled, the better.
I reckon the only reason for Brooks staying on is one or both of the men are bonking the incompetent fool.
Bravo Stephen, you seem to be the only questioning voice in the wilderness at the love-fest News Corp AGMs.
Murdoch’s remarks in The Wall Street Journal indicate one of two options ie:
1. he’s even more shameless and rat-cunning than we’ve given him credit for
or
2. he’s entering senility at a cracking pace.
I suspect that the reason Brooks has still got her job has far less to do with bonking than with the great likelihood that if she were thrown to the wolves by the Murdochs, she would likely have plenty of incriminating evidence against them, either of promoting phone hacking or of knowing about it and ordering a cover-up. If it wasn’t for something like this, they would have sacked her a week ago (if not earlier) to avoid some of the bad publicity.
Brooks’ prospects of being employed by any organisation other than News Corp are precisely nil, so whilst continuing to hold a position at News she will do whatever she can to deflect blame and cover-up for the Murdochs.
Voldermort.
The phone hacking scandal - the gift that keeps on giving. I agree with Sancho - politicians here and in the UK have behaved appallingly until finding their voices once the Milly Dowler scandal broke. Bravo Bob Brown for swimming against the tide and to Stephen Mayne for continuing to confront the Dirty Digger.
Hopefully this will mean the end of the fawning ‘lunch with Rupert’ in New York when our Prime Ministers (present and future) visit the US.
marilyn, you echo what many(males), are thinking but takes a woman to say it, well done.
Brooks is most likely being kept on as a buffer for James but it’s all going pie eyed.
Her pay-off must be going to be enormous as her future in the media is kaput. Maybe she can become a blogger.
Given Rupert’s age it’s highly likely he will go soon. If he were younger he would hang on but it’s obvious he’s just hanging in to pave the way for a successor in the family and that looks unlikely to happen. The big investors will force a change for no other reason than their own selfish ones-profit.
As a strict evolutionist and keen student of the human male’s extremely limited behavioural repertoire (lick it or bite it), I must agree with ShepherdMarilyn. There has to be some bonking going on somewhere in that obscene troika -all the other explanations make even less sense. Meanwhile, why isn’t Wendi telling Rupert it’s time to move on? Maybe the same reason Janette wouldn’t tell John.
I see the meme that the lack of cut-throat competition in Australia rules out a similar criminal mindset as pervades the British tabloids. I would have thought the complacent arrogance that seems to pervade the editorial offices of News Ltd. in Australia would make it far more likely that such behaviour not only occurs here, but is actively encouraged by the assumption that News executives are too powerful and well-connected to be attacked by the spineless creatures we currently suffer under in Canberra. It’s time for some can-opening: Warning! May contain worms!
@MARILYN AND DAVID - Could be! There’s no doubt that Brooks is a ruthless operator - that’s probably what the Murdochs are afraid of. She’s their ‘insurance policy’ against ending up in the clink - mind you, that idea fills me with tonnes of satisfaction. I’ve waited years for this, like others here who remember! Someone even suggested that Murdoch might be forced out of Britain altogether. It just gets better and better! Bring it on I say!
The old saying ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ is very apt! I just feel sorry for all those people who this mob have injured so ruthlessly and heartlessly!
Bring on an inquiry here, and as Paul Keating said last night on Lateline - adopt the Commonwealth Law Commission? plus the equivalents in NSW and Victoria?, and protect peoples’ privacy via Legal apparatus. It’s ridiculous to think that a person has to go to an Organisation paid for by the print media in order to get justice? How stupid! I wouldn’t like to have to depend on the head of News Limited for a just outcome to my complaint! The foxes are in charge of the hen house!
While the bonking theory is amusing to contemplate I suspect Murdoch Snr’s motives in protecting Brooks are less romantic. Obviously, she knows too much and is in the perfect position to dump the corporation right in the doo doo. If she is sacrificed by News Corp then she may reciprocate and do unto others what they did unto her.
Just remember that old line about ‘when thieves fall out’. This is one thing the Croesus-rich Murdoch Snr simply can’t afford - he can’t afford to fall out.
Newspapers in England, like ours in Australia, are organised around the principle that circulation counts more than journalistic authenticity. Perhaps there’s no escape from that, but it’s historically true that the less free the press, the more degraded its standards. We have yet to organise newspapers around the principle stated by a great Chief Justice of New South Wales, that ‘the press tends to set all free, the state to hold one half in servitude. That was Francis Forbes on 6 February 1827 as he resisted reactionary attempts in Sydney and London to licence, and tax, newspapers into conformity.
“Power corrupts - absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad.”
But not all bad men are great?
Flying from the US to London - like watching Zeus come down from Olympus, for a bit of slip and tackle?
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
Stephen, I recognise a master script and good, fair advise, congratulations.
It seems our Rupert is amazing and extraordinary however one looks at him, even his mistakes.
@DAVID — Posted Friday, 15 July 2011 at 3:10 pm
She (shepherdmarilyn - Posted Friday, 15 July 2011 at 2:34 pm) is so spot on, yep!
But more than ”…….. takes a woman to say it, well done…” only an ‘able’ woman has the authority to say it like that.
Good stuff guys.
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
@LIZ45 — Posted Friday, 15 July 2011 at 3:50 pm
“………….what the Murdoch’s are afraid of. She’s their ‘insurance policy’ against ending up in the clink……”
Good thinking, you may be so right.
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
@LIZ45 — Posted Friday, 15 July 2011 at 3:50 pm
I was cheering Paul on last night too.
@MARGARET KERR — Posted Friday, 15 July 2011 at 2:30 pm
Well bloody said. And like so many in that class of wealth they are miser’s in doing the right thing when they could afford it without notice.
@PULLAN.ROBERT@GMAIL.COM — Posted Friday, 15 July 2011 at 4:23 pm
A timely reminder on both points and Francis Forbes’ courage.
Just one small detail…
Can someone please inform the British, who insist on referring to Murdoch as “The Dirty Digger”, that ‘digger’ is a term of deep respect reserved only for those who have served their Australia in the military.
The old axiom “rags to rags in 3 generations” seems to have sped up somewhat, esp given James’ unfortunate amnesia during the OneTel trial. Anyone with such memory problems shouldn’t be doing anything other than simple, manual tasks, like signing on each fortnight.
Is all the salivating over the problem that Rupert is experiencing at the moment really any different from the enjoyment that readers of the News of the World got from stories about celebrities or whatever sorting coke, having affairs etc etc? Rich bastards being brought to heal over their hypocrisy is so much fun for all us little people but there is something rather distasteful about how much we are all enjoying it so much
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
GODOTCAB — Posted Friday, 15 July 2011 at 5:27 pm
No it’s not, we were using in school 50 years ago to mean Aussie. I accept it can mean more than that also, as you say, no worries.
A fish rots from the head down…. just sayin.
@@@There has to be some bonking going on somewhere in that obscene troika -all the other explanations make even less sense.@@@
Hmmm…there could be one further explanation. It was mentioned recently by a commenter that many News Ltd investigations actually don’t make it to printed articles. Could that be because the aim of the investigation was it’s own end? - to investigate for ulterior motives? After all, the financial cost of sending in foreign agents verses using some of Ruperts hacks would be far greater. Many foreign journalists have always said that News Ltd is one big spy agency.
Miss Brooks would make the perfect “Little Drummer Girl.”….and that would render her indispensible to “everyone.”
Stephen a brilliant performance at the 2010 AGM. I haven’t enjoyed anything as much for some time. You could sell tickets to the next one!
Malcom, Murdoch is someone who has made a career out of making enemies and attempting to destroy them through his media. This is one individual who deserves every shred of contempt he gets. This isn’t about petty class jealousy, this is about someone who truly deserves and needs to be brought down.
Just learned that his pet editor, Woods, has resigned. The pressure is on, let the domino’s fall, but let’s not under-estimate Murdoch. He didn’t get as powerful as he is by being weak, although with a nation who’s political leaders are now feeling they don’t have to be afraid of a tabloid witch-hunt for speaking out against him he’ll be under immense pressure.
I’m no supporter of his crappy media outlets, but why would he go? He controls News Corp and BSkyB. What do News Corp shareholders think the company would look like without him - they’d be extremely worried, that’s what. There is no successor except for James, and he’s currently more in the parliament’s target than Rupert.
There’s a big difference between wishing he will go and reality. I think he’ll ride it out and continue to rake in the big bucks - with the same old poor biased journalism that made him the success he is today.
Stephen is that “12.65% of the company” (I thought “13.666%” would have been more appropriate) for “40% of the voting stock” (from the radio, yesterday)?
Chris just because you don’t know the names of the others who are quite capable of running the business rather than the family Murdock doesn’t mean that they aren’t there and quite capable of taking over. I don’t disagree that he may survive this but he is getting on and if you consider other dictator type figures they loose power and influence as they get older and more vulnerable to challenges. James just doesn’t appear to have the personality to guarantee his control as CEO of the company. Hopefully after this the company will change dramatically and will return its media outlets to be balanced in its reporting and analysis of issues of public discourse. I swing from being as cynical as hell and a dreamer
Good post but …
The problem is not confined to one man, horrible as that one person is.
Its part of the whole system, endemic to its very nature and the fact that one such corporation is in such a position of oligopoly of power.
The first step to the long term answer to the problem is to break up the oligopoly.
Not just replace one fella at the top but break up the entire structure.
After all, we have seen, here in Oz in particular, a whole batallion load of willing and complicit fellow travellers who must share the blame and responsibility.
Break up Ltd. News.
News of the Screws, Murdoch’s highest-selling UK newspaper, closed.
BSkyB bid withdrawn.
Rebecka Brooks gone.
The great unraveling is under way…
I’m so looking forward to Tuesday and the Murdoch and Brooks appearance before the Commons!
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
@MALCOLM STREET — Posted Friday, 15 July 2011 at 8:57 pm
When you’ve listened for months to the details of a gruesome, cruel and callous crime the news of ‘guilty’ and the trial Judge’s verdict naturally bring on the various pleasures of justice done.
Malcolm, we take our glee where we can find it.
I don’t mind kicking a bully when he’s down
It’s revealing to hear all & sundry dumping on Keith Rupert Murdoch.
Doubtless he deserves much of the criticism.
However, here’s one for you all….based on past performances, I reckon he’s a good chance to survive this disaster, and roll on for years.
So, the Pre-Raphaelite poseur has gone. Rebekah Brooks is out of the Rossetti frame.
Intriguing how corporate families, like degenerate monarchies or bestial Roman emperors, acquire the strangest lieutenants…
We’ll find out her real name on the charge sheet: Elizabeth Siddal.
Malcolm: “but there is something rather distasteful about how much we are all enjoying it so much”
No Malcolm. We’ve waited such a very long time. Cut us some slack.
I now realise that wanting to see Murdoch’s obituary ASAP was a mistake. The Grim Reaper stayed his hand, knowing that Rupert would morph into Dorian Gray.
Breaking news: the entire tossariat at “The Australian” (male persons, aggregate age 14,721 years) has rejected an inquiry into the Australian media.
A posse of geriatric satraps were seen searching for the Greens HQ in the small hours of Saturday morning. Police escorted them home. No charges were laid.
Det.Sgt. Rossetti of the Elderly Offenders Squad dismissed the group as “circle jerkers”.
I agree with Fredex. The ONLY solution here is to break up News Ltd. No company should EVER have the degree of ownership of the media that News Ltd currently has in this country. To have 4 state/territory capitals where the only press is News Ltd is a total disgrace. Even if News Ltd were benign and provided relatively unbiased journalism, it is still too dangerous for any one company owning so much.
In the UK, they are fretting about Murdoch having 40% of the press. Yet here he has 70%!
With the Greens holding the balance of power in the senate and questions about media regulation high on the agenda, a perfectly timed path has opened up for introducing new laws to reduce the amount of media that any single person or company can own. We desperately need this to ensure we have a proper, functional democracy in this country. Labor and the Greens have nothing to lose by taking this path, while Australia as a country and as a democracy has everything to gain.
Let’s all pray to DOG , that they find links to 9/11 victims being hacked by Rupert’s rags , PLEASE . That would shut down Fox news . Being 10 years soon , the moons are lining up and its a felony in the USA . Cross your fingers , this is not going away for a long time and will spread . Sounds like Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal (4th largest investor ) wanted the ” Wicked Witch from Wapping ” gone . The Guardian must be getting alot of hits .
It’s time that News lost their bid to run Australia TV
I also cringe at Murdoch being referred to as ‘digger’? My son’s grandfather lost his leg at Tobruk in 1941?- he was a digger!
@MALCOM, MALCOLM STREET, DR HARVEY, BARRY09 AND OTHERS - New shocks each day - I’m enjoying his demise! I’ve not purchased any of Murdoch rags since 1975, for reasons we’ve just been reminded of this week. I don’t salivate over the goss in Murdoch rags, never have, never will. I don’t watch Today Tonight or ACA for the same reason. I don’t buy grotty magazines that do the same. I’m really not intersted in the misery or shock horror in other peoples’ lives, or how soon an actress’s belly gets back to ‘normal’ after giving birth etc. Not interested! Just grot! Most women’s magazines engage in the dumbing down of women and the rest of the population, so we’re not keeping watch on what else is going on! Like now!
I’m glad that Brooks has resigned, and like others look forward to Tuesday. And as The MAN ON THE CLAPHAM BUS said, ‘a fish rots from the head’? How true! He’s a vile man and has raised his kids the same way. The ‘buck stops with him’ as someone already said. I just hope that the FBI investigation shows any criminal activity in the US. If so, then the Australian Murdoch bosses won’t be able to go on with the dribble we heard on 7.30 the other night. How sickening was that? Like you Barry09, if it means the end of Fox news, what a result? Did you watch the interview on Fox with Murdoch? Sickening! ‘Yes, Mr Chairman’ ‘No, Mr Chairman’? Yuk!
So Murdoch apologised to the family of the young girl who was murdered. Did he apologise to the two families in Australia of those teenagers who killed themselves due to the sensationalised reporting in his grotty rag decades ago - which turned out to be lies anyway - in both cases! I bet he did not!
Just consider; how long has it been known that hackers interfered with her mobile phone? How long did it take Murdoch to apologise - immediately? No! Outraged as a father blah blah? No! Only when the people were enraged; when the advertisers dropped off; when he’s been summoned to appear before the Parliament of the land; to cover his own skinny little arse did he decide to apologise! He put his head in his hands how many times? blah blah.
Those parents go to bed in anguish and wake up the same way, and will do so forever! That awful 15-30 seconds or so each morning before they remember what the reality is, and then they’re back there again! A living nightmare! Bastard!
Maybe their little girl would still have died, but maybe if there wasn’t ‘evidence’ of her phone being active, the police could’ve saved her. Who knows? In fairness she may have been killed straight away, but the depths of depravity exercised by this publication are sickening! And that’s the difference between gossiping about people having affairs etc, and stooping to these gutter tactics. I believe that people have a right to privacy, regardless of who they are. Taking advantage of peoples’ utter despair and grief is unforgivable - whether it’s 9/11 people or young girls brutally murdered or the families of soldiers. Gross doesn’t seem enough somehow!
For Christ’s sake.
A flood of Lefty apologists for every Red Government’s access to every citizen’s politics get the vapours from tabloid poking around the Parish for stuff to boost sales.
You’ve got two years at most to set up a Bureaucracy, a Tribunal, a Committee, a Panel to stop the press saying Bad Things about Lefties.
After that, there’ll be no yap-room for Lefties for twenty years.
So, while there, get your Grant or Subsidy for the ‘Sustainable’ whatever Now.
From a friend.
MARILYN, TDG, DAVID et al - I’m tipping a bonking / knows-too-much double.
You’re Seriously out of the picture.
Two years, tops.
Then for twenty.
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
Stephen, at 80 even ‘nature’ is telling him its time to go and is probably smiling as she contemplates just how that will be achieved.
He may just be praying ‘during a bonk, please’. I don’t know how we think about these things when contemplating our luck at 80.
May be a good humoured octogenarian could tell us all how thinking flows on these issues at 80 or a journalist could ask him how would he like his end to eventuate when nature says ‘now’.
Disturbing that members of the “News clan” are in powerful positions in all sorts of places. In Australia we have a current News Corp director heading up infrastructure studies on behalf of the Victorian government. Yes, Rod Eddington is still a News Corp director and was in fact on the News board AND based in the UK when all this happened. He was also on the board of Rio when the scandals happened there. Murdoch attracts people who are just like himself to his companies - not a moral compass to be found amongst any of them.
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
@CYNIC — Posted Sunday, 17 July 2011 at 5:51 pm
Now here is a healthy cynic.
@GEDERTS SK - I recall reading that the media in Australia was at about 64 on the list (top 100 countries from memory?) re ‘full and fair’ REPORTING? I have no problem with editorials or opinion pieces that are biased, if they own up to this fact. I don’t like it. I think it’s prostituting the profession of journalism, but ? What I DO object to is the ‘opinionating’ of NEWS. I expect the NEWS to be reported as it factually occurs/occurred. We do NOT have that now.
Even Juanita, ABC 7pm news throws in the ‘cute lines’? Drives me nuts. They can do it on The Drum because it’s promoted as a discussion panel or its equivalent. The NEWS is just that - unbiased REPORTING of facts! Murdoch people walked out in 1975 for what he’s been doing ever since. The difference now is, that he has more ‘brown nosers’ who are paid enough to comply. Like Fox News in the US.
The Murdoch rags are the written equivalent of Fox News - they print crap and more crap instead of speaking crap and more crap! I wouldn’t wrap my garbage in any of them.
I saw a small example of Fox ‘interviewing’ Murdoch over this mess. ‘Yes, Mr Chairman, No, Mr Chairman’? Sickening! I wanted to vomit!
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
@LIZ45
Astute summary Liz, big tick.
(Go Liz)
the whole thing is a bit sick
what happened to the idea of a pluralistic and varied press?
we have institutional pap from the left/center {& modern ‘don’t know where the hell we are and don’t much care’} bunch at the ABC, SBS and JJJ.
Then we have two brands of ravenous capitalists running the rest. (One comes with extra lashings of lashings.)
sheeesh!
it is really sickening
I find myself downloading YouTube clips of Keith Olbermann just so I can see what a bit of honest left wing outrage might look like!
Australia:owned and managed by BigNastyInc, BigMiningInc, BigMoneyInc & OldMoneyInc.
WOnderfully disingenuous & insouciant piece of rabble-soothing in the w/e OO by one of the hacks saying that NotW could n’t happen here because there is intense competition in the press in the UK and then goes on to describe the duopoly in Sydn/mel and one paper cities elsewhere in Oz.
I winder why that would be? No mention from Cameron Stewart.
To the inquiring Dr Tarvydas, from a “good-humoured octogenarian”. (Well, in seven weeks, close enough.)
The majority of old people feel as I do…we want to die as soon as our mind does.
My mind is my SELF; the source of my equanimity after the happiness and tragedies of a long life, the reservoir holding my sense of morality, my ethical beliefs, my place of balance, the source of my joy and love which spreads to others. I am, at 80, as I have been as each adult decade passed, only with a greater sense of peace and acceptance as death moves closer to me.
Some people may have epiphanies late in life, but I think these are few. I therefore see the aspects of Murdoch’s present life as having been part of his whole life, even as far as the possible “pathetic infatuation”. He may have approached “senility”but he seems to be an old man who is operating in a relatively normal way.
The person I feel for most during this whole shambles is that good woman his mother, Dame Elisabeth, who at 102, with death fast approaching, must survive another public tragedy and watch, with pain, what her first child has brought upon himself.
I heard a comment from News Ltd a while ago in answer to Stephen Conroy’s criticims. That Conroy/Gillard Govt is “shooting the messenger”? I was pinning a garment together at the time and stuck a pin in myself, such was my involuntary reaction? What?
I think what News Ltd is doing is just that. The Gillard Govt being the “messenger” and Murdoch via his band of thugs are the ones doing the “shooting” - every day on every issue for the last 10 months to Gillard, and the last 12 months of Kevin Rudd’s PMship - then they do the boo hoo bs about his ‘assassination’? And we’re supposed to believe that they’re upholding the high principles some journalists take pride in? Truly! Their contempt is nauseating!
@CAROLINE - Murdoch was a bastard forty years and more ago! He’s still a bastard and will probably remain one until he dies. Ingrained in his DNA! I’d go so far as to say that his “head in his hands” bs was feeling sorry for himself! Not for the family of that lovely young girl who was murdered! He’s beneath contempt! The only sad thing would be for him to shuffle off prior to some justice being done - publicly!
Liz45 - I missed that latest evasion but it doesn’t surprise me as the Mudorc’s minions scurry around trying the defend the indefensible. As you may know, Dame Elisabeth thoroughly disapproves of her son’s yellow press & red tops.Surely the problem is that Mudorc ceased to be the messenger, or even the reporter of the/any message, and became the message itself, as in “work, buy my rags, consume, shut up & die, asap”.
How quickly he has gone from the orange haired, new sire x 2, to a waxen, shrunken death’s head. And who was the “mystery woman” in the recent pic of him & son in a limo. leaving the up-market hotel where he’d been grovelling to Milly’s parents.
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
@CAROLINESTORM@IINET.NET.AU — Posted Monday, 18 July 2011 at 3:02 pm
Thank you so much for taking the trouble and for you openness and sharing, thank you.
I am with you in feelings for Dame Elizabeth.
@JAMES MOYLAN - Didn’t Keith Olbermann get the sack? I read it a few weeks, couple of months ago. I enjoy watching him too - but haven’t for some time. Tonight’s ‘scrutiny’ by the British politicians should be interesting - from 8pm I believe! I wonder if it’ll be online? Anyone know? News 24 perhaps?
I think Murdoch’s mother is an intelligent and decent woman. I’d be ashamed if I had a son like Rupert - doing people over for money? The patronising attitude to her re her signing the letter supporting a carbon tax was revolting and ageist. I saw her interviewed by Andrew Denton a couple of years ago, and unless she’s developed dementia since then, I found her to be a very alert, articulate and smart woman - I can only hope to be as alive as she is at her age! She looked very healthy to me - bright shining eyes with a twinkle in them! A good sense of humour too I’d say! (she’d have to wouldn’t she?.