London Indymedia

Rupert Murdog Blair 'attacked BBC over Katrina'

Gutter Press | 18.09.2005 09:20 | Indymedia | London

Media mafia boss Rupert Murdog claimed, in a speech made in New York,
that the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina was full of hate for America.
Evidently Americans consider his SKY NEWS channel, sister of FOX News to be a far more serious prosepct. It seems that the broad sheet daliy's style of reporting doesn't go down well with the Tabloid Tossers.

There seems to be a bit of a war brewing between the Murdog and his News Corporation which includes the Times Group and the BBC and perhaps the Gaurdian.
So Hurricane Katrina caught Bush and co with their pants down and the BBC and others have shown the truth which make them anti American.
Citizens of the worlds most powerfull and richest country starving to death on the streets of one of there most famous cities.
They didn't like the way certain media companies covered it.
Bill Clinton(oral sex specialist) seems to be jostling with Bliar to suck
Bush's dick !! or perhaps to join the skull an bones.

IMC should be looking to make the most of the divisions in the corporate media, if we can drive a wedge into the gap how about a stake in the heart for Murdog.

Interesting article By Danny Schechter further down the page .


Blair 'attacked BBC over Katrina'
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4257190.stm

Mr Murdoch, who owns the Sun, the Times and News of the World newspapers and Sky Television, labelled the BBC a "government-owned thing".

'Straightforward reportage'

He said people around the world were jealous of the US, and anti-Americanism was common throughout Europe.

Blair ‘shocked’ over BBC Katrina coverage
By Joshua Chaffin and Aline van Duyn in New York
Published: September 17 2005 00:38 | Last updated: September 17 2005 00:38

 http://news.ft.com/cms/s/933f0642-270a-11da-b6fe-00000e2511c8.html

Tony Blair was shocked by the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans, describing it as “full of hatred of America”, Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, revealed on Friday night.

Mr Murdoch, a long-time critic of the BBC who controls rival Sky News, said the prime minister had recounted his feelings in a private conversation earlier this week in New York.

The Brits question their news, why don't we?
 http://www.gnn.tv/articles/1639/When_the_News_About_the_News_is_the_News

By Danny Schechter
The Brits question their news, why don't we?
A trip to London can be a tonic to media critics like myself who at times despair that the last thing the media in this country discusses is itself. In contrast, the media in London sometimes treats media issues as a font page story even when there isn’t a scandal involving a prominent journalist.
Last weekend, for example, the Guardian led with a report on a speech by a former BBC executive denouncing the “easy cruelty of tabloid Britain.”
No doubt the story was played large because the speech was given at a Guardian sponsored conference on Television even though the speaker, former BBC director John Birt, was disliked by progressives and is an advisor to Tony Blair. In fact, the late British screen writer Dennis Potter—who just before he died said that he named his cancer “Rupert” after Rupert Murdoch—called Birt at the same conference years back a “croak-voiced dalek” who was killing the soul of the BBC.
As the BBC itself became more market driven, he seems to have become more critical.
“Lets not tabloidize our intellectual life,” he said. “Public service journalism would serve the nation better if it shifted the balance of its political journalism towards depth of analysis; towards insight and substance; towards honest, patient inquiry.”
Hear, Hear!
The British media is hardly a paragon of righteousness when it comes to journalism. Many of its print journalists put style over substance and the BBC can be every bit as trivial and jingoistic as the worst of our TV news. After all, Murdoch still has a substantial presence and it is the country which along with its former colony Australia gave birth to the tabloid press. Many media outlets may have moved off of Fleet Street but its spirit remains.
In June when I was in Britain just before the G-8 meetings, I was impressed with all the news coverage of world poverty and Africa. But, on this trip, in the post-tube bombing period, I noticed more attention paid to government measures to harass foreigners and stories about growing threats from “yobs” (rude working class delinquents) and “Yardys,” Jamaican immigrants accused of importing gun violence.
As we in America discovered, terror attacks are used to stoke fear of enemies and repression.
At the same time, these issues are at least being discussed widely in the widely as is the war in Iraq in ways that our media still avoids.
Example, while I saw President Bush’s latest pro-war speech covered, it was only the Fox News Channel’s sister station SKY News which took it the most seriously. Some in the media noted that as public opinion turns against the President his speeches are increasingly on military bases and remote locations like Nampa, Idaho.
Other newspapers like the Independent have been on the warpath against Bush’s new UN ambassador John Bolton’s plan to gut the UN millennium goals to reduce poverty.
There’s been so much anger in the press over this that the British government may be forced finally to stand up the Busheviks who want to roll back initiatives that the while world has endorsed,
On Saturday, a columnist for the pro-war Telegraph, Vicki Woods, was openly calling for British troops to leave Iraq, “pretty damn quick.”
“I think America will stay in Iraq, no matter how much Vietnamlike peaceniking goes on because they have poured too much concrete over there to leave behind. Well, let them.
“When Bush’s Iraq adventure blows up in his face, I don’t want British troops under the fallout….There’s nothing in it for UK plc. Troops out.”
And that’s in a conservative newspaper.
The Financial Times magazine carried a page long attack this weekend on the relentless and cynical hunt for negative news stories.
John Lloyd calls for more positive news. Not soft features that whitewash important news or sanitize wars or other serious stuff but news that promote solutions and involve readers as citizens.
He reports on an organization in France called Reporters of Hope that is advocating more ‘good news.” Louis Beriot, a former head of the TV station Atennne 2, is quoted as saying “journalists have gone beyond their first duty that is to present facts in an attempt to cover the truth. Now they judge more than they narrate. And that attitude leads them to see evil everywhere…”
Perhaps that’s true in parts of Europe. American journalists are criticized more for being deferential to power, for not speaking truth to deceptive politicians but rather carrying their water and treating them respectfully. Collusion with evil is also evil-at least the last time I looked.
Unfortunately, mainstream news outlets don’t debate these media issues and many are not doing all they can to be more innovative and get beyond the extreme partisanship that reduces light to heat in so much of the media discourse.
How about some more debate in our media about the media?
If the Brits are not afraid to do it, why not us? And speaking of Brits, how is that the usually apolitical Mick Jagger is singing out against Condi and the Neo-cons on his current concert tour while most of our musicians avoid speaking out.
Just look at his concert grosses, mate.
“News Dissector” Danny Schechter is blogger-in-chief of Mediachannel.org. His film WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception) on the media coverage of Iraq will have its US TV debut on the Independent Film Channel on September ll. (see wmdthefilm.com) Comments to  Dissector@mediachannel.org

Gutter Press

Comments

Display the following 5 comments

  1. Who is Michael Delaney? — Flying Picket
  2. THERE ARE NO *REAL* DIVISIONS IN THE MASS MEDIA — twilight
  3. Yes Sir Mr Twlight — gutter press
  4. twilight — P
  5. Murdoch has no morality - but the BBC needs to be freed from Murdoch-apers — downandout

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