Schadenfreude plus plus

David's sketch of Wendy's personality in his eulogy included a phrase about bad guys getting their comeuppance, and this seems to sum up the way a great many people in Britain and the USA are feeling today about Rupert Murdoch. His grovelling apology to the parents of a murdered girl did nothing to dispel the outrage at his reporters' irresponsible, indeed criminal conduct. The girl's cell phone was hacked and messages deleted by a reporter to leave room for more in case these might be useful to the reporters. They cared nothing for the fact that this gave the parents and the police the false impression that the girl was still alive. In his up-market "quality" newspapers, the news, editorials, op-ed commentaries and correspondence columns are very subtly - and sometimes not so subtly - biased by selective emphases and omissions of specific facts. This has been done in the London Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Australian, on stories about conflicts between Israel and its neighbours, global environmental change, resource depletion, doubtless other important topics It is always unhealthy for a nation when a single person owns a disproportionately large share of the nation's media, as Murdoch does in the UK and to some extent in USA. It's even worse in Australia where Murdoch owns about 80% of the newspapers, and a radio and TV network - not quite as bad, perhaps, as Berlesconi's hold over the Italian media, but close. Murdoch has been very effective in shaping Australian public opinion, and via the Fox news network in the USA, he has had a pernicious influence on American public opinion, and thus on the way they vote. His current troubles in the UK have prompted both the US Senate and the FBI to examine closely for the first time the extent to which he has used dishonest and shoddy journalistic tactics to gather scandal, innuendo, half-truths, in order to promote his interests and try to destroy his adversaries. His influence over successive British governments has begun to come to light. He may well be responsible for Tony Blair's decision to join Bush in the insane invasion and destruction of Iraq, by his pernicious influence over Blair. British prime ministers did his bidding because they feared the consequences if their governments acted in ways contrary to those he advocated; not only would his media support be lost, there are suggestions that he obtained personal and private information that if disclosed could be politically damaging. Blackmail may not be too strong a word to apply to this behaviour. I join with people of good will everywhere in hoping that this is the beginning of the end of Murdoch's evil empire.