Sunday 26 October 2008

Quote of the week

When the Daily News closed, Mike Royko worked for its allied morning newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times.

In 1984, when Rupert Murdoch bought the Sun-Times, for whom he said he would never work:
"No self-respecting fish would be wrapped in a Murdoch paper."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh yes.

That's the same Rupert Murdoch who said, shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, that it would likely lead to lower oil prices. $30 a barrel, I seem to remember.

Now one often hears that in News Corp, the opinion of the magnate has little bearing on fiercely independent editors who work for newspapers as diverse as the Australian, the Courier Mail, the Townsville Bulletin, the Cairns Post, the Tablelander, the Tablelands Advertizer, the Post Douglas and Mossmann Gazette and so on... and on... and on.

Lots of editors came out in early 2003 opposing the Iraq War and querying bodgy evidence about WMDs, didn't they?

Er... they did? Did ONE News Corp editor write a well-argued, passionate, anti-war editorial in the run up to the disastrous Iraq invasion?

I stand to be corrected, but I do believe the answer is not one - worldwide. Hmmm. That's editorial independence?

Our plight would be amusing if it was not so tragic.

The fact that not one mainstream politician in Australia - to my knowledge - even occasionally complains in public about Murdoch's wholly undue dominance of our public discourse really says it all about the farce Australian democracy has become in such a warped media environment.