In the old Soviet Union one tool Kremlinologists used to forecast shifts in the political climate was to peruse the inside pages of Pravda and spot the apparently insignificant article that they could identify as a marker for any forthcoming reconfiguration.
The articles were placed as signposts for mid level Communist Party members to prepare for changes in direction in their party “work” which, for the CPSU, as with any other totalitarian party, was almost exclusively agitprop –agitation and propaganda.
The BBC in very many ways can be seen as an agitprop arm of the British liberal/left cultural elite, a group which usually manages to direct the UK’s political and social agenda even though much of it (EU membership, unrestricted immigration, political correctness etc etc)is deeply unpopular with the majority of the population.
Moreover, with the globalisation of information media ,the lack of any patriotic affinity in the mindset of this elite allows it to integrate seamlessly with its equivalents in the USA and elsewhere
So the appearance of this article by Tom Geoghegan on the BBC website “Rupert Murdoch:Could his US empire be affected?” should be ringing alarm bells for conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic. For this is not really about the rather shady ethics of a few phone hacking tabloid journalists. Indeed, while the story only appeared to involve celebrities and politicians it never really gained traction. Moreover, because the hacking took place several years ago under a Blair/Brown Labour government that at the time was very cosy with Rupert Murdoch and his tabloids meant that it remained low key with Milliband, Balls and co. Besides News of the World staff had been jailed and the editor at the time had resigned so heads had rolled.
But what has given it legs in New York and London is the revelation that the paper’s staff had hacked into a murder victim’s mobile phone. This has, quite rightly, created immense public anger – and given the liberal/left media elite, so often out of tune with popular opinion, a golden opportunity to spearhead a lynch mob.
It’s not about Murdoch and his papers – after all the dead tree press as a vehicle for news is a dinosaur on its way to extinction. The real target is Murdoch the TV baron with Fox News in the USA and Sky News in Britain. Note how Geoghan slips “right wing” into the mix. It’s a standard adjective that is permanently attached to any comment about Fox News in the UK and, it must be admitted, a brilliant example of the effectiveness of well organised agitprop. The fact that every other US network/cable news platform is imbued as deeply as the BBC in the liberal/left metro mindset is always studiously ignored.
It is no accident that the long buried phone hacking story was disinterred by the New York Times last autumn and quickly picked up in Britain by the Guardian and the BBC just as Murdoch’s bid for the whole of Sky. the BBC’s only meaningful TV competitor was about to go under public scrutiny. All three have a keen interest in undermining Murdoch and emasculating Fox because they know that Murdoch is the only player in the game who threatens the dominant position of the liberal/left cultural elite in the UK and the USA.
A perceptive piece in The Commentator reads the runes with chilling accuracy. This is not about journalistic ethics. It’s a fight to protect the authority of the great and the good against the upstarts of the new media – and, at the moment, the right wing establishment is doing what it does best….running for cover.
It’s the revenge of Dan Rather.
In all this stuff about about the BSkyB takeover, I can’t remember anyone from ITV making the sort of comments we keep getting from beeboids like Peston (who is the chief troll in this) or say Toenails.
People know about it here, but I don’t see it getting much play outside the NY Times/WaPo/HuffPo/Daily Show axis. Most people outside the bubble or the fringe aren’t in abject terror of Murdoch owning too much. We’ve got worse problems with media being in bed with the Government, when the NY Times and the WaPo had to apologize for being in the tank for The Obamessiah during the eleciton, and the GE boss told his employees at CNBC to report more positively about Him. Then the President sold us out to China to get GE a sweet manufacturing deal, after which he appointed the GE boss to be the President’s Jobs Czar.
We’ve got worse problems, and the monopoly problem can’t really happen here. And hell, a shady Mexican billionaire basically owns the New York Times, and nobody bats an eyelid. Maybe the story will be flogged on BBC World News America, but so few people watch that it’s been cut down to a half hour and shunted off to a few local PBS stations.
Just as soon as this ‘scandal’ shows signs of implicating the left and labour party insiders the story will be shut down at the speed of light.
The second the BBC has to air damaging revelations about labour they will run close the lid and it will be onto other news, any other news.
Cassie,
You are right. They will just waltz off to the nearest wine bar as if nothing ever happened !
Great post DP.
That was by the Aged P, not me.
Uuf! Sorry Aged P!
David Cameron in a gut wrenching interview claimed ‘his heart went out to Gordon for his suffering at the hands of the evil NI’ Brown in tears about the MSM coverage of his sons illness was he BBC? I dont f*cking think so, Gordon Brown sheds tears exclusively for Gordon Brown, Gordon Browns heart is too full of spite and hatred and self pity for it to have room for anything that is not directly to do with Gordon Brown himself.
Oh really Dave? The rags that willingly ran planted stories about McRuins rug rat, stories planted there by McRuin himself. Heart still pumping purple piss is it Dave? Still crawling with sympathy for a man who used his sons illness to grub up some short term popularity and to improve his awful polling figures?
Well Dave, funny thing about your fake sympathy about McMentals anguish and emotional pain, funny thing is that Dave used his own sons illness in the exact same way using the exact same techniques, the same heart warming pics in the degenerate red top MSM these two hypocrites now curse and decry.
Strange that now both these men who used the red tops and their own kids illness to grub some electoral and polling advantage, who had no problems having their photo ops with their ill kids, had no problems at all with the reporters who were tipped off by the insider trading in political stories, who had no complaints when this ugly tactic paid off for them and it saw their polling figures lift.
So whats the difference between Brown and Cameron? Both are stunning hypocrites who happily used the degenrate red tops when it suited their petty interests, both had no moral qualms about using their childrens illness to grub some temporary political advantage. Both used the red top degenerate MSM, helping and assisting and briefing the very people they now attack and both in a display of breathtaking hypocrisy claim some kind of victimhood at the hands of the degenerate red top rags when in fact it was this political class that created the degenerate MSM we are now stuck with.
These hypocrites used the red top degenerate hacks as their own personal way to manipulate the common masses, for years they worked closely with these degenerate rags to pimp and peddle their grubby strategies, they both had no problems using their ill children to gain some petty temporary gain and now they are both playing he victim to…wait for it…oh yes, gain some short term petty selfish advantage. These people are not the victims they want us to believe they are.
These people could walk upright under the belly of a snake.
Will even the breaking new of three bomb attacks now in MUMBAI knock BBC-NUJ’s ‘get Murdoch’ campaign off its top billing?
http://www.ndtv.com/video/live/channel/ndtv24x7
George, you know the answer to that will be ‘no’! An alien invasion wouldn’t shift the BSkyB story from its top billing.
The Mumbai bombings have just appeared on the BBC website in 5th place. Being an atrocity in India, rather than in Pakistan, it will doubtless keep dropping down the news agenda as the day goes on.
The Telegraph already has a live feed to cover the attacks. The BBC probably won’t follow suit – though it has a live feed on Murdoch on its home page.
Indeed; BBC-NUJ’s self-serving political propaganda continues, at our expense.
Today on BBC2 the comment was made ‘A US Senator has demanded to know if News International hacked any phones in the USA’ – So one single senator asking the question is a pretty thin basis for including the sentence in the main news, but that is what propaganda is all about – taking trivia, twisting it and calling it the ‘news’.
Ah, but it’s an influential senator. Which must mean he’s a Democrat and the BBC listens to him a lot.
ISLAMIC JIHAD in MUMBAI today, carried out by LeT Islamic group again:
[Extract from ‘Wikipedia’]:-
” The outfit [LeT] also collected donations from the Pakistani immigrant community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic Non-Governmental Organisations, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen.[2][20][77] Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives have also been apprehended in India, where they had been obtaining funds from sections of the Muslim Community.[78]
Although many of the funds collected went towards legitimate uses, e.g. factories and other businesses, a significant portion was dedicated to military activities. According to U.S. intelligence, the LeT had a military budget of more than $5 million by 2009.[20]
Use of charity aid to fund operations
“LeT assisted victims after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. In many instances, they were the first on the scene, arriving before the army or other civilians.[79]
A large amount of funds collected among the Pakistani expatriate community in Britain to aid victims of the earthquake were funneled for the activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba although the donors were unaware. About £5 million were collected, but more than half of the funds were directed towards LeT rather than towards relief efforts. Intelligence officials stated that some of the funds were used to prepare for an attack that would have detonated explosives on board transatlantic airflights.[80] Other investigations also indicated the aid given for earthquake victims was directly involved to expand Lashkar-e-Taiba’s activities within India.[81]”
“Lashkar-e-Taiba”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashkar-e-Taiba
The above report states that LeT is partly funded by Pakistanis in UK.
Will INBBC investigate?
‘CRANMER’:-“Sorry, but Trinity Mirror Group are the most corrupt of the lot ”
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2011/07/sorry-but-trinity-mirror-group-are-most.html