Is this the beginning of the end of Rupert Murdoch's media empire?

Yes?

Hard to be more damning than that!

If nothing else, it can't be portrayed as partisan.

To be labelled "unfit to manage" a corp that you gave birth to must hurt some, but Rupe has been pretty much throwing it all away since his mid-life crisis, when he turfed his wife in favour of his dick-tation taker. LOL

His son is no better, and that is what the boffins have said. Neither of the jokers are capable of running the show, and it should be handed over to someone that can handle it all.

Now we enter the picture. The gov has too many irons in the fire, so the ows team is the obvious choice. LOL

How are they? They don't have any candidates.

I would say it's as bipartisan attempt by politicians to distance themselves from someone they had been arse kissing until the poo hit the whirling blades. For the politicians, it's self serving and may be no more honest than what they were doing previously.

I don't know how self-serving it is. The Levenson enquiry has put the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt under the spotlight, and if he is forced to resign, attention will then shift to Cameron, and in particular his relationship with Andy Coulson.

In short, I think the government was pressed into doing this rather than using it as a way to keep the investigation at arm's length.

One thing we now know is the phone hacking technology is cheap and easy so be careful what you say because your "friends" might be getting an earful.

I watch the Leveson proceedings live on the Sky News red button channel and very interesting it is too. The four-letter words are not bleeped out which suggests that cameras in courts is going to be a messy business.

Rupe (The Dirty Digger) has the gratitude of sports fans.

The whole thing is based on the one mistake with the murdered girl's phone.

Lord Justice Leveson has an impossible task. Select committees are for minor politicians to have their moment.

Leaving out poor Milly it is all very good fun.

Frank Harris invented this style of journalism over 100 years ago.

If you want regulation of the press on ethical lines you will be against Murdoch. If you don't you won't be.

You can't approve of newspaper proprietors allowing editors freedom and then blame them for how the editor proceeded.

British media interests of Murdoch's companies is about 7% of their total interests.

Media connections to authority have been mutually cosy for a very long time right across the institutional range.

I don't know about sports fans being grateful to Murdoch. His imput made previously free to watch matches come under pay per view, the money went into the pockets of players and agents, and the ordinary fan had to contend with much higher gate fees.

At best I think his actions are treated as neutral, he did a lot of harm as well as good.

Pressed into doing it. That is an apt way of putting it.

A bunch of middle aged men eager to throw an 80 year old under the bus (or another politician) before someone throws them under the bus.

You seem to feel sorry for Murdoch. I don't, whatever happens he's still got his Billions. I remember Wapping.

Wapping was necessary to progress.

para is close enough



They are also eager to throw each other under the bus as the top cops showed.

It's an educational failure more than anything. Too many people are in top posts who haven't had a proper education.



Lord Justice Leveson.

I hardly feel sorry for Murdoch. I just question the motives of politicians that suddenly have a desire to investigate the teat they were so happy to suckle until someone noticed them doing it.

I don't know if Labour were ever happy to suckle it. Murdoch's press was instrumental in keeping the Tories in power throughout the 80s and early 90s. If you look back over this thread and see The Sun Wot Wun It headline you can see why Labour felt they had no choice but to accomidate him.

I've been mulling over how bizarre this seems since I first heard it on the news.

1) politicians commenting on anyone's morality seems nervy
2) Murdoch developed a huge money-making corporation while the politicians were doing what?



I'm not a fan of Murdoch's media group - but he's a success. Unfit. ha.

I think it goes to the difference between morally unfit vs legally unfit. Most people running major corporations are probably morally unfit in one way or another. How else could they run a large company that has to make decisions that puts profits over employees and customers?

Capitalism is impossible without corruption. Maybe human society is also.

It's hypocritical to be wringing our hands with moral outrage whilst wallowing in the cornucopia of goodies capitalism has delivered into our insatiable clutches.

If we put employees and customers above profit I dread to think what life would be like. I think we might all have to shift for ourselves.

I can't imagine Beth digging half a ton of cowshit into her patch of earth to get her annual supply of potatoes.

Swallow it whole is my motto. I hope the people of the future have an Edward Gibbon to bring an ironically detached overview of the autumnal phase of our culture. Maybe that will be impossible because of the vast amount of sources we are leaving in our trail.

But I feel sure Leveson will be worth a paragraph or two. It's where it's at for those who want the news of the hour. The cream of our educational system on the psychiatric couch, under oath, and with Mr Robert Jay QC unravelling them in a style that is a pleasure to observe. He is my TV Personality of the Year. His delicate variations on the theme "pull the other one matey" is a valuable lesson to all would-be creative writers.

What materialists and behaviourists make of it I cannot imagine. Fancy studying rats and dogs to find out what makes us tick. We have another string to our bow and a noose around our necks.

Basil Boothroyd, who bears a great deal of responsibilty for the state of a large number of Englishmen's minds, penned a delightful article in October 1968 on the subject of The Observer's upcoming and much publicised colour supplement on Death.

In the section dealing with how he would like to be seen out of this world he wrote



So there you are. What Mr Murdoch bought into in 1969 was already enough to cause a honourable man to gag.

PS--For those Americans who don't know Fleet Street means the British Newspaper Industry.

It depends on your criterion of judgement, does it not.

Arguably Hitler was a successful leader, up to a point. Up to the point when he was not.

Absolutely.

Muroch is a businessman, so that is what I measure him on.

He is a successful businessman.

And anytime I need to be reminded what the lowest common denominator is, I just need to look at the businesses he owns. People buy those papers, watch that programming. More people than watch the programming I like.

I agree that Murdoch is a very successful businessman, ehBeth.
And if people want to watch lowest common denominator crap, then that is entirely their business.

But that is not the problem.
The problem is the amount of power that Murdoch exercises over governments. The influence his "news" outlets exercise around the world.
I think it could be argued that he is more powerful than any government & exercises that power to suit his own interests.
Which includes changes of governments, when it suits his purposes.

In Australia (way before the rest of the planet had even heard of him) his newspapers were influential in installing (then un-installing, later) the Whitlam government.
Today his news outlets in Oz (where he owns 70% of the newspapers & considerable radio & television interests), are leading the charge, in the forefront of destabilizing the minority Gillard government.

In the UK the SUN actually publicly took credit, gloated! - see the SUN front page -posted by Izzie a bit back in this thread) for installing the Tories.

And of course, the US has good ol Fox News. Which brought them Glenn Beck & co.

I would argue that no businessman's interests should be in a position to exert such influence.
For starters, it distorts what is presented as "news".
And corrupts governments for Murdoch's own (business) purposes. (that's how his original 70% ownership of Oz newspapers was achieved. The laws were changed to oblige him. )
The trouble is, the Murdoch influence is so pervasive, that few governments would dare not give him what he wants. Or else they'll cop it in his media outlets, as they would be well aware from past examples.

I could give you so many other examples of abuse of the Murdoch influence, but I'm sure many people (especially in Oz & the UK) know of them already. He is now in the process of extending his influence to satellite tv, in Asia & the middle east, etc. Quite a few shady dealings on this front, too!)

So it won't be too much of a surprsise that I fully agree with the British parliament committee's "unfit" assessment.
News of the World was just the tip of the iceberg.
And I look forward to the findings of the Leveson Inquiry.
It is high time, way past high time, actually, that Murdoch was brought to account.

But then, I'd argue that no one person, no one media company , should be allowed to become so all-pervasive on the world stage .... or in any country.
It is not in the interests of democracy that any unelected body should have so much power & influence.