Four years ago, I wrote about the functions of bigotry in the mass media, and the ever charming Melanie Phillips was my case study. Then, somewhat counter-intuitively, The Daily Mail made use of Mel to get the lefties in and boost their clicks per second average. Every idiocy that tripped off her keyboard was then, in the infant days of social media, pounced upon and shared by the angry, which in turn help push those page views through the roof. This now is 2015, things are more settled now. Our audiences are sophisticated and savvy. The media bigots have had their day, or have they? Continue reading
Tagged with Rupert Murdoch
Why media conglomerates should be broken up
The hacking trials aren’t even half the issue. The hard, unavoidable fact remains that the power of the Murdoch press – the real unspoken stain behind the Brooks-Coulson trials – is undiminished and has still not been broken. It is best illustrated by the run-up of events to the long-planned Murdoch campaign to take over BSkyB, a scheme that would have added some £8bn to the Murdoch empire as well as giving him a virtual stranglehold over the British media.
It began with Murdoch’s calculation in 2009 that a switch of the Sun to the Tories would make them indebted to him – perhaps even outlined in an informal deal – over his BSkyB objective. The game plan then began with James Murdoch meeting Cameron at a hotel in London in September 2009 to tell him that the Sun was switching sides. Continue reading
Share:
Rebekah Brooks: “Not Guilty”. OK?
Now that the case is over, it is worth noting some of the details which hitherto could not be reported. Milly Dowler was a child who was abducted and then killed by a predatory paedophile. News of the World (NoW) journalists chanced on a voicemail which suggested she might still be alive and working in Telford. They did not however tell the police who were searching for her. When the police search failed to locate her, those same journalists, needing confirmation of the story, demanded that the Surrey police (Milly was a Surrey schoolgirl) corroborate the story for them. They quoted the voicemail both in phone calls and in email, and both those calls and messages have been retained in the Surrey police records. Continue reading
Share:
Sham regulator just a device by Murdoch & co to distract from real press accountability
The launch last week of the press industry-backed press regulator is a farce, but one that the media moguls are determined to run for all it’s worth. This is press industry-driven self-regulation again in all but name. The press industry is one of the three biggest powers in the State, along with the finance industry and big corporate business, and all three will do anything to reject and avoid regulation since they refuse to accept even the slightest limitation on their own power. Continue reading
Share:
The media barons’ last pitiful throw
They really have got a nerve. After unanimous agreement of all parties in Parliament for a Royal Charter to ensure proper press standards (which among the UK tabloids at present are arguably the worst in Europe), they deign to produce an alternative without a shred of remorse or apology so that they can carry on exactly as before.
The arrogance of the Murdochs, Dacres, Barclays Brothers, and Desmonds is really beneath contempt. No other industry in the country, not least if universally despised for stooping to such tactics as were exposed over Millie Dowler and condemned out of their own mouth by their repeated lying and deceit over illegal phone-hacking on an industrial scale,would seek to defy Parliament and the public in this way. They continue to prate the mantra about freedom of the press without an inkling of understanding or humility that freedom in a democracy is conjoiled with responsibility. Continue reading
