Sunflower, Alan Austin

As I think I’ve made abundantly clear, I am not a Murdoch media fan.

But what point are you guys are trying to make?

Do Murdoch media outlets sometimes tell porkies?

Absolutely.

Should you be free to point this out?

Yep. And you do. So does the Guardian.

Do people nevertheless choose to lend their eyeballs and eardrums to Rupert Murdoch?

Nobody holds a gun to the heads of Herald Sun readers. No one threatens to kill your loved ones unless you click on Andrew Bolt’s blog. You may eschew Fox news and suffer no harm.

Guess what? Some people like being lied to.

If people choose OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL to let Murdoch and his minions fill their heads with what you or I may regard as garbage what do you propose to do about it?

Censorship?

That’s a cure an order of magnitude worse than the disease.

Licensing journalists?

That’s censorship by another name.

Penalties for printing porkies?

That opens the way to a privatised for of censorship called lawfare.

I cannot improve on wikipedia’s definition of lawfare so I’ll just quote it:

>>Lawfare is a form of asymmetric warfare. Lawfare is waged via the use of domestic or international law with the intention of damaging an opponent. Examples include winning a public relations victory, financially crippling an opponent, or tying up the opponent's time so that they cannot pursue other ventures such as run for public office.

Lawfare can also denote the use of the law as a weapon of war, or more specifically, the abuse of the law and legal systems for strategic political or military ends.

Lawfare is one of several alternative war-making concepts outlined in the 1999 Chinese book Unrestricted Warfare, which is principally concerned with the new variety of offensive actions available to an international actor that cannot or is not willing to confront another power militarily.>>

I don’t have Col’s exaggerated faith in the power of the market to sort out all our problems but I have to side with him on this issue.

Col, you seem to be misreading what I am saying and what the writer is saying. Is this deliberate?
"Because you don't like something does not mean it is wholly criminal."
Well, der. The Murdoch organisation is criminal because they tap phones illegally, bribe police, interfere with police investigations, commit perjury and destroy evidence required for criminal investigations. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what I or anyone else may "like".
"And the last person I want deciding what is 'news' and what is not is government."
Der again. Who ever said they wanted this?! Pretty sure no-one.

Sunflower wrote:

>>the Murdoch organisation is criminal because they tap phones illegally, bribe police, interfere with police investigations, commit perjury and destroy evidence required for criminal investigations.>>

If these charge are true - and I think there's a good chance they are - then there's an argument for bringing charges under RICO (racketeer infiltrated corrupt organisation) act against News Corporation.

However if the US Government hasn't brought RICO charges against certain large financial institutions I see scant chance of RICO charges against News Corporation.

If you are correct, Steven, and I think you are, then all the more reason for citizens to take the courses of action available to us to boycott the organisation out of existence.
Not just for its criminal actions, but also for the unethical distortion and misrepresentation in news reports.
It will be intriguing to see whether Great Britain has more success prosecuting corrupt corporations than the United States.
On consumer boycotts, here is an intriguing development:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/st​op_rupert_murdoch_donate/99.ph​p?cl_tta_sign=13f263d32002583d​5105bf7fddae718c

correct Alan, the GAYBC must be closed down immediately