Rupert Murdoch
I began this article to address the growing scandal in England over media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World Newspaper. This English tabloid, its managers, reporters, private investigators & even the London Police have been embroiled in a phone tapping scandal that began in 2006 when police investigations discovered that Prince William’s private phone messages had been hacked by the newspaper. One editor & one private investigator were convicted in 2007 and jailed in the incident. But the allegations & investigation are far from over. Only days ago, new allegations against the paper claim that it also tapped into two murder victims’ home phone messages (deleting some) in 2002, the private home messages of victims of London’s 7/7 attacks and even the home messages of dead soldiers’ families’ home messages.
This is news in and of itself. However, as I investigated the matter further, I couldn’t help but come across Rupert Murdoch’s larger story- the story of a multi-billionaire who ‘owns’ one of the largest news organizations (including Fox & its affiliates) in the world: News Corp. Sources have it that Murdoch’s News Corp. reaches about 1/4 of the earth’s population. Allegations, some of which is confirmed by Murdoch himself, say that he uses his organizations to reflect his own personal political agendas. In some years, he has supported Hillary Clinton & Barak Obama in the United States and Tony Blair in England- all leftist politicians. Other years, he has supported conservative individuals such as Bush and David Cameron of England. The Sun, one of Murdoch’s English papers, crowed its success in swinging a critical election in England. Murdoch himself is on tape bragging about how he ‘tried’ to affect certain elections and failed.
Astounded that one man could control so much information, I was led to wonder, “Who owns the rest of the news media?” There are six top news media outlets: GE who owns NBC, MSNBC & TeleMundo; News Corp which owns FOX, the Wall Street Journal & the N.Y. Post; Walt Disney (again, who knew?) which owns ABC; Viacom, whose only news venture appears to the an Indian media company, Global Broadcast; CBS; and finally, Time Warner which owns CNN. I researched the stock market to see who owned them. While each has individuals, like Rupert Murdoch, who own large stakes, it is the institutions which own the lion’s share. As I looked through these institutions, I saw an eerie pattern of ownership emerge. I have provided links for your information. Do you see the same pattern I saw? (more…)

