We have to save Rupert

After reading the article mentioned in my previous blog, my lunch was only half eaten, so I turned to page 3 of the Inquirer of July 16^th (part of the Australian Weekend edition). I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Australian understands loyalty. “Elite few spearhead the anti-Murdoch campaign”, it proclaims. “We are seeing a media coup led by a tiny gaggle of illiberal liberals”. I was a tad dazzled at this liberal use of the word “liberal” but then I started thinking. What really happens inside the Australian? Does the editor get a memo from upper management instructing him/her to jump to the Murdoch’s defense? Do the journalists elbow each other out of the way in their rush to volunteer for the job? Or do those assigned to it go “Geez, why me? Now I have to invent something to try and spin this as an anti-Rupert crusade”?

I won’t dissect the article (you can find it here) but the main gist is that there is now a campaign led by a various group of people which aims solely at promoting their own self-interests. Considering that the date for the author’s next speaking engagement is listed at the bottom of the article or the shameless plug for his own book by Mr. McIntyre from page 2, for the Australian to bemoan the use of the media to promote self-interest is ... shall we say … hypocritical. But we shouldn’t let small details like that bother us. After all, this “tiny gaggle” all have an axe to grind against the maligned Murdoch press, whose sole objective is to inform us, objectively, on the important issues affecting us. You know, issues like the extra marital affair of John Prescott (former Labour deputy prime minister), Chris Bryant’s (Labour MP) Y-fronts on gay-sex websites or Hugh Grant’s “roadside larks with a hooker in Los Angeles in 1995”. Reporters paying off the police for information? Why on earth report on that? It is an issue of no consequence.

The article also warns against what it sees as the main driving force behind the campaign, namely the suppression of media freedom. But since, the freedom to publish garbage and make a shitload of money doing so is clearly not a narrow self-interest of the Murdoch press, we sadly cannot call them “self-interested crusaders who pose as warriors”