Friday , March 29 2024

Murdoch’s Shame

Today the Sun published a photo of the 7 year old Queen and her mother allegedly doing a Nazi salute in 1933. I am not going to show it because “shares” only encourage that type of behaviour. Of course, it was on the newspaper’s front page with the classy headline “Their Royal Heilness.” Buckingham Palace’s response is summarised here. As you all are aware, the Queen served in the military in World War II and her family refused to leave Buckingham Palace during the war despite Churchill encouraging them to do so (and the palace being bombed). The King, the Queen Mum and the current Queen served the nation valiantly in World War II. Her Uncle, Prince Edward turned Edward VIII turned Duke of Windsor was known to harbour Nazi sympathies throughout the 1930s and possibly into the war.

Today’s headline is typical of the soulless, money grubbing style of Murdoch and his media empire. This just puts the icing on the cake to his other wonderful decisions in media. The list of his paper’s shame are too many to mention, but some key ones I thought I would mention:

1. Phone hacking by the News of the World. (The Mirror also engaged in phone hacking). Those creeps would break into people’s voicemails. Because of their reckless behaviour there was a call to even limit the freedom of the press through the Levenson Report recommendations. Luckily, those recommendations were not adopted, thanks to the Conservatives, and newspapers still have complete Freedom of the Press.

2. Page 3. While I don’t support the policy of Caroline Lucas and others of wanting to ban page 3, does the nation’s largest paper really need to be publishing pictures of topless women? Couldn’t Murdoch buy off a porn magazine and publish it there? Just a thought.

3. Political affiliations. I am glad that Mr. Murdoch supported the Conservatives in the past couple general elections and before Tony Blair. But it shows what kind of principles the man has if his papers switch allegiance based off who they think is going to win. It is even worse in Scotland, where the Scottish Sun decided to support the Scottish Nationalist Party.

4. The Scottish independence referendum. The Sun was neutral. Seriously, while every other paper came out against it. Murdoch is known to be friends with Salmond and supported the break up of the United Kingdom.

5. Fox News. Murdoch created Fox News based off the model of angry talk radio. While there a lot of smart and decent commentators on Fox News, O’Reilly and Greg Gutfiled come to mind, there brand is anger. Like the Sun, Fox News focuses on crime and sensationalism, basically making people scared. The commercials follow suit, telling you that you must buy gold to avoid the next global crash. It gives a bad name to American conservatives the world over, and has played a part in radicalising the base of the Republican party. Reagan could compromise; because of Fox News, the current crop of Republicans are not allowed to, on anything. It’s a bit rich that an Australian makes the litmus test of who among us is truly American patriotic enough.

Luckily, the British people are turning their shock and horror (Murdoch’s favourite emotions) not on the Queen who has reigned and served for 63 years, but on the sleaziness of the Sun. God Save the Queen and shame on Mr. Murdoch.

About Ted Yarbrough

Ted is the co-founder and editor of the Daily Globe. He is a long-time blogger on British politics and has written a thesis on Thatcherism.

Check Also

Back sanity on fox hunting!

Tony Blair has said one of the biggest regrets from his time in office was …