Monday 26 April 2010

Now, even Murdoch fears that Murdoch is going over the top

Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair columnist and Murdoch biographer, is widely seen as a a credible though critical observer of the Murdochs, and so has been taking an interest in the media shenanigans around the British General Election.

It appears that Murdoch senior is not sure his son James his associates have been playing a blinder. They risk making media power an issue in the election campaign - specifically by so publicly protesting The Independent's offensive assertion "RUPERT MURDOCH WON'T DECIDE THIS ELECTION. YOU WILL".

Murdoch senior knows that the power of the media is not always subtle - but seems to feel that being too quick to boast about it may perhaps rather spoil its public influence.

So the Murdoch pro-Cameron strategy may not be best served by the most intriguing quote, something that Wolff reports was allegedly said recently by The Sun's political editor.


“It is my job to see that Cameron fucking well gets into Downing Street,” proclaimed Tom Newton Dunn, political editor of the Sun, to a group of journalists from rival papers, recently.


Did he really say it?

The New Statesman's Mehdi Hasan suggests it would be a "dynamite" quote if it can't be credibly denied (which may also depend on who else was there), and hat tips lefty blogger Adam Bienkov with spotting the Wolff report.

It also appears that Murdoch is not keen to start a spat with Mr Lebedev, on whom Murdoch junior reportedly declared open warfare in the Indy office's spat. This seems to reflect the age-old Treaty of Westphalia style non-aggression pact between propreitors rather more than any ethical consideration.

1 comment:

_______ said...

Building an anti press monopoly/Murdoch movement, would chime well with the public's outrage at arbitrary power being exercised by bankers and gov't institutions. Now's the time for the progressive press, 38 degrees etc to build the campaigns and movements.