Vicious, toxic, unstable--what Murdoch has wrought in Australia, Britain, and the U.S. [View all]

[Ponietz]

This was in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. Its author, Kevin Rudd, was Prime Minister of Australia. This cancer is eating at the heart of western democracy.

Rupert Murdoch: The Cancer Eating the Heart of Australian Democracy

“Beneath the sound and light show that passed for Australian politics last week, there is a much deeper question of what underlying forces have been at work that have brought us this low. The uncomfortable truth is, since the coup of June 2010, Australian politics has become vicious, toxic and unstable. The core question is why?
...
“But on top of all the above, while manipulating each of them, has been Rupert Murdoch - the greatest cancer on the Australian democracy.

“Murdoch is not just a news organisation. Murdoch operates as a political party, acting in pursuit of clearly defined commercial interests, in addition to his far-right ideological world view.

“In Britain, Murdoch made Brexit possible because of the position taken by his papers. In the United States, Murdoch's Fox News is the political echo chamber of the far right, which enabled the Tea Party and then the Trump party to stage a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. In Australia, as in America, Murdoch has campaigned for decades in support of tax cuts for the wealthy, killing action on climate change and destroying anything approximating multiculturalism.

“What's unique about Australia is Murdoch owns two-thirds of the country's print media. No other democracy has anything approaching his effective media monopoly.
...”
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/cancer-eating-the-heart-of-australian-democracy-20180826-p4zzum.html