Friday, Dec 12th
Last update08:39:16 AM GMT
Journalism Glance
Rupert Murdoch insists that his network is "fair and balanced," but he was stumped when asked which of its employees offer credibility to that claim.
A visibly nervous Murdoch folded his hands and froze for a few seconds. "I could give you a couple of names but they're certainly there," he responded. "Uh, if Roger [Ailes] were here he'd certainly spit them out very quickly. I think probably every night Greta Van Susteren is certainly close to the Democratic Party."
A leaked videotape of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed a dozen Iraqis was unveiled on April 5 by the website WikiLeaks. To much of the corporate media, though, it was either not worth reporting at all, or an unfortunate incident to be defended.
An Israeli journalist is in hiding in Britain, The Independent can reveal, over fears that he may face charges in the Jewish state in connection with his investigation into the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank.
An Israeli journalist has been under secret house arrest since December on charges that she leaked highly sensitive, classified military documents that suggest the Israeli military breached a court order on assassinations in the occupied West Bank.
Effectively canceling a planned speaking tour, the U.S. consulate in the Netherlands has put an extended hold on the visa application of award-winning Palestinian journalist and photographer Mohammed Omer, scheduled to speak on conditions in Palestine, on April 5th in Chicago.
So media power and political power achieve an ever greater degree of merger, just as in Italy, but let us be quite clear that Murdoch's primary interest is commercial, as it has been ever since he bought into the News of the World 41 years ago. Already we see the pressures that the Murdoch family will bring to bear on David Cameron if he becomes prime minister. On Friday the Times, which now barely disguises its pro-Sky agenda, ran an editorial on the BBC's cuts, accusing its websites of "dumping free content on to markets where its rivals have no public subsidy". The phrase bears an uncanny resemblance to James Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh last year when he talked about the BBC "dumping free, state-sponsored news on the market." The editorial read as if the Times editor James Harding had been taking dictation.
The new transcripts, published in Italy for the first time yesterday, suggest that Mr Berlusconi telephoned a commissioner on the country's independent broadcast regulator, Agcom, after he learned that a show examining corruption cases against him was due to go out on state broadcaster Rai.
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