Murdoch's Retarded Spunk Monster Attack's BBC Online

[Whelan]

James Murdoch is a cunt & almost all of News Int is utter shite.

 

But, like a broken watch, he is not always wrong

 

The point he is making he is a very valid one, which the BBC themselves are well aware of & are debating internally.

 

It is a real pity that this has been brought up by such a dickhead, as automatically it causes most of us to assume it is shite.

 

It is in fact very relevant.

 

If the BBC started a free print newspaper tomorrow out of taxation & distributed it to every house in the country, thereby destroying the Telegraph & Guardian would that be a good idea?

 

I think there is a different argument from printed media and public broadcasting, something he is deliberately trying to confuse.

 

But they are not, they run a public sector broadcasting corporation, which is (and this is the difference between PSBR and Sky) aimed at education the nation as well as entertaining it, bare in mind, PSBR also includes ITV and Channel 4 etc.

 

The Beeb has a monopoly because that is what it was set up to do i.e. give everybody the access to a quality, informed media.

 

Where is Sky's commitment to educational programming for instance? The BBC has to reach and broadcast for each and every person living in this country, that means covering as many spectrums, interests as they can. Sky has no commitments which means they can spunk most of their budget on Premiership football and fill the rest of the plannign schedule up with imported American programmes.

 

When Sky are expected to produce their own programmes then he can lecture about a level playing field.

 

The facts are the BBC has a completely different set of criteria than private broadcasting, and has completely different set of restrictions as a consequence, Murdochs arguement is flawed because he is arguing from ultimately an economic perspective and one that has his own interests at heart.

 

James Murdoch is not in the slightest bit intersted in competion, where is Sky's competition?

[Catch22]

I think there is a different argument from printed media and public broadcasting, something he is deliberately trying to confuse.

 

But they are not, they run a public sector broadcasting corporation, which is (and this is the difference between PSBR and Sky) aimed at education the nation as well as entertaining it, bare in mind, PSBR also includes ITV and Channel 4 etc.

 

The Beeb has a monopoly because that is what it was set up to do i.e. give everybody the access to a quality, informed media.

 

Where is Sky's commitment to educational programming for instance? The BBC has to reach and broadcast for each and every person living in this country, that means covering as many spectrums, interests as they can. Sky has no commitments which means they can spunk most of their budget on Premiership football and fill the rest of the plannign schedule up with imported American programmes.

 

When Sky are expected to produce their own programmes then he can lecture about a level playing field.

 

The facts are the BBC has a completely different set of criteria than private broadcasting, and has completely different set of restrictions as a consequence, Murdochs arguement is flawed because he is arguing from ultimately an economic perspective and one that has his own interests at heart.

 

James Murdoch is not in the slightest bit intersted in competion, where is Sky's competition?

 

 

Murdoch is arguing to benefit Sky's profits.

& consequently some of what he says is just propoganda.

 

But there is a very real point about how a tax-funded BBC can crush private competition which has real budget constraints.

 

Obviously Murdoch doesn't give 2 fucks about that & he wants a weaker BBC so he can make more money.

 

But the internet is presently closer to the print media than TV.

 

We agree ( i think?) that it would be in noone's interests if the BBC used its vast journalistic reources to produce a free daily 'paper thereby killing the Teglegraph & Guardian.

 

Forget the red flag to a bull that is Murdoch.

There is a very real point here that needs debating

 

(Incidentally, & to their credit, the BBC themselves acknowledge this, are debating it & are acting upon it (ie/ they did not go thru with a local 'net service due to the damage it would do to the Echo,etc))

 

The TV balance in this country seems about right to me (although many on here consider US TV better, which acheives higher highs (Wire etc) but lower lows thru having much more diversity.

 

The internet is where the real debate needs to take place:

We need paid for 'net journalism or the quality will plummet but who will pay for that when bbc.co.uk is free?

[Whelan]

But the internet is presently closer to the print media than TV.

 

We agree ( i think?) that it would be in noone's interests if the BBC used its vast journalistic reources to produce a free daily 'paper thereby killing the Teglegraph & Guardian.

 

 

The TV balance in this country seems about right to me (although many on here consider US TV better, which acheives higher highs (Wire etc) but lower lows thru having much more diversity.

 

The internet is where the real debate needs to take place:

We need paid for 'net journalism or the quality will plummet but who will pay for that when bbc.co.uk is free?

 

 

We do agree, and it is in no-ones interest that the Beeb get involved with print media.

 

The internet is a difficult one in so far as it is in a sense a direct competitor to print media for many people (are Sky going to charge for access to their website or are they going to use it as another facet of the organization?)

 

The Internet has overseen a revolution in other forms of media i.e. films, music etc so why should print media be any different? And I don't understand the lack of quality, the online content of most newspapers simply replicates the printed copies so how will the quality be affected?

 

The whole argument about this is based upon dishonesty, and sadly Murdoch is an integral part of that dishonesty. It seems that people like James Murdoch (who you cannot ignore or take out since they represent the opposite veiw) are arguing for change so that they can keep the status quo, and again it is an unfair arguement since those who 'read' the Scum will not under any circumstances pay for on line content so he knows his flagship will remain untouched, whereas the 'online' battle will be between Times and the other less well financed newspapers such as the Guardian.

 

5 million people in this country buy the Mail and the Scum, they will continue to buy the Scum and the Mail regardless of any change in the rules regarding Internet ownership, and they know this.

 

As you say the Beeb is staying away from local content, but all it is doing is following the current model for replicating the available media, it is News International who seem to have decided to try and force a market that does not exist! They are trying to develop another revenue stream that does not exist and has no concievable audience, and subsequently they are trying to change the laws to enable them to profit, it is a morally bankrupt point of view.

[Catch22]

We do agree, and it is in no-ones interest that the Beeb get involved with print media.

 

The internet is a difficult one in so far as it is in a sense a direct competitor to print media for many people (are Sky going to charge for access to their website or are they going to use it as another facet of the organization?)

 

The Internet has overseen a revolution in other forms of media i.e. films, music etc so why should print media be any different? And I don't understand the lack of quality, the online content of most newspapers simply replicates the printed copies so how will the quality be affected?

 

The whole argument about this is based upon dishonesty, and sadly Murdoch is an integral part of that dishonesty. It seems that people like James Murdoch (who you cannot ignore or take out since they represent the opposite veiw) are arguing for change so that they can keep the status quo, and again it is an unfair arguement since those who 'read' the Scum will not under any circumstances pay for on line content so he knows his flagship will remain untouched, whereas the 'online' battle will be between Times and the other less well financed newspapers such as the Guardian.

 

5 million people in this country buy the Mail and the Scum, they will continue to buy the Scum and the Mail regardless of any change in the rules regarding Internet ownership, and they know this.

 

As you say the Beeb is staying away from local content, but all it is doing is following the current model for replicating the available media, it is News International who seem to have decided to try and force a market that does not exist! They are trying to develop another revenue stream that does not exist and has no concievable audience, and subsequently they are trying to change the laws to enable them to profit, it is a morally bankrupt point of view.

 

 

I dont think internet media sites should be free.

 

It was a massive commercial error linked to the 'net bubble where market cap followed users even if they were unprofitable.

 

However how can the Telegraph & Guardian charge if the BBC is free?

 

(i know Murdoch isn't arguing for them & doesn't give a fuck)

[Whelan]

I dont think internet media sites should be free.

 

It was a massive commercial error linked to the 'net bubble where market cap followed users even if they were unprofitable.

 

However how can the Telegraph & Guardian charge if the BBC is free?

 

(i know Murdoch isn't arguing for them & doesn't give a fuck)

 

Why not?

 

Why not charge for access to the site, rather than charge for particular articles?

 

If you take the Beeb out, then you are left with MSN, Yahoo, Sky etc who all carry news articles, so the arguement James Murdoch seems to be putting forward is no quality journalism should be free, which means it does not affect his flag ship papers and allows News International to line up against the Guardian, The Independant (who currently charge) and the Telegraph

 

The internet is not a product, it is a media and subsquently it will suit certain models and not suit others, Amazon is a perfect model, Supermarkets are not.

[Strontium]

The Echo lost over 40 staff recently, people with decades of experience who lived in and knew the city, and who knew its power brokers and had good contacts. They've been replaced by young, straight out of college types on low wages, many of them from outside Liverpool.

 

 

Not just low wages - if they're anything like me when I worked there, they'll be starting on no wages. Even though I was eventually being paid (albeit on a succession of short-term contracts) I couldn't afford to keep working there, and when a less interesting but better-paying job in the civil service cropped up, there was really no decision to make. And there disappeared one more tie to the local area, to be replaced by some middle class kid from out of town.

 

Leaving my life story alone for a moment, it all points towards the traditional media model being broken, largely thanks to the Internet. It's not that people aren't consuming news - they're probably more clued up than ever - but they're getting it for free.

 

Big changes are afoot. I can see blogs becoming even more important in the future. Even now, you're getting big political stories being broken on Ian Dale and Guido Fawkes before the mainstream is getting them.

 

I actually would love to start or contribute to a local blog where real local news could be reported, because the local newspapers certainly aren't doing that any more, they all think they're the Daily fucking Express with sensationalist bullshit "public interest" stories, pointless feature writing and asinine columnists who have about as much insight as rice pudding.

[Whelan]

Not just low wages - if they're anything like me when I worked there, they'll be starting on no wages. Even though I was eventually being paid (albeit on a succession of short-term contracts) I couldn't afford to keep working there, and when a less interesting but better-paying job in the civil service cropped up, there was really no decision to make. And there disappeared one more tie to the local area, to be replaced by some middle class kid from out of town.

 

Leaving my life story alone for a moment, it all points towards the traditional media model being broken, largely thanks to the Internet. It's not that people aren't consuming news - they're probably more clued up than ever - but they're getting it for free.

 

Big changes are afoot. I can see blogs becoming even more important in the future. Even now, you're getting big political stories being broken on Ian Dale and Guido Fawkes before the mainstream is getting them.

 

I actually would love to start or contribute to a local blog where real local news could be reported, because the local newspapers certainly aren't doing that any more, they all think they're the Daily fucking Express with sensationalist bullshit "public interest" stories, pointless feature writing and asinine columnists who have about as much insight as rice pudding.

 

That is a good point!

 

It is a common problem within the Media industry that a lot of the jobs involve unpaid work, which means that only rich, middle class people can maintain the role and therefore the media is dictated by rich, middle class people.

 

Media relies upon contacts, contacts are built up during voluntary work and only a 'certain' demographic can maintain voluntary work.

 

However regarding blogs, it does seem strange that as the 'viewer' becomes more sophisticated within his Internet usage, signing up for newsletters, blogs etc why anyone would be trying to charge for content.

[Section_31]

The 'changing of the guard' in local newspapers has been quite soul destroying to behold to be quite honest. It seems I've joined the industry as the Millenium Falcon is flying deep inside it and about to unleash two proton torpedoes.

 

There's an old guard of journo and editor, very much how you'd imagine them. Sleeves rolled up, foul mouthed, big drinker, but sharp as fuck, passionate about their paper and their town, and with real people skills. But they're dead or dying, being slowly pensioned off.

 

Those coming through though are just the kind of people you'd find working in a Vodafone shop. Corporate-branded plebs who insist on 'um um, checking their blackberries' at every opportunity.

 

The industry was everything souless corporate Britain wasn't only two years ago, now it embraces all of it.

 

And while blogs may fill a small part of the hole, the'll never have the legal clout to be able to stand up to the public sector and corporate Britain for the biggest stories. It's worth noting that the local press was 'pushed over the edge' in 2004 when the UK Government withdrew all advertising from them, MPs were warned at the time that it could send many of them to the wall, and they weren't arsed. You have to wonder why. Havinng no local press will damage democracy to a spectacular degree IMO.

 

We face a future with dying pubs, dying local press, and dying local high street. Don't know about you, but that's not somewhere I want to live.

Edited September 1, 2009 by Section_31

[Michael Howard]

Section's comment makes depressing reading and echos season 5 Wire at the Baltimore Sun. But if it's a choice between a future where newspapers look like the Metro and TV news is modelled on FOx News or we pay for online content then its a price worth paying.

 

Can't say I fancy putting in card details on a daily or weekly basis to pay - nor equally do i fancy paying an annual subscription up front, nor do i want to pay thorugh my phone - so i'm not sure how it would work.

 

The BBC's web news presence is obviously a problem - as said elsewhere Murdoch's idea to charge for online news will only work if everyone else does it. Given that when he cut his cover price to 10p in the 1990s they all ultimately copied in some way I would suspect they will follow.

 

Depressing. If the pub hadn't closed down I'd go for a pint.

[dennis tooth]

I must have imagined the whole furore around the BBC reports that claimed the government “sexed up” the Iraq war dossier.

Also here’s a couple of illegal war reports:

BBC NEWS | UK | War with Iraq 'could be illegal'

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq war illegal, says Annan

The beeb ain’t perfect and I think it's getting worse (particulary the BBC breakfast programme which is the most patronising thing I have ever seen), but I’m interested Dennis why you think the bbc sets agendas?

At the behest of the government? Or is it the bbc directors / programme managers doing it?

 

First off, BBC claimed the dossier was 'sexed up'. It was. If you read the thing, in any sane state of mind you would draw that conclusion everytime. It was sexed up, trumped up, desperate, fact.

BBC reported it, what happened, the top dog lost his job and the government cracked the BBC back into line. The BBC simply cannot function without the government approval.

As for your 2nd question, let me put it this way, there is a culture, funny, I never once saw Hitler say anything against the Jews that could be construed as having proved an active part in what occurred during them dark days, the blood wasn't on his hands. He didn't need to come right out and say we are going to wipe them out for people to do it. The BBC is reliant on the government, the government reliant on big business. There is no conspiracy, the BBC is much more dangerous than anything Murdorch could produce.

 

Put it this way, who would you prefer?

Would you rather deal with a person whom everyone knows to have a big mouth, be full of lies, blow up sensationalism and bragging or someone who is calm, quiet clever, deceitful, manipulative about fucking you over?

[dennis tooth]

BBC NEWS | UK | War with Iraq 'could be illegal'

 

Let me refrain also from going mad here but the above article merely shows the point. The war was illegal, no if's butts or maybes, there was nothing legal about the war/invasion.

The BBC has reported it as War with Iraq 'could be illegal' with your typical BBC commas placed well enough to say they have reported the story and also well enough even to keep the prospect of plausable deniability at hand.

Would the BBC report this a something that 'could be illegal' in the same way if it were say Iran invading Iraq? Would it even pose the question? Do I need to even pose this one?

[dennis tooth]

I dont think internet media sites should be free.

 

It was a massive commercial error linked to the 'net bubble where market cap followed users even if they were unprofitable.

 

However how can the Telegraph & Guardian charge if the BBC is free?

 

(i know Murdoch isn't arguing for them & doesn't give a fuck)

 

Course it should be free. News is not capitalism?

You seems to have fell for the silly idea that news is there to make money, it's no more supposed to make big profits than the NHS is. It's there to justify the society we live in as being free. Subject that to 'market forces' and you may as well lock up the Jews and Gypsies.

Capitalism reduces quality, it's a fact, so paying now means they then have to work out how drive down wages to keep raking bigger and bigger profits

[Creator Supreme]

Course it should be free. News is not capitalism?

You seems to have fell for the silly idea that news is there to make money, it's no more supposed to make big profits than the NHS is. It's there to justify the society we live in as being free. Subject that to 'market forces' and you may as well lock up the Jews and Gypsies.

Capitalism reduces quality, it's a fact, so paying now means they then have to work out how drive down wages to keep raking bigger and bigger profits

 

Absolutely fucking brilliant post!

[dennis tooth]

Free media relying on ads is a viable model but it is based upon a cheap,throwaway product.

No quality written journalism exists on this model as the costs are too high.

 

If you have a free,tax-funded service then there is room for some quality,specialist sights to charge (ie/ the FT) but it is very difficult for a general news service to remain free.

 

Does that matter if the BBC is of such high quality?

 

Possibly not, but most of us would be up-in-arms if (any) government announced they would use general taxation to provide a free,quality 'paper delivered to everybody as it would destroy the pluraity we have at the moment & it smacks of totalitarinism.

 

That we are going towards the same model on the 'net is therefore worrying.

 

Friday's Newsnight had a very good debate on this including Greg Dyke & the FT editor (Barber??).

 

I think bbc.co.uk is an excellent service but they did raise a couple of vg points as to whether it is a model we want.......

 

But the BBC is tax funded and is not free. You couldn't argue yourself out of a wet paper bag.

[dennis tooth]

So we can rely on Murdoch's media arm to break stories like George W Bush stealing the American election by getting his brother to exclude votes for Al Gore in Florida that would have seen him win that primary and thus become president? Yeah, right.

 

That's bollocks cos none of them did, not the BBC, none of them. GWB walked into the White House if I recall correctly

[dennis tooth]

James Murdoch is a cunt & almost all of News Int is utter shite.

 

But, like a broken watch, he is not always wrong

 

The point he is making he is a very valid one, which the BBC themselves are well aware of & are debating internally.

 

It is a real pity that this has been brought up by such a dickhead, as automatically it causes most of us to assume it is shite.

 

It is in fact very relevant.

 

If the BBC started a free print newspaper tomorrow out of taxation & distributed it to every house in the country, thereby destroying the Telegraph & Guardian would that be a good idea?

 

Debating internally?

 

My fucking taxes pay for that, I'd expect Murdoch to do it. Are we supposed to be grateful for it? Please sir, can I have debate?

[Jose Jones]

First off, BBC claimed the dossier was 'sexed up'. It was. If you read the thing, in any sane state of mind you would draw that conclusion everytime. It was sexed up, trumped up, desperate, fact.

BBC reported it, what happened, the top dog lost his job and the government cracked the BBC back into line. The BBC simply cannot function without the government approval.

As for your 2nd question, let me put it this way, there is a culture, funny, I never once saw Hitler say anything against the Jews that could be construed as having proved an active part in what occurred during them dark days, the blood wasn't on his hands. He didn't need to come right out and say we are going to wipe them out for people to do it. The BBC is reliant on the government, the government reliant on big business. There is no conspiracy, the BBC is much more dangerous than anything Murdorch could produce.

 

Put it this way, who would you prefer?

Would you rather deal with a person whom everyone knows to have a big mouth, be full of lies, blow up sensationalism and bragging or someone who is calm, quiet clever, deceitful, manipulative about fucking you over?

 

I guess that's where the point lies. You might consider the government is reliant on people to vote them in.

But perhaps that is hopelessly naive!

 

With regards to the reporting of war, you’ve got a point – but then I think that in general any media outlet in a country that is at war reports differently than on wars between other countries. They tend to be initially more supportive of “our troops”. It’s only after a while and things start to go badly that other sides are looked at – in general. I’d imagine this is down to telling people what they want to hear, rather than any conspiracy to pave the way for acceptance of government actions.

[Dirk]

The Murdoch's obviously want greater support from the government so as they can extend their high journalistic standards.

 

Princes' 'own phones were hacked'

 

Princes William and Harry

 

The police said they had not been able to prove their suspicions

 

A senior Metropolitan Police officer says there is evidence the phones of Princes William and Harry were hacked into by a News of the World reporter.

 

Royal reporter Clive Goodman was jailed for four months in 2007 for plotting to hack into Royal aides' voice mails.

 

But Chief Superintendent Philip Williams told the Commons Culture Committee that the Princes may have been personally targeted.

 

"Their voice mails may well have been intercepted," he told the committee.

 

Mr Williams said police had "never been able to prove" their suspicions - but pressed about whether they had solid reasons to suspect the Princes' personal phones had been hacked into, he replied: "Yes".

 

He was being quizzed, alongside Assistant Commissioner John Yates, on why police had decided not to reopen their investigation into the phone hacking scandal, after a series of stories in The Guardian in July reignited interest in it.

 

'Old stories'

 

The newspaper revealed that the head of the Professional Footballers' Association, Gordon Taylor, had received £700,000 in damages and court costs last year in a case against the News of the World, but on condition that details of the case were not made public.

 

The police already knew about the Taylor case and Mr Yates said that from their point of view the Guardian reports were "three old stories conflated into one" and contained no new evidence.

 

He was also quizzed about the apparent speed with which he had conducted a review of the evidence before deciding not to reopen the case, a decision taken over the course of a single day.

 

He said he had been not been asked to review the evidence by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, merely to "establish the facts".

 

He was also questioned by the MPs about an e-mail which committee chairman John Whittingdale has suggested implicates the News of the World's chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck in the phone-hacking scandal.

 

The e-mail contained transcripts of messages hacked by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was also jailed in 2007, from the phones of Gordon Taylor and his legal adviser, Jo Armstrong.

 

It was sent by a junior reporter to Mulcaire, and marked "hello, this is a transcript for Neville".

 

Mr Yates, who accidentally named the junior reporter in his evidence to the committee, said the decision was taken in 2006 not to question Mr Thurlbeck about the e-mail and even if he had been questioned he would probably have said "no comment".

 

He said there was no evidence Mr Thurlbeck had seen or read the transcript, or even that the Neville mentioned in the note was Neville Thurlbeck, arguing that it could be another Neville at the News of the World or in the "journalistic community".

 

Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price, who was one of a number of MPs on the committee to suggest the 2006 police investigation had been too narrowly focused, said the committee would find out how many Nevilles were working at the newspaper at the time before publishing its report.

 

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson - now a key aide to Conservatives leader David Cameron - and Tom Crone, legal manager of News Group Newspapers - the News of the World's parent company - were quizzed in July by the committee about whether the Princes' phones had been hacked.

 

Both men said they had no recollection of the story at the centre of the allegations, which was about a phone message left by Prince William imitating Chelsy Davy, his brother's then girlfriend, on Prince Harry's phone.

 

Mr Coulson repeated his assertion that he had not known anything about Mr Goodman's activities or those of Mulcaire.

 

He told MPs that he had regretted things going "badly wrong" at the paper and had taken responsibility by stepping aside.

[Section_31]

New Statesman - Profile: Andy Coulson

 

He published a series of stories about the shadow chancellor during his time at the News of the World. If such a picture of Osborne exists, it is probably locked away in the newspaper’s offices, where a dossier of embarrassing material about some of the country’s most prominent figures is reputedly held under lock and key. As a former custodian of secrets that the rich and powerful would rather remain hidden, Coulson is well placed to know whether, as an election approaches, his former employer is in a position to embarrass one of the men who hired him.

 

Posted this a while back, it's superb.

 

New Statesman - Lies, damn lies

 

Murdoch’s papers have relentlessly assaulted common truth and decency, but their most successful war has been on journalism itself

 

I met Eddie Spearritt in the Philharmonic pub, overlooking Liverpool. It was a few years after 96 Liverpool football fans had been crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, on 15 April 1989. Eddie's son, Adam, aged 14, died in his arms. The "main reason for the disaster", Lord Justice Taylor subsequently reported, was the "failure" of the police, who had herded fans into a lethal pen.

 

“As I lay in my hospital bed," Eddie said, “the hospital staff kept the Sun away from me. It's bad enough when you lose your 14-year-old son because you're treating him to a football match. Nothing can be worse than that. But since then I've had to defend him against all the rubbish printed by the Sun about everyone there being a hooligan and drinking. There was no hooliganism. During 31 days of Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry, no blame was attributed because of alcohol. Adam never touched it in his life."

 

Three days after the disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie, Rupert Murdoch's "favourite editor", sat down and designed the Sun front page, scribbling "THE TRUTH" in huge letters. Beneath it, he wrote three subsidiary headlines: "Some fans picked pockets of victims" . . . "Some fans urinated on the brave cops" . . . "Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life". All of it was false; MacKenzie was banking on anti-Liverpool prejudice.

 

When sales of the Sun fell by almost 40 per cent on Merseyside, Murdoch ordered his favourite editor to feign penitence. BBC Radio 4 was chosen as his platform. The "sarf London" accent that was integral to MacKenzie's fake persona as an "ordinary punter" was now a contrite, middle-class voice that fitted Radio 4. "I made a rather serious error," said MacKenzie, who has since been back on Radio 4 in a very different mood,aggressively claiming that the Sun's treatment of Hillsborough was merely a "vehicle for others".

 

When we met, Eddie Spearritt mentioned MacKenzie and Murdoch with a dignified anger. So did Joan Traynor, who lost two sons, Christopher and Kevin, whose funeral was invaded by MacKenzie's photographers even though Joan had asked for her family's privacy to be respected. The picture of her sons' coffins on the front page of a paper that had lied about the circumstances of their death so deeply upset her that for years she could barely speak about it.

 

Such relentless inhumanity forms the iceberg beneath the Guardian's current exposé of Murdoch's alleged payment of £1m hush money to those whose phones his News of the World reporters have criminally invaded. "A cultural Chernobyl," is how the German investigative journalist Reiner Luyken, based in London, described Murdoch's effect on British life. Of course, there is a colourful Fleet Street history of lies, damn lies, but no proprietor ever attained the infectious power of Murdoch's putrescence. To public truth and decency and freedom, he is as the dunghill

is to the blowfly. The rich and famous can usually defend themselves with expensive libel actions; but most of Murdoch's victims are people like the Hillsborough parents, who suffer without recourse.

 

The Murdoch "ethos" was demonstrated right from the beginning of his career, as Richard Neville has documented. In 1964, his Sydney tabloid, the Daily Mirror, published the diary of a 14-year-old schoolgirl under the headline, "WE HAVE SCHOOLGIRL'S ORGY DIARY". A 13-year-old boy, who was identified, was expelled from the same school. Soon afterwards, he hanged himself from his mother's clothesline. The "sex diary" was subsequently found to be fake. Soon after Murdoch bought the News of the World in 1971, a strikingly similar episode involving an adolescent diary led to the suicide of a 15-year-old girl. And Murdoch himself said, of the industrial killing of innocent men, women and children in Iraq: "There is going to be collateral damage. And if you really want to be brutal about it, better we get it done now . . ."

 

His most successful war has been on journalism itself. A leading Murdoch retainer, Andrew Neil, the Kelvin MacKenzie of the Sunday Times, conducted one of his master's most notorious smear campaigns against ITV (like the BBC, a "monopoly" standing in Murdoch's way). In 1988, the ITV company Thames Television made Death on the Rock, an investigative documentary that lifted a veil on the British secret state under Margaret Thatcher, describing how an SAS team had murdered four unarmed IRA members in Gibraltar with their hands in the air.

 

The message was clear: Thatcher was willing to use death squads. The Sunday Times and the Sun, side by side in Murdoch's razor-wired Wapping fortress, echoed Thatcher's scurrilous attacks on Thames Television and subjected the principal witness to the murders, Carmen Proetta, to a torrent of lies and personal abuse. She later won £300,000 in libel damages, and a public inquiry vindicated the programme's accuracy and integrity. This did not prevent Thames, an innovative broadcaster, from losing its licence.

 

Murdoch's most obsequious supplicants are politicians, especially New Labour. Having ensured that Murdoch pays minimal tax, and having attended the farewell party of one editor of the Sun, Gordon Brown was recently in full fawn at the wedding of another editor of the same paper. Don Corleone expects nothing less.

 

The hypocrisy, however, is almost magical. In 1995, Murdoch flew Tony and Cherie Blair first-class to Hayman Island, Australia, where the aspiring war criminal spoke about "the need for a new moral purpose in politics", which included the lifting of government regulations on the media. Murdoch shook his hand warmly. The next day the Sun commented: "Mr Blair has vision, he has purpose and he speaks our language on morality and family life."

 

The two are devout Christians, after all.

[dennis tooth]

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

 

September 02, 2009

 

 

MEDIA ALERT: “AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT”: THE US, ISRAEL AND IRAN

 

 

On August 26, the Guardian newspaper published an article titled, ‘US takes on Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran's nuclear programme in one massive gamble.’ Julian Borger and Ewen MacAskill told readers:

 

“The Obama administration's approach to two of the world's most intractable and dangerous problems, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran's nuclear programme, is to link them together in the search for a solution to both.

 

“The new US strategy aims to use its Iran policy to gain leverage on Binyamin Netanyahu's government.”

 

The “Iran policy” is based on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s threat of “crippling sanctions” against Iran. (BBC online, ‘Israel-US settlement deal “close”’, Analysis by Jeremy Bowen, August 26, 2009; BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel-US settlement deal 'close')

 

The sanctions threat is to ensure that Iran does “not compromise on uranium enrichment by the end of next month.” The Guardian told its readers that not only are sanctions supposed to pre-empt any Israeli military action against Iran, “they are also a bargaining chip offered in part exchange for a substantial freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank.” The paper quoted one official “close to the negotiations”:

 

"The message is: Iran is an existential threat to Israel; settlements are not."

 

So much for Obama’s much-hailed Cairo speech in June 2009 in which he promised a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.” (‘Obama speech in Cairo’, Huffington Post, June 4, 2009; Obama Speech In Cairo: VIDEO, Full Text)

 

The Guardian article presented the US as a valiant peace-seeker:

 

“The Obama administration is setting out to juggle two potentially explosive global crises, while walking the tightrope of a shaky and nervous global economy. It is not going to be easy, but Washington appears to have decided it has no option but to try.” (Borger and MacAskill, op. cit.)

 

This is a deeply misleading picture of the US in the Middle East and the wider world, as we have often explained in our books and in media alerts. We are to believe that the world’s number one rogue state is searching for benign solutions to the world’s most “intractable problems”. This fiction is standard in corporate media coverage.

 

As the independent journalist Jonathan Cook commented to us:

 

“This analysis in yesterday's Guardian is almost a masterclass in how the liberal media unthinkingly reflect elite priorities." (Jonathan Cook, email, August 27, 2009)

 

But then the Guardian has form. Recall, as one of many examples, the front-page story in May 2007 claiming that Iran had secret plans to wage war on, and defeat, US forces in Iraq by August 2007. (Simon Tisdall, ‘Iran’s secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq’, Guardian, May 22, 2007). The bogus claim was based almost solely on unsupported assertions: ‘US officials say’; ‘a senior US official in Baghdad warned’; ‘the official said’; and so on. There were fully 26 references to official pronouncements with no scrutiny, balance or counter-evidence. The high-profile Guardian piece was little more than a Pentagon press release. It was a particularly onerous and blatant example of propaganda. But Guardian reporting on the Middle East is routinely restricted to an established framework that accepts uncritically the stated intentions of US power.

 

 

A Challenge To Face-Value Guardian “Journalism”

 

We wrote to the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Julian Borger, on August 28:

 

Hello Julian,

 

Hope all’s well there. I’m sorry to say your article on Tuesday was poor journalism. [1]

 

Your analysis took Washington’s stated policies and motivations at face value. Why did you stick to the Israeli and Washington view of Iran’s nuclear programme - a legal, civilian nuclear programme - as one of “the world’s most intractable and dangerous problems”?

 

On the issue of Middle East peace, you give two “expert” opinions, both from people closely associated with the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. Superficially, your article might look balanced; but it is not.

 

The article asserts that:

 

“Washington’s plan to link two intractable problems raises international hopes of deal to restart the Middle East peace process.”

 

But an honest analysis would note that for the past 30 years “the Middle East peace process” has largely been a sham. Throughout that period, the US has consistently opposed the international consensus on a peaceful solution. Instead, the US has consistently provided valuable cover for Israel – militarily, diplomatically, economically – in evading its obligations under international law. Genuine peace in the region is actually a threat to an Israeli programme of illegal occupation and expansion that can be achieved only through violence under cover of war, conflict and the crushing of Palestinian human rights. [For more details and background references, see Chapter 9 of ‘NEWSPEAK in the 21st Century’, David Edwards and David Cromwell, Pluto Press, 2009.]

 

And you twice mention Iraqi “sanction-busting”. But you are silent about the sanctions themselves which directly contributed to the deaths of over one million Iraqis between 1990-2003; half a million of them were children under the age of five. Hans von Sponeck, the former UN humanitarian coordinator in Baghdad, documented the effect of the UN sanctions regime, maintained with cruelty by Washington and London, in ‘A Different Kind of War’: a book which the Guardian appears to have totally ignored.

 

Why did you quote nobody with the above widely-held rational views?

 

Why, instead, was your analysis so one-sided? Why so skewed towards the propaganda framework favoured by the US and Israel?

 

Regards,

 

David Cromwell

 

 

Reference

 

[1] Julian Borger and Ewen MacAskill, ‘US takes on Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran's nuclear programme in one massive gamble’, Guardian online, August 25 [August 26 in print version], 2009; US takes on Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran's nuclear programme in one massive gamble | World news | The Guardian

 

We have received no response from the Guardian.

[Kevin D]

Newspapers sell to advertisiers, not readers. Therefore the point about the Metro doesn't work. You hire good writers so that you can still sell your product to your customers (your product being the number of eyes and the demographic of those eyes). The articles aren't the primary product and the readers aren't the primary customer; you have to bear that in mind when looking at the situation.

 

In no industry on the planet is the flaw of the market leaders controlling the flow of information to the market more apparent that in the media industry.

 

This problem is not just one of our country or even our time. In 1969 Nixon( who I accept that you may differ slightly from, politically) wrote a brilliant speech about the effects of networks control of news that is still applicable today. He has his hatched man, Spiro, deliver it due to his fear of a backlash but it is one of the few times an elected leader has attacked the media so explicitly:

 

American Rhetoric: Spiro Agnew -- Television News Coverage (Nov 13, 1969)

I think it's obvious from the cameras here that I didn't come to discuss the ban on cyclamates or DDT. I have a subject which I think if of great importance to the American people. Tonight I want to discuss the importance of the television news medium to the American people. No nation depends more on the intelligent judgment of its citizens. No medium has a more profound influence over public opinion. Nowhere in our system are there fewer checks on vast power. So, nowhere should there be more conscientious responsibility exercised than by the news media. The question is, "Are we demanding enough of our television news presentations?" "And are the men of this medium demanding enough of themselves?"

 

Monday night a week ago, President Nixon delivered the most important address of his Administration, one of the most important of our decade. His subject was Vietnam. My hope, as his at that time, was to rally the American people to see the conflict through to a lasting and just peace in the Pacific. For 32 minutes, he reasoned with a nation that has suffered almost a third of a million casualties in the longest war in its history.

 

When the President completed his address -- an address, incidentally, that he spent weeks in the preparation of -- his words and policies were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism. The audience of 70 million Americans gathered to hear the President of the United States was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say.

 

It was obvious that their minds were made up in advance. Those who recall the fumbling and groping that followed President Johnson’s dramatic disclosure of his intention not to seek another term have seen these men in a genuine state of nonpreparedness. This was not it.

 

One commentator twice contradicted the President’s statement about the exchange of correspondence with Ho Chi Minh. Another challenged the President’s abilities as a politician. A third asserted that the President was following a Pentagon line. Others, by the expressions on their faces, the tone of their questions, and the sarcasm of their responses, made clear their sharp disapproval.

 

To guarantee in advance that the President’s plea for national unity would be challenged, one network trotted out Averell Harriman for the occasion. Throughout the President's address, he waited in the wings. When the President concluded, Mr. Harriman recited perfectly. He attacked the Thieu Government as unrepresentative; he criticized the President’s speech for various deficiencies; he twice issued a call to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to debate Vietnam once again; he stated his belief that the Vietcong or North Vietnamese did not really want military take-over of South Vietnam; and he told a little anecdote about a “very, very responsible” fellow he had met in the North Vietnamese delegation.

 

All in all, Mr. Harrison offered a broad range of gratuitous advice challenging and contradicting the policies outlined by the President of the United States. Where the President had issued a call for unity, Mr. Harriman was encouraging the country not to listen to him.

 

A word about Mr. Harriman. For 10 months he was America’s chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks -- a period in which the United States swapped some of the greatest military concessions in the history of warfare for an enemy agreement on the shape of the bargaining table. Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, Mr. Harriman seems to be under some heavy compulsion to justify his failures to anyone who will listen. And the networks have shown themselves willing to give him all the air time he desires.

 

Now every American has a right to disagree with the President of the United States and to express publicly that disagreement. But the President of the United States has a right to communicate directly with the people who elected him, and the people of this country have the right to make up their own minds and form their own opinions about a Presidential address without having a President’s words and thoughts characterized through the prejudices of hostile critics before they can even be digested.

 

When Winston Churchill rallied public opinion to stay the course against Hitler’s Germany, he didn’t have to contend with a gaggle of commentators raising doubts about whether he was reading public opinion right, or whether Britain had the stamina to see the war through. When President Kennedy rallied the nation in the Cuban missile crisis, his address to the people was not chewed over by a roundtable of critics who disparaged the course of action he’d asked America to follow.

 

The purpose of my remarks tonight is to focus your attention on this little group of men who not only enjoy a right of instant rebuttal to every Presidential address, but, more importantly, wield a free hand in selecting, presenting, and interpreting the great issues in our nation. First, let’s define that power.

 

At least 40 million Americans every night, it’s estimated, watch the network news. Seven million of them view A.B.C., the remainder being divided between N.B.C. and C.B.S. According to Harris polls and other studies, for millions of Americans the networks are the sole source of national and world news. In Will Roger’s observation, what you knew was what you read in the newspaper. Today for growing millions of Americans, it’s what they see and hear on their television sets.

 

Now how is this network news determined? A small group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a dozen anchormen, commentators, and executive producers, settle upon the 20 minutes or so of film and commentary that’s to reach the public. This selection is made from the 90 to 180 minutes that may be available. Their powers of choice are broad.

 

They decide what 40 to 50 million Americans will learn of the day’s events in the nation and in the world. We cannot measure this power and influence by the traditional democratic standards, for these men can create national issues overnight. They can make or break by their coverage and commentary a moratorium on the war. They can elevate men from obscurity to national prominence within a week. They can reward some politicians with national exposure and ignore others.

 

For millions of Americans the network reporter who covers a continuing issue -- like the ABM or civil rights -- becomes, in effect, the presiding judge in a national trial by jury.

 

It must be recognized that the networks have made important contributions to the national knowledge -- through news, documentaries, and specials. They have often used their power constructively and creatively to awaken the public conscience to critical problems. The networks made hunger and black lung disease national issues overnight. The TV networks have done what no other medium could have done in terms of dramatizing the horrors of war. The networks have tackled our most difficult social problems with a directness and an immediacy that’s the gift of their medium. They focus the nation’s attention on its environmental abuses -- on pollution in the Great Lakes and the threatened ecology of the Everglades. But it was also the networks that elevated Stokely Carmichael and George Lincoln Rockwell from obscurity to national prominence.

 

Nor is their power confined to the substantive. A raised eyebrow, an inflection of the voice, a caustic remark dropped in the middle of a broadcast can raise doubts in a million minds about the veracity of a public official or the wisdom of a Government policy. One Federal Communications Commissioner considers the powers of the networks equal to that of local, state, and Federal Governments all combined. Certainly it represents a concentration of power over American public opinion unknown in history.

 

Now what do Americans know of the men who wield this power? Of the men who produce and direct the network news, the nation knows practically nothing. Of the commentators, most Americans know little other than that they reflect an urbane and assured presence seemingly well-informed on every important matter. We do know that to a man these commentators and producers live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C., or New York City, the latter of which James Reston terms the most unrepresentative community in the entire United States.

 

Both communities bask in their own provincialism, their own parochialism.

 

We can deduce that these men read the same newspapers. They draw their political and social views from the same sources. Worse, they talk constantly to one another, thereby providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoints. Do they allow their biases to influence the selection and presentation of the news? David Brinkley states objectivity is impossible to normal human behavior. Rather, he says, we should strive for fairness.

 

Another anchorman on a network news show contends, and I quote: “You can’t expunge all your private convictions just because you sit in a seat like this and a camera starts to stare at you. I think your program has to reflect what your basic feelings are. I’ll plead guilty to that.”

 

Less than a week before the 1968 election, this same commentator charged that President Nixon’s campaign commitments were no more durable than campaign balloons. He claimed that, were it not for the fear of hostile reaction, Richard Nixon would be giving into, and I quote him exactly, “his natural instinct to smash the enemy with a club or go after him with a meat axe.”

 

Had this slander been made by one political candidate about another, it would have been dismissed by most commentators as a partisan attack. But this attack emanated from the privileged sanctuary of a network studio and therefore had the apparent dignity of an objective statement. The American people would rightly not tolerate this concentration of power in Government. Is it not fair and relevant to question its concentration in the hands of a tiny, enclosed fraternity of privileged men elected by no one and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by Government?

 

The views of the majority of this fraternity do not -- and I repeat, not -- represent the views of America. That is why such a great gulf existed between how the nation received the President’s address and how the networks reviewed it. Not only did the country receive the President’s speech more warmly than the networks, but so also did the Congress of the United States.

 

Yesterday, the President was notified that 300 individual Congressmen and 50 Senators of both parties had endorsed his efforts for peace. As with other American institutions, perhaps it is time that the networks were made more responsive to the views of the nation and more responsible to the people they serve.

 

Now I want to make myself perfectly clear. I’m not asking for Government censorship or any other kind of censorship. I am asking whether a form of censorship already exists when the news that 40 million Americans receive each night is determined by a handful of men responsible only to their corporate employers and is filtered through a handful of commentators who admit to their own set of biases.

 

The question I’m raising here tonight should have been raised by others long ago. They should have been raised by those Americans who have traditionally considered the preservation of freedom of speech and freedom of the press their special provinces of responsibility. They should have been raised by those Americans who share the view of the late Justice Learned Hand that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues than through any kind of authoritative selection. Advocates for the networks have claimed a First Amendment right to the same unlimited freedoms held by the great newspapers of America.

 

But the situations are not identical. Where The New York Times reaches 800,000 people, N.B.C. reaches 20 times that number on its evening news. [The average weekday circulation of the Times in October was 1,012,367; the average Sunday circulation was 1,523,558.] Nor can the tremendous impact of seeing television film and hearing commentary be compared with reading the printed page.

 

A decade ago, before the network news acquired such dominance over public opinion, Walter Lippman spoke to the issue. He said there’s an essential and radical difference between television and printing. The three or four competing television stations control virtually all that can be received over the air by ordinary television sets. But besides the mass circulation dailies, there are weeklies, monthlies, out-of-town newspapers and books. If a man doesn’t like his newspaper, he can read another from out of town or wait for a weekly news magazine. It’s not ideal, but it’s infinitely better than the situation in television.

 

There, if a man doesn’t like what the networks are showing, all he can do is turn them off and listen to a phonograph. "Networks," he stated "which are few in number have a virtual monopoly of a whole media of communications." The newspaper of mass circulation have no monopoly on the medium of print.

 

Now a virtual monopoly of a whole medium of communication is not something that democratic people should blindly ignore. And we are not going to cut off our television sets and listen to the phonograph just because the airways belong to the networks. They don’t. They belong to the people. As Justice Byron wrote in his landmark opinion six months ago, "It’s the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount."

 

Now it’s argued that this power presents no danger in the hands of those who have used it responsibly. But as to whether or not the networks have abused the power they enjoy, let us call as our first witness, former Vice President Humphrey and the city of Chicago. According to Theodore White, television’s intercutting of the film from the streets of Chicago with the "current proceedings on the floor of the convention created the most striking and false political picture of 1968 -- the nomination of a man for the American Presidency by the brutality and violence of merciless police."

 

If we are to believe a recent report of the House of Representative Commerce Committee, then television’s presentation of the violence in the streets worked an injustice on the reputation of the Chicago police. According to the committee findings, one network in particular presented, and I quote, “a one-sided picture which in large measure exonerates the demonstrators and protestors.” Film of provocations of police that was available never saw the light of day, while the film of a police response which the protestors provoked was shown to millions.

 

Another network showed virtually the same scene of violence from three separate angles without making clear it was the same scene. And, while the full report is reticent in drawing conclusions, it is not a document to inspire confidence in the fairness of the network news. Our knowledge of the impact of network news on the national mind is far from complete, but some early returns are available. Again, we have enough information to raise serious questions about its effect on a democratic society.

 

Several years ago Fred Friendly, one of the pioneers of network news, wrote that its missing ingredients were conviction, controversy, and a point of view. The networks have compensated with a vengeance.

 

And in the networks' endless pursuit of controversy, we should ask: What is the end value -- to enlighten or to profit? What is the end result -- to inform or to confuse? How does the ongoing exploration for more action, more excitement, more drama serve our national search for internal peace and stability?

 

Gresham’s Law seems to be operating in the network news. Bad news drives out good news. The irrational is more controversial than the rational. Concurrence can no longer compete with dissent. One minute of Eldrige Cleaver is worth 10 minutes of Roy Wilkins. The labor crisis settled at the negotiating table is nothing compared to the confrontation that results in a strike -- or better yet, violence along the picket lines. Normality has become the nemesis of the network news.

 

Now the upshot of all this controversy is that a narrow and distorted picture of America often emerges from the televised news. A single, dramatic piece of the mosaic becomes in the minds of millions the entire picture. The American who relies upon television for his news might conclude that the majority of American students are embittered radicals; that the majority of black Americans feel no regard for their country; that violence and lawlessness are the rule rather than the exception on the American campus.

 

We know that none of these conclusions is true.

 

Perhaps the place to start looking for a credibility gap is not in the offices of the Government in Washington but in the studios of the networks in New York! Television may have destroyed the old stereotypes, but has it not created new ones in their places? What has this "passionate" pursuit of controversy done to the politics of progress through logical compromise essential to the functioning of a democratic society?

 

The members of Congress or the Senate who follow their principles and philosophy quietly in a spirit of compromise are unknown to many Americans, while the loudest and most extreme dissenters on every issue are known to every man in the street. How many marches and demonstrations would we have if the marchers did not know that the ever-faithful TV cameras would be there to record their antics for the next news show?

 

We’ve heard demands that Senators and Congressmen and judges make known all their financial connections so that the public will know who and what influences their decisions and their votes. Strong arguments can be made for that view. But when a single commentator or producer, night after night, determines for millions of people how much of each side of a great issue they are going to see and hear, should he not first disclose his personal views on the issue as well?

 

In this search for excitement and controversy, has more than equal time gone to the minority of Americans who specialize in attacking the United States -- its institutions and its citizens?

 

Tonight I’ve raised questions. I’ve made no attempt to suggest the answers. The answers must come from the media men. They are challenged to turn their critical powers on themselves, to direct their energy, their talent, and their conviction toward improving the quality and objectivity of news presentation. They are challenged to structure their own civic ethics to relate to the great responsibilities they hold.

 

And the people of America are challenged, too -- challenged to press for responsible news presentation. The people can let the networks know that they want their news straight and objective. The people can register their complaints on bias through mail to the networks and phone calls to local stations. This is one case where the people must defend themselves, where the citizen, not the Government, must be the reformer; where the consumer can be the most effective crusader.

 

By way of conclusion, let me say that every elected leader in the United States depends on these men of the media. Whether what I’ve said to you tonight will be heard and seen at all by the nation is not my decision, it’s not your decision, it’s their decision. In tomorrow’s edition of the Des Moines Register, you’ll be able to read a news story detailing what I’ve said tonight. Editorial comment will be reserved for the editorial page, where it belongs. Should not the same wall of separation exist between news and comment on the nation’s networks?

 

Now, my friends, we’d never trust such power, as I’ve described, over public opinion in the hands of an elected Government. It’s time we questioned it in the hands of a small unelected elite. The great networks have dominated America’s airwaves for decades. The people are entitled a full accounting their stewardship.

[Stu Monty]

Very good read there, Kevin. Even though it is coming from an angle which is that of those in power questioning if they are being attacked too brutally it still stands as a good critique of a situation that does balanced debate no good. We have a situation where power and influence is strongly controlled by a few; and to change that situation, if anyone were so inclined, you would need to summon enough clout that they could not simply outspend, outspin and politically outmanouever you. It is almost the impossible ask. When a populace takes its education and information from the tabloid lies how do you seek to raise their level of curiosity and questioning when the owners of said media are set firmly against that being achieved?

 

Blair: "Education, education, education"

Murdoch: "No thanks, people might want news and stop buying comics and watching Fox news. Educate too much and I'll quite simply ruin you."

 

The media could be so much more but, for me, we have a situation where the supply and the demand of information and knowledge is controlled by the same interests. I'll finish with a touch of Morrow:

 

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[BatChainPuller]

Nice piece by Charlie Brooker re this:

 

James Murdoch is the closest thing the media has to Damien from The Omen, thinks Charlie Brooker

 

Charlie Brooker on James Murdoch and his media empire | Culture | The Guardian

 

* Charlie Brooker

* The Guardian, Saturday 5 September 2009

* Article history

 

At last weekend's Edinburgh TV festival, the annual MacTaggart Lecture was delivered by Niles Crane from Frasier, played with eerie precision by James Murdoch. His speech attacked the BBC, moaned about Ofcom and likened the British television industry to The Addams Family. It went down like a turd in a casserole.

 

Still, the Addams Family reference will have been well-considered because James knows a thing or two about horror households: he's the son of Rupert Murdoch, which makes him the closest thing the media has to Damien from The Omen.

 

That's a fatuous comparison, obviously. Damien Thorn, offspring of Satan, was educated at Yale before inheriting a global business conglomerate at a shockingly young age and using it to hypnotise millions in a demonic bid to hasten Armageddon. James Murdoch's story is quite different. He went to Harvard.

 

Above all, Murdoch's speech was a call for the BBC's online news service to be curbed, scaled back, deleted, depleted, dragged to the wastebasket, and so on, because according to him, the dispersal of such free "state-sponsored" news on the internet threatens the future of other journalistic outlets. Particularly those provided by News International, which wants to start charging for the online versions of its papers.

 

Yes Thorn - I mean, Murdoch - refers to the BBC as "state-sponsored media", because that makes it sound bad (although not quite as bad as "Satan-sponsored media", admittedly). He evoked the goverment's control of the media in Orwell's 1984, and claimed that only commercial news organisations were truly capable of producing "independent news coverage that challenges the consensus".

 

I guess that's what the News Of The World does when it challenges the consensus view that personal voicemails should remain personal, or that concealing a video camera in a woman's private home bathroom is sick and creepy (it magically becomes acceptable when she's Kerry Katona).

 

Another great example of independent consensus-challenging news coverage is America's Fox News network, home of bellicose human snail Bill O'Reilly and blubbering blubberball Glenn Beck. Beck - who has the sort of rubbery, chucklesome face that should ideally be either a) cast as the goonish sidekick in a bad frat house sex comedy or b) painted on a toilet bowl so you could shit directly on to it - has become famous for crying live on air, indulging in paranoid conspiracy theorising, and labelling Obama a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or white culture".

 

As a news source, Fox is about as plausible and useful as an episode of Thundercats. Still, at least by hiring Beck, they've genuinely challenged the stuffy consensus notion that people should only really be given their own show on a major news channel if they're sane.

 

The trouble is, once you've gasped or chuckled over the YouTube clips of his most demented excesses, he's actually incredibly boring: a fat clown with one protracted trick. His show consists of an hour of screechy, hectoring bullshit: a pudgy middle-aged right-winger sobbing into his shirt about how powerless he feels. It's an incredible performance, but it belongs in some kind of zoo, not on a news channel. But that's the Murdoch way.

 

Now there's a lengthy, valid, and boring debate to be had about the scope and suitability of some of the BBC's ambitions but, quite frankly, if their news website (a thing of beauty and a national treasure) helps us stave off the arrival of the likes of Beck - even tangentially, even only for another few years until the Tories take over and begin stealthily dismantling the Beeb while a self-interested press loudly eggs them on - then it deserves to be cherished and applauded.

 

To finish his speech, Murdoch claimed, "The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit." Or to put it another way: greed is good.

 

Then he clopped off stage on his cloven hooves, guffing out a hot cloud of sulphur as he left.

 

 

Have to agree with Mr Tooth though that the BBC certainly isn't all its cracked up to be. It does however - like the Guardian and Independent - have a wide range of correspondents that give some variety of views. Brooker is right about the BBC website being a national treasure - things like that are a great advert for the better aspects of this country.

[cochcaer]

Anybody who believes Murdoch is opposed to monopolies (just those that aren't News Corp) and in favour of freedom and choice is off their rocker. Ofcom have already ruled that Sky are limiting viewer choice of top-flight football and first-run movies but does Murdoch embrace a freer market? Does he feck, he knows these are the only thing to draw in Sky subscribers.

[stevebaby]

James Murdoch deserves to be publicly buggered to death by a grizzly bear with Aids.