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Murdoch in the USA

That the Murdoch media empire is under close scrutiny and challenge in the UK is not before time. That said, should the same analysis be undertaken of Murdoch's newspapers State-side.

This op-ed piece in The Nation suggests that Murdoch media enterprise does bare close examination in the US, and not only in relation to newspapers and Fox News :

"Which brings us back to the United States, where Murdoch’s News Corp. owns Fox News, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. When asked point-blank this spring whether his company was hacking people’s phone messages here, Murdoch flatly refused to answer. US shareholders are suing News Corp. for nepotism over the purchase of Murdoch’s daughter’s company at a highly inflated price and her subsequent promotion to the News Corp. board.

One of the largest News Corp. holdings, Fox News, routinely peddles misinformation about climate change, uses racially charged rhetoric and openly promotes Republican positions and candidates, all while pretending to present “fair and balanced” news. Fox News’s Washington managing editor Bill Sammon was even found pushing his staff to tie President Obama to socialism on air, even as he admitted the claim was “rather far-fetched.” And advertisers wary of sponsoring dubious content have been fleeing Fox News here just as they are fleeing News of the World in Britain due to indecent, if not illegal, activity.

These are not the problems of a few bad apples but of a whole rotten barrel that threatens news standards and journalistic ethics. For a media icon like Murdoch, who looms large in American culture, scant attention has been paid to the financial and cultural implications of such mismanagement, or to the disregard for public interest from a major media conglomerate. If Murdoch wants to have a positive legacy in journalism, he needs to win back the trust of his millions of consumers who like their businesses clean, their privacy intact and their news to be factual. And if we in America care about the impact of corporate behavior on our lives and our political discourse, we had better start asking some questions".

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