Guardian UK: Rupert-über-alles must not be allowed to darken BSkyB

[marmar]

Rupert-über-alles must not be allowed to darken BSkyB
Those who say Murdoch in full control of Sky is no big deal need to see the mind-boggling meddling of Fox News in US politics

Marina Hyde
guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 September 2010 21.00 BST


Aren't people who prefer to give Rupert Murdoch the benefit of the doubt adorably trusting? At the precise moment his Fox News appears to have finally abandoned even the quarter-arsed pretence of impartiality, allowing Tea Party-backed candidates to fundraise on air in return for exclusive, uncritical access, there are those on these shores opining that Murdoch winning full control of BSkyB really is no biggie.

Well, quite. What's the worst that can happen?

Even as Sarah Palin appears to be fashioning a run at the presidency without appearing on any media outlet other than the one that pays her (she has her own show on Fox), there are those wittering that Murdoch basically already runs Sky, so gaining full control won't alter the UK's media landscape.

Were things across the Atlantic not looking so mind-boggling, you could almost envy that cosy, antiquated assumption that the "media landscape" is something settled, as opposed to in a state of historic flux. Sarah Palin's tweets may have to be ghostwritten – I know, even Darren Bent can fart out his own – yet, as Time magazine observed this week, a single one of them can dominate a news cycle, while one of her speeches can monopolise three news cycles.

The fact that Palin is the figurehead of a movement most of whose emergent stars would appear to be better suited to prison or lunatic asylums makes it hard to get one's head around quite what is happening to mainstream politics in the US at the moment. But for people who'd ideally like prospective leaders of the free world to be able to point to China on a map – and not to claim that they'd have told the Nazis Anne Frank was hiding in their attic because lying is always wrong in God's eyes – it doesn't feel madly encouraging. When candidates for public office are being promoted by Fox on the apparent understanding that they will appear exclusively on Fox, classing the network a fascist broadcaster seems less and less hysterical. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/24/rupert-murdoch-bskyb-fox-news