Rupert Murdoch is an American
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Rupert Murdoch or his media organisations but I despise that he treats his audience and readership as idiots in order to make money
I first heard of Rupert Murdoch’s “power” when I worked at the Advertising Standards Authority in London. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is, in my opinion, one of the most democratic regulatory bodies. It gives the man/woman in the street a voice. It’s motto is to keep advertising “Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful” If someone could explain the meaning of these words to Rupert Murdoch, I’d be most grateful
It was when an angry colleague told me about Rupert Murdoch stepping over the British Broadcasting Authority by putting an Uplink in Lichtenstein allowing his BSkyB satellite channel to broadcast across Great Britain. It seems to me that this side stepping is a theme of Rupert Murdoch’s business practice and that Rupert Murdoch thinks he is better than any other organisation using his audience’s money to prove it
This man has made speeches about upholding the Fourth Estate. Is it upholding the Fourth Estate to bully and ridicule politicians? What I’m talking about here is the local media coverage of Tony Windsor in the last Australian Federal election. It was reported by Annabell Crabbe on ABC’s election night coverage that Mr Windsor had banned News Limited journalists from his office. I wondered why? I found out that News Limited had reported that Mr Windsor had bullied someone when he was a teenager at school. This was the reason the constituents of New England should vote for Barnaby Joyce. But this reporting was bullying. This reporting was not upholding the Fourth Estate.
In 1960s, Rupert Murdoch formed The Australian and was probably the only paper that was publicly against the Vietnam War
To my mind, upholding the Fourth Estate is questioning the government/s of the day, investigating and researching the issues which effect the public or media audiences. Not dictating to them and becoming the authority of power over the politicians
But I think this year’s Logies Awards, is where Australian media reached a great humiliating low. When Sky News won the most outstanding news coverage for Sky News’ coverage of the Australian election. An SBS journalist didn’t come close. He reported from war torn Syria and interviewed Basher Al Assad from an Australian perspective. This reporter had risked his life to bring coverage to Australian homes. Sky News’s journalist as their acceptance speech stated were “having fun”
Really? really? This made me feel sick. Our media is sick
Foxtel, in the early days, was sold on a cable platform with no advertising. So people bought into it and it was good for a while. But now there is advertising. So people who pay for Foxtel are paying to be advertised to. What a great plan! (sarcasm intended)
So now we are all looking down the gun barrell of a 100% Murdoch, an American, owned Australian media
As an audience member, what I have witnessed from Mr Murdoch’s media organisations is Nazi style propaganda at best
Australia:- outgoing Chairman of the ABC, Mark Scott in his Media speech at Macquarie University was championing Foxtel, in fact most of his speech was endorsing Foxtel
My friends from all spheres of the political spectrum regard their local News Limited papers like The North Shore Times and particularly The Manly Daily as a joke and only good for lining the bottom of their cockateil’s cages
The Daily Telegraph is now regarded as the new “News of the World” because the reporting consists of bullying rhetoric from the far right journalists desperate to keep their jobs. So they make it up and say anything … just like News of the World they don’t care who they upset as long as the advertisers keep paying them. Why is this smart?
While watching the ABC news, they use library footage to demonstrate a man reading a newspaper, the newspaper in close-up is The Australian
Listening to the ABC Local Radio 702 Drive Program, when Richard Glover was away the fill-in announcer was from News Limited and happily endorsed The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and Foxtel
So what? Well, Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a PUBLIC broadcaster paid for by the taxpayer that’s all of us (not just subscribers to Foxtel … everyone). It should be above endorsing any one brand. It should be for the PUBLIC. When you hear politicians criticising the ABC it is because they have another agenda. We now know what that agenda is. To give Rupert Murdoch total control. This man is an American. Apartheid South Africa also had a very very weak public broadcaster, which is why the people did not have a voice or any power. This type of media makes democracy a joke
But some have spoken out against him: George Michael called him “The Devil”
United Kingdom (well at the time of writing it is still United): In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s media man Bernard Ingham gave Murdoch’s papers exclusivity. Controlling what was reported and when
I have heard that Chris Patten’s biography, last Governor of Hong Kong, was going to be published by Murdoch owned Harper Collins until Chris Patten did not allow Sky broadcasting rights or some such thing in Hong Kong. Luckily Chris Patten’s biography was picked up by Penguin and is a great read
Now it’s been reported that Theresa May’s PR person was The Sun’s newspaper PR person – the same person who hacked into a dead child’s phone
Rupert Murdoch studied under The Baron of Fleet Street.
“Beaverbrook would become regarded by some historians as the first baron of Fleet Street and as one of the most powerful men in Britain whose newspapers could make or break almost anyone”
It was reported that Sky News needed to go into Iraq before the sandstorms hit so that was why The United Nations were side stepped when America invaded Iraq
Citizen Kane, a film about a newspaper man, William Randolf Herst who makes money out of wars because his media sells the most in time of war. Is a film Donald Trump apparently likes. Donald Trump was predicted to be President by a Simpsons Episode years before – The Simpsons owned by one of Rupert Murdoch’s companies
Rupert Murdoch is an American
Apparently he made a lot of money out of the Paris Hilton sex tapes
In the years leading up to the war in Asia, Japan drummed up nationalism with poor farmers by controlling a minimal media. Poor farmers who gave their lives for a fascist dream
The world is not changing there is no panic. There are more media platforms than before. This is a good thing. It is not that Facebook has overtaken and if it has so what? We now all have a voice. TV’s demise is because the content on all those Foxtel channels is poor and not entertaining. Dare I say it excrusiatingly boring. Rupert Murdoch’s media is insulting to watch. I remember being in the gym when Bernie was talking about Tony Abbot “We get the politicians we deserve!” I said “No Bernie we get the politicians Rupert Murdoch wants us to have” and he agreed
From my observations, Rupert Murdoch has spoken of The Fourth Estate in name only. He has manipulated the public to believing in his media organisations when all he has done is make a lot of money out of his audience
This is my Helen Thomas moment when I ask “Where is everybody?” meaning who will stand against the Australian government awarding more media ownership and manipulation to Rupert Murdoch – a known American?
We need Australian diversity of Australian Media ownership not more American ownership by one American who just wants to make money out of treating his audience with contempt
[First published 9th May 2017 at 8:00am]
