In an attempt to ensure he gains the more lucrative control of the UK's cable television, Little Rupert Murdoch just shut down and eliminated the News Of The World Sunday tabloid, focus of the ever-spreading phone hacking scandal.
It isn't immediately known how many people were summarily 'released from employment', but it's clear the hacking scandal hasn't stopped yet.
The saga turned yet more disturbing Thursday with suggestions that journalists for the paper had broken into the voicemail not only of a 13-year-old murder victim but also of relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the paper had paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to police officers for information.This was seen as a "shrewd" move by Little Rupert and his Issue, who made the public statement about the paper's closing. It's also a reminder of what an Oligarch can do: Whenever it suits him, he can close whole businesses, fire the employees, just to make a public point -- in this case, an attempt to maintain "public image" so that the Tory government won't be made unpopular when Little David Cameron hands Rupert what he expects: A virtual monopoly over Britain's television.
The scandal had been taking a toll on the News Corporation, and driving down its stock price. Some advertisers were fleeing The News of the World, and new doubts emerged about Mr. Murdoch’s proposed $12 billion takeover of the pay-television company British Sky Broadcasting, in which he already owns a large stake. Many legislators have now criticized the deal, and it appears unlikely that the government will decide before the end of the summer whether to let it go ahead.
The Times of London, itself a News Corporation newspaper, said that five News of the World journalists and the newspaper executives suspected of involvement in the scandal were expected to be arrested within days.
It's Rupert's prime business model to cozy up to conservative politicans, then leverage that relationship to expand his media empire (Rupert's goal all along), dump uncounted tons of right-wing sewage into the culture, and become the media arm of the Right... making News Corp their unofficial media arm, their indispensable partner in maintaining power.
It's that marriage of cheap entertainment with Rightist politics which identifies the News Corporation brand -- synonymous with corruption, influence-peddling, and the trash of propaganda. And, the English Tories want Little Rupert's sewage machine to start pumping for them. The price is to give him BSkyB; it won't be Joey Goebbel's Ministry of Propaganda and Culture, but it'll be close.
That's the prize at stake for the ol' Digger, and the bought politicians who can't wait to give it to him. Britain's conservatives want what America's conservatives have -- a News Corp media empire, squeezing out a right-wing message, 24 X 7.
You just can't stop progress. Not only will the Brits be broke, unemployed and disenfranchised in the England of Davy Cameron's 'New Austerity'; they'll be force-fed right-wing bullshit until it leaks out of their ears.
Cruel Britannia, eh?
No comments:
Post a Comment