Oh damn, still in this dream.

...and I shall not recapitulate for the inattentive.

To continue, yesterday, chillaxing Dave got on the case and stated something along the lines of, "Well, even though events have proven me wrong, I was right to put pro-Murdoch crony Jeremy BerkHunt in charge of the bid that Murdoch's proxies were making to buy the remaining portion of BSkyB."

Jeremy Hunt's email has been published by Leveson, wherein he shows at least as much positive bias towards Murdoch as Vince Cable showed negative.

Now what I want to know is of these two, BerkHunt and Cable, which would the ordinary informed person think of as the most likely to follow the proper process of examining the bid, and the fitness of the folk who were making it, and referring it to the proper agencies of oversight?

As we now all know (as though we hadn't before) that Murdoch's organisation has more than a few dodgy folk therein, and some of its ways are not like the ways of other law-abiding citizens; perhaps because, as article of faith, it always has to test and thereby prove the limits of legal jurisdiction, whilst remaining within the law; even when that law interferes with what Murdoch regards as the natural fulfilment of his stage of media-empire building. Laws can be changed, after all. Processes can be evaded avoided.

Given this, I should find it surprising, and an actual dereliction of political duty from all sides of the political spectrum, for a politician to give Murdoch's organisation or any cross-media organisation an easy ride. Even those sympathetic to Murdoch's modus operandi, fellow travellers of the libertarian/new right/newconservative inclination, even they should be naturally wary of the media-mogul/newspaper-baron, given the media baron's nature.

I mean to say, look at some of the modern list:

Robert Maxwell

Conrad Black

Silvio Berlusconi
Actually Silvio deserves a couple of pages to him: so I'll throw in another link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trials_and_allegations_involving_Silvio_Berlusconi

and

Rupert Murdoch

Now, in the general population one wouldn't expect to find as many criminals* per capita, and I doubt there are anything more than a hundred actual media moguls of the stature of the above named quartet in the modern era, so I should find it unsurprising if any media mogul was ever given an easy ride. Call it profiling, I suppose. We have to remember, in the era of the Nietzschean man, companies are people too.

I'm just surprised that these folk companies don't get stop-and-searched a bit more, just on sus. I mean, if there were a gang as obviously dodgy as this crew outside, waiting to be let in, we'd have our border guards give 'em an intensive body-frisk or two before we allowed 'em into civilisation. And even then, some of us would be trying to get 'em all deported.



*Not, of course, that Murdoch is a deliberate criminal - in such cases it takes a noble journalist to step up to the plate, rather than a proprietor.

Aha, James Murdoch seems to have lost his rag.

www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/22/james-murdoch-independent-dodge-city

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/23/murdoch-independent-simon-kelner

What fun!

Not that I've a position here or anything.

From it's Reithian beginnings to its present dominance of the culture of the language of Shakespeare the BBC has always had enemies.

That James Murdoch should ally himself with those, the historical enemies of the BBC, is....understandable. However the list of enemies is as long as the list of enemies of the British state, (and its allies) or perhaps now, one or two more.

It isn't a requirement to be anti-British to hate/dislike/be in competition with the BBC but it certainly helps. After all, commecial television has always had an uneasy relationship with the BBC.

However, when it comes to the dissemination of High Culture and ideas associated with such, the BBC is without equal.

For example BBC_Radio_3
Radio 3 is the world's most significant most significant commissioner of new music*.

And as for BBC_Radio_4, for most Englishfolk who listen to radio, it needs no introduction.

Apart from sponsoring and organising arguably the largest and greatest music festival in the world (The_Proms) and funding some six orchestras plus choirs, the national levy that goes to the BBC pays for a lot more than just TV without the adverts.

Y'see Murdoch is in some ways right: the BBC is a monolith, but if he's setting up NewsCorp as the alternative then he really is on a hiding to nothing. Without the BBC, stations with editorial agenda like FOX would have their say with no major dissent: few others apart from the BBC have the resources and editorial and journalistic integrity to present a story as free of bias. Most private newsgathering organisations are answerable to the whims of their owners. Because the BBC is payed for by public money, established with a Royal Charter, and subject to the scrutiny of its board of governors, Parliament, and ultimately the people, it wouldn't be allowed to get away with some of the egregious (or some would say deliberate) errors FOX's output is strewn with. Republican sex scandal Senators being labeled Dems for example; never mind the network's OxyContin-driven commentary that substitutes for journalism, unnoticed by its audience.

Yeah, criticise our health service and we'll get up in arms. Set about the beeb and....upon reflection, the consequences could be worse: folk will start looking at the alternatives, and then people like me will start taking collections and buying two or more TV licences every year. I may leave money to the BBC in my will, or try to covenant money to it in some way or other. And really, I don't care if the Murdoch organisation goes out of business, despite the TLS. In fact, that may even be a win. Newspapers have had their day, perhaps private broadcasters like FOX won't be far behind. I'm sure some will mourn their passing: thinking about it even Al Megrahi will have some mourners at his funeral, too.

*Source wikipedia, so it may not be gospel, but I'd lay odds on it being correct.

Well, I don't normally open with a panegyric, and almost never one.....I suppose I'd better explain....

Having returned from a holiday with chums in the North of England I set about getting clothes washed, debating whether to tidy the flat properly now or defer the um, gratification of such pleasurable activity; during course of which I espied my as yet unread double Christmas edition of the Times Literary Supplement.

Some two hours later I returned to the world feeling better informed, refreshed, and recharged. Now that's probably because, as 

megiloth  says, I'm a poncy git liable to such behaviour. But I might still beg to differ, though I am indeed a poncy git. The TLS is, if you like, Murdoch's apology. It makes up for The Sun, The News of the World, and The New York Post. However, not even the TLS could begin to balance the scales of justice were The Fox Network on the other side. But I digress.

So I'll digress some more. I'd imagine that even the most rapacious media Baron (even if fiscally responsible like Murdoch, and unlike Black or Maxwell) has a side that still cultivates critical values. If you sell words by the billion every day, you must have some understanding of their power. In fact, even the fiscally irresponsible, like Black, crave academic and intellectual recognition: sometimes even writing pretty good biographies.

It is impossible to say how well the TLS has kept me informed over the years, and how indebted I have been to the debates taking place within its pages.
In the guise of book reviews it presents more information on more subjects in greater depth by great writers and critics than almost any other publication, though the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books both deserve honourable mentions, and the LRB has the most amusing adverts by far.

In my Anarcho-Syndicalist youth, I had a list of folk to be saved from the firing squads 'after the revolution'. These folk had all done something that redeemed them from the righteous justice of the proletariat. As we all now know, the revolution will never come, and the list will become even more yellowed with time: but as long as he keeps funding the TLS (because something like that loses money - it is not a profitable operation and must needs be a rich man's indulgence, like an expensive yacht) I suppose Ol' Roops name will be on the list.