Rupert Murdoch, fight promoter
A strange row has broken out over Rupert Murdoch’s comments about what Tony Blair (apparently) thinks about the BBC. The issue is reported in MediaGuardian:
Speaking on Friday night at a seminar hosted by former US president Bill Clinton, Mr Murdoch said: “Tony Blair - perhaps I shouldn’t repeat this conversation - told me yesterday that he was in Delhi last week and he turned on the BBC World Service to see what was happening in New Orleans. And he said it was just full of hate for America and gloating about our troubles.”
The coverage of all this is most odd. In fact Rupert Murdoch can say anything he likes, but the listening public should be careful not to take it at face value. If it’s true, then it says a lot about both Tony Blair’s unquestioning regard for the US (which we also saw in his steadfast support of Bush’s invasion of Iraq) as well as Murdoch’s singleminded hatred of the BBC. If false, then it just says a lot about Murdoch’s Murdoch’s singleminded hatred of the BBC.
Yet the NUJ’s general secretary, Jeremy Dear, has identified this Blair-Bush love-in, as well as using it highlight an alignment between Murdoch and Blair. (I guess it’s going to be a while before the NUJ forgives Murdoch for Wapping.) Bizarrely, the Press Gazette thinks Dear is defending the BBC — a headline that is not borne out by the content.
Stephen Moss says that “all the academic evidence points the other way - to a corporation that is pro-establishment”. Yet the BBC is on back hoof. Downing Street is trying to dismiss the affair. And Rupert Murdoch disappears over the horizon with a spring in his step, untouched by any of it.
