Thursday, July 14, 2011

Rupert Murdock and Morality

David Cameron, the British PM, has been shown to have ignored warnings sent to him about former News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, whom he made his media advisor.
Rupert Murdoch, a media tycoon whose morality has never been his strong point, gave a lot of money to the Conservative party, of which Cameron is the leader.  Murdock was backed by Cameron until it became clear that the News of the World tabloid had participated in not only criminal endeavors, but crimes against basic decency.
They deleted items from the cell phone of a dead girl so the parents and others were lead to believe she was still alive.  The deletions were done so the relatives of the deceased could send more messages that could be published in the newspaper.
The Labor party is very upset about this and Cameron has had to come around to their point of view in order not to appear a heartless money-grabbing politician.
Murdock owns the always dubious New York Post, the Wall Street Journal and the “fair and balanced” Fox News. There was a story today that  one of his British newspapers had asked a  NY cop for the background information on the 9/11 victims.
Cameron had to come around and have a special judge investigate Murdock. The right wing in America loves Murdock. If some scandal breaks out here, will they go all the way down the road with him?
Before Murdock bought it I worked a couple of summer on the New York Post and returned to be a college professor when Fall approached. I worked with a great guy named William Slattery. When I was there he had cancer, but needed to work to have medical coverage. After Murdock bought the paper, Slattery was at a crime scene where his weakened condition allowed a perpetrator to sever both his biceps.
People tell me that later the Post got rid of his health insurance coverage. After all, if your employees can make it appear that a missing 12-year-old girl is still alive to get stories, why would you expect such a man to care about a disabled guy with cancer.

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