Does Rupert Murdoch Have Influence Over The Media?

Russell Brand

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian American business magnate, who became managing director of Australia’s News Limited, inherited from his father Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch in 1952. According to Wikipedia, he is the founder, chairman and CEO of global media holding company News Corporation, the world’s second-largest media conglomerate, and its successors News Corp and 21st Century Fox after the conglomerate split in June,2013.

Does Murdoch have a large amount of influence over the media?

21st Century Fox is known for possessing the media companies with the name Fox. That includes movie studio 20th Century Fox, Fox News, Fox (TV) Broadcasting, local Fox stations, and Fox radio. It owns other channels such as National Geographic. It also owns The Wall Street Journal and several other newspapers.

In 2014, Murdoch even made an offer to buy Time Warner, which owns CNN, the second largest cable news group in the U.S. (Fox News is the largest).

Does Murdoch have certain political views, or is he neutral?

Wikipedia states that News Corp papers were accused of taking sides in the 2013 Australian election.  Following the announcement of the Liberal Party victory at the polls, Murdoch tweeted “Aust. election public sick of public sector workers and phony welfare scroungers sucking life out of economy…”

British newspaper The Independent wrote that Murdoch berated journalists at his papers for not doing enough to “stop the (left-of-center) Labour Party from winning the election” in Britain.  He “warned them that the future of the company depended on stopping Labour from getting elected,” writes The Independent.  After Mr. Murdoch paid a visit to his company’s The Sun newspaper, they devoted a two-page spread to the election – with the left-hand page containing a 10-point “pledge” to voters written by David Cameron.

What if Murdoch decided that a war in the Middle East (against Iran or Syria, for example) would be good for him or that he could profit from it?  Do you think his news channels and print media would remain neutral, or would they push a pro-war agenda?

Murdoch’s News Corp owns several newspapers other countries as well. In England, he owns The Sun.

In fact, he seems to own everything under The Sun. Russell Brand talks about it in his “Trews” video.

(Updated article)

British Paper ‘The Sun’ May Stop Showing Photos Of Nude Women

CNN

The Sun, Britain’s best-selling newspaper, may finally be ditching its topless Page 3 models after after 44 years.

Last Friday’s print edition of The Sun put a halt to one of British journalism’s most controversial traditions, however CNN states it has since reappeared in subsequent issues.

The Sun is owned by the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch.

Spat Between Russell Brand And The Sun

 

In the U.K., the publication The Sun is having an increasingly bitter spat with Russell Brand with a Friday front page article declaring that 64 per cent of Brits don’t find the comedian funny and 68 per cent think he is a hypocrite.

The findings appear accompanied by the headline “THE NATION SPEAKS”, though the survey, conducted by YouGov, polled just 574 people.

Earlier this year Brand won a libel payout from The Sun on Sunday.

Recently, Brand became agitated when British Channel 4 News reporter Paraic O’Brien asked him much he paid to rent his east London home during a protest over the cost of housing.

He was with a 400-strong group that was demonstrating against the tripling of rent on a Hoxton estate due to a planned development currently threatening 93 families with eviction.

The hundreds of residents and supporters of the New Era estate in east London were taking part in the protest over fears that a takeover by US investment firm Westbrook could lead to further rent hikes.

The reporter O’Brien suggested that the housing problem was being exacerbated by the super-rich buying property in the capital.

During the interview, Brand told the reporter: “I’m not interested in talking to you about my rent, mate. I’m here to support a very important campaign.”

When asked about the value of his home, he went on: “It’s rented. We don’t know the value, you would have to talk to my landlord.”

He ended the interview by saying to the reporter, “Snides like you, mate, undermine [the campaign]. You’re a snide.”

Russell Brand / Trews video.