Time Magazine has an article on Rupert Murdoch, somebody who I consider one of the most evil people on the planet - ranking with the head of Exxon-Mobile and key members of the Bush Administration.
The reason, in Murdoch's case, is that his love of profit over truth has made him billions of dollars, but at what will eventually be trillions of dollars worth of harm to others, particularly future generations. And will include a significant loss of life.
A person's lack of respect for truth is not found in the conclusions he endorses. It is found in the way he supports those conclusions. A person who loves truth makes sure to employ sound reasoning and an accurate description of the facts to reach his conclusions. Failure to do this shows that he cares nothing about the truth of his conclusions, regardless of what those conclusions actually are.
Fox News (the star jewel in Murdoch's media empire) cares nothing for true premises or sound reasoning. They will report as fact virtually anything they can get away with that supports their desired conclusions.
Those conclusions happen to be those which have cost the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of Americans, and threaten the well-being of future generations through the effects of global warming, just to name the worst attrocities. Murdoch cannot escape responsibility for supporting the virtual distruction of basic moral principles embodied in the Bill of Rights. Those who will suffer harm from these failings will also be able to credibly blame Murdoch for those harms.
Now, he wants to buy the Wall Street Journal and the Dow JOnes company.
No doubt, he will use them to make himself wealthier, with further disregard for the loss of life, health, and well-being that others will suffer as a result.
When he talks about purchasing the Wall Street Journal, he rhetorically asks, "Why would I spend $5 billion for something in order to wreck it?"
He wouldn't.
That is to say, he would not "wreck it" for his own purposes - he will profit from it. It's the rest of us who will suffer.
The problem with his media empire to date is not that he has not profited from it. The problem is with the loss of life, health, and well-being others have and will suffer as collateral damage from the faux news he has provided in his lust for profit.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Murdoch's Collateral Damage
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What is driving me insane about this is that in the media there is plenty of discussion about the unethical ways in which Murdoch uses his media properties to promote his business interests and will distort truth to do that, but there is hardly any -at all- discussion of the broader issue of the consolidation of our media into the hands of the few.
In my opinion, it should already be illegal for Murdoch to purchase the WSJ. There should be anti-trust regulations and cross-ownership rules and rules against owning a given percentage of a local market that prevent what philosopher Jurgen Habermas has called the "refeuadalization of the public sphere."
There were such laws, but they have been steadily chipped away at for almost 3 decades now.
Last night, Keith Olberman pointed out that a few years ago Congress, led by Trent Lott, was getting ready to set the limit of local ownership at 35%. Murdoch owned 39% so he began lobbying for an increase, and gues what, Congress ended raising the limit to 39%. And not to long after that Lott got a book published by the Murdoch owned Harper Collins.
And for the record, I consider Joseph Kony to be the most evil man on the planet.
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