Monday, September 5, 2011

Murdochs again...

Here is an opinion that makes some good sense (for once) about the level of influence Rupert Murdoch has in the media.

I see it as a real issue for the head of a media organisation to determine which way to slant a story as it appears in his papers. It's well documented how News Ltd's outlets are attack dogs for more small-L liberal type government groups (Labour in the UK, Democrats in the US, Labor and the Greens in Australia) and lap dogs for Conservatives.

The issue is more that this plays into the hands of those who are less engaged with their world and who are apathetic enough to accept at face value what the papers tell them. These types of people (and I refuse to identify demographics here) are the ones who will not get the full and unbiased account of what is happening - they get a dodgy slant on it that may or may not be correct, especially in light of the recent News Ltd scandals.

How they've managed to build themselves up with such power is beyond me, how they manage to keep it and continue to have such influence confounds me. I recently remarked to a colleague who said he holds a small amount of shares in News International that, in light of the phone hacking scandal, "if that was me, I'd be getting off that sinking ship". How wrong I was. News isn't going to go under with any small stroke of a pen. They are too big and have too much money to disappear overnight....

...unfortunately.

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