Moyers Mashes Magpie Murdoch

Guest post by J. Thomas Duffy

I don't have a particular emotional investment in The Wall Street Journal -- Great reporting, lousy politics.

But its fight with, or submission to, News Corps' Rupert Murdoch... Well, it does have a George Bailey-Mr. Potter element to it.

You're the Board here. You do what you want with this thing. Just one thing more, though. This town needs this measly one-horse institution if only to have some place where people can come without crawling to Potter...

So Friday night, on Bill Moyers Journal, the great Moyers offered a blistering smackdown.

So thorough that if it had happened on the street, no doubt, Murdoch's rags would have had the bloody mess splashed on the front pages, screaming headline and a Weegee-imitating photo.

But Rupert Murdoch is no saint; he is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity...

But THE JOURNAL’s newsroom is another matter -- there facts are sacred and independence revered. Rupert Murdoch has told the Bancrofts he’ll not meddle with the reporting. But he’s accustomed to using journalism as a personal spittoon. In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, he turned the dogs of war loose in the newsrooms of his empire and they howled for blood...

Read "Moyers on Murdoch"
Watch The Video "Moyers on Murdoch"

Bonus Links:
Rupert Murdoch: Bigger than Kane
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism
Wall Street Journal reporters protest Murdoch bid for Dow Jones and contract proposals

Update:
Keeping Rupert Murdoch at bay
Paul Krugman's "The Murdoch Factor"