Independent UK: Now we have the chance to purge ourselves of insidious shame

[marmar]

Margaret Drabble: Now we have the chance to purge ourselves of insidious shame
The Murdoch press has infected our public discourse. Rival newspapers have been forced to compete in lurid headlines, fake scandals and celebrity gossip

Saturday, 16 July 2011


The most astonishing feature of the past week's astonishing events has been the shock, surprise and disgust expressed by so many in public life, all of whom knew perfectly well what had been going on for years and years under Murdoch's rule.

I knew, everyone else I knew knew, and we weren't surprised at all. So how is it conceivable that they didn't? The hypocrisy was breathtaking, or would have been had it not been exactly what we cynical and hitherto powerless citizens had expected.

We have watched, over decades, the erosion of press standards, the remorseless selling of sensational celebrity junk, the intrusion into deep grief and harmless adulteries, the inflammation of false indignations, the courting of Murdoch power and the Murdoch vote by prime minister after prime minister, and then we say we are surprised? Those of us who haven't been seduced by News International can sit back and say "I told you so" as we watch the danse macabre around its once omnipotent but now dying body. We always knew that parent company whose name we didn't know how to pronounce was bad, bad news. News Corp, News Cor, News Corpse. Rest in Peace. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/margaret-drabble-now-we-have-the-chance-to-purge-ourselves-of-insidious-shame-2314592.html

[xchrom]

1. Recommend - it's certainly testing the limits of a rich man's influence.

Is the will power there to change the landscape?