Rupert Murdoch’s Late Night SOPA Tweets
Oh dear Rupert, is this how you spend Saturday night these days?
Well now we know where he stands on SOPA, and what a great relationship he has with Google and other leading Internet companies…
Brits Have Too Many Holidays For A ‘Broke Country’
Happy New Year, y’alls. Looks like at least one of your wishes may have started coming true already. Dylan Welch from the Sydney Morning Herald reports on Rupert Murdoch’s meticulous documentation of his own descent into senility:
“Either @rupertmurdoch is genuinely now on Twitter, or some disgruntled ex-NOTW journo just won the hacking Olympics.”
Less than two days after joining Twitter, media mogul Rupert Murdoch appears to have had his first brush with tweeting-before-thinking, after suggesting that the British have too many holidays for a “broke country”.
Though Mr Murdoch, who joined Twitter less than 48 hours ago and already has almost 40,000 followers, quickly deleted the message, it was preserved by some Twitter users and quickly spread around the website.
“Maybe Brits have too many holidays for broke country!” Mr Murdoch, who is holidaying on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy, wrote about 6am Australian time.
Publish and be damned … the tweet that Murdoch withdrew.
His wife,…
News Of The World Phone Hacking May Have Had 5,800 Victims
In America, you watch Fox News, in Britain, Fox News watches you…The tally of individuals whose phones may have been hacked on behalf of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid has been upgraded, first from “a handful” to “hundreds”, and the total stands at 5,795 and counting, the Telegraph reports:
Police have now found 5,795 names notes seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World private investigator who was jailed for phone hacking in 2007.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: “It is not possible to give a precise figure about the number of people whose phones have actually been hacked but we can confirm that as of 3 November 2011, the current number of potentially identifiable persons who appear in the material, and who may therefore be victims, where names are noted, is 5,795. “This figure is very likely to be revised in the future as a result of further analysis.”
The…
NewsCorp Blockers For Your Browser
Afraid that you or your family could unwittingly stumble into the tentacles of the NewsCorp empire? Murdoch Block for Chrome and MurdochAlert for Firefox claim to keep you safe:
MurdochAlert warns you whenever you visit one of the 100+ Murdoch Family-controlled websites. If you’re not ready to block them all, MurdochAlert can warn you instead. Also it’s handy for identifying news sources controlled by the Murdoch Family.
NewsCorp agents in multiple countries have been arrested for hacking into the phones and computers of at least thousands of innocent people. Since the Murdoch family controls 100+ high-traffic domains, it is difficult for average users to know which sites could potentially place them at risk.
MurdochAlert identifies the domains that may place users at risk for Murdoch-related hacking. MurdochAlert shows a bottom warning box whenever you visit a Murdoch-controlled sited.
Rupert Murdoch Optical Illusion
Via The World’s Best Ever, while being grilled by Britain’s Parliament yesterday, the News Corp. head was revealed in him true form thanks to an extremely unfortunate background:
The Rupert Murdoch Pie Video
The most exciting moment during the Murdochs’ parliamentary testimony in the never-ending British phone hacking saga was undoubtedly the foam pie attempt on Rupert, foiled only by the kung fu strike on would-be pieman Jonathan May-Bowles by Murdoch’s wife, Wendi. Respect to the tiger mother!
Rupert Murdoch’s Tabloid Hacked To Report His Death
The woes keep piling on for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, as the homepage of its popular Sun paper was altered to feature an amusing fake report on the mogul’s committing suicide “in his topiary garden”. The Guardian notes:
News International websites for the Times and the Sun were taken down last night after hackers targeted the Sun’s web pages and redirected traffic to another page falsely reporting that Rupert Murdoch had been found dead. The breach was apparently the first hack of a major UK newspaper’s website.
The LulzSec hacking collective hacked the tabloid’s site, and also claimed to be “sitting on their [the Sun's] emails” and that they would release the emails on Tuesday.
‘News of the World’ Phone-Hacking Whistleblower Found Dead
Not thought to be suspicious but is unexplained. Hell of a dark omen with Rupert Murdoch due to appear before Parliament tomorrow. Amelia Hill, James Robinson, Caroline Davies report in the Guardian:
Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.
Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, is said to have been found dead at his Watford home.
Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but the force said in a statement: “At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of…
Adam Curtis Paints Rupert Murdoch As Satan
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…
Do You Smell The Chum?
Well, this past Tuesday certainly was freaky. In case you hadn’t noticed it, a massive disturbance rippled through the Force with enough power to knock the shoes off of anyone paying attention. It’s unclear to me precisely what it all adds up to, but I suspect that the universe just passed through a Paradox Inflection. Just possibly the forces of Right Wing Corporatist Perversion have actually begun to turn on themselves. Here’s just three examples of what I mean:
1. Rupert Murdoch retreats on his big to monopolize Britain’s largest satellite service BSkyB. In the wake of the recent phone hacking scandal where person’s in the employee of Murdoch’s flagship publication News of the World was forced to close up shop for illegally eavesdropping on the survivors of terrorist attacks and bribing police officials. Many initial reports saw that as a savvy move to divert attention from Murdoch’s attempt to acquire…
Crikey! FBI Opens Inquiry Into Murdoch’s News Corp.
Richard A. Serrano, Jim Puzzanghera and Kim Geiger write in the LA Times:
The phone hacking scandal that has ignited a political firestorm in Britain jumped the Atlantic on Thursday as the FBI opened an investigation into whether British reporters tried to access cellphone messages and records of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in violation of U.S. law.
The preliminary probe further rattled the New York-based global media empire of Rupert Murdoch, who was forced this week to withdraw his $12-billion bid to take over Britain’s largest satellite broadcaster, and raises new questions about the future of News Corp.
U.S. officials said the FBI is trying to determine if a full investigation is warranted, and no evidence has yet emerged to confirm that News Corp. employees sought to hack phones in the United States. But the unfolding scandal sent the company’s battered stock down another 3% in trading.
Evidence of Murdoch’s Newspapers Distorting News to Fuel Racism
Media disinformation and negativity against non-Western cultures in Australia is a terminal disease spreading into the bloodstream of the mainstream media industry in Australia. The following incident demonstrated how easy it is to demonize a Chinese restaurant in Melbourne through the manipulation of news using the techniques of factual omission, misleading heading, misleading bullet-point-highlight, misleading bold-highlight and the editorializing of content using a series of subjective and strong wordings to sell the personal opinion of the journalist or editor as news.
How did Murdoch’s Newspapers demonise a Chinese Restaurant in Melbourne?
Can you tell the problem with the following report by the Herald Sun?
St Kilda Chinese restaurant food bill handed to man in ambulance
By Jessica Craven From: Herald Sun April 26, 2011 7:21PM
- Man suffered seizure while dining at Chinese restaurant
- Man given bill as he was being loaded into ambulance
- Restaurant manager said someone had to pay for meal
A CHINESE restaurant that slapped a customer…
Osama Bin Wankin’
Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post once again demonstrates that his tabloid “newspapers” (he owns The Sun in the UK among others) are in a class of their own when it comes to cover headlines.
In addition to this classy example, the Post suggests that some of the titles in Osama’s porn collection include:
- Talibuns
- Oral Qaeda
- 1,000 Arabians In One Night
- Debbie Does Abbotabad
… and the list goes on. Makes you wonder what’s in Rupert’s own collection…
OutFoxed: Obama Bin Laden
This picture tells you all you need to know about the bias of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox TV network (thanks Jeff Scott for sending it in). For those of you who need a refresher on just how “fair and balanced” Fox News is, take another look at Robert Greenwald’s classic Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.
John Pilger Interview With Julian Assange: ‘I Have Murdoch Insurance’
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Perhaps as a return favor for posting bail for him, Julian Assange has given veteran British journalist John Pilger an exclusive interview. It will appear in the print edition of New Statesman, but some choice excerpts are on the New Statesman site:
… On Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of leaking diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, Assange says: “I’d never heard his name before it was published in the press.” He argues that the US is trying to use Manning – currently stuck in solitary confinement in the US – to build a case against the WikiLeaks founder:
“Cracking Bradley Manning is the first step,” says the Australian hacker. “The aim clearly is to break him and force a confession that he somehow conspired with me to harm the national security of the United States.”…
Yesterday, Assange’s lawyers warned that if he is extradited to America he could face the death penalty – for embarrassing…
You Are What You Read: Sarah Palin
The Wall Street Journal curiously allows Christian film company Walden Media’s president and co-founder Micheal Flaherty to write an article in defense of Sarah Palin’s newfound love of the novels of C.S. Lewis, some of which Walden has adapted into the Chronicles of Narnia series of movies. Well actually it’s not curious at all because the Journal is a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which not so coincidentally owns 20th Century Fox Films, distributor of the latest Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Not that you’d know that unless you did the research for yourself, because there is no such disclosure at the head or tail of the article, sampled below:
Since Katie Couric first asked the question a couple of years back, journalists continue to pepper Sarah Palin with that classic ice-breaker: “So, what are you reading?” The subject came up again in a recent profile in the New York…
Simpsons: Fox News ‘Not Racist, But #1 With Racists’
The boundary-pushing Simpsons team risk the wrath of Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp minions by bashing Fox News Channel (remember that the Fox network carries The Simpsons). As well as having a dig at FNC, the gang also suggest there’s a mainstream media conspiracy to create one crisis or another to take our minds off what’s “really” happening (as if!, right?). Check it out:
All Hail The Tea Party
For me this is the clearest sign yet that Rupert Murdoch has turned the Wall Street Journal into just another political mouthpiece, little different in its Republican boosterism from his tabloid New York Post. The Journal’s lead story today, titled “Birth of a Movement” is a fawning assessment of the Tea Party with the message that it’s here to stay and that’s a wonderful thing:
Less than two years ago, Amy Kremer and Jenny Beth Martin were 30-something suburbanites in metro Atlanta, frustrated by recession, dismayed by the election of Barack Obama and waiting for the next chapter of their lives.
Ms. Kremer, a former Delta Air Lines flight attendant, had quit her career to raise her daughter. The child had grown up and just moved out, and now Ms. Kremer was filling her time with two blogs—one on gardening, one on politics.
“I had this empty space in my life,” Ms. Kremer recalls.
Ms.…
Why Glenn Beck Will Win
Photo: Erna-Louisa (CC)
No, not the 2012 presidency! At least I hope not, but Brandweek’s Todd Wasserman says he will beat the attempted advertiser boycott urged by progressive groups:
It seemed like a good idea: To get a program canceled, go after the advertisers. But such logic doesn’t seem to apply in Murdochland.
A yearlong attempt to have advertisers boycott Fox News’ Glenn Beck Program—by organizations including StopBeck, People for the American Way and MediaMatters.org—has actually resulted in more than 100 advertisers fleeing the highly rated program. But try telling that to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch. Fielding questions during a News Corp. shareholder meeting this month, Murdoch flatly denied that the advertisers had pulled out of the controversial show even though many have been quoted on the record. “That’s not true,” said Murdoch. “Maybe four or five have been moved over to [Bill] O’Reilly’s program. [But] no one has taken any money…
