Rupert Murdoch berated Sun journalists for not doing enough to attack Ed Miliband

[forest444]

Adam Sherwin and Oliver Wright
The Independent
21 April

Rupert Murdoch berated journalists on his tabloid papers for not doing enough to stop Labour winning the general election and warned them that the future of the company depended on stopping Ed Miliband entering No. 10.

The proprietor of Britain’s best-selling tabloid warned executives that a Labour government would try to break up News Corp, which owns The Sun, The Times, and The Sunday Times. He instructed them to be much more aggressive in their attacks on Labour and more positive about Conservative achievements in the run-up to polling day, sources told The Independent.

The News Corp. boss, who has made no secret of his dislike of the Labour leader, told the editor of The Sun, David Dinsmore, that he expected the paper to be much sharper in its attacks on Labour.

At: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/rupert-murdoch-berated-sun-journalists-for-not-doing-enough-to-attack-ed-miliband-10191005.html
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My thanks to Don Viejo for bringing this up at the Latest Breaking News forum.

[still_one]

1. Sounds like a good reason to break it up to me

[forest444]

2. When asked what the greatest threat to freedom of the press was,

UN Press and Expression Freedoms Rapporteur Frank LaRue didn't say 'government censorship'.

He said media consolidation.

And he was right.

[still_one]

3. Absolutely

[LeftishBrit]

4. This is disgusting beyond belief

Well, nothing is quite beyond belief, when it concerns Murdoch and his tabloids.

They have always done whatever they can to move politics to the Right.

When the Tories won a close election in 1992, the Sun headline the next day triumphed 'It's the Sun Wot Won It'. Years later, Murdoch disowned this headline to the Leveson enquiry, and claimed that he had rebuked Kelvin Mackenzie, the Sun editor, for it. Maybe, maybe not - it might have been too truthful an admission of how Murdoch, who is not even a citizen of the UK, let alone elected to anything, manages to control our politics.

The Murdoch press is also often highly unethical in how it obtains information: remember the hacking scandal, which caused another Murdoch tabloid, the News of the World, to close down? Mind you, the non-Murdoch tabloids are as bad, for political bias, for personal attacks on people sometimes including obscure private citizens, and for unethical practices.

[Ironing Man]

5. wrong target

Murdoch has political power and influence because 2 million people buy his paper every day and five and half million people read it every day.

if those people didn't like what they bought and read, and didn't buy it again then Murdoch would have no political power and influence. he would just be some random ranty Australian leaving messages on MP's answerphones that would be instantly deleated, in the same way that letters written in green ink with oddly placed capitals and punctuation go straight in the bin.

we don't have an ugly, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, politically illiterate electorate because we have the Sun, we have the Sun because we have an ugly, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, politically illiterate electorate.

if the Sun, and the wider Murdoch empire were dissolved tomorow those who read the Sun et al would not suddenly become Guardian/Independant reading liberals, they would be the same people with the same views who get to see one less pair of tits every day.

Murdoch has power because 5 million people who are as British as you or i give it to him. i'd prefer they didn't, i don't blame him for using influence that they give him, i blame those who give him that power and do so every day.