{"id":675,"date":"2007-11-26T17:22:50","date_gmt":"2007-11-27T01:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=675"},"modified":"2011-01-28T11:29:24","modified_gmt":"2011-01-28T19:29:24","slug":"poor-rupert-nobody-listens-to-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=675","title":{"rendered":"Poor Rupert: Nobody Listens To Him"},"content":{"rendered":"

As if any further evidence was required, we now have it straight from Rupert Murdoch’s own pursed lips that the fingers of his bony hand are pulling the strings at his media properties and setting editorial policy. Murdoch was interviewed by the British House of Lords’ Communications Committee as part of its inquiry into media ownership. The committee released these comments<\/a> from the interview:<\/p>\n

“For The Sun and News of the World, he explained that he is a ‘traditional proprietor.’ He exercises editorial control on major issues – like which party to back in a general election or policy on Europe.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“He distinguishes between The Times and The Sunday Times and The Sun and the News of the World (and makes the same distinction between the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal).”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The way that Murdoch distinguishes between his various properties is that those for which he has legal or contractual barriers to direct manipulation he doesn’t tell them what to do, he merely asks them what they are doing. Is there any employee that would not know what his boss means to convey under such an arrangement? It also goes without saying that Murdoch doesn’t have to give much guidance to managers he selected precisely because of their fealty to his interests. In fact, he has already tapped his long-time editor at the London Times to be the new publisher at the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

Murdoch also expressed his opinion that his Sky News “could be more popular if it emulated his Fox News Channel.”<\/em> He said that the reason it isn’t already doing that is because “nobody at Sky listens to me.”<\/em> That’s especially funny when you consider that Sky News is run by James Murdoch, Rupert’s son.<\/p>\n

Here in the U.S., Murdoch took a glancing blow from his beneficiary, Hillary Clinton. At a campaign stop in Iowa, Clinton was asked<\/a> about media consolidation and the risk of having one man like Murdoch with so much control. Clinton responded that…<\/p>\n

“There have been a lot of media consolidations in the last several years, and it is quite troubling. The fact is, most people still get their news from television, from radio, even from newspapers. If they’re all owned by a very small group of people – and particularly if they all have a very similar point of view – it really stifles free speech.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s a good answer and Clinton is commendably a co-sponsor of the Media Ownership Act of 2007<\/a>. Too bad she had to dilute the impact of her response by letting Murdoch off the hook:<\/p>\n

“I’m not saying anything against any company in particular. I just want to see more competition, especially in the same markets.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Murdoch, his son James, and several other executives at News Corp have contributed to Clinton’s senatorial and presidential campaigns. I would sure hate to think that those contributions might affect her decision making with regard to Big Media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if any further evidence was required, we now have it straight from Rupert Murdoch’s own pursed lips that the fingers of his bony hand are pulling the strings at his media properties and setting editorial policy. Murdoch was interviewed by the British House of Lords’ Communications Committee as part of its inquiry into media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,1,16],"tags":[33,31,32,30,34],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-media","category-general","category-wankery","tag-fox-news","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-news-corp","tag-rupert-murdoch","tag-wall-street-journal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-aT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":875,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=875","url_meta":{"origin":675,"position":0},"title":"Murdoch Stalking Newsday","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/23\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Rupert Murdoch is on the prowl again and the editors, employees and readers of Long Island's Newsday had better pay attention. The News Corp. chief has announced that his ravenous appetite for world media dominance is far from satisfied. \"Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been calling key state and local\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3771,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3771","url_meta":{"origin":675,"position":1},"title":"Rupert Murdoch Is De-Pressed","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/28\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Woe is he. Media baron Rupert Murdoch is said to be depressed over setbacks to his compulsive efforts to acquire ever more media platforms from which to spew his international rightist propaganda. The news of Murdoch's depression comes from a trusted ally, Andrew Neil, founding chairman of Sky TV and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4300,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4300","url_meta":{"origin":675,"position":2},"title":"Rupert Murdoch’s Climate Change Hypocrisy","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/23\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The folks at Climate Progress have compiled a pretty comprehensive report documenting the hypocrisy of Rupert Murdoch and his cable news mouthpiece, Fox News. They cover the vast territory between the private and public pronouncements of the rightist propaganda empire. This is an area that News Corpse has covered in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Environment","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=473"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":930,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=930","url_meta":{"origin":675,"position":3},"title":"Rupert Murdoch Predicts Obama Landslide","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/29\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This week's All Things Digital Conference brought Rupert Murdoch to the stage for a surprising interview that included his views on the economy, Barack Obama, and the 2008 election. Reuters: \"News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday predicted a Democratic landslide in the U.S. presidential election against a gloomy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22896,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=22896","url_meta":{"origin":675,"position":4},"title":"Rupert Murdoch Employs Racist Logic To Defend All-White Casting Of The Exodus Movie","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/29\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The upcoming release of Ridley Scott's epic film adaptation of the biblical story of Exodus has generated some controversy due to the all-white casting of the movie's principle players. While creative endeavors are entitled to exercise license in the pursuit of effective storytelling, it is reasonable to observe a certain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rupert Murdoch On Egypt","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/murdoch-egypt-white.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/murdoch-egypt-white.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/murdoch-egypt-white.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3964,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3964","url_meta":{"origin":675,"position":5},"title":"Rupert Murdoch Falls For Global Warming Hoax","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/1\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The big environmental news of the day is that News Corp CEO, Rupert Murdoch, has announced a major milestone in his empire's march to \"energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.\" In a memo to employees he wrote... Murdoch: I am proud to announce that News Corporation has reached its first major\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Environment","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=473"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3769,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/3769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}