'Cut down to size' means small enough not to threaten private media interests
Today the Times newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, and an arm of his global media empire that includes Fox News, a chunk of Sky TV and newspapers in the UK, the US and Australia, has called for an end to media monopoly… by the BBC.
First, some background.
The general election campaign saw media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers sound the alarm for a free press.
An editorial in his Sun newspaper on April 24 warned the Labour party was planning to censor newspapers if it won the election.
It cited Labour’s pledge to enact the Leveson inquiry’s recommendations and to cap media ownership to prevent monopolies as proof of a partisan agenda. It said that unlike the Tories, ‘Labour actively seeks to silence critics’:
“During all the years the Sun backed them from 1997, Labour said nothing about the size of our company.
Now, as a direct result of the Sun’s opposition, it has sworn to use the law to dismantle News UK if it wins power.
Dozens of innocent Sun journalists, later cleared, were prosecuted on the say-so of a man now standing for Labour.
Meanwhile, the party vows to enforce the Leveson inquiry’s conclusions. It is all aimed at papers such as the Sun.
This is what sinister state censorship REALLY looks like.”
Murdoch is said to have berated staff at the Sun for not trashing Ed Miliband enough, telling journos the future of the company was at stake.
Now that the election is over and media ownership caps are likely off the table, Murdoch’s papers have changed their tune.
On May 12, the same editorial space in the Sun sounded like this:
“After decades of BBC bias against the Tories, subtle and blatant, it’s payback time.
The new culture secretary will, we hope, pull the plug on the bloated corporation’s smug Left-wing agenda […]
The fee should be shrunk so it focuses on first class original TV and radio.
It must be regularly scrutinised for quality, value for money and neutrality.
If it fails, the licence fee is axed. (emphasis original)
And so with the Murdoch-owned Times. Columnist and historian Michael Burleigh writes in its opinion pages today that the BBC ‘resembles an expansionary empire’. He writes:
“The problem is with the default BBC stance on immigration, Israel, nationalism, the EU, the ‘Red’ heartlands of the US, bankers, hedge funds and the City […]”
The piece is part of a right-wing drive to cut the broadcaster ‘down to size’, which probably means ‘a size small enough not to threaten the business interests of private media corporations’.
The Sun more or less spelled this out, complaining the Beeb uses public money to ‘intrude into markets where private firms – local newspapers, for example – should thrive instead’.
Or national ones. As Burleigh writes: “The BBC is not an online newspaper. We have a diverse and vibrant national press that does the job very well […]”
In the end, you either oppose ‘media empires’ and monopolies or you do not. Any attempt to create a genuinely freer market must address both public and privately-owned media to be taken seriously.
Meanwhile, there is something ludicrous in complaining about ‘sinister state censorship’ of a partisan kind when your own interests are threatened and then cheer on ‘payback time’ for the BBC along equally partisan lines.
Especially if you own one of the largest media empires in the world.
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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50 Responses to “Murdoch-owned Times attacks BBC for ‘media empire’ monopoly”
andytheonlyhammer
oh apologies.
BlueApesRevolt
Yes Rupert how are we going to support a free press ?Perhaps we could start by creating laws which allow all journalists the freedom to follow their conscience without fear of sanctions or punishment from the owner/s of the newspaper .We could extend freedom by facilitating wider ownership of newspapers -trusts ,community groups etc could enjoy some of the freedom which you hoard …we can enable this wider access by limiting the number of titles which each entity is allowed to own ..maybe to one .. those who are unfit to run a newspaper will be limited to none -sorry Rupe.
.Freedom will also be enhanced by putting the recommendations of Levenson into law..that is freedom for the public against the lies and distortions that come from your propagandist rag .Rupert you confuse oligarchy/plutocracy with freedom .We badly need a free press ..not one accessible only to the wealthy and which overwhelmingly represents an extreme viewpoint (over 80% of the UK press supports hard right wing policies )..
To me freedom is meaningless unless it is a shared freedom .We need a press which is responsible, accessible and which reflects a wide set of views. To Rupert Murdoch freedom means a tiny wealthy clique having the power to make journalists hone and select news items which reflect and promote the agenda of Murdoch and other wealthy neo-liberals .Murdoch’s model is fundamentally at odds with democracy ..
BlueApesRevolt
I wouldn’t be too sure that the UK is more to the left than the US these days .The US tv news channel MSNBC is solidly left wing ..and promotes views which are to the left of most UK media outlets .
The US have twice elected an Obama administration which has employed a partially Keynesian economic stimulus package in response to the 2008 crash ..at the same time our UK voters have just elected an austerity driven bunch of right wing nutters .
Some of the strongest criticism of these right wing zealots has come from US economists Krugman,Reich and Stiglitz all influenced by the same Keynesian economic model which served post war Britain so well .
Britain also has an unelected head of state ,whose position is a result of being born into a particular aristocratic family .Some of the more idiotic Americans may have a thing for the monarchy but less than 1% of Americans actually want to live under a monarchy.
Now i’m not pretending that America hasn’t done a lot of right wing things ..including suppressing and locking up socialists and communists during the McCarthy era or creating a health system which is run in the interests of fat cat CEOs .and working to overthrow democratically elected socialist Presidents throughout South and Central America.However there is another side to the US ..that is the New Deal loving ,Wall Street Occupying ,Bernie Sanders /Elizabeth Warren supporting side .
Tim Gingell
Good lord, if you think the BBC is left wing you must be perched on the wing where Mussolini sat!
gunnerbear
No, it’s because the BBC website (for example) is free at the point of use.