James Murdoch

[Tubby Isaacs]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8227915.stm

An unlikely supporter of pluralism.

[Gangster Octopus]

James Murdoch

There's more of his utter shite in The Graun. My favourite is :

The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.

[sw2borshch]

James Murdoch

I believe it's called getting high on your own supply.

[linus]

James Murdoch

Staggering, Onionesque hypocrisy there...

The Murdoch media empire has been in violation of American media consolidation rules for years now (for things like owning major newspaper and TV stations in the same media markets) but they've gotten away with this under Bush and Michael Powell's FCC. I'm not sure if Obama is going to change that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

James Murdoch

He's violating the rules? I thought they'd been rewritten and then got around by changing nationality.

British people don't have enough bloody pride about their nationality.

[ian.64]

James Murdoch

Hypocrisy, rank and utter.

He's Got Sky and Fox News, the whole accumulated power of News International in fact, as this galumphing, agenda-fixated monolith and he's pissed because another galumphing monolith which, for all its faults (and there's some pretty fucking huge ones), is far more preferable to his scuzzy, cunt-laden outfit, is in his and his dad's way. Ah, dad, dad, we can't take over the broadcasting world 'cause the BBC exists!

The lousy snot-nosed wank-stain. Robert Peston apart (he managed, bless him, to send Murdoch Jr. in a tizz by rebuffing his assertions at a dinner table), there's no-one who's actually come up with a robust and pointed riposte to the fuckwit, in fact, no-one seems to have gone for Jr's jugular big time, considering the monopoly-creating shit-house he fronts.

The BBC certainly isn't perfect - it can, in fact, be exasperating - but better that than a corporation that's got Bill O'Reilly on its books.

[Gangster Octopus]

James Murdoch

Excellent rant.

[Ray de Galles]

James Murdoch

ian.64 wrote:

Robert Peston apart (he managed, bless him, to send Murdoch Jr. in a tizz by rebuffing his assertions at a dinner table), there's no-one who's actually come up with a robust and pointed riposte to the fuckwit .

Not "robust" perhaps but welcome(about a minute in).

[The Exploding Vole]

James Murdoch

Rant of the month from ian.64. Standing ovation.

[Tubby Isaacs]

James Murdoch

Yo, Ian.

Murdoch was right, apparently:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/30/media-bbc-edinburgh-internet-recession

[ian.64]

James Murdoch

You can feel it as newspapers– exactly like James Murdoch – fight their own corner. Self-serving? Of course. But so is a BBC that can't discuss boundaries and areas of influence afresh. There has to be a new start in here somewhere: what Murdoch, through gritted teeth, might call "recreation".

There's no point standing on a fortress wall howling defiance. I'd hate to leave the world to Sky. I think the BBC is a force for good (and truth in journalism). I want it to last another 87 years, at least. We need it to survive and prosper.

I'll second that last line. Well, as I mentioned before, the BBC isn't perfect and I'm not entirely clued up on all things media communication, but if Murdoch Jr.'s pissed off at the all-reaching BBC that's his own problem. News International had all the power back then, namely in the form of the Sun, they could impugn the character of football fans when reporting on tragedies like Hillsborough, they could malign and despoil political figures to turn addled, Page-3-loving fuckwits to vote Conservative, and turn the Falklands War into a Boys Own Adventure, spawning and encouraging xenophobic feeling with abandon.

Now it's funny to hear Cuntswamp Jr. complaining about the government for regulating the media with, as the linked report at the top of this thread, 'with relish'. Well, Jimmy, you're the son of Rupert, and Rupert is, as many people are ready to point out, the man whom governments supposedly consult if they wish to gain maximum esteem and wholesome recommendation from Rupe's friends in the editor's office at the Sun or the Times, the former, after all, being the paper that loftily told everyone after another Conservative victory that they were the ones 'what won it'.

"The BBC is dominant," Mr Murdoch said. "Other organisations might rise and fall but the BBC's income is guaranteed and growing."

There were no protestations like this when Murdoch Sr.'s empire was raking it in in previous decades and revenue was flooding in by the bucketloads on the wave of grimy, hello-folks populism. No grumbling back then when not only financial power was in his hands, but political power as well. But today is, I would hope, somewhat different, when such power is dissipated on both fronts.

Murdoch Jr.'s whinge can either be seen as a launch of puerile hypocrisy or the yapping of a man slowly cacking his pants in fear that his dad's empire may not hold the influence and power it once did. I'd like to think of it as both.

[E10 Rifle]

James Murdoch

The best thing the rest of the media could have done in response to Murdoch's dribbling, utterly inaccurate, self-interested rant, would have been to ignore it. The Guardian, with characteristic impeccable judgment, put it on its front page.

No one seemed to pull Murdoch up on the obvious fact that the BBC is not "state-sponsored" or state-run. It's funded by its users paying the licence fee. Pointing out such obvious inaccuracies and lies seems to be beyond a lot of pundits though.

Of course, what Murdoch is inadvertently admitting, is that his model of media ownership and management - of rapacious profit-seeking above all else - is a good deal more fucked than the BBC's. Who are the dinosaurs now, Jimbo?

[Ginger Yellow]

James Murdoch

I think it's fair to call the BBC state sponsored. The licence fee (which I fully support), is levied on (more or less) all TV owners, regardless of whether they watch the BBC, and it isn't levied on radio users if they don't have a TV. BBC Trust members are appointed by the government.

[E10 Rifle]

James Murdoch

Nah, I think the fact that the licence-fee is self-contained and not paid for out of general government revenues makes a difference. "Sponsorship" implies direct funding.

[Gerontophile]

James Murdoch

But it IS State-sponsored. If you dont pay it, you get fined, by law.

[E10 Rifle]

James Murdoch

There is state-direction, state involvement in the running of the BBC. But the state, per se, doesn't sponsor it.

[Ginger Yellow]

James Murdoch

I'm not sure it does. Sponsorship is a pretty vague term. And the state pension is in theory self-contained (as is social security in the US), but it's still the state pension.