By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982
In the same week that one of his newspapers in the UK published a private conversation between the Prime Minister and Jacqui Janes, the mother of a serviceman killed in Afghanistan, as a means of attacking the Prime Minister - which has been widely criticsed by both independent Tories and Labour people - Rupert Murdoch has backed controversial Fox News prensenter Glenn Beck's assertion that Barack Obama is "a racist".
Beck's comments that Obama "has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or white culture...this guy is, I believe, a racist" prompted a row in the US, with many advertisers removing advertising from his show.
In an interview with Sky News Australia this weekend, Murdoch backed Glenn Beck, saying:
"Obama did make a very racist comment about blacks and whites and so on, which he said in his campaign he would be completely above. And that was something which perhaps shouldn't have been said about the President, but if you actually assess what he was talking about, [Beck] was right."
(At 18 minutes)
The news is relevant as the Sun are now actively campaigning against the Labour party and Gordon Brown - in the hope that a Tory government would abolish Ofcom and allow greater freedom for News Corporation to campaign on issues in the same style as Fox News.
Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw warned in a lecture to Progress last month:
"David Cameron says he wants to abolish or dismember Ofcom. What a co-incidence! The Tories have also said they would lift the legal requirement on broadcasters to be politically impartial. Impartiality is one of things the public value most about British broadcasting and the reason TV and radio news are more trusted than newspapers. But of course if broadcasters were no longer required to be impartial, that would pave the way for a UK version of Fox News."
Worrying indeed.
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a) denounce his so called friends in the Sun, deny his involvement with the Murdoch organisations?
or
b) say nothing, hope it blows over and does not dent his lead over Labour too much?
Would you blame any black man in America for harbouring a grudge? Obama doesn't and quite frankly must be a very big man not to.
However, his inaction over this is very noticeable. He's shown that he cannot be statesman-like and point out that the Scum was simply wrong in illegally recording someone without their permission, and manipulating a woman who is clearly suffering grief. It would make Cameron look like a reasonable, compassionate man if he were to say "the Sun should not exploit Mrs Janes' grief". He hasn't because Cameron will do *anything* to get into power. Nasty.
Hmmm, a tad naive, don't you think?
Many of these people appear on shows hosted by NewsCorp's Fox News channel which is owned by... wait for it... wait for it... non other than Rupert Murdoch! I think it was on one of these (freak)shows that Dan Hannan decided to publicly rubbish the NHS in a wholly disingenuous fashion tacitly to support opposition to Obama's pioneering health care bill. (Which legislation is expressly designed to extend health care to about forty million uninsured American citizens of ALL colours and creeds.) No sane European would give credence to anything any of these nutcases have to say about anyone or anything and I feel this website should not be giving such unworthy opportunists and exhibitionists the time of day to be honest.
As for the more general point that "David Cameron says he wants to abolish or dismember Ofcom", that would be, er, untrue. David Cameron rather says, it should have the function of handing out the licences and regulating the content of broadcasting, not setting policy - which, madly of course, he sees as the responsibility of the elected government.
And why in any case might he not be keen on an organsiation whose former chief executive was Stephen - now Lord - Carter (who went on to act as Gordon Brown's strategy advisor, and then communications minister), whose former chair, David Currie, was previously a key advisor to Brown when he was Chancellor and a major Labour donor, and whose current chief executive, Ed Richards, - wait for it - also worked as a Number 10 strategy advisor, before which he was a Labour policy wonk, and was described by then-BBC director general Greg Dyke (also a Labour donor) as a "jumped-up Millbank oik".
The thought of not having such an organisation guaranteeing the political impartiality of what we see on our screens must fill all right thinking people with terror.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/06/cameron_ofcom/
It was funny as hell, like most other content on The Onion. Try to pretend Stephen Fry said it or something, if that would make it more seal-clappable for you.
" The Tories have also said they would lift the legal requirement on broadcasters to be politically impartial......
.... But of course if broadcasters were no longer required to be impartial, that would pave the way for a UK version of Fox News."
Is that first statement even true?
Won't happen.
Victim In Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck
Linking this to Cameron is grasping at straws.
The Mirror has played the toff line, over and over and over again. They are vehemently anti-Tory and persistently play the man not the policies.
Do the Tories complain?
This is going to be 1996 in reverse, now you will know how it feels. Labour were happy to join in and twist the knife then. Live by the sword, die by it.
Pardon me if I enjoy every delicious minute of it.
You had me up to the last bit of flouncing.
Did you call the Sun out during its time when it was endorsing Labour? Er no.
What do you think that makes you?
But as for Ben Bradshaw linking Cameron with this is yet another of his hysterical flounces.
More generally, I am becoming increasingly frustrated with what I see as unrelentingly negative campaigning by Labour politicians and in articles such as these: "The Tories want to do THIS, and have said THAT", when often it appears to me that they haven't. If I am noticing this, what of the voting public: if Labour cannot campaign positively (or even honestly?) then what chance does democracy have?
Old habits die hard I know particularly when the press has been at your beck and call for the last 10 years but I seriously believe you should drop it.The only winner in a muck spreading campaign will be the red tops.
Is there actually any evidence that the Sun's support for the Tories is down to their hope it will abolish Ofcom rather than simply their calculation that the Tories will win?
Incidentally, it's amusing to see so much concern about Murdoch's influence on our public life (and indeed prompting from some, for instance, that it's time to look at foreign media ownership - after 12 years). I can't remember it being such a big issue a few months ago. What's changed?
what Barak said wasn’t racist but sadly the PC brigade turn truthful statements into racist statements and therefore blulabour are once again exposed as hypocrites as their PCness means they must also believe Barak was being racist but of course they would never accuse of that. bottom line is that what Barak said was true, that generally white police think that only black people commit crime - as true here, with our force, as it is in America (and sadly the belief of far to many politicians too)
PS Gordon Brown makes john major look like the best PM this country has ever had!!
We don't need this sort of campainging media in the UK.
I want unbiased broadcasters, I just want the facts/news reported and to be able to make my own decisions. But that currently isn't the case.