From an Aussie TV show that analyses the media
Good piece on Murdoch and UK elections
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
by 15 Comments
From an Aussie TV show that analyses the media
You must be logged in to post a comment.
No mention of The Sun in Scotland supporting the SNP and both Sturgeon/Salmond being close to Murdoch. I’d like to see them being quizzed about this cosy relationship which has been written about in Private Eye. The holier than thou SNP who are coming down to London to clean up Westminster in bed with the media’s prince of darkness.
It’s no surprise the majority of the media supporting the Conservatives and my memories is that the virulence was far worse in the 1980s. The influence of media barons is still strong with government, but I would question whether people (‘ordinary hard working families’) take much note anymore. There’s still this rather old fashioned and rather quaint belief that the public are all dupes and we’re waiting on what the papers have to say before we express any opinions. My reading of this is that social media has largely blown this apart.
Never thought there was anything sinister in that at all, on the grounds that The Sun in Scotland has been a fairly vocal cheerleader for the SNP on and off since the 90s. It’s a cynical, commercial decision taken because it’s anti Labour and that’s all. Even the most blinkered “Whae’s like us?” Nat understands that.
The sinister part was that the tories in Scotland quite happily voted alongside Salmond when he was first made first minister under Annabel Goldie. For this election the tories in England pictured the SNP as demons from the north who want to implement socialism via Brussels onto the good people of Surrey. That’s truly cynical
Well from afar, my jaw did drop that the Sun was offering to pay Tories with Tory good news stories prepared to be interviewed and photographed. I doubt they would get away with that down here.
The bill will be in soon for Murdoch’s support. And it will be the destruction of the BBC
When you say ‘soon’ , can you be more specific? Should we expect the bill to be paid within, say, a year, or five?
Charter negotiations start this year. Cameron has a much slimmer majority than Major’s which will get whittled away at by-elections. And the Major years were chaos. Assuming Murdoch doesn’t die of apoplexy the old bastard will still be pulling strings throughout that period so I would say the BBC will be dismembered over the next three years while Cameron still has a majority.
Everything I said would happen about debt and inequality has come about and we’re on the hook for the lot. I don’t think the BBC or NHS stand a prayer.
The BBC did themselves no favours with their election coverage. Pandering to the Tories at every turn….and yet still called Left-biased by our Overlords. The Licence fee and it’s days as a publicly funded broadcaster are numbered. Serves them right I say.
Forks, you’re back, welcome. (you may have been around earlier but above is the first input I’ve seen)
The Sun sells barely half the copies it did in 1997. I am not sure that is enough to exert any great influence.
The Sun, The Mail, The Express, The Telegraph, The Times all devoted Tory papers. That’s quite a large readership, given that copies are read by other people as well as the ones that bought them. Plus online content.
To say they had no influence is naive.
Of course they have influence but it pales into insignificance next to the influence television wields.
That’s why Murdoch is so hell bent on diminishing the BBC. Not because the BBC is particularly biased to his worldview, all sides perceive bias in the BBC which leads me to believe they are making a reasonable fist of impartiality.
Murdoch simply wants them out of the way so he can continue to empire build and foist his attitudes upon the masses without fear of contradiction.
The OP referred to Murdoch. I was not aware that he had also purchased the Express, Mail, Telegraph and Times. I will have to add inattention to detail to my list of sins alongside naïvity. In any event, I am not persuaded that the Telegraph, Times, Express or even the Mail exerted much influence over the former Labour voters who either stayed away or turned to UKIP in what appear to a be significant numbers.
*cough* He does own The Times.
Murdoch owns the Times.
The UKIP thing isn’t completely convincing to me. People completely stopped voting LibDem which meant that the tactical votes that kept out Tories in many seats simply vanished. People voted for Labour or Green candidates who couldn’t win every bit as much as UKIP .
In fact Labour increased vote share and number of seats in England – but lost 50 odd in Scotland for a net loss of 25. I don’t think Labour deserved to win, I’ve been saying for years Ed and Ed were the B team and I don’t think the party managers expected them to still be there in 2012 never mind 2015.
But if the unionist parties hadn’t been wiped out in Scotland it would have been a different tale. If I was Scottish I would be foaming at what Cameron and Hague said after the referendum, which also makes me think Cameron chucked the union overboard to get elected. Unfortunately the SNP is now going to get utterly ignored. Cameron has a tiny majority and a huge number of MPs who will have taken his EU rhetoric at face value. ITs going to be 1992-97 again.
As well as the Murdoch excrescences –
Telegraph – owned by non-resident tax dodging Barclay Brothers who live off Sark – who have effectively destroyed its reputation for editorial integrity – the son of one of them is the MD of the Telegraph (he read a paper once I think) and told Cameron they would run no stories unfavourable to the Tories in the election campaign. Ditto Spectator. Private Eye have covered this.
Mail – owned by non-dom Viscount Rothermere who lives in err England but basically pays no tax in it. Star columnist Littlejohn lives year round in Florida in a gated community.
Express group – owned by pornographer Richard Desmond who routes all his profits through Luxembourg and pays essentially no tax. I think Luxembourg is in Europe but surely that can’t be right as the Express backed UKIP & Tories. The Express is a stain on the nation and an irrelevance politically but pollutes the fading minds of its retired white readership.
Inbdependent – which supported the Tories on election day to everyone’s amazement – owned by non-dom ex KGB oligarchs.
ALL these papers werely utterly desperate for Millbroon to lose because of the threat of press reform and regulation