Fox News Owner Rupert Murdoch’s Petty, Nasty Ploy on British Establishment

Orders Publication of Picture of Royal Prince Partying in the Altogether

The News Corp. is a media empire controlled by press baron Rupert Murdoch.  It owns, among other things, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and a whole bunch of British newspapers.  Anyone who has even a small knowledge of the operations knows that the editorial side of these organizations is mean, petty, and vindictive.  In short they mirror the image of their controlling shareholders.

Further proof of this has come from the publication in the British tabloid The Sun of pictures of Prince Harry partying in Las Vegas with some young ladies.  The individuals are apparently ‘clothes challenged’.  Now as far as the news value of the pictures, it is about zero.  After all what’s the point of being a royal prince if you cannot get down and dirty with some young ladies in Las Vegas.  If The Dismal Political Economist were young, unmarried and a prince (and he is none of these) this is the type of thing he thinks he would like to do.

Mr. Murdoch is mad at the British establishment.  They have caught his reporters and management in all sorts of illegal activities, and have arrested a bunch of them.  So Mr. Murdoch is using his press empire in Britain to strike back, by publishing photos whose only purpose is to embarrass his so-called enemies.  He is being investigated by a commission headed by a gentleman named Leveson.

The 81-year-old proprietor instructed Mr Mockridge to splash Friday's edition with the real Harry pictures. A source said: "Rupert said, 'There is a principle here. I know this is about Leveson but this is humiliating. We can't carry on like this. We should run them, do it and say to Leveson we are doing it for press freedom.'" The Murdoch empire was striking back.

Notice he is nicely hiding behind the concept of freedom of the press.  But his real purpose is very transparent.

Not only was The Sun showing Prince Harry's bottom, but Mr Murdoch was, figuratively speaking, mooning the British establishment, including Lord Justice Leveson. This was also a veiled attack on Mr Cameron, whom Mr Murdoch, it is said, blames for the looming threat of statutory regulation by setting up the Leveson inquiry in the first place.

So what we have here is the arrogance of an individual who believes the press is not an instrument of truth and justice or a way for citizens to experience the freedoms they rightly have, but a personal weapon with which to attack those with whom he disagrees.  Of course this conclusion also results from watching Fox News for about 30 seconds.

If anyone's bottom is exposed here, it is Mr. Murdoch's.