Rolling Stone - "Rupert Murdoch's American Scandals" - Its Not Just In The UK, Great Read

[TomCADem]

Here is a point that I have tried to make on this Board from day one. The greatest obstacle confronting progressives is the death of the Fourth Estate and the corporatization of the news media into a tool for a corporate propaganda without any pretense for objectivity.

You could put Dennis Kucinich or Bernie Sanders in the White House, and the corporate media will lie and distort until both the left, as well as the right, regards them with distrust. Most Americans, including liberals, rely on the corporate media to get their news. Until we can manage to overcome this obstacle, which has become even more burdensome with Citizens United, progressives will be at a severe disadvantage because it is the corporate media that controls the narrative and sets the terms of the debate.

And, the corporate media is not reporting. It is advocating. It is pushing an agenda.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rupert-murdochs-american-scandals-20110803

Rupert Murdoch would like you to believe that the voicemail-hacking scandal at the News of the World "went against everything that I stand for." In his recent testimony before Parliament, the 80-year-old billionaire insisted that the criminal wrongdoing at the London tabloid betrayed the 53,000 "ethical and distinguished professionals" he commands from the pinnacle of News Corp. — the world's second-largest media empire. Besides, he claimed, the scandal at the News of the World involved "a tiny part of our business," which he helpfully quantified as "less than one percent of our company."

At first glance, the systemic campaign of bribery and wiretapping at the News of the World certainly does seem extraordinary. Reporters and editors at what was the largest-circulation Sunday paper in the English-speaking world stand accused of bribing police, hacking the private voicemails of everyone from the royal family to the parents of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and paying more than $2 million in gag settlements to victims — allegedly with the full knowledge of Murdoch's son and heir apparent, James.

But the corruption exposed at the News of the World is not the work of a "rogue" element within News Corp. — it's a reflection of the lawless culture that defines the company. As CEO, Murdoch not only tolerates employees and executives who push the boundaries of legality and good taste, he celebrates them — at least until the cops show up. "There's a broader culture within the company," Col Allan, editor of Murdoch's New York Post, crowed in 2007. "We like being pirates." Whatever veneer of integrity News Corp. may have accrued after its purchase of The Wall Street Journal the very same year masks an ingrained corporate ethos that believes integrity is for suckers. The attitude passed down from the top, says one veteran of Murdoch's tabloids, is aggressive and straightforward: "Anything we do is OK. We're News Corp. — so fuck you and fuck your mother."

Indeed, an examination of Murdoch's corporate history reveals that each of the elements of the scandal in London – hacking, thuggish reporting tactics, unethical entanglements with police, hush-money settlements and efforts to corrupt officials at the highest levels of government – extend far beyond Fleet Street. Over the past decade, News Corp. has systematically employed such tactics in its U.S. operations, exhibiting what a recent lawsuit filed against the firm calls a "culture run amok." As a former high-ranking News Corp. executive tells Rolling Stone: "It's the same shit, different day."