Rupert Murdoch in “Unprecedented Firestorm” as UK Panel Finds Him Unfit to Run Media Empire

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez
Democracy Now! / Video Interview
Published: Thursday 3 May 2012
We speak with David Leigh, investigations editor at The Guardian, the news outlet that first exposed the phone-hacking practices taking place within the Murdoch media empire.

A British parliamentary report has issued a scathing report that finds Rupert Murdoch is "not a fit person" to run a major international media company because of how News Corp. handled its phone hacking scandal. The Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport said Murdoch and his son, James, showed "willful blindness" about the scale of phone hacking at the News of the World tabloid. The panel’s finding has prompted a U.S. watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, to call on the Federal Communications Commission to revoke News Corp’s 27 Fox broadcast licenses in the United States. We speak with David Leigh, investigations editor at The Guardian, the news outlet that first exposed the phone-hacking practices taking place within the Murdoch media empire. Leigh says the British panel’s findings could threaten Murdoch’s media presence across the Atlantic: "People are now beginning to say, ’Doesn’t this bleed over into the man who runs Fox News and has all those TV outlets in the U.S.?’ If he is not fit and proper person in Britain, then he is not a fit and proper person in the U.S. either.”



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ABOUT Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of "Breaking the Sound Barrier," recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.

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5 comments on "Rupert Murdoch in “Unprecedented Firestorm” as UK Panel Finds Him Unfit to Run Media Empire"

Pikewich

May 03, 2012 11:47am

What if everyone simply signed pledges to never watch one of Ruperts productions again, and did it?

You don't like what Rupert does, vote with your dollars and time.
Turn off your TV.

RobertMStahl

May 03, 2012 11:22am

Needed? Yes. Timely? Well, with Kim, alone, in charge of the World Bank, the world leader in charge of AIDS, why is NOT one journalist citing Gary Null's Deconstructing the Myth of AIDS? That was 2004. Just, what is journalism missing?

Where is it, I ask?

Jefffrey Hill

May 03, 2012 10:47am

Rupert Murdoch's Fox Noise and his right-wing propaganda concubine have always been Fairly Unbalanced.

Rupert's feelings are hurt -- he has been supposedly "humbled" by being called to British Parliament to testify perjuriously about his knowledge of and involvement in the cell phone hacking scandal.

Just to ensure billionaires Rupert and James Murdoch are truly humbled, send the dishonest bastards to prison -- they are certainly fit to do the time for doing the crimes.

navratiljl

May 03, 2012 10:14am

How can we ordinary citizens get involved to get Murdoch's faux news corp off the airways?

BozoAdult

May 03, 2012 10:22am

Wish I had the answer to that one.

Anyone that cites Fox "News" as a source of information has lost the argument.

They had a segment on this subject on C-Span today.