A fake edition of the New York Times announcing the end of the Iraq war has been handed out to commuters in the US.

More than 1m free copies of the 14-page "special edition" newspaper were distributed mainly in the cities of New York and Los Angeles.

Another bogus story was about all Americans being given free health care.

A liberal group called the Yes Men, well known in the US for its practical jokes, claimed responsibility for the elaborate prank.

The fake paper - dated 4 July 2009 - had a motto on its front page which read "all the news we hope to print".

The hoax was accompanied by a web site that mimicked the look of The New York Times's real website.

A page of the spoof site contained links to dozens of liberal organisations, which were also listed in the print edition.

And this leads to the most radical idea in Wolff's new biography of the man London called "The Dirty Digger": that there was never a vision, or a broad strategy, in the creation of the giant News Corporation.

Murdoch responds to opportunity and immediacy, Wolff says. He is incapable of reflection or self-analysis and was a difficult and confounding interview subject.

"He is skin deep. You can just see him looking around. When you speak to him you cannot get him to analyse his motivations because he can't," Wolff said.

"You cannot get him to think or talk with any kind of historical perspective. In that way he is always mixing up decades - what's past is past and you can only really talk to him - and I had to learn this because the process was agonising otherwise - you could only really talk in the moment about what's on [his] mind right now.

"You know I think all of those things that we think of as newspapers, it's all attention deficit. It's all skimming the surface. It's all making decisions without thinking. It's all just to be a reactive person and it's all about the competition, killing the competition. All of those things, that basically described the Murdoch personality."

------------------------------

see toon at top... no multitasking for "Mother Courage"?...

News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch has told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that keeping children in school should be one of the new US administration's key priorities.

Mr Murdoch told the forum that 35 to 40 per cent of children in the United States do not finish school.

The News Corporation chairman said that meant they were being committed to a life in the underclasses and or the criminal classes.

Speaking at a session titled "Advice to the US President on Competitiveness", Mr Murdoch blamed the teachers' union in America, which he said was very rich and the number one donor to the Democratic party.

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Hey Rupert, why publish papers for the underclasses? Why have TV channels where news are low class entertainment with opinionators leading the moronic bilious attacks with porkies attached on honest proper knowledge. Hey Rupe, the underclasses made you more money than the upper crusted classes those that only read Merc bi-Monthly to check on the latest leather seat and console designs, while sipping French champagne.

No one should be living in an underclass, yet not everyone has the mind power to deal with mathematical derivatives, and some people are happy to work on a manufacturing machine. Not everyone can or should be a stock exchange trader or a magnate controller of information. 

Being old with coloured hair does not mean being wise exclusively, despite having been able to make oodles of money. The planet is sicker than it ever was thanks to your little mate Bushit and your support for him... He let the "Free Market Rot" set in everywhere, killing many a good thing and waging useless little wars. And please, oh please stop blaming the teacher's union for the schooling problem.

Blame yourself one day for a few things and you'll become slightly more credible.

see toon at top

News Corp has made a $6.4bn (£4.4bn) quarterly loss, as falling advertising revenues forced it to cut $8.4bn from the value of assets.

The media giant's net loss for the three months to 31 December compares with a profit of $832m a year earlier.

Revenues at the firm, which owns BSkyB, 20th Century Fox, and the New York Post and Sun newspapers, were down 8.4%.

Owner Rupert Murdoch said the economic downturn was "more severe" than first thought, and warned of likely job cuts.

"We are implementing rigorous cost-cutting across all operations and reducing head count where appropriate," said Mr Murdoch.

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See toon at top. Read other musing, in this line of blogs, by Rupert-the-philosopher, now Rupert-the-Slasher...And by the way, the man in the street knew long ago that the economic downturn was "more severe" since day one. And many in the business and finance industries are no longer predicting anything... "We dunno where the bottom of the hole is" is usually the prognostic. As far as Gus guesstimates (quite precise if you follow me) are that the whole word economy will be short of about 15 trillion dollars per year for at least 15 years. I hope I'm wrong. But credit will have to be squeezed otherwise by the end the cumulative effect will be around 300 trillions down the chute, despite numerous rescue packages. 

The system is broke and needs to be overhauled, changed, regulated, equalized, revalued, socialised, degreeded, de-contaminated, de-perked, de-bonused, etc...

From Bob Ellis, Unleached...

Medical science will eventually take note, soon I hope, of MMS, the Mugabe Murdoch Syndrome.

This is the belief that one is right, has always been right, continues to be right and cannot be contradicted whatever the evidence to the contrary, and whoever disagrees with this view must be punished by physical or professional extermination.

In Robert Mugabe's case it is evidenced by his belief that no mistakes were made in his 28-year rule, and the current cholera, poverty, starvation, civil bloodshed, thousand percent inflation, disputed elections, trade embargoes, dangerous neigbourhoods, closed schools, empty shops, and repeated failure to form a stable government are somebody else's fault. Coupled with this is an adjacent, supportive and passionate belief that Mugabe will never die (he will not make that mistake either) although he is almost 85.

It is a hectic, obstinate, haughty denial of a reality visible to everybody else on the planet, a uniquely personal belief in the patient's infallibility, heroic endurance, moral courage and physical immortality.

No great leap of the mind is required to quickly discover the same condition in Rupert Murdoch, whose passionate, constant arrogant beliefs have proved over time to be comparably delusory.

....

The normal corporate procedure with one so afflicted would be to remove him as CEO. But such is his tenacious Mugabe-like hold on those gigantic megacorporations he believes, and rightly believes, he has built up into profitable concerns over many years (with a little help from The Simpsons), he cannot see disaster looming, and like Mugabe cannot believe what has happened, and his underlings don't dare tell him.

---------------

See toon at top (note title) and read comments above...

America's newspaper industry has been badly hit by the downturn, and a number of titles face closure.

The latest casualty is the venerable San Francisco Chronicle, whose owners on Wednesday announced they were planning to cut a "significant" number of jobs to meet cost-cutting targets, and that if the targets are not met, then the paper would be sold or closed down.

The Chronicle, which was founded in 1865, soon after the gold-rush hit California, lost more than $50m (£35m) in 2008, and so far 2009 is looking even worse for the title.

-----------------

Circulation fell by 7% in the six-month period running up to 30 September 2008, and advertising revenues are plummeting.

The Hearst Corporation - the Chronicle's owners - last month proposed similar measures for another of their titles, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

And the owners of Denver's Rocky Mountain News announced on Thursday that the newspaper would publish its final edition on Friday. The Tucson Citizen also faces the axe.

Comedian Al Franken has been declared the winner of Minnesota’s junior seat in the Senate.

The Democratic upstart and alleged funnyman was running against Norm Coleman, the Republican incumbent. The result was so close it set off a legal squabble that will no doubt ensure new cars for untold legions of Minnesota lawyers.

The issue eventually came down to thousands of absentee ballots. In the end, justices of the state’s Supreme Court ruled for Franken. He squeaked in by a razor-thin margin, 312 votes out of the nearly 2.9 million cast and is expected to be sworn in next week.
With the legal battles over, the fighting has moved to the media.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal believes Franken won by changing the rules.

“The unfortunate lesson is that you don’t need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact …
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/court-rules-franken-has-won-senate-seat/?ref=us

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"Al Franken, ""one of our savviest satirists"" (People), takes on the issues, the politicians, and the pundits in one of the most anticipated books of the year. For the first time since his own classic Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, Al Franken trains his subversive wit directly on the contemporary political scene. Now, the ""master of political humor"" (Washington Times) destroys the myth of liberal bias in the media, and exposes how the Right shamelessly tries to deceive the rest of us. No one is spared as Al uses the Right's own words against them. Not the Bush administration and their rhetorical hypocrisy. Not Ann Coulter and her specious screeds. Not the new generation of talk-radio hosts, and not Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, and the entire Fox network. This is the book Al Franken fans have been waiting for (and his foes have been dreading). Timely, provocative, unfailingly honest, and always funny, Lies is sure to become the most talked about book of political humor in 2003 and beyond."

----------

Fox News Channel has sued Al Franken and his publishing house to stop them from using the expression "fair and balanced" in the title of his upcoming book.

------------------------

No shortage of news about Michael Jackson, wherever you happen to live.


MICHAEL JACKSON TRIBUTE EDITION

Pages 4,5,19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27

— Northern Territory News, 27th June, 2009


But if ever there was a story perfectly suited to the internet, this was it.

The celebrity news website TMZ broke the story on Friday morning, Australian time.


Michael Jackson Dies

— TMZ, 25th June, 2009


Within hours, Google went down as people worldwide searched for news.

According to an upbeat speech to the National Press Club by John Hartigan, Chairman of News Ltd, this week, stories like this demonstrate:


John Hartigan: ...how large audiences can be for the really big stories with huge consequences

— John Hartigan (Chairman, News Ltd), address to the National Press Club, 1st July, 2009


But don't look to cyberspace for reliable content, argues Hartigan:


John Hartigan: Most online news, comment sites, don't generate enough revenue to pay for good journalism.

— John Hartigan (Chairman, News Ltd), address to the National Press Club, 1st July, 2009


That must still be done by the mainstream media, staffed by:


John Hartigan: well trained, professional, experienced, clever journalists...

— John Hartigan (Chairman, News Ltd), address to the National Press Club, 1st July, 2009


Well, maybe.

But in the oceans of silliness and sensationalism that swamped us, a few stories struck us last week - all of them originating not from wild American blogsites but from traditional British newspapers owned by News Corporation.


Deborah Rowe said Michael Jackson children aren't his

— The Daily Telegraph online, 29th June, 2009

read  more or watch Media Watch  at http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2618307.htm

from The New York Times

...

The Guardian cited no sources for its claim that News International, the Murdoch subsidiary, had paid £1 million, about $1.6 million, in damages and legal costs to three people involved in professional soccer in Britain, including about $1.1 million to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association.

The Guardian said the financial settlements in Britain were accompanied by clauses that prevented the people receiving the money from speaking about the cases. Such confidentiality clauses are common in many settlements. It said the settlements arose from disclosures that emerged from a trial of two private investigators working for the Murdoch-owned News of the World who served brief prison terms after being convicted in 2007 for hacking into cellphone messages.

One of the men convicted, Clive Goodman, was found to have accessed more than 600 messages on cellphones used by members of the royal family. The other man, Glenn Mulcaire, a former professional soccer player, admitted that he had hacked into the cellphone of Mr. Taylor, head of the soccer association, as well as those of the model Elle Macpherson and Max Clifford, a public relations agent.

In documents submitted to the High Court in London during the trial of Mr. Goodman and Mr. Mulcaire, executives of News International said The News of the World’s editors and reporters had not been involved in any way in the phone tapping.

But the controversy stirred by The Guardian could reach into the highest ranks of Mr. Murdoch’s empire. Several senior executives at News International or The News of the World were named by The Guardian as having denied knowledge of the tapping during the Goodman-Mulcaire trials.

-----------------

see toon at top...

from the Independent

Commons to study phone tap claims

Press Association

Thursday, 9 July 2009

The chairman of an influential Commons committee is poised to summon newspaper chiefs to answer "serious" questions following fresh claims about the use of phone taps.

The Tory MP John Whittingdale also indicated he would recommend the culture, media and sport committee reopen an inquiry into the issue when it held urgent discussions today.

He spoke out after The Guardian claimed News Group Newspapers, which publishes titles including the News of the World, had paid out more than £1 million to settle cases that threatened to reveal evidence of its journalists' alleged involvement in telephone hacking.

MPs from all three parties including former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell were among the targets of the alleged phone taps, The Guardian said.

It quoted sources saying police officers found evidence of News Group staff using private investigators who had hacked into "thousands" of mobile phones.

Mr Whittingdale told The Press Association: "My view is that this has raised very serious questions about the evidence given to us.

London police say there is no need for a further investigation into claims that journalists at Rupert Murdoch's best-selling British newspaper conspired to hack into the phones of celebrities, MPs and public figures.

The News of the World has been accused of running a huge phone hacking operation to mine stories by listening in to private phone calls.

But the Metropolitan Police says no new evidence has emerged since an original inquiry saw two men jailed in 2007.

The latest allegations were published in The Guardian newspaper.

It alleges the News of the World paid private investigators to hack into the voicemail messages of mobile phones belonging to as many as 3,000 people.

The alleged victims included former British deputy prime minister John Prescott, Australian model Elle Macpherson and American actress Gwyneth Paltrow as well as sports stars and members of the royal family.

The practice of hacking into mobiles, or phone slamming, is apparently widespread in the tabloid press.

By TIM ARANGO

The editor of News of the World, a London tabloid, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that James Murdoch, the son of the media baron Rupert Murdoch, had approved a $1.1 million payment to settle phone-tapping allegations against the paper.

The case — in which the payment was made to Gordon Taylor, the head of the Professional Footballers’ Association — was settled at a 2008 meeting among James Murdoch; Colin Myler, the editor of News of the World; and Tom Crone, a company lawyer, Mr. Myler told a committee of the House of Commons, Bloomberg News reported.

“It was an agreed collective decision,” Mr. Myler told the committee, according to Bloomberg. “It’s how newspapers work.”

The testimony on Tuesday followed a report in The Guardian newspaper two weeks ago that suggested two tabloid newspapers owned by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, had engaged in the widespread use of private investigators to illegally hack into the cellphone messages of public officials and celebrities in Britain. News Corporation has denied the allegations.

Shortly after The Guardian article was published, Rupert Murdoch told Bloomberg News that he was unaware of any such payment. “If that had happened,” he said, “I would know about it.”

A News Corporation spokesman declined to comment on Tuesday.

--------------------

Newspapers are left wing, television is right wing, and the media as a whole tends to favour the Coalition.

And surprisingly, according to researchers from the Australian National University, the ABC Television news is the most pro-Coalition of them all.

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard railed against the alleged left-wing bias of the ABC, but the researchers found Aunty was more likely to favour his side.

Researchers pored over news stories from 1996 to 2007 to establish if the media was biased.

The results, released today, point to the media being generally middle-of-the-road, with the Coalition tending to win out.

Researchers found journalists were "a centrist bunch". The exception was ABC TV news, which "had a significant slant towards the Coalition".

Newspapers were more pro-Labor, while talkback radio and television were more pro-Coalition.

Melbourne's The Age newspaper had the most "slanted" pro-Labor headlines.

When it came to editorial slant and donations by the media to political parties, the Coalition was laughing all the way to the polls.

25. News Ltd has form when it comes to interfering

FEDERAL ELECTION 2010, NATIONAL BROADBAND NETWORK, NEWS LTD

The News Limited campaign:

John Penny writes: Re. Yesterday's editorial. Crikey suggests that "the blunt and sometimes nasty coverage in News Limited papers of the government in general, and Julia Gillard in particular" could be motivated by, inter alia, "visceral editorial decisions made mainly by middle-aged male editors". Is there, for example, some bias against having a woman as Prime Minister.

Sexism may be a factor, but the slanted political campaigns of News Corporation subsidiaries are usually aimed at installing a government that will further the commercial interests, and power, of the Murdoch empire.

I remember especially the article ("Their Master's Voice") published in the Guardian after the Bush invasion of Iraq. The Guardian asked why all (170 or so) Murdoch papers supported the invasion. Since the decision to invade was based on false information, the editors were either all incompetent, or slavishly following the company line. In his book, Rupert's Adventures in China, Bruce Dover used a term like "anticipatory compliance" to describe the unanimity of Murdoch's editors. At the time of the Iraq invasion, News was pursuing a favourable decision, eventually successful, from the Bush administration in relation to the takeover of cable network DirectTV.

For Australia in 2010, we must ask why a Coalition Government would be much better than Labor for the commercial interests of News. Some possibilities are:

The Labor Government is likely to award the contract for Australia TV to the ABC rather than to Sky News, which is owned by News. Your article suggests how important that contract would be for the company.

Rupert Murdoch was for some time on the board of Philip Morris. Do links remain? The Labor Government's proposals for plain packaging of cigarettes are anathema to the tobacco industry. Both Coalition parties take donations from the tobacco companies, and would be much more disposed to support the interests of Big Tobacco.

Labor's National Broadband Network should make redundant the expensive satellite system used for Pay TV in Australia, and allow a range of much cheaper alternatives to Foxtel, which is run by News Limited.

The News papers ran an aggressive campaign against the "mining tax". The Resource Rental Levy is an attempt to get more for Australians from a mostly foreign-owned mining industry. Even with its level much reduced by compromise, the levy would fund Labor's NBN. That is, Australia can have a high quality nation-wide broadband network simply by getting foreigners to pay more for Australia's mineral resources. The extreme character of the "anti-tax" campaign run by, especially, The Australian, means that Australians should ask the question: Are there links between stakeholders in News Corporation, and resource companies operating in Australia?

Crikey subscribers may be able suggest other ways in which a Coalition Government would serve the commercial interests of News Corporation

We have a foreign-owned media empire attempting to determine, in its own interests, what sort of Government Australians can have. Ordinary Australians can counter in only one way: Stop buying their papers -- and make sure the editors know why.

--------------

Does News hate Gillard? The reality is worse
There’s a widely held view within the progressive commentariat that News is running a hard, even virulent, line against Labor in the current election campaign.

Perhaps, but maybe the reality is somewhat more banal (although no less disturbing).

A more likely scenario is that the blunt and sometimes nasty coverage in News Limited newspapers of the government in general, and Julia Gillard in particular, is the collateral result of dumbed-down editorial values rather than any vitriolic campaign motivated by political or proprietorial preference; of visceral editorial decisions made mainly by middle-aged male editors whose job is to stir up controversy, attack stereotypes, beat-up small incidents, enrage disaffected voters, impinge on priavte lives and incite readers in an age of uncertainty for newspapers and their future.

Gus: refer to above comment... see toon at top and read comment below it...

Audiences deserted Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp mastheads in 2019 with its tabloid tub-thumper The Daily Telegraph losing a massive 15.5 per cent of its readership across both print and digital editions, according to research house Roy Morgan.

The performance was reflected in the second quarter’s financial results, which saw the group’s Australian mastheads suffer a 9 per cent revenue hit for the three months to December 31.

“The results were affected by a sluggish Australian economy, uncharacteristic softness in book publishing, and foreign exchange fluctuations,” said News CEO Robert Thomson.

All the News Corp mastheads covered by the Roy Morgan survey fell, with the Herald Sun losing 7.7 per cent of its audience, Brisbane’s Courier-Mail down 1.4 per cent and Rupert Murdoch’s prestigious flagship The Australian losing 4.3 per cent of its readers.

At News’ major competitor, Nine Newspapers, the story was different. The Sydney Morning Herald grew its audience 4.1 per cent The Age scored a marginal improvement growing 1.2 per cent while the Australian Financial Review shot the lights out with a 14.4 per cent audience jump.

The AFR was the only masthead to grow both its digital and print audiences. All other print readerships fell, with the News Corp mastheads losing both print and online readers.

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2020/02/07/news-corp-in-...

Read from top.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose is continuing to put her stamp on the national broadcaster – this time with a decidedly non-ABC choice for the annual Boyer Lectures.

The prestige lecture series, regarded as the intellectual centrepiece of the ABC each year, is broadcast on Radio National.

This year Buttrose has approached billionaire miner Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest to line up in front of the microphone.

The choice has caused consternation in some parts of the ABC. It could be said Forrest exhibits qualities not often championed by the noisier elements of the national broadcaster, being a male white heterosexual Christian mining capitalist. Staff at RN, sometimes affectionately described by other parts of the ABC as a “commune”, might well have cause to choke on their kombucha.

Forrest could not be more different to last year’s lecturer, indigenous filmmaker Rachel Perkins, regarded as ABC royalty due to her production company Blackfella Films’ role producing some of the ABC’s best dramas, Mystery Road and Total Control.

Perkins was chosen by ABC managing director David Anderson. But this year the choice is Buttrose’s and her choice is Forrest. The chairman of Fortescue Metals Group will have a lot to talk about, including his charity work Walk Free Foundation to fight slavery, and the Mindaroo Foundation, which has helped Indigenous causes. He’s also an enthusiastic advocate and occasional diplomat in Australia’s China relationship.

He popped spectacularly into the news cycle in April when he blindsided Health Minister Greg Hunt by attending a joint press conference and bringing as his plus one China’s consul-general for Victoria Zhou Long. This so miffed Hunt that a planned event the next day was cancelled. So whatever shape Twiggy’s Boyer Lecture takes, it is sure to be unpredictable.

The keynote lecture series has run since 1959, and was named in honour of former board chairman Sir Richard Boyer. There are perennial attempts to get comedian Barry Humphries in front of the microphone, but the lecture series is more commonly the preserve of academics and intellectuals. These have included former Walter and Eliza Hall Institute director Suzanne Cory and University of Melbourne academic Marcia Langton. Other speakers have included former governor-general Quentin Bryce and, ahem, News Corporation executive chairman Rupert Murdoch, who gave us his thoughts on “A Golden Age of Freedom” in 2008. (see at top)...

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/ita-gives-twiggy-star-billing-at-aunty-s-boyer-lectures-20200805-p55ix7.html

Read from top.

In regard to the "free market" tooted by Uncle Rupe at top, it has taken a Covid-torpedo in fleshy part of its back-side... his ship already dangerously listing to starboard (the right wing), after having been hit by some Google-flak and a Facebook shelling...