Bye Bye, News of the Screws...

The Rupert Murdoch+News Corp+News International+News of the World+phone hacking+police corruption scandal has all of the UK in its grip. Why? Because for a very brief moment, the veil has been ripped away, and we the public get to see the ugly truth behind it.

Look, we expect powerful people to get together. Its not a shock that Media barrons know and socialize with top police and politicians.Its not a big surprise that tabloid editors have government spin doctors on speed dial.
But.
The media- print, tv and cable- the legislature, police, the judiciary, parliament. They all have seperate and distinct roles. They shouldnt be able to be bought off, or influenced, or threatened, by one or other of the group. They shouldnt be spied on. They shouldnt be subject to blackmail or the threat of it. If we have to have politicians, and government, we have to have actual democracy, or the believeable fiction of it.

After all, we keep attacking, bombing and occupying other countries on the basis that a) they want/need 'democracy', or b) we're bringing it to them regardless.

And we do need a free press.

But not a press/media whose 'freedom' means activities that curtail the public's freedoms. That bullies, spies on, corrupts police with bribes, (and cushy jobs after they retire) or ruins the reputations of innocent people. Nor police, or politicians who do that.

The call for a public enquiry into the activities of News International and its executives vis a vis phone hacking and police bribery is fine.

But will it be enough? Look at the connections:

1960s: Murdoch comes to Britain buys the Sun and the News of the World. Later he gets hold of The Times. He's known to have right wing political views and to ensure that his newspapers reflect them. In the 80s, he breaks the hold of the print unions on his publications and moves them literally and symbolically out of Fleet Street.

In the late 80s/early 90s he pilots satellite tv and pay in the UK, with Sky TV. At the same time, over the Atlantic, he was buying the equivalent of the Sun in 1973 (the New York Post) and in the 1980s bought into 20th century Fox, then bought some local tv stations and radio stations from the company that owned them (having to change nationality to do so) and thus had national coverage of US territory via tv and radio stations. He ends up owning Dow Jones, and the Wall Street Journal. Magazines were also being bought in Australia, the UK and the US.

The activities descibed were via companies- usually News Corp or its subsidiaries.Similar activities have taken place in other countries, most notable being satellite company buy ins or takeovers in China (via Hong Kong) and India.

Despite various laws in the countries concerned about monopolies and competition, we've ended up with the concentration of newspapers, magazines, satellite/cable tv, and a major film studio in key parts of the world the hands of Murdoch via a series of linked companies he and his family own and control. And he definately, quite openly, has a political agenda. And you only have to look at Fox News- both how it 'reports' the news, and how its popular commentators give their opinions, to get a good idea of what that is.

When we look at the current scandal in the UK, best remember Lord Acton's dictum:
"Power Corrupts. And absolute power, corrupts absolutely".

Quite.

People have to go to jail. People are going to go to jail. But will it be all of the culpable? The question is, will the UK be able to deal out justice for any law breaking- individual and/or corporate? Will the police and the politicians be able to do their job?

The non-News Corp press are certainly trying- kudos to The Guardian.