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Why Rupert Murdoch Is Not The Devil…

Ok, so this is just an obvious joke which you’ve probably heard:

It’s wrong to call Rupert Murdoch the Devil! I mean he may have done some pretty nasty things but he’s never been as lacking in ethics as Murdoch…

One of the difficulties I have when I look at the current state of the media in this country is working out to what extent that the particular journalist is running an agenda where they don’t care what the truth is, or whether they’re actually as stupid as they appear.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arrogant enough to think that anyone who disagrees with me is ignorant and dull-witted. And, of course, when you have billionaires and multimillionaires owning sections of the media, they will be appointing editors who share their worldview. It’s not necessary for Richie Rich to dictate to Hass Noebbels what slant to give a particular issue. Rich knew that Noebbels supports a small government, low tax, pro-MAGA agenda; he wouldn’t have appointed him otherwise. And, in case you think I’m being sexist with my pronouns there, well, isn’t that just the sort of thing you woke people would say, and that’s exactly why you’re not editing the paper…

It’s no surprise that the editors of the papers owned by the one percent are also owned by the one percent, so, as the joke goes, if Anthony Albanese were to walk on water across Lake Burley Griffin, the Murdoch headline would be: ALBO CAN’T SWIM! The idea that papers push the agendas of big business when they’re owned by big businesses is no more a surprise than if the ACTU bought out a media company that they’d appoint an editor with a pro-union background, rather than Andrew Bolt.

The surprise is that some people don’t seem to agree that the ABC should be more left leaning than media companies that are unapologetically right wing in order to provide the balance that’s in its charter. Similarly, if all the media companies were suddenly taken over by socialists, then the ABC should be more pro free market than the rest of the media. The ABC should be presenting the both the views of the rest of the media AND some alternatives.

So it’s rather strange the way ABC has framed some stories in their news bulletins…

Actually it occurs to me that it’s strange that we use the term “stories” when talking about news items and never take a step back to consider that a story is something with a narrative which is often fictional…

Anyway, the lead is frequently something along the lines of “The Government has been criticised over its announcement/decision/action.” However, when you are given the substance you find that nearly all the criticism is from the Opposition and groups affected by the decision are either ambivalent or mildly supportive. It’s not that the position of the group of Abbott disciples shouldn’t be included; it’s simply that, by making it the lead, it sounds like the government is coming under fire from neutral observers. It’d be like announcing “Breakthrough in male pill condemned as dangerous!” only to find that it was the Pope who is merely reiterating his Church’s position on birth control.

And the lack of pushback from the idea that the Voice Referendum was a “disaster” certainly demonstrates a lack of balance from our ABC. Now if it were the proponents of the Voice pushing that narrative I could understand it. However, the idea that it was failure is predominantly coming from those who opposed it. This only needs a moment of reflection to see how weird it is:

  • Are they opposed to the holding of referendums? If not, why is it a “disaster” when the status quo is maintained?
  • In a time when people are struggling with the cost of living wasn’t the $400 million plus cost of the referendum a good way to put money in people’s pockets? After all, where did the costs go? Workers employed by the electoral commission, printing, advertising and various other things which would have put money into people’s pockets…
  • Or are they saying that it was a disaster because people listened to them and voted accordingly?

Whatever one thinks of the current government, I’m worried about the way that the ABC seems to be going along with the whole politics as a sporting contest thing. You know, we’re not analysing whether it’s good or bad policy, whether what people are saying is factually correct, all we’re interested in is who scored and who’s in front and whether the pitch will respond to spin now that the pace attack has failed to remove the minister.

While it’s not entirely true that the media never look at the veracity of claims, it’s usually done as a gotcha moment. Just like when the politician is asked the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question. A yes is bad but a no is worse, and the politician has to be on his or her toes to answer without actually saying anything. Even a question such as, “Why have you changed your mind on this?” is loaded with the implication that any human who has discovered new information and decided that a different path would be worth following is far too wishy-washy to be ever trusted, whereas a pig-headed ignoramus who never admits to being wrong is the sort of person that we need. For some reason I just remembered that Rupert has recently hired Tony Abbott…

When Peter Dutton said the quiet bit out loud about how he wasn’t interested in making it easy for Labor to govern, surely that should have been the signal that he’s not interested in working with them to improve conditions for all Australians by mitigating their poor policy. In other words, Dutton was saying that he wants to screw things up as badly as he can in order to improve his chances of being elected. While he may not be the first Opposition leader to think that way, there’s a danger with making it too obvious. You might as well say, “Yes well, this is a great idea and very much needed but we’re going to try and block it because it might make the government too popular!”

 

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10 comments

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  1. Phil Pryor

    R. Murdoch was always destined to be a galactic parasite in a world of submission to his befouled egocentric fixation of his holy destiny to be a superforeman, overseer, manager, controller, referee, the mighty Bullshit BOSS, a Pope of Putridity… Sickening.

  2. Steve Davis

    “…and whether the pitch will respond to spin now that the pace attack has failed to remove the minister.”

    A masterly use of the metaphor.

  3. New England Cocky

    ”It’s wrong to call Rupert Murdoch the Devil! I mean he may have done some pretty nasty things but he’s never been as lacking in ethics as Murdoch…” Enough said.

  4. andyfiftysix

    Murdoch was always interested in only one thing……money. What better way to hold your base than appealing to it constantly.
    I think he prides himself on knowing which way the wind blows hence his ability to find his niche. And the MAGA crowd was big in the usa, a ready cash flow of stupid people all too willing to beleive.

    Yes in some ways his influence has caused a lot of heart burn but I also think that its a primer to what societies through out the world are about to experience. You see it in the MAGA, a longing for a mystical past that never truly was. An inability to think and a slide away from democracy. And yes, a drift towards those who created the fucking mess in the first place. Trump isnt the fixer up, he is part of the scam. It was interesting to see how far Murdoch was willing to go to protect his company . Yes Murdoch had a hand in the chaos. He should be proud of his acheivements……arsehole.

    But i truly beleive that if you sit with dogs you get fleas, play with fire you do get burned. In any case, he cant be too far off falling off the perch.

  5. paul walter

    Bottom-dwelling control-freak slime sucker feeding off the misery he causes.

    Have a think about his tactics during various mid east wars.

  6. Katie

    The lying, conniving, misogynistic, racist political psychopaths in the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance make Satan look almost angelic by comparison! The fact is that the callously inhumane fascists in the Alliance have FAILED every single opportunity to show that they have ANY level of compassion, integrity, credibility or give a rat’s arse for ANYONE or ANYTHING with a pulse EXCEPT, of course, themselves and their avaricious, self-serving, multi-millionaire non-taxpaying parasitic supporters in the Top 1%. I’ve got it on good “authority” that the Devil himself is extremely worried when it comes time for those smug, callously inhumane, bible-thumping hypocrites and political psychopaths, namely the corrupt, deceptive little misogynist: Phony Abbott, and that smirking, self-promoting sociopath: Scott Morrison, finally do our nation and, indeed, the world a HUGE favour and kick the bucket! Why? Because Satan is (justifiably) worried that he may have his position on the throne in hell usurped by either one of them!

    The rabid misogynistic intellectual midget, Abbott and the ex-member of the paedophile-protecting CULT of Hillsong, the bone-idle Sloth Morrison, couldn’t tell the truth if they had an AK-47 assault rifle pointed at their vacuous heads and even then, they would lie about lying for the sheer hell of it! Besides the war criminal, John Howard, it is almost impossible to think of two more self-serving, totally corrupt, unspeakably cruel political sociopaths as thoroughly depraved as Abbott and Morrison except, of course, that callously inhumane, rabid racist, political psychopath Peter Dutton who is waiting in the wings like some horrific Behemoth waiting to rule over us like some autocratic, third-world dictator!

    Clearly the shameless, openly-biased, deceptive right-wing propaganda pushed out in the garbage wrap known as the Murdoch press was inhaled and believed by the most stupid, easily manipulated intellectual midgets, thoroughly entitled misogynistic predators and insular racist red-necks in the country! ANYONE with any level of foresight or intelligence KNOWS NEVER to purchase, read or believe ANYTHING they inhale from the grotesque Murdoch press! The ONLY reason to purchase an internationally discredited Murdoch rag is if the nation has depleted its source of available toilet paper and the ONLY possible reason anyone would want to read all the crap pushed out by Murdoch’s talentless, lying, Z-rated hacks is if you wanted to lower your intellectual quotient back to single digits!

  7. Harry Lime

    An unconfirmed report has Satan counting the numbers against a mooted challenge by his former protege,the Prince of Propaganda, who is beginning to resemble an unwrapped mummy.God has been approached for comment,but is believed to be incommunicado somewhere in Hawaii.
    His spokesangel suggested the fevered media pack should quote”Fuck right off”

  8. Andrew Smith

    Swings and roundabouts or karma. If viewing Murdoch’s interests as embedded in a Venn diagram, they have much to be worried about, and not US legal cases, but crossovers in the UK.

    Along with several other cohorts of power, especially including other nom doms in right wing media inc. Legatum’s (K)GB News, then US fossil fuel Atlas or Koch Network think tanks, Tories, some Labour, pollsters and many related grifters; big stench of Russian corruption.

    Just by being present in the UK or London after the ’90s, but more so the past 15+ years, Brexit and then Trump, the same power players would have been influenced by Russia organically, without realising….. being well out of their depth vs. long game of influence played by KGB/FSB

  9. Terence Mills

    It seems that Rupert Murdoch craves recognition and has desperately tried to build a legacy that would endure long after he has passed.

    A British Knighthood seems far from likely now as he doesn’t hold British citizenship and after the phone tapping scandal he is most unlikely to be recognised by the Brits.

    He did receive a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for services to publishing but shortly after, he relinquished his Australian citizenship to further his US business interests.

    It is not generally known that Rupert received a papal knighthood from Pope John Paul II in 1998. This made him a Knight Commander of St Gregory and sometimes he will tack this on to his profile as KCSG along with his AC.
    The Papal award was somewhat unusual as Murdoch is not a Catholic and does not follow Catholic doctrines and certainly doesn’t respect the sanctity of marriage which I believe is still a feature of Catholicism. The St Gregory knighthood is bestowed upon people of “unblemished character” which, at the time caused a great deal of outrage and not a little hilarity in religious circles although the Murdoch publications tended to ignore it. He appears to have been honoured purely for donating large sums of money to the Vatican : reminiscent of The Godfather III where Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) tried to buy legitimacy by donating substantial funds to the Vatican and in return is awarded a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Sebastian for his charitable works – didn’t work out well for either of them.

    So, just as Brian was not the Messiah, Rupert is not the Devil, just a very sad old man.

  10. Harry Lime

    Terrence,the Devil is adamant that he is not Rupert Murdoch either.

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