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

 
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 04:56 am
@izzythepush,
I would still like to hear why he supports that view, though.
0 Replies
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 05:19 am
@spendius,
I was simply asking you to elaborate on why you believe a News Ltd takeover of BSkyB was "good thing for the country", spendius.

Quote:
If Mr Hunt was persuaded by such a powerful argument why shouldn't he help the bid succeed.

Because it wasn't his place to be involved in supporting any of the bidders, you can't see that? No matter how "powerful" he might have believed any of their arguments might be.
Quote:
What makes you think the anti-bid coalition had our interests at heart? Its opposition was entirely commercial.

I don't have a view about which of the bids would be "better" for your interests.
Why would I?
I don't live in your country & don't know the details.
But I do have a view about governments following proper procedures in such bids.
And I also strongly believe that diversity of media ownership is far healthier than too much media ownership in the hands of any one company. ( I have very good reason for that view, given the results of News Ltd's 70% ownership of Oz newspapers. That should never have been allowed. )
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 06:12 am
@msolga,
Quote:
I was simply asking you to elaborate on why you believe a News Ltd takeover of BSkyB was "good thing for the country", spendius.


News Corp already owned 38% of BSkyB and effectively controlled it. I had no view on whether taking it over completely was good for us. We have ministers to decide such things. Vince Cable, as a Lib Dem, was in bed with the Grauniad and the anti-bid coalition.

My objection to Mr Hunt is his sacrifice of Adam Smith. And I'm not a fan of his going to work on a bike.

I outlined what I think in the post you hadn't time to read properly. I have the time to watch the Leveson hearings all day long most days since they began last September. I have recently read the books written by Mr Blair, Mr Campbell and Mr Mandleson.

Quote:
But I do have a view about governments following proper procedures in such bids.


What are proper procedures? What about leadership function? If the Minister of Health in 1948 had followed proper procedures I don't think the NHS would have happened.

Quote:
And I also strongly believe that diversity of media ownership is far healthier than too much media ownership in the hands of any one company.


Maybe. Maybe not. I think you underestimate the public.

Quote:
( I have very good reason for that view, given the results of News Ltd's 70% ownership of Oz newspapers. That should never have been allowed. )


You were fond enough of quoting from those papers at the time the Chinese ship ploughed into the reef. What happened about that?

msolga
 
  2  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 06:54 am
@spendius,
Quote:
You were fond enough of quoting from those papers at the time the Chinese ship ploughed into the reef. What happened about that?

Nope.
I very rarely post from Oz News Ltd newspapers, spendius.
Mostly I quote the ABC (national broadcaster) or the Fairfax papers (the AGE, Sydney Morning Herald, or independent sources like Crikey!)
Murdoch papers (not too surprisingly) are too biased on matters political, the bias depending on which side of politics best suits Rupert's purposes at any particular time. At present favouring the Liberal (conservative) Party. Not so different to the UK, I guess.
Quote:
What are proper procedures?

Members of parliament adhering to your Ministerial Code .... in matters like the BSkyB bidding process?
But I'll leave it at that from me for the moment.
I'll be interested in further discussion from UK posters, if you so choose.
Lots on this issue in today's British papers I see.


spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 07:59 am
@msolga,
It amuses me no end, Olga, to see the thrumming indignation put forth by people who seem to have some difficulty in accepting the ubiquitous wankerdom of human nature.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  0  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 08:13 am
@msolga,
What I feel, Olga, is that one has to beware of comments that are more about oneself than about the matters commented on.

One can be accused of picking and choosing items from the comical farce which passes as the news of the day for no other reason than their usefulness in putting forth a side of oneself which it is impossible for others not to admire.

When one stimulates in others the wish that one might drop dead one might be getting somewhere.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 08:57 am
@spendius,
I have been watching the flotilla festivities on the Thames for a few hours now on Sky News and I have not seen any ads. It is what is known as "unbroken coverage".

This means, that out of respect for Her Majesty and what she does best, Mr Murdoch has foregone a great deal of revenue. Not only that but he has also paid for the splendid coverage his News channel is bringing us stay-at-homes.

The bright pink smoking jacket Adam Boulton had on, with black elbow patches, outside No 10, as he explained that the Downing Street street-party had moved indoors due to the weather, must have cost a fair bit.

The thing about such a jacket is that choosing what to wear for the occasion will have been the subject of meetings.

And after an hour away from the dressing room mirror we saw Ms Kate Burley in something like her "Wigan scrubber" manifestation. Even the face-lift was set aside by the cold and the damp.

It's things like this, and Sky Arts and Sports, that cause me to be unable to find it in my heart to criticise the Dirty Digger.



spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 08:58 am
@spendius,
Does anybody get the black elbow patches joke?
izzythepush
 
  0  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 10:49 am
@spendius,
My Geography teacher does.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  0  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 10:50 am
@spendius,
I've been watching the BBC, there's never any ads on that.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 10:55 am
@izzythepush,
Obviously--it gets a licence fee. No questions asked. You can't shut that off.
izzythepush
 
  0  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 11:08 am
@spendius,
I also prefer it. You can see the embryonic shoots of a Fox News style propaganda machine on Sky. When the BBC reviews the papers, the presenter keeps their opinions to themselves, and leaves it to the pundits to shout it out.

Over on Sky, he was going on about the way the country's being blighted by wind-farms. That might just have been his opinion, but it's probably the opinion of the board as well.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 01:30 pm
@izzythepush,
Propaganda is only bad when what is promoted is bad.

We wouldn't put up with a Fox News. I don't think we could do it anyway. Anybody shouting "Caution!! YOUou are entering THE No Spin Zone" would be tittered out of existence.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 01:33 pm
@spendius,
That female, when she's "in for Bill", trying to ape him saying it is enough to bring a cynic to his knees in helpless, debilitating laughter.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  0  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 01:33 pm
@spendius,
Wouldn't we? Enough people might not notice it. It's the frog and the saucepan full of boiling water analogy.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 01:40 pm
@izzythepush,
I must admit that the Fox News I see is going out before the watershed in the US and I see it after the pubs have shut.

Can you imagine a strap at the bottom of the screen saying "Anna's corsets are by TUCKITIN of Chelsea.
izzythepush
 
  0  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 01:42 pm
@spendius,
Could you imagine TV programmes being individually sponsored by bingo sites twenty years ago?
spendius
 
  0  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 01:56 pm
@izzythepush,
Easily. Gardening programmes have been sponsored by all sorts of commercial interests for longer than 20 years. Motoring has never been anything else.

I hope you are not being snobbish about Bingo. It brings a great deal of comfort to many people and particularly females of a certain age. It's better than tying them up.

And it's pretty carbon friendly.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Jun, 2012 02:57 pm
@spendius,
I'm concerned about the amount of gambling adverts in general.
0 Replies
 
Sturgis
 
  1  
Reply Mon 11 Jun, 2012 09:16 am
@msolga,
Meanwhile Gordon Brown essentially calls Murdoch a liar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/world/europe/british-hacking-inquiry-questions-political-heavyweights.html?_r=1&hp
NewYorkTimes-June_12_2012 wrote:
Former Prime Minister Contradicts Murdoch Testimony at Hacking Inquiry
By ALAN COWELL

LONDON — Starting four days of evidence by political leaders about the sway of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers over public life here, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown flatly denied Mr. Murdoch’s depiction of some of their most contentious exchanges and accused a leading Murdoch newspaper, The Sun, of undermining Britain’s war effort in Afghanistan.

e also rejected assertions by a former editor of The Sun that Mr. Brown’s wife, Sarah, had approved a story in 2006 on the medical condition of the Browns’ infant child, who had been diagnosed at four months with cystic fibrosis.

Mr. Brown said The Sun caused “huge damage to the war effort” in Afghanistan, where British troops have been the main allies of American forces in the international coalition, by publishing stories suggesting that his government, in office from 2007 to 2010, “didn’t care about our troops.”

He referred specifically to a story in 2009 disclosing that Mr. Brown had misspelled the name of a British soldier killed in Afghanistan and aspects of what he called a “campaign” by The Sun over Afghanistan.

“The whole focus of their coverage was not what we had done,” he said, “but that I personally did not care about our troops.”

Mr. Brown said that Mr. Murdoch told him in a private letter that he disagreed with Britain’s “management of the war effort.”

The former prime minister was the first in a series of past and present political heavyweights to appear before the judicial inquiry led by Lord Chief Justice Sir Brian Leveson into the phone hacking scandal that exploded over Mr. Murdoch’s British tabloids last summer.

Mr. Brown’s testimony, delivered in his hallmark Scottish burr, seemed among the most forthright in contradicting sworn testimony by Mr. Murdoch and by Rebekah Brooks, a former editor of The Sun who became chief executive of News International, the British newspaper subsidiary of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation. She resigned as the hacking scandal broke last July.

Ms. Brooks has testified to the Leveson inquiry that Mr. Brown’s wife, Sarah, gave permission for the article on their son to be published, but the former prime minister said he “absolutely” denied that.

“I don’t think any child’s medical information should be broadcast,” he said. “There was no question ever of implicit or explicit permission.” Rather, he said, he and his wife were presented with a “fait accompli” that the story was to be published.

In messages on Twitter, journalists at The Sun rejected Mr. Brown’s version of events both relating to the newspaper’s Afghanistan coverage and about the newspaper’s source for the story about his son’s medical condition.

In her own testimony to the inquiry, Ms. Brooks said the story came from the father of another child with cystic fibrosis, but Scottish health authorities who dealt with the case said in a statement on Monday, that it was “highly likely” that a local employee “spoke, without authorization, about the medical condition of Mr. Brown’s son, Fraser.”

Robert Jay, the inquiry’s lead counsel, also pressed Mr. Brown about a conversation with Mr. Murdoch in which the tycoon testified that the former prime minister threatened to “make war” on Murdoch companies after their tabloids switched to the Conservatives in late 2009.

In April, Mr. Murdoch told the Leveson inquiry that Mr. Brown had said, “Well, your company has declared war on my government and we have no alternative but to make war on your company.” Mr. Murdoch also said that Mr. Brown did not seem to be in “a very balanced state of mind.”

“This conversation never took place,” Mr. Brown said. “I’m shocked, surprised, that it should be suggested.” He added later: “This call did not happen. This threat was not made.”

“I couldn’t be unbalanced on a call that I didn’t have,” Mr. Brown said.

.....
....
“This conversation never took place,” Mr. Brown said. “I’m shocked, surprised, that it should be suggested.” He added later: “This call did not happen. This threat was not made.”


 

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