Journalism is the investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience about topics ranging from government and business organizations to cultural aspects of society such as arts and entertainment. The field includes editing, photojournalism, and documentary.

In modern society, news media have become the chief purveyor of information and opinion about public affairs; but the role and status of journalism, along with other forms of mass media, are undergoing changes resulting from the Internet. ^[1] This has resulted in a shift toward reading on e-readers, smartphones, and other electronic devices rather than print media and has faced news organizations with the ongoing problem of monetizing on digital news. Many struggling organizations believe that "journalism is in dire shape, and the triumph of digital is to blame," but Rupert Murdoch insists the "future of journalism is more promising than ever—limited only by editors and producers unwilling to fight for their readers and viewers, or government using its heavy hand either to over-regulate us or subsidize us."^[2] It remains to be seen which news organizations can make the best of the advent of digital media and whether or not print media can survive.

The use of information graphics and time management techniques are revolutionizing the newsroom through the use of the maestro concept.

History[link]

Johann Carolus's Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien, published in 1605 in Strassburg, is often recognized as the first newspaper. The first successful English daily, the Daily Courant, was published from 1702 to 1735.^[3] The first dedicated school for journalism, Missouri School of Journalism, was founded in 1908 in the United States of America by Walter Williams.^[4] The reform of the Diário Carioca newspaper in the 1950s is usually referred to as the birth of modern journalism in Brazil.^[5]

Role[link]

In the 1920s, as modern journalism was just taking form, writer Walter Lippmann and American philosopher John Dewey debated over the role of journalism in a democracy. Their differing philosophies still characterize a debate about the role of journalism in society and the nation-state.

Lippmann understood that journalism's role at the time was to act as a mediator or translator between the public and policy making elites. The journalist became the middleman. When elites spoke, journalists listened and recorded the information, distilled it, and passed it on to the public for their consumption. His reasoning behind this was that the public was not in a position to deconstruct the growing and complex flurry of information present in modern society, and so an intermediary was needed to filter news for the masses. Lippman put it this way: The public is not smart enough to understand complicated, political issues. Furthermore, the public was too consumed with their daily lives to care about complex public policy. Therefore the public needed someone to interpret the decisions or concerns of the elite to make the information plain and simple. Lippmann believed that the public would affect the decision-making of the elite with their vote. In the meantime, the elite (i.e. politicians, policy makers, bureaucrats, scientists, etc.) would keep the business of power running. In Lippman's world, the journalist's role was to inform the public of what the elites were doing. It was also to act as a watchdog over the elites, as the public had the final say with their votes. Effectively that kept the public at the bottom of the power chain, catching the flow of information that is handed down from experts/elites.

Lippmann's elitism has had consequences that he came to deplore. An apostle of historicism and scientism, Lippmann did not merely hold that democratic government was a problematic exercise, but regarded all political communities, of whatever stripe, as needing guidance from a transcendent partisanship for accurate information and dispassionate judgment. In "Liberty and the News" (1919) and "Public Opinion" (1921) Lippmann expressed the hope that liberty could be redefined to take account of the scientific and historical perspective and that public opinion could be managed by a system of intelligence in and out of government. Thus the liberty of the journalist was to be dedicated to gathering verifiable facts while commentators like himself would place the news in the broader perspective. Lippmann deplored the influence of powerful newspaper publishers and preferred the judgments of the "patient and fearless men of science." In so doing, he did not merely denigrate the opinion of the majority but also of those who had influence or power as well. In a republican form of government, the representatives are chosen by the people and share with them adherence to the fundamental principles and political institutions of the polity. Lippmann's quarrel was with those very principles and institutions, for they are the product of the pre-scientific and pre-historical viewpoint and what for him was a groundless natural rights political philosophy.

But Lippmann turned against what he called the "collectivism" of the Progressive movement he encouraged with its de-emphasis on the foundations of American politics and government and ultimately wrote a work, "The Public Philosophy" (1955), which came very close to a return to the principles of the American founders.

Dewey, on the other hand, believed the public was not only capable of understanding the issues created or responded to by the elite, it was in the public forum that decisions should be made after discussion and debate. When issues were thoroughly vetted, then the best ideas would bubble to the surface. Dewey believed journalists should do more than simply pass on information. He believed they should weigh the consequences of the policies being enacted. Over time, his idea has been implemented in various degrees, and is more commonly known as "community journalism".

This concept of community journalism is at the centre of new developments in journalism. In this new paradigm, journalists are able to engage citizens and the experts/elites in the proposition and generation of content. It's important to note that while there is an assumption of equality, Dewey still celebrates expertise. Dewey believes the shared knowledge of many is far superior to a single individual's knowledge. Experts and scholars are welcome in Dewey's framework, but there is not the hierarchical structure present in Lippman's understanding of journalism and society. According to Dewey, conversation, debate, and dialogue lie at the heart of a democracy.

While Lippman's journalistic philosophy might be more acceptable to government leaders, Dewey's approach is a better description of how many journalists see their role in society, and, in turn, how much of society expects journalists to function. Americans, for example, may criticize some of the excesses committed by journalists, but they tend to expect journalists to serve as watchdogs on government, businesses and actors, enabling people to make informed decisions on the issues of the time.

Elements[link]

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel propose several guidelines for journalists in their book The Elements of Journalism^[6]. Because journalism's first loyalty is to the citizenry, journalists are obliged to tell the truth and must serve as an independent monitor of powerful individuals and institutions within society. The essence of journalism is to provide citizens with reliable information through the discipline of verification, as well providing a forum for public criticism.

Professional and ethical standards[link]

In the UK, all newspapers are bound by the Code of Practice of the Press Complaints Commission.This includes points like respecting people's privacy and ensuring accuracy. However, the Media Standards Trust has criticised the PCC, claiming it needs to be radically changed to secure public trust of newspapers.

This is in stark contrast to the media climate prior to the 20th Century, where the media market was dominated by smaller newspapers and pamphleteers who usually had an overt and often radical agenda, with no presumption of balance or objectivity.

Failing to uphold standards[link]

Such a code of conduct can, in the real world, be difficult to uphold consistently. Journalists who believe they are being fair or objective may give biased accounts—by reporting selectively, trusting too much to anecdote, or giving a partial explanation of actions. Even in routine reporting, bias can creep into a story through a reporter's choice of facts to summarize, or through failure to check enough sources, hear and report dissenting voices, or seek fresh perspectives.

A news organization's budget inevitably reflects decision-making about what news to cover, for what audience, and in what depth. Those decisions may reflect conscious or unconscious bias. When budgets are cut, editors may sacrifice reporters in distant news bureaus, reduce the number of staff assigned to low-income areas, or wipe entire communities from the publication's zone of interest.

Publishers, owners and other corporate executives, especially advertising sales executives, can try to use their powers over journalists to influence how news is reported and published. Journalists usually rely on top management to create and maintain a "firewall" between the news and other departments in a news organization to prevent undue influence on the news department. One journalism magazine, COLUMBIA JOURNAL REVIEW , has made it a practice to reveal examples of executives who try to influence news coverage, of executives who do not abuse their powers over journalists, and of journalists who resist such pressures.

SELF CENSORSHIP is a growing problem in journalism, particularly in covering countries that sharply restrict press freedom. As commercial pressure in the media marketplace grows, media organizations are loath to lose access to high-profile countries by producing unflattering stories. For example, a news channel admitted that it had practiced self-censorship in covering the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq in order to ensure continued access after the regime had thrown out other media. even the chairman of particular news channel also complained of self-censorship during the invasion of Iraq due to the fear of alienating key audiences in the US.

Legal status[link]

Governments have widely varying policies and practices towards journalists, which control what they can research and write, and what press organizations can publish. Some governments guarantee the freedom of the press; while other nations severely restrict what journalists can research and/or publish.

Journalists in many nations have some privileges that members of the general public do not; including better access to public events, crime scenes and press conferences, and to extended interviews with public officials, celebrities and others in the public eye.

Journalists who elect to cover conflicts, whether wars between nations or insurgencies within nations, often give up any expectation of protection by government, if not giving up their rights to protection by government. Journalists who are captured or detained during a conflict are expected to be treated as civilians and to be released to their national government. Many governments around the world target journalists for intimidation, harassment, and violence because of the nature of their work.^[7]

Right to protect confidentiality of sources[link]

Journalists' interaction with sources sometimes involves confidentiality, an extension of freedom of the press giving journalists a legal protection to keep the identity of a confidential informant private even when demanded by police or prosecutors; withholding sources can land journalists in contempt of court, or in jail.

In the United States, there is no right to protect sources in a federal court. However, federal courts will refuse to force journalists to reveal sources, unless the information the court seeks is highly relevant to the case and there's no other way to get it. State courts provide varying degrees of such protection. Journalists who refuse to testify even when ordered to can be found in contempt of court and fined or jailed.

Genres[link]

Some forms include:

• Advocacy journalism – writing to advocate particular viewpoints or influence the opinions of the audience.
• Broadcast journalism – writing or speaking which is intended to be distributed by radio or television broadcasting, rather than only in written form for readers.
• Investigative journalism – writing which seeks to add extra information to explain, or better describe the people and events of a particular topic.
• Tabloid journalism – writing which uses opinionated or wild claims.
• Yellow journalism (or sensationalism) – writing which emphasizes exaggerated claims or rumors.
• Drone journalism – use of drones to capture journalistic footage.^[8]

References[link]

See also[link]

Journalism portal

Journalism reviews[link]

• American Journalism Review
• Columbia Journalism Review
• Health News Review
• Ryerson Review of Journalism

External links[link]

• Journalism at the Open Directory Project

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Journalism

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Journalism

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John Pilger
Born	9 October 1939[1] Sydney, Australia
Residence	United Kingdom
Nationality	Australian
Occupation	Journalist, writer, documentary filmmaker
Website
johnpilger.com

John Richard Pilger (born 9 October 1939)^[1] is an Australian journalist and documentary maker, based in London.

Since his early years as a war correspondent in Vietnam, Pilger has been a strong critic of American and British foreign policy, which he considers to be driven by an imperialist agenda. Pilger has also criticised his native country's treatment of Indigenous Australians and the practices of the mainstream media. In the UK print media, he has had a long association with the Daily Mirror, and writes a fortnightly columnn for the New Statesman magazine.

Pilger has twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries, screened internationally, have gained awards in Britain and worldwide, and the journalist has received several honorary doctorates.^[2][3]

Early life and career[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2010)

Pilger was born and raised in Bondi, a suburb of Sydney.^[2] He attended Sydney Boys High School,^[2] where he started a student newspaper, The Messenger, and later joined a four-year journalist trainee scheme with the Australian Consolidated Press.^[2] Beginning his career in 1958 as a copy boy with the Sydney Sun, he later moved to the city's Daily Telegraph where he was a reporter, sports writer and sub-editor.^[2] He also freelanced and worked for the Sydney Sunday Telegraph, the daily paper's sister title. After moving to Europe, he was for a year a freelance correspondent in Italy.^[4]

Settling in the UK in 1962, working as a sub-editor, Pilger joined British United Press and then Reuters in London on their middle-east desk,^[4] and was recruited by the English Daily Mirror in 1963, again as a sub-editor at first.^[4] Later, he was a reporter, a feature writer and Chief Foreign Correspondent for the title. Working in the United States, on 5 June 1968 he witnessed the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.^[5][6] During the next twenty years, Pilger became the Daily Mirror's star reporter, particularly on social issues. He was a war correspondent in Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, India, Bangladesh and Biafra. Nearly eighteen months after Robert Maxwell bought the Mirror (on 12 July 1984), Pilger was sacked by Richard Stott, the newspaper's editor, on 31 December 1985.^[7]

Early television work[link]

His career on television began on World in Action (Granada Television) in 1969, for whom he made two documentaries broadcast in 1970 and 1971, the earliest of more than fifty involving Pilger. The Quiet Mutiny in 1970 was the first of these. Filmed at Camp Snuffy, the film presented a character study of the common US soldier during the Vietnam War, revealing the shifting morale and open rebellion of Western troops. Pilger described the film as "something of a scoop" - it was the first documentary to show the open rebellion within the drafted ranks of the US military that led to the withdrawal of the land army in 1973.^{[citation needed]} "When I flew to New York and showed it to Mike Wallace, the star reporter of CBS' 60 Minutes, he agreed. "Real shame we can't show it here"", Pilger said in an interview with the New Statesman.^[8] Later films about Vietnam followed The Quiet Mutiny, Vietnam: Still America's War (1974), Do You Remember Vietnam? (1978) and Vietnam: The Last Battle (1995).

Following a brief unhappy period on the BBC's Midweek television series during 1972-73,^[9] five reports were completed, but only two were broadcast, the journalist was given a regular television outlet at ATV. The Pilger half-hour documentary series was commissioned by Charles Denton, then a producer with ATV, for screening on the British ITV network. The series ran for five series from 1974 until 1977,^[9] at first runnng in the UK on Sunday afternoons after Weekend World; later it was scheduled in a weekday peak-time evening slot. The last series included "A Faraway Country" (broadcast in September 1977) about dissidents in Czechoslavakia, then part of the Communist Soviet bloc. Pilger and his team interviewed members of Charter 77, and others, secretly using domestic film equipment. In the documentary Pilger praises the courage and commitment to freedom of Charter 77 and describes the communist totalitarianism as "fascism disguised as socialism".^[10]

Pilger's programmes were then extended to fill an hour, placed in the 9pm slot before News at Ten, and gained the journalist a high profile in Britain. After ATV lost its franchise in 1981, he has continued to make documentaries for screening on ITV, initially for Central, and later via Carlton Television.

Documentaries and career: 1978-2000[link]

Cambodia[link]

In 1979, Pilger and two colleagues with whom he collaborated for many years, documentary film-maker David Munro and photographer Eric Piper, entered Cambodia in the wake of the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime. The result was a series of world exclusives, the first of which occupied almost an entire Daily Mirror, which sold out. This was followed by an ITV documentary, Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia, which brought to people's living rooms the suffering of the Khmer people. Some $45 million was raised, unsolicited, in mostly small donations following the showing of Year Zero, including almost £4 million raised by schoolchildren in the UK. This funded the first substantial relief to Cambodia, including life saving drugs like penicillin and the manufacture of clothes to replace the black uniforms people had been forced to wear. According to Brian Walker, director of Oxfam, "a solidarity and compassion surged across our nation" from the broadcast of Year Zero.^[11] Pilger and Munro made four later films about Cambodia. During the filming of Cambodia Year One, they were warned that Pilger was on a Khmer Rouge 'death list' and, in one incident, they narrowly escaped an ambush. The British Film Institute (BFI) has described Year Zero as one of the ten most influential documentary films of the 20th century.^{[citation needed]}

Pilger himself described the British reaction to Year Zero in 2006:

The documentary as a television "event" can send ripples far and wide... Year Zero not only revealed the horror of the Pol Pot years, it showed how Richard Nixon's and Henry Kissinger's 'secret' bombing of that country had provided a critical catalyst for the rise of the Khmer Rouge. It also exposed how the west, led by the United States and Britain, was imposing an embargo, like a medieval siege, on the most stricken country on earth. This was a reaction to the fact that Cambodia's liberator was Vietnam - a country that had come from the wrong side of the Cold War and that had recently defeated the US. Cambodia's suffering was a wilful revenge. Britain and the US even backed Pol Pot's demand that his man continue to occupy Cambodia's seat at the UN, while Margaret Thatcher stopped children's milk going to the survivors of his nightmare regime. Little of this was reported. Had Year Zero simply described the monster that Pol Pot was, it would have been quickly forgotten. By reporting the collusion of "our" governments, it told a wider truth about how the world was run... Within two days of Year Zero going to air, 40 sacks of post arrived at ATV ... in Birmingham - 26,000 first-class letters in the first post alone. The station quickly amassed £1m, almost all of it in small amounts. "This is for Cambodia," wrote a Bristol bus driver, enclosing his week's wage. Entire pensions were sent, along with entire savings. Petitions arrived at Downing Street, one after the other, for weeks. MPs received hundreds of thousands of letters, demanding that British policy change (which it did, eventually). And none of it was asked for. For me, the public response to Year Zero gave the lie to clichés about "compassion fatigue", an excuse that some broadcasters and television executives use to justify the current descent into the cynicism and passivity of Big Brotherland. Above all, I learned that a documentary could reclaim shared historical and political memories, and present their hidden truths. The reward then was a compassionate and an informed public; and it still is."^[12]

In a 2007 speech, "Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire", Pilger described his experience with executives of the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) who refused to screen Year Zero, which, according to Pilger, has never been broadcast in the USA.^[13]

A claim in one of those later Pilger documentaries, Cambodia - The Betrayal (1990), led to a libel case. The Times of 6 July 1991 reported:

Two men who claimed that a television documentary accused them of being SAS members who trained Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge to lay mines, accepted "very substantial" libel damages in the High Court yesterday. Christopher Geidt and Anthony De Normann settled their action against the journalist John Pilger and Central Television on the third day of the hearing. Desmond Browne, QC, for Mr Pilger and Central Television, said his clients had not intended to allege the two men trained the Khmer Rouge to lay mines, but they accepted that was how the program had been understood.^[14]

Australia's indigenous population[link]

Pilger has long been a critic of Australian government policy, particularly of what he regards as its inherent racism and the poor treatment of its indigenous population. He has made several documentaroes on this subject, such as The Secret Country-The First Australians Fight Back (1985), and has wriiten the book A Secret Country published in 1989.

Pilger wrote in 2000 that the 1998 legislation that removed the common law rights of Indigenous Australians "is just one of the disgraces that has given Australia the distinction of being the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination."^[15]

East Timor[link]

In 1993 Pilger slipped into East Timor and shot Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy. The revelations of this film alerted the British public to the horror of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which began in 1975. Death of a Nation prompted an international outcry which ultimately led to Indonesian withdrawal from East Timor and eventual independence in 2000. When Death of a Nation was screened in Britain it was the highest rating documentary in 15 years and 5,000 telephone calls per minute were made to the programme's action line.^[16] When Death of a Nation was screened in Australia in June 1994, Foreign Minister Gareth Evans declared that Pilger "had a track record of distorted sensationalism mixed with sanctimony."^[17]

Documentaries and career since 2000[link]

Later newspaper career[link]

In 1987 Pilger was a founder of News on Sunday in London, and titular Editor-in-Chief, but resigned before publication. Pilger has a fortnightly column in New Statesman, his most frequent outlet, which began in 1991 while Steve Platt was editor of the magazine.^[18] Reportedly, Pilger has described his role at the Statesman as a "fig leaf".^[19] In 2001, while Piers Morgan was editor of the Mirror, he returned to his old paper in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks.^[20]

[edit] Palestine Is Still the Issue

Following broadcast on ITV in the UK, Pilger's documentary Palestine Is Still the Issue (2002) was alleged by the UK press to be inaccurate and biased. The UK television regulator, the Independent Television Commission (ITC), ordered an investigation. Based on the results of the investigation, the ITC rejected the complaints made about the film, stating:

The ITC raised with Carlton all the significant areas of inaccuracy critics of the programme alleged and the broadcaster answered them by reference to a range of historical texts. The ITC is not a tribunal of fact and is particularly aware of the difficulties of verifying 'historical fact' but the comprehensiveness and authority of Carlton's sources were persuasive, not least because many appeared to be of Israeli origin.

Pilger's documentary, the ITC added, "was not in breach of the ITC Programme Code... Adequate opportunity was given to a pro-Israeli government perspective."^[21]

In 2010, Pilger endorsed the Canadian Boat to Gaza ^[22], part of the Freedom Flotilla 2 ^[23] which aims to end the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.

Diego Garcia[link]

Pilger's 2004 film Stealing a Nation told the story of the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. In the 1960s and 70s, British governments expelled the entire population of the Chagos Archipelago, dumping them in the slums of Mauritius. The aim was to give the principal island of this Crown Colony, Diego Garcia, to the Americans who wanted it as a major military base, from where US planes have since bombed Afghanistan and Iraq. The International Criminal Court later described this act as "a crime against humanity". Pilger strongly criticised Tony Blair for not making any real response to the 2000 High Court ruling that the British expulsion of the island's natives to Mauritius in order to make way for a United States Air Force base had been illegal.^[24]

In March 2005, Stealing a Nation was awarded Britain's most prestigious documentary prize, the Royal Television Society Award.

In May 2006, the UK High Court ruled in favour of the Chagossians in their battle to prove they were illegally removed by the UK government during the depopulation of Diego Garcia, paving the way for a return to their homeland. The leader of the Chagos Refugee Group, Olivier Bancoult, described it as a "special day, a day to remember". In May 2007, the UK Government's appeal against the 2006 High Court ruling was dismissed and they took the matter to the House of Lords. In October 2008, the House of Lords ruled in favour of the Government, overturning the original High Court ruling.

Latin America[link]

His 2007 film The War on Democracy was Pilger's first cinema release and was named Best Documentary at the 2008 One World Media Awards.^[25] The film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Using, among other sources, archive footage sourced by Michael Moore's archivist Carl Deal, the film explores the role of US intervention, overt and covert, in toppling a series of governments in the region since the 1950s. This includes, for example, discussing reports of US involvement in the overthrow of the democratically elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende in 1973 and its replacement by the military dictatorship of General Pinochet. Pilger interviews several ex-CIA agents who purportedly took part in secret campaigns against democratic countries. He investigates the School of the Americas in the US state of Georgia, where Pinochet’s torture squads were reportedly trained along with tyrants and death squad leaders in Haiti, El Salvador, Brazil and Argentina.

The film also explores the attempted overthrow of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez in 2002 and how the people of Caracas rose up to force his return to power. It looks at the wider rise of populist governments across South America led by figures calling for loosening ties with Washington and a fairer redistribution of the continent's natural wealth. "[The film]" says Pilger, "is about the struggle of people to free themselves from a modern form of slavery". These people, he says, "describe a world not as American presidents like to see it as useful or expendable, they describe the power of courage and humanity among people with next to nothing. They reclaim noble words like democracy, freedom, liberation, justice, and in doing so they are defending the most basic human rights of all of us in a war being waged against all of us".^[26]

In May 2007, Pilger co-signed and put forward a letter supporting the refusal of the government of Venezuela under Hugo Chavez to renew the broadcasting licence of Venezuela's largest television network Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), as they openly supported a 2002 coup attempt against the democratically elected government. Pilger and other signatories suggest that if the BBC or ITV used their news broadcasts to publicly support a coup against the British government, they would suffer similar consequences.^[27] Human rights groups including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have described the RCTV decision as an effort to stifle freedom of expression.^[28]

Western leaders[link]

In addition to criticizing the policies of former United States President George W. Bush, Pilger has also taken aim at former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom he believes to be just as culpable as President Bush for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

On 25 July 2005, Pilger ascribed blame for the 2005 London bombings that took place the same month to Blair, whose decision to follow Bush helped to generate the rage that he maintains precipitated those bombings.^[29]

In the same column a year later, Pilger described Blair as a war criminal for supporting Israel's actions during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. He also asserted that Blair gave permission to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 to initiate what would ultimately become Operation Defensive Shield.^[30]

Pilger has also criticised United States President Barack Obama, describing him as "a glossy Uncle Tom who would bomb Pakistan."^[31] and whose theme "was the renewal of America as a dominant, avaricious bully." Pilger asserts, "In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed habeas corpus and demanded more secret government." ^[32]

He is a member of the International Organization for a Participatory Society, other leading members include Noam Chomsky and David Graeber,^[33] launched in 2012.^[34]

Other issues[link]

Critic of mainstream media[link]

He is a strong critic of the institutions and economic forces that structure 'mainstream' journalism. In an address at Columbia University on 14 April 2006, he said:

During the Cold War, a group of Russian journalists toured the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by their hosts for their impressions. 'I have to tell you,' said their spokesman, 'that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV, that all the opinions on all the vital issues were by and large, the same. To get that result in our country, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here, you don't have that. What's the secret? How do you do it?'

Pilger said, while speaking to journalism students at the University of Lincoln, that mainstream journalism means corporate journalism, and as such represents vested corporate interests over those of the public.^[35]

He is particularly scornful of pro-Iraq war commentators on the liberal left, or 'liberal interventionists', such as Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch.

In 2003 he was interviewed by the New Zealand journalist Kim Hill on her television show Face to Face With Kim Hill. The interview became infamous in New Zealand. Pilger, being interviewed via a live-cross, complained that Hill had not researched him before the interview, saying "You waste my time because you have not prepared for this interview, as any journalist does, and I've done many interviews. The one thing is to prepare for them and this interview, frankly, is a disgrace." Hill, who had commenced the interview by proposing that the Iraq war was "a just war", eventually threw Pilger's book at his image on the screen.

Honours and awards[link]

Pilger has received human rights and journalism awards, including the Richard Dimbleby Award for factual reporting at the 1990 BAFTA Awards, as well as many honorary doctorates.^[2] The jury’s citation reads as follows: "For work as an author, film-maker and journalist as well as for courage as a foreign and war correspondent in enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard. For commitment to peace with justice by exposing and holding governments to account for human rights abuses and for fearless challenges to censorship in any form."^[36]

Other awards include:

• One World Media Awards - TV Documentary Award for his ITV1 film The War on Democracy, on the role of Washington in Latin American politics. (2008)^[37]
• The Grierson Trust Award, UK (2011)^[38]

Praise and criticism[link]

Praise[link]

• In Breaking the Silence: The Television Reporting of John Pilger, his appraisal of the journalist's documentaries, Anthony Hayward wrote, "For more than a generation, he has been an ever stronger voice for those without a voice and a thorn in the side of authority, the Establishment. His work, particularly his television documentaries, has also made him rare in being a journalist who is universally known, a champion of those for whom he fights and the scourge of politicians and others whose actions he exposes."^[39]
• Noam Chomsky said of Pilger: "John Pilger's work has been a beacon of light in often dark times. The realities he has brought to light have been a revelation, over and over again, and his courage and insight a constant inspiration."^[40]
• According to Harold Pinter, Nobel Laureate and member of the Stop the War Coalition, "John Pilger is fearless. He unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth, and tells it as it is... I salute him."^[3]
• Martha Gellhorn, the American novelist, journalist and war correspondent, said that "[John Pilger] has taken on the great theme of justice and injustice... He documents and proclaims the official lies that we are told and that most people accept or don't bother to think about. [He] belongs to an old and unending worldwide company, the men and women of conscience. Some are as famous as Tom Paine and William Wilberforce, some as unknown as a tiny group calling itself Grandmothers Against The Bomb.... If they win, it is slowly; but they never entirely lose. To my mind, they are the blessed proof of the dignity of man. John has an assured place among them. I'd say he is a charter member for his generation."^[41]
• John Simpson, the BBC's world affairs editor, has said, "A country that does not have a John Pilger in its journalism is a very feeble place indeed."^[42]

Criticism[link]

• The English writer Auberon Waugh, writing in The Spectator in the 1970s in response to an article Pilger had written alleging Thai complicity in child trafficking (whose research was challenged), coined the verb "to pilger", defined as: to present information in a sensationalist manner to reach a foregone conclusion.^[43] The word was included in the Oxford Dictionary of New Words in 1991, but removed from the subsequent edition after Pilger complained^[44] and, according to some sources, threatened legal action.^[45] Noam Chomsky responded to Waugh's neologism by stating that "pilgerize" was "invented by journalists furious about his incisive and courageous reporting, and knowing that the only response they are capable of is ridicule."^[46]
• The writer William Shawcross, considers him "one of the worst journalists writing in the English language".^[47]
• The Anglo-American writer Christopher Hitchens said of Pilger: "I remember thinking that his work from Vietnam was very good at the time. I dare say if I went back and read it again I’d probably still admire quite a lot of it. But there is a word that gets overused and can be misused – namely, anti-American – and it has to be used about him. So that for me sort of spoils it... even when I’m inclined to agree."^[48]
• Gerard Henderson, a Conservative Australian newspaper columnist, has accused him of "engaging in hyperbole against western democracies."^[49]
• The Economist's Lexington columnist commented on Pilger's account of the Arab uprising:

Next up is the egregious John Pilger, who thinks the Arab revolts show that the West in general and the United States in particular are "fascist":

The revolt in the Arab world is against not merely a resident dictator, but a worldwide economic tyranny, designed by the US Treasury and imposed by the US Agency for International Development, the IMF and the World Bank, which have ensured that rich countries such as Egypt are reduced to vast sweatshops, with 40 per cent of the population earning less than $2 a day. The people's triumph in Cairo was the first blow against what Benito Mussolini called corporatism, a word that appears in his definition of fascism.

... Maybe he hasn't noticed, but what most of the Arab protesters say they want are the very freedoms that they know full well, even if Pilger doesn't, to be available in the West. No doubt he believes they are labouring under some massive mind-control delusion engineered by the CIA.^[50]

Bibliography[link]

Books[link]

Plays[link]

• The Last Day (1983)

Selected documentaries[link]

References[link]

See also[link]

• Media Lens

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Pilger

• John Pilger - official website
• John Pilger Videos - documentaries online, official website
• John Pilger at IMDb
• Freedom Next Time: Filmmaker & Journalist John Pilger on Propaganda, the Press, Censorship and Resisting the American Empire, Democracy Now!, 7 August 2007.
  Listen and Watch.
• John Pilger at Random House Australia
• John Pilger: There Is a War on Journalism - video interview by Democracy Now!
• John Pilger: Global Support for WikiLeaks is "Rebellion" Against U.S. Militarism - video report by Democracy Now!
• Desert Island Discs - John Pilger, BBC Radio 4, 18 February 1990 - Download page

Bruce Feirstein is an American screenwriter and humorist, best known for his contributions to the James Bond series and his best-selling humor books, including Real Men Don't Eat Quiche and Nice Guys Sleep Alone. Real Men Don't Eat Quiche was on the New York Times best seller list for 53 weeks.

Career[link]

Feirstein attended Boston University, where he served as managing editor for the student newspaper, The Daily Free Press. After graduation, he worked as an advertising copywriter, winning 11 Clio Awards, and three One Show Gold Pencils for his work on corporate and political advertising campaigns, for clients including BMW, FedEx, Michael Dukakis, and Sony.

He then became a freelance writer for many publications, including The Sunday New York Times Magazine (where he substituted for Russell Baker), The New Republic, New York Magazine, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, the East Hampton Star and Playboy.

He was a contributing editor at Spy, worked for Howell Raines writing editorials for the New York Times, and has written the (largely) humorous "New Yorker's Diary" for the New York Observer since 1994. He has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 1995, and a columnist at Strategy + Business magazine since 2000. His work has also appeared on-line at Salon.com and Inside.com.

In television, Feirstein worked very briefly on Saturday Night Live, was an on-air contributor to ABC's Days End, and was nominated for a Cable-Ace Award for his one-act HBO play The Best Legs in the Eighth Grade, starring Tim Matheson and James Belushi. He was also the story editor on the Fox Network series Mr. President, starring George C. Scott and produced by Johnny Carson. He has appeared (as himself) in documentaries about the 1980s, the Hollywood Award Season, James Bond and Pierce Brosnan.

Feirstein has also appeared as an on-air political commentator for CNBC and Fox News, and has been interviewed on the Today Show and Good Morning America.

Beside the James Bond series, Feirstein has also worked (uncredited) on screenplays for Will Smith, Bruce Willis, John Travolta, and Julia Roberts, along with the directors John Woo and John McTiernan. He appeared as himself in the 1992 feature film Naked in New York, directed by Dan Algrant.

In 2007, while continuing to write screenplays in Los Angeles, and contribute to Vanity Fair in New York, he began producing movies in China. His first film, 2009's Hong He, (Red River) the story of the aftermath of the Vietnam War, opened to great critical and commercial acclaim in China. Directed by Jiarui Zhang, it stars Nick Cheung, Danny Lee and Jingchu Zhang.^[1]

In 2008, Feirstein was named to the board of Overseers of Boston University.^[2]

James Bond[link]

In 1995, Feirstein got his start within the James Bond series by writing the screenplay, along with Jeffrey Caine, for the film GoldenEye, with story by Michael France.^[3] Feirstein followed this up in 1997 by writing the story and the screenplay for Tomorrow Never Dies. In 1999 Feirstein co-scripted The World Is Not Enough with story writers Robert Wade and Neal Purvis.

Feirstein has also written four video games in the Bond series. In 2004, Feirstein wrote the critically acclaimed Everything or Nothing for developer and publisher Electronic Arts. More recently Feirstein adapted the 1957 Ian Fleming novel and 1963 film From Russia with Love for a video game of the same name, utilizing the voice and likeness of Sean Connery. In 2010, Activision announced that he would contribute an original story for the next videogame in the series, Blood Stone, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC platforms,^[4] along with the remake of GoldenEye 007. As one of the original writers of the GoldenEye film, Feirstein's work on the new game involved updating the plot to a modern setting and in the style of Daniel Craig's interpretation of the character.

Personal life[link]

Feirstein was born in Maplewood, New Jersey.^[5]

He lives with his wife, Madeline Warren, and twin children in Los Angeles. Warren is a former studio executive responsible for overseeing the production of many feature films, including My Favorite Year, Tin Cup, The Man Who Knew Too Little, and the Oscar-nominated L.A. Confidential.

While in high school, Feirstein had a job changing the lightbulbs on the runways at Newark Airport.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bruce Feirstein at the Internet Movie Database
• Articles by Bruce Feirstein at The New York Observer.
• Articles by Bruce Feirstein at Vanity Fair.

Rupert Murdoch
Murdoch at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival Vanity Fair party
Born	Keith Rupert Murdoch (1931-03-11) 11 March 1931 (age 81) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Nationality	United States
Citizenship	United States (naturalised 1985)
Occupation	Chairman and CEO of News Corporation
Net worth	US$ 8.3 billion (2012)[1]
Religion	Christian
Spouse	Patricia Booker (m. 1956–1967) «start: (1956)–end+1: (1968)»"Marriage: Patricia Booker to Rupert Murdoch" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Rupert_Murdoch) (divorced) Anna Maria Torv (m. 1967–1999) «start: (1967)–end+1: (2000)»"Marriage: Anna Maria Torv to Rupert Murdoch" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Rupert_Murdoch) (divorced) Wendi Deng (m. 1999) «start: (1999)»"Marriage: Wendi Deng to Rupert Murdoch" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Rupert_Murdoch)
Children	Prudence Murdoch (b. 1958)[2] Elisabeth Murdoch (b. 1968)[2] Lachlan Murdoch (b. 1971)[2] James Murdoch (b. 1972)[2] Grace Murdoch (b. 2001)[3] Chloe Murdoch (b. 2003)[2]
Parents	Keith Murdoch (1885–1952) Elisabeth Joy (née Greene, b. 1909)
Relatives	Matthew Freud (son-in-law) Sarah Murdoch (daughter-in-law)
Awards	Companion of the Order of Australia (1984).[4]
Notes a Australian citizenship lost in 1985 (under S17 of Australian Citizenship Act 1948) with acquisition of US nationality

Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG (born 11 March 1931) is an Australian American media mogul. Murdoch became managing director of Australia's News Limited, inherited from his father, in 1952.^[3][5] He is the founder, Chairman and CEO of global media holding company the News Corporation, the world's second-largest media conglomerate.^[6][7][8][9]

In the 1950s and '60s, he acquired various newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World followed closely by The Sun. He moved to New York in 1974 to expand into the US market and became a naturalised US citizen in 1985.^[5] In 1981, he bought The Times, his first British broadsheet.

In 1986, keen to adopt newer electronic publishing technologies, he consolidated his UK printing operations in Wapping, causing bitter industrial disputes. His News Corporation acquired Twentieth Century Fox (1985), HarperCollins (1989)^[10] and The Wall Street Journal (2007). He formed BSkyB in 1990 and during the 1990s expanded into Asian networks and South American television. By 2000 Murdoch's News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion.

In July 2011 Murdoch faced allegations that his companies, including the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty and public citizens. He faces police and government investigations into bribery and corruption by the British government and FBI investigations in the US.^[11][12]

Early life[link]

Murdoch was born in Melbourne, the only son of Sir Keith Murdoch (1885–1952) and Elisabeth Greene (born 1909). He has English, Irish and Scottish ancestry. His parents were both born in Melbourne. Keith Murdoch was a renowned war correspondent and later a regional newspaper magnate.^[5] He asked for a rendezvous after seeing her debutante photograph in one of his own newspapers and they married in 1928, when she was aged 19 and he 23 years her senior.^[13] In addition to Rupert, the couple had three daughters: Janet Calvert-Jones, Anne Kantor and Helen Handbury (1929–2004).

Murdoch attended Geelong Grammar School,^[14] where he had his first experience of editing a publication, being co-editor of the school's official journal The Corian and editor of the student journal If Revived.^[15][16] He also took his School's cricket team to the National Junior Finals. He worked part time at the Melbourne Herald and was groomed by his father from an early age to take over the family business.^[3][5] Murdoch read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford University in England, where he supported the Labour Party^[3] and managed Oxford Student Publications Limited, the publishing house of Cherwell Newspaper.^[17] After her husband's death from cancer in 1952, Elisabeth Murdoch went on to invest herself in charity work, as life governor of the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne and establishing the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. At 102 (in 2011) she had 74 descendants.^[13] Murdoch completed an MA before working as a sub-editor with the Daily Express for two years.^[5]

Activities in Australia and New Zealand[link]

Journalist Sir Keith Murdoch (1886–1952), Rupert Murdoch's father.

Following his father's death, when he was 21, Murdoch returned from Oxford to take charge of the family business News Limited, which had been established in 1923. Rupert Murdoch turned its newspaper, Adelaide News, its main asset, into a major success.^[3] He began to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion, buying the troubled Sunday Times in Perth, Western Australia (1956) and over the next few years acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory, including the Sydney afternoon tabloid, The Daily Mirror (1960). The Economist describes Murdoch as "inventing the modern tabloid",^[18] as he developed a pattern for his newspapers, increasing sports and scandal coverage and adopting eye-catching headlines.^[5]

Murdoch's first foray outside Australia involved the purchase of a controlling interest in the New Zealand daily The Dominion. In January 1964, while touring New Zealand with friends in a rented Morris Minor after sailing across the Tasman, Murdoch read of a takeover bid for the Wellington paper by the British-based Canadian newspaper magnate, Lord Thomson of Fleet. On the spur of the moment, he launched a counter-bid. A four-way battle for control ensued in which the 32-year-old Murdoch was ultimately successful.^[19] Later in 1964, Murdoch launched The Australian, Australia's first national daily newspaper, and its first broadsheet, which was based first in Canberra and later in Sydney.^[3][20] In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney morning tabloid The Daily Telegraph from Australian media mogul Sir Frank Packer, who later regretted selling it to him.^[21] In 1984, Murdoch was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for services to publishing.^[22]

In 1999, Murdoch significantly expanded his music holdings in Australia by acquiring the controlling share in a leading Australian independent label, Michael Gudinski's Mushroom Records; he merged that with Festival Records, and the result was Festival Mushroom Records (FMR). Both Festival and FMR were managed by Murdoch's son James Murdoch for several years.^[23]

Political activities in Australia[link]

Murdoch found a political ally in John McEwen, leader of the Australian Country Party (now known as the National Party of Australia), who was governing in coalition with the larger Menzies-Holt Liberal Party. From the very first issue of The Australian Murdoch began taking McEwen's side in every issue that divided the long-serving coalition partners. (The Australian, 15 July 1964, first edition, front page: "Strain in Cabinet, Liberal-CP row flares.") It was an issue that threatened to split the coalition government and open the way for the stronger Australian Labor Party to dominate Australian politics. It was the beginning of a long campaign that served McEwen well.^[24]

After McEwen and Menzies retired, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the Australian Labor Party under the leadership of Gough Whitlam and duly saw it elected^[25] on a social platform that included universal free health care, free education for all Australians to tertiary level, recognition of the People's Republic of China, and public ownership of Australia's oil, gas and mineral resources. Rupert Murdoch's backing of Whitlam turned out to be brief. Murdoch had already started his short-lived National Star^[24] newspaper in America, and was seeking to strengthen his political contacts there.^[26]

Asked about the Australian federal election, 2007 at News Corporation's annual general meeting in New York on 19 October 2007, its chairman Rupert Murdoch said, "I am not commenting on anything to do with Australian politics. I'm sorry. I always get into trouble when I do that." Pressed as to whether he believed Prime Minister John Howard should be re-elected, he said: "I have nothing further to say. I'm sorry. Read our editorials in the papers. It'll be the journalists who decide that – the editors."^[27] In 2009, in response to accusations by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that News Limited was running vendettas against him and his government, Murdoch opined that Rudd was "oversensitive"^[28] Murdoch described Howard's successor, Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as "...more ambitious to lead the world [in tackling climate change] than to lead Australia..." and criticised Rudd's expansionary fiscal policies in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 as unnecessary.^[29] Although News Limited's interests are extensive, also including the Daily Telegraph, the Courier-Mail and the Adelaide Advertiser, it was suggested by the commentator Mungo MacCallum in The Monthly that "the anti-Rudd push, if coordinated at all, was almost certainly locally driven" as opposed to being directed by Murdoch, who also took a different position from local editors on such matters as climate change and stimulus packages to combat the financial crisis.^[30]

Activities in Britain[link]

Business activities in Britain[link]

Rupert Murdoch – World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2007

In 1968 Murdoch entered the UK newspaper market with his acquisition of the populist News of the World, followed in 1969 with the purchase of the struggling daily broadsheet The Sun from IPC.^[31] Murdoch turned The Sun into a tabloid format and reduced costs by using the same printing press for both newspapers. In 1997 The Sun attracted 10 million daily readers.^[5] In 1981, Murdoch acquired the struggling Times and Sunday Times from Canadian newspaper publisher Lord Thomson of Fleet.^[31] Ownership of The Times came to him through his relationship with Lord Thomson, who had grown tired of losing money on it as a result of much industrial action that stopped publication.^[32] In the light of success and expansion at The Sun the owners believed that Murdoch could turn the papers around. Harold Evans, Editor of the Sunday Times from 1967, was made head of the daily Times, though he stayed only a year amid editorial conflict with Murdoch.^[33][34]

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Murdoch's publications were generally supportive of Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.^[35] At the end of the Thatcher/Major era, Murdoch switched his support to the Labour Party and its leader, Tony Blair. The closeness of his relationship with Blair and their secret meetings to discuss national policies was to become a political issue in Britain.^[36] Though this later started to change, with The Sun publicly renouncing the ruling Labour government and lending its support to David Cameron's Conservative Party in the English editions, which soon after came to form a coalition government. In Scotland, where the Tories had yet to recover from their complete annihilation in 1997, the paper began to endorse the Scottish National Party (though not yet its flagship policy of independence), which soon after came to form the first ever outright majority in the proportionally elected Scottish Parliament. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official spokesman said in November 2009 that Brown and Murdoch "were in regular communication" and that "there is nothing unusual in the prime minister talking to Rupert Murdoch".^[37]

In 1986, Murdoch introduced electronic production processes to his newspapers in Australia, Britain and the United States. The greater degree of automation led to significant reductions in the number of employees involved in the printing process. In England, the move roused the anger of the print unions, resulting in a long and often violent dispute that played out in Wapping, one of London's docklands areas, where Murdoch had installed the very latest electronic newspaper purpose-built publishing facility in an old warehouse.^[38] The bitter dispute at Wapping started with the dismissal of 6,000 employees who had gone on strike and resulted in street battles and demonstrations. Many on the political left in Britain alleged the collusion of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government with Murdoch in the Wapping affair, as a way of damaging the British trade union movement.^[39][40][41] In 1987, the dismissed workers accepted a settlement of £60 million.^[5]

Murdoch's British-based satellite network, Sky Television, incurred massive losses in its early years of operation. As with many of his other business interests, Sky was heavily subsidised by the profits generated by his other holdings, but convinced rival satellite operator British Satellite Broadcasting to accept a merger on his terms in 1990.^[5] They were quick to see the advantages of direct to home (DTH) satellite broadcasting that did not require costly cable networks and the merged company, BSkyB, has dominated the British pay-TV market ever since.^[42] By 1996, BSkyB had more than 3.6 million subscribers, triple the number of cable customers in the UK.^[5] British financier Lord Jacob Rothschild, a close Murdoch friend since the 1960's, served as deputy chairman of Murdoch's BSkyB corporation from 2003–2007, and Murdoch jointly invested with Rothschild in a 5.5 percent stake in Genie Oil and Gas, which did shale gas and oil exploration in Israel.^[43]

In response to print media's decline and the increasing influence of online journalism during the 2000s, Murdoch proclaimed his support of the micropayments model for obtaining revenue from on-line news,^[44] although this has been criticised by some.^[45]

News Corporation has subsidiaries in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands and the Virgin Islands. From 1986, News Corporation's annual tax bill averaged around seven percent of its profits.^[46]

Political activities in Britain[link]

In Britain, in the 1980s, Murdoch formed a close alliance with Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and The Sun credited itself with helping her successor John Major to win an unexpected election victory in the 1992 general election, which had been expected to end in a hung parliament or a narrow win for Neil Kinnock's Labour.^[47] In the general elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005, Murdoch's papers were either neutral or supported Labour under Tony Blair. This has led some critics to argue that Murdoch simply supports the incumbent parties (or those who seem most likely to win an upcoming election) in the hope of influencing government decisions that may affect his businesses.

The Labour Party, from when Tony Blair became leader in 1994, had moved from the Left to a more central position on many economic issues prior to 1997. Murdoch identifies himself as a libertarian, saying "What does libertarian mean? As much individual responsibility as possible, as little government as possible, as few rules as possible. But I'm not saying it should be taken to the absolute limit."^[48]

In a speech delivered in New York, Rupert Murdoch said that the British Prime Minister Tony Blair described the BBC coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster as being full of hatred of America.^[49]

In 1998, Rupert Murdoch made an attempt to buy the football club Manchester United F.C.,^[50] with an offer of £625 million, but this failed. It was the largest amount ever offered for a sports club. It was blocked by the United Kingdom's Competition Commission, which stated that the acquisition would have "hurt competition in the broadcast industry and the quality of British football".

On 28 June 2006 the BBC reported that Murdoch and News Corporation were considering backing new Conservative leader David Cameron at the next General Election – still up to four years away.^[51] In a later interview in July 2006, when he was asked what he thought of the Conservative leader, Murdoch replied "Not much".^[52] In a 2009 blog, it was suggested that in the aftermath of the News of the World phone hacking scandal which is still ongoing in 2012 and might yet have Transatlantic implications^[53] Murdoch and News Corporation might have decided to back Cameron.^[54] Despite this, there had already been a convergence of interests between the two men over the muting of Britain's communications regulator Ofcom.^[55]

In 2006, Britain's Independent newspaper reported that Murdoch would offer Tony Blair a senior role in his global media company News Corporation when the prime minister stood down from office.^[56]

He is accused by former Solidarity MSP Tommy Sheridan of having a personal vendetta against him and of conspiring with MI5 to produce a video of him confessing to having affairs – allegations over which Sheridan had previously sued News International and won.^[57] On being arrested for perjury following the case, Sheridan claimed that the charges were "orchestrated and influenced by the powerful reach of the Murdoch empire".^[58]

In August 2008, British Conservative leader and future Prime Minister David Cameron accepted free flights to hold private talks and attend private parties with Murdoch on his yacht, the Rosehearty.^[59] Cameron has declared in the Commons register of interests he accepted a private plane provided by Murdoch's son-in-law, public relations guru Matthew Freud; Cameron has not revealed his talks with Murdoch. The gift of travel in Freud's Gulfstream IV private jet was valued at around £30,000. Other guests attending the "social events" included the then EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson, the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and co-chairman of NBC Universal Ben Silverman. The Conservatives have not disclosed what was discussed.^[60]

In July 2011 it emerged that Cameron met key executives of Murdoch's News Corporation 26 times during the 14 months that Cameron had served as Prime Minister.^[61] It was also reported that Murdoch had given Cameron a personal guarantee that there would be no risk attached to hiring Andy Coulson, the former editor of News of the World, as the Conservative Party's communication director in 2007.^[62] This was in spite of Coulson having resigned as editor over phone hacking by a reporter. Cameron chose to take Murdoch's advice, despite warnings from Nick Clegg, Lord Ashdown and The Guardian.^[63] Coulson resigned his post in 2011 and was later arrested and questioned on allegations of further criminal activity at The News of the World, specifically the News International phone hacking scandal.

News International phone hacking scandal[link]

In July 2011 Rupert Murdoch along with his son James gave testimony before a British parliamentary committee regarding phone hacking. In the U.K his media empire remains under fire as investigators continue to probe reports of other phone hacking.^[64]

On 14 July, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons served a summons on Murdoch, his son James, and his former CEO Rebekah Brooks to testify before a committee on 19 July.^[65] After an initial refusal, the Murdochs confirmed they would attend after the committee issued them a summons to Parliament.^[66] The day before the committee, the website of the News Corporation publication The Sun was hacked, and a false story was posted on the front page claiming that Murdoch had died.^[67] Murdoch described the day of the committee "the most humble day of my life". He argued that since he ran a global business of 53,000 employees and that the News of the World was "just 1%" of this, he was not ultimately responsible for what went on at the tabloid. He added that he had not considered resigning,^[68] and that he and the other top executives had been completely unaware of the hacking.^[69][70]

On 15 July Rupert Murdoch attended a private meeting in London with the family of Milly Dowler, where he personally apologised for the hacking of their murdered daughter's voicemail by a company he owns.^[71][72] On 16 and 17 July, News International published two full-page apologies in many of Britain's national newspapers. The first apology took the form of a letter, signed by Rupert Murdoch, in which he said sorry for the "serious wrongdoing" that occurred. The second was titled "Putting right what's gone wrong", and gave more detail about the steps News International was taking to address the public's concerns.^[72] In the wake of the allegations Murdoch accepted the resignations of Rebekah Brooks, head of Murdoch's British operations, and Les Hinton, head of Dow Jones who was chairman of Murdoch's British newspaper division when some of the abuses happened. They both deny any knowledge of any wrong-doing under their command.^[73]

On 27 February 2012, the following day after Murdoch's controversial release of the Sun on Sunday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers informed the Leveson Inquiry that Police are investigating a "network of corrupt officials" as part of their inquiries into phone hacking and police corruption. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers told the Leveson Inquiry that evidence suggested a "culture of illegal payments" at the Sun newspaper and that these payments allegedly made by the Sun were authorised at a senior level.^[74]

In testimony on 25 April 2012, Murdoch did not deny the quote attributed to him by his former editor of The Sunday Times, Harold Evans: "I give instructions to my editors all round the world, why shouldn't I in London?"^[75][76] On 1 May 2012, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee issued a report stating that Murdoch was "not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company".^[77][78]

Activities in the United States[link]

Murdoch made his first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when he purchased the San Antonio Express-News. Soon afterwards, he founded Star, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976, he purchased the New York Post.^[5] On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalised citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own American television stations. This resulted in Murdoch losing his Australian citizenship.^[79][80]

Marvin Davis sold Marc Rich's interest in 20th Century Fox to Murdoch for $250 million in March 1984. Davis later backed out of a deal with Murdoch to purchase John Kluge's Metromedia television stations.^[81] Murdoch went alone and bought the stations, and later bought out Davis' remaining stake in Fox for $325 million.^[81] The six television stations owned by Metromedia would form the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company, founded on 9 October 1986, which would go on to have great success with programmes such as The Simpsons and The X-Files.^[5]

In 1987 in Australia, he bought The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, the company that his father had once managed. By 1990 News Corporation had built up debts of $7 billion (much from Sky TV in the UK).^[5] forcing Murdoch to sell many of the American magazine interests he had acquired in the mid-1980s. In 1993, it took exclusive coverage of the National Football League (NFL) from CBS and increased programming to seven days a week.^[82] In 1995, Murdoch's Fox Network became the object of scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), when it was alleged that News Ltd.'s Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. However, the FCC ruled in Murdoch's favour, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the best interests of the public. That same year, Murdoch announced a deal with MCI Communications to develop a major news website and magazine, The Weekly Standard. Also that year, News Corporation launched the Foxtel pay television network in Australia in partnership with Telstra. In 1996, Murdoch decided to enter the cable news market with the Fox News Channel, a 24-hour cable news station. Ratings studies released in 2009 showed that the network was responsible for nine of the top ten programs in the "Cable News" category at that time.^[83] Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner (founder and former owner of CNN) are long-standing rivals.^[84] In late 2003, Murdoch acquired a 34 percent stake in Hughes Electronics, the operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV, from General Motors for $6 billion (USD).^[22] His Fox movie studio would go on to have global hits with Titanic and Avatar.^[85]