Rupert Murdoch at the 2007 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. (CC)

The British phone hacking saga has brought to light the Machiavellian machinations of Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation like never before. Ted Hope reminds us on his blog today that the BBC’s amazing Adam Curtis (The Power of Nightmares) wrote very revealingly about Murdoch earlier this year (using great video clips — go to the source to view them):

Rupert Murdoch doesn’t like the BBC.

And sometimes the BBC doesn’t seem to like Rupert Murdoch either.

Following the principle that you should know your enemy, the BBC has assiduously recorded the relentless rise of Rupert Murdoch and his assault on the old “decadent” elites of Britain.

And I thought it would be interesting to put up some of the high points.

It is also a good way to examine how far his populist rhetoric is genuine, and how far its is a smokescreen to disguise the interests of another elite.

As a balanced member of the BBC — I leave it to you to decide.

Murdoch first appears in the BBC archive in a short fragment without commentary shot in 1968. It shows him ambling into the City of London on his way to see Sir Humphrey Mynors who was head of the City Takeover Panel.

Murdoch was going to ask Sir Humphrey for permission to take over the News of the World. Then he is interviewed afterwards.

The News of the World was a salacious rag, but it was run by Sir William Carr who was a member of an old establishment family. He had already received a hostile bid from the publisher Robert Maxwell. Carr hated Maxwell because he was not British (he was Czech).

Then Murdoch arrived. He wasn’t British either, but he told Sir William he would buy the paper but they would run it jointly together.

Maxwell warned Sir William not to trust Murdoch. He told him: “You will be out before your feet touch the ground”.

Sir William replied: “Bob, Rupert is a gentleman”

But Lady Carr began to worry. She took Rupert Murdoch out to lunch in Mayfair. She reported that he had little small talk, no sense of humour and that he had lit up a cigar before the first course…

[continues at the BBC]

Disinfo.com site note: New video link, thanks to commenters below.

Tesla Motors says the broadcaster faked the car’s running out of power, with the show’s host then announcing “it’s just a shame that in the real world it doesn’t seem to work.”

Tesla also charges “malicious falsehood” for the reporter’s claim that somehow “while it was being charged its brakes had broken,” and for implying that after it overheated it became immobile. In addition, the BBC also reported the car traveled only 55 miles on a single charge instead of 200 (thus implying that Tesla lied about its mileage).

The text of their lawsuit is available as a PDF, while the BBC has issued a statement that they “stand by the programme and will be vigorously defending this claim.”

The spaghetti tree hoax is a famous 3-minute hoax report broadcast on April Fools’ Day 1957 by the BBC current affairs program Panorama. It told a tale of a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the fictitious spaghetti tree, broadcast at a time when this Italian dish was not widely eaten in the UK and some Britons were unaware spaghetti is a pasta made from wheat flour and water.

Hundreds of viewers phoned into the BBC, either to say the story was not true, or wondering about it, with some even asking how to grow their own spaghetti trees. Decades later CNN called this broadcast “the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”

Monsters and villains which have sent generations of Doctor Who fans fleeing for the safety of the back of the sofa will go under the hammer this month.

Costumes worn by Kylie Minogue and David Tennant and Billie Piper are also included in the sale at Bonhams.

Daleks and several Cybermen have avoided extermination to make it into the sale room.

Among the highlights are Minogue’s waitress costume worn when she played Astrid Perth in the 2007 special Voyage of the Damned. It is expected to fetch up to £3,000.

From the same special, 10th Doctor Tennant’s two-piece Paul Smith dinner suit is also valued at the same amount.

A jacket worn by Piper’s character, Rose Tyler, is expected to raise up to £700 while a pair of the character’s pyjamas and dressing gown could fetch £250…

[continues at the Guardian]