[Dialogue] Moyers on Murdoch

[Karl Hess]

This does remind one of Lord Acton.
Karl

>
>Published on Saturday, June 30, 2007 by 
><http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html>Bill Moyers 
>Journal
>Moyers on Murdoch
>by Bill Moyers
>If Rupert Murdoch were the Angel Gabriel, you still wouldn't want 
>him owning the sun, the moon, and the stars. That's too much prime 
>real estate for even the pure in heart.
>But Rupert Murdoch is no saint; he is to propriety what the Marquis 
>de Sade was to chastity. When it comes to money and power he's 
>carnivorous: all appetite and no taste. He'll eat anything in his 
>path. Politicians become little clay pigeons to be picked off with 
>flattering headlines, generous air time, a book contract or the 
>old-fashioned black jack that never misses: campaign cash. He hires 
>lobbyists the way Imelda Marcos bought shoes, and stacks them in his 
>cavernous closet, along with his conscience; this is the man, 
>remember, who famously kowtowed to the Communist overlords of China, 
>oppressors of their own people, to protect his investments there.
>The ambitious can't resist his blandishments, nor his power to get 
>or keep them in office where they can return his favors. Mae West 
>would be green with envy at his little black book of conquests: Tory 
>Margaret Thatcher, Labor's Tony Blair, George Bush. Even Jimmy 
>Carter couldn't say no. Now, Bill and Hillary Clinton, who know 
>which side of their bread is buttered, like having it slathered by 
>their new buddy Rupert. Our media and political system has turned 
>into a mutual protection racket.
>You will not be surprised to learn that Murdoch's company paid 
>little or no federal income tax over the past four years. His 
>powerful portfolio positions him to claim a big stake in Yahoo and 
>his takeover of The Wall Street Journal, now owned by the Bancroft 
>family, which, like Adam and Eve, the parents of us all, are tempted 
>to sell their birthright for a wormy apple.
>Murdoch and The Journal's editorial page are made for each other. 
>They've both pursued the right's corporate and political agenda of 
>the past quarter century. Both venerate what The Journal editorials 
>call the "animal spirits" of business. But The Journal's newsroom is 
>another matter - there facts are sacred and independence revered. 
>Rupert Murdoch has told the Bancrofts he'll not meddle with the 
>reporting. But he's accustomed to using journalism as a personal 
>spittoon. In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, he 
>turned the dogs of war loose in the newsrooms of his empire and they 
>howled for blood. Murdoch himself said the greatest thing to come 
>out of the war would be "$20 a barrel for oil."
>Of course he wasn't the only media mogul to clamor for war. And he's 
>not the first to use journalism to promote his own interests. His 
>worst offense with FOX News is not even its baldly partisan agenda. 
>Far worse is the travesty he's made of its journalism. FOX News 
>huffs and puffs, pontificates and proclaims, but does little serious 
>original reporting. His tabloids sell babes and breasts, gossip and 
>celebrities. Now he's about to bring under the same thumb one of the 
>few national newsrooms remaining in the country.
>But the problem isn't just Rupert Murdoch. His pursuit of The Wall 
>Street Journal is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, 
>buy-outs, and other financial legerdemain that are making a 
>shipwreck of journalism. Public-minded newspapers are being dumped 
>by their owners for wads of cash or crippled by cost cutting while 
>their broadcasting cousins race to the bottom. Murdoch is just the 
>predator of the hour. The modern maestro of a financial marketplace 
>ruled by money and moguls. Instead of checking the excesses of 
>private and public power, these 21st century barons of the First 
>Amendment revel in them; the public be damned.
>We'll be back next week unless we're bought out.
>Bill Moyers is the managing editor of the weekly public affairs 
>program "<http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html>Bill 
>Moyers Journal," which airs Friday night on PBS.
>Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
>URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/30/2208/
>
>
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