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February 16, 2004 –
Some Americans know the name Rupert
Murdoch – far from all, but a number know the name and its
association with at least one of this man’s media outlets, such as
FOX News or The New York Post.
An even smaller number of people know
that this man – whose full name is Keith Rupert Murdoch – has media
holdings overseas as well.
But very few people are aware that this
Australian-born political activist controls more of the world’s
media than anyone else – most of it, perhaps – and, on a daily
basis, plays out a combination of lowball tabloid propagandizing
combined with political hardball that has let him – and lets him at
this very moment – shape the business, social, and political
realities of most of the nations of this planet.
To begin to get an idea of the span of
Murdoch’s reach, here is a simple listing of his current holdings:
Adalaide News, Australia
News America Publishing, Inc.
Times Newspaper Holdings, vice
president
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp,
co-owner and chairperson
William Collins PLC, Scottland
News Corp, Ltd., Australia
Fox Entertainment Group, CEO
British Sky Broadcasting, UK,
chairman (the BBC’s top competitor)
City Post Publishing Corp,
chairperson
Cruden Investments, co-owner
News Ltd, Group and Assoc.
Companies, Austrailia
Bemrose Publishing, owner
Bay Books, owner
United Technologies, director
And a few other companies. Each of these
companies has many holdings within its overall umbrella. So, for
example, media outlets controlled by this one Australian born
political activist include:
Fox Broadcasting Co. (Fox News, Fox
Network, Fox Family, Fox Sports)
Twentieth Century-Fox TV
Fox Filmed Entertainment movie
studio
over twenty Fox-owned TV stations
FX Cable TV Network
An additional 20+ regional sports
outlets
Channel 10 in Sydney, Australia
Channel 10 in Melbourne, Australia
News Group Productions and Skyband
in the US
Satellite Television PLC in England
BSkyB, UK (cable and satellite
station that reaches all of Britain)
Star TV, Asia
JSkyB, Japan
SkyLatin America, Telepiu
London Weekend Television
(part-owner)
Before you even get into the details,
this seems like a whole lot of the press from a single man – never
mind a foreign-born man – to own in America, and around the world.
When you get into the details – like
that Star TV Asia alone, "reach(es) more than 300 million viewers in
53 countries across Asia (and) STAR is watched by over 173 million
people every week." (source:
startv.com) – you begin to get the true picture of just how
vast, powerful, and completely dominating all across the globe Mr.
Murdoch’s control of the media is – and each and every piece of it
he actively – making no pretense not to – uses to push his personal
political agenda through flat out propaganda-type tabloid reporting.
But wait, let’s not leave out at least a
partial list of his newspaper holdings, just so you know what his
reach and control is even on that level:
New York Post
Village Voice (yep, that’s him, too)
Boston Herald
Chicago Sun-Times (some pretty big
ones all over the country, huh?)
San Antonio Express-News (where it
all began for him in the US)
Times, Sunday Times (and associated
publications) in London, England
The News Of The World And Today, UK
Australian, Daily Telegraph, Sunday
Telegraph, Daily Mirror, Sunday Sun, News and Sunday Mail, and
Sunday Times in Australia
He also owns TV Guide, TV week, and the
Star Trader, among other magazines. Yes, your TV Guide is one of his
tools as well.
Hmm, funny that the three nations he
dominates most in the West, America, Great Britain, and Australia,
led the charge into Iraq, being on a completely different page than
the rest of the world, huh?
Oh yeah, he owns a network in Italy as
well – Sky Italia. Wait, they, not so coincidentally, came along
into Iraq, didn’t they, bucking the European trend.
Odd. It almost seems like the Iraq war
was launched by support drummed up by an Axis of Murdoch media
holdings if you stop to think about it, doesn’t it?
The above listings are in no way
complete. We left out things like The Sun, a UK tabloid with a
circulation of over 4,000,000.
What sort of stories does The Sun run?
Well, as luck would have it,
tabloid-level smear stories like this one (see article:
John Kerry Girl Tells All):
"THE beauty said to have had a fling
with presidential hopeful John Kerry has recorded a bombshell
tell-all interview.
"Journalist Alex Polier taped a talk with a US TV network at
Christmas.
"The former Washington intern, 27, told all about an alleged
fling with the 60-year-old super-rich senator in spring 2001."
Yes, a day before the actual woman
actually spoke to say there was no affair and she wasn’t even an
intern (see AP News article:
Woman Denies Affair With Kerry), Murdoch’s paper not only made
the above claim, but went further on to push his right-wing
political agenda by asserting against all reality:
"Kerry was front-runner for the
Democratic nomination to take on George Bush in November. His
hopes were hit as hints of a scandal emerged."
Hmm, odd statement to make when, in
fact, this "scandal" has not emerged as anything but rumor and has
not "hit" Kerry at all, as he continues to roll on.
But what The Sun is really reporting is
that Murdoch is planning a "hit" on Kerry, and, as you see clearly
here, he will use his vast holdings worldwide to carry out his
agenda.
Murdoch’s agenda in the past has
included union-busting in the UK, pushing first capitalism in China
(i.e. his right to make money) then a reversal to a soft stance on
communism in return for the right to own media there. In the UK
currently, he is doing everything possible to undo the BBC – and the
situation regarding the death of David Kelly is bringing him nearer
to his goal, as currently, "Leaked Whitehall documents revealed the
(British) government has considered breaking up the (BBC)
corporation into "separate entities for England, Wales, Scotland and
Northern Ireland". (see Scotsman article:
Ministers Urged to Rule Out BBC's National Break-up)
As reported in a July 21, 1995 New York
Times article titled, "Murdoch and Laborite: Britain’s New Odd
Couple":
"Rupert Murdoch is Britain’s most
powerful non-Briton. His media outlets… are so influential that
critics charge him with single-handedly destabilizing the
monarchy and snatching the elections."
The article details how then-Labor Party
leader Tony Blair had moved "far ahead in the public opinion polls"
to replace then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with the help of a
new ally for Labor, Rupert Murdoch. Back then, the article reports,
Murdoch owned 37 percent of the UK newspaper market, in addition to
his B Sky B network that "blankets Britain."
Well, did Murdoch leaving his usually
ultra-conservative alliances and siding against his once staunch
ally Thatcher show that he was indeed an unbiased, fair-minded man
not allied to any party?
Indeed, it did show his true allegiance,
as the NY Times reported. The issue that caused him to ditch
Thatcher and push Blair was none other than the one that is his
central concern in America today, and why he sides with the
Republicans here: media regulation.
"The 63-year old media tycoon is
known to be furious at the ruling Conservatives for proposals
released in May that could effectively block him from expanding
further in television here unless he was willing to scale back
his newspaper holdings."
So Blair went before Murdoch and said
that he was "concerned about the role of a powerful "media
regulator" in the Government plan," the Times reported.
And so Murdoch dropped Thatcher and
adopted Blair. And so, not coincidentally, Britain shortly
thereafter voted out Thatcher and in Blair.
See any possible seeds of Blair being
brought into the Axis of Murdoch.
Not coincidentally, when both
Republicans and Democrats got together last year to vote to restrict
how much media one person can own in America, President Bush opposed
the legislation. (see Washington Post article:
Lawmakers Defy Bush on Media Rules)
You see, Mr. Murdoch’s agenda is not
right-wing or left-wing after all – it is simply Murdoch-wing. He
uses and manipulates entire nations for the sake of his own personal
business interests. In Britain he was granted "privilege allowed to
no other newspaper proprietor," as the NY Times reported, which
allowed him to buy up 5 national newspapers while also combining Sky
and British Satellite Broadcasting into what is now the all powerful
B Sky B. Again and again he was allowed to go around the Monopolies
Commission thanks to special status granted to him by – you guessed
it – candidates he had helped get elected, including Thatcher
herself.
It is astounding to think that a
foreign-born man could so openly come into the UK, then into
America, and manipulate their very governments and electoral
processes and still fly under the radar for most of the nation. Ted
Turner was a household name, Murdoch still is not in America.
Murdoch’s central game to maintain his
hold on power consists of a two-pronged attack: 1) base-level
tabloid style news that puts entertainment value far above
integrity, and 2) a claim to be the true patriotic station for
whatever country he happens to own a network in.
For example, as we have reported
previously, while Murdoch’s Fox News Network is flying the American
flag on its corner 24 hours a day and telling us it speaks for true
American patriots, he is British holdings to preach anti-Americanism
in a "patriotic" pitch to Britain. (see story:
Rupert Murdoch on a Rampage)
Murdoch is just a force for change
today. He was at the top of Michael Gorbachev’s list of favorite
people at the time of the coup that led to the end of the former
Soviet Union. In fact, as reported in an October 4, 1991 New York
Times article titled, "The Media Business; The Deal Is Already Done
For Gorbachev’s Coup Book," Gorbachev had the Soviet Embassy contact
Murdoch personally when he wanted to write his memoirs.
"HarperCollins received a telephone
call from the Soviet Embassy in Washington last week, asking
that Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation, the
publisher’s parent company, fly to Moscow to meet with Mr.
Gorbachev about publishing his book…"
Not that Rupert was involved over there
or anything, right? And, another oh yeah, we didn’t mention exactly
what all Murdoch’s News Corp. owns, such as the massive publisher
HarperCollins – yes, that on top of everything else is controlled by
this one Australian-born man. In case you weren’t aware,
HarperCollins is the company that just took over, "William Morrow &
Company, Avon Books, Amistad Press, and Fourth Estate," which has,
"made HarperCollins one of the largest and most dynamic trade
publishers in the world." (source:
News
Corp website - spend some time looking around at all the
things this company owns, and notice he owns even more newspapers
than we listed above, but remember, this is only one of the media
companies he has – it is not everything, but only one part of his
total holdings.
Yes, he dominates the book presses, too.
HarperCollins operates in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, among
other places.
Just for kicks, Murdoch even owns the
National Geographic channel, both the US and Worldwide versions.
Oh yeah – again – he also owns DirectTV.
You know, the satellite TV that is taking over what used to be the
cable TV market and controls what stations are available in millions
of American homes.
He owns a UK record company called
Mushroom Records, the National Rugby League in Australia, and – oh
yeah part 4 or 5 I guess – "the leading OOH advertising company in
Emerging Europe," a News Corp subsidiary called
News Outdoor
And let’s not forget The Weekly
Standard, a ridiculous right-wing US magazine. Yep, that’s him, too.
And
Broadsystem, "the UK's leading provider of outsourced marketing
communications."
One man. From Australia. A political
activist. Who does his best to aid himself by "single-handedly
destabilizing," the governments of nations he has a business
interest in, "and snatching the elections."
So look at those American flags waving
on the Fox News Network, but don’t tell me they flag represent
America.. The flag on the Fox News screen flies only so that
Australian-born Rupert Murdoch can pretend he is looking out for
you, when, in the simple reality of things, he is playing you
against the rest of the world and the rest of the world against you,
toppling governments and installing his personal political choice
for the sake of increasing his already unfathomable fortune and hold
on world power.
Rupert Murdoch’s Axis of Murdoch nations
launch wars that the rest of the world deems insane, elects the
candidates of his choosing, and hate each other as he plays them
against each other.
Who ever imagined a single, non-office
holding man could grow so powerful? Who ever imagined nations would
let a single man – who is not even from their land – dominate them
so?
There is one man alive today who is the
most powerful person on planet Earth, and no, it is not the man who
lives in the little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue – indeed, it
is a man who has the power – and uses it – to determine who lives in
that White House, as well as in capitol houses all over the globe.
NOTE: Since this article ran, Murdoch
has purchased Dow Jones, which gives him control over the Wall
Street Journal - perhaps the most influential business daily in the
country, in addition to buying
myspace.com.
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