Rupert Murdoch, the 80 year old media omnivore, has devoured nearly half of Great Britain's means of public communication and expression. And his hunger for American media is no less gluttonous. His corporate empire controls movie studios, newspapers, publishing houses, television stations, and, of course, Fox News. Media barons are a threat to democracy and that's a fact.
Murdoch and his homies got away with their shameless tactics that included tapping phones and stealing medical and financial records by intimidating and bribing the very pillars of a democracy, the legislative, the judicial and the executive. The deal: we will grow readership by publishing the most intimate details of people's lives and we will use any means possible to get the scoop. Our huge circulation will allow us to support or crush any politician who opposes us. And, on top of that, we're willing to bribe even Scotland Yard.
Critics, on the left and the right, went silent. The deal worked, the results a disgrace. There's no proof, so far, that those tactics are in play here, but there is this: the success of the Murdoch media model has sullied American media. The poop is everywhere. Once the staple of super-market tabloids, the salacious, vulgar and crude are increasingly mainstream, and political issues are stripped of facts replaced with opinion, fair and balanced of course. Barons have no place in America.
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