NEWS
EVENTS
Public Enemies: Rupert Murdoch
You’ve definitely heard of Rupert Murdoch. He owns and controls roughly a fifth of UK news, owning a third of our newspapers, as well as similar proportions of American and Australian news outlets.
Murdoch is both Chairman and CEO of his company News Corporation meaning that he has complete control over his 33.7 Billion-dollar company. To put that into perspective, that’s 50% more than Wayne Enterprises makes in Batman.
As if owning and dictating a fifth of what people read in the news isn’t bad enough, he has reportedly dodged well in excess of £350 million of UK tax, as well as hundreds of dollars of American and Australian tax.
Putting money aside for a moment, Murdoch has played a leading role in making the world a worse place to live. He was heavily involved in suppressing the mining strikes under Thatcher by skewing the news against the unions. He has been involved in multiple scandals including taping the phones of a murdered school girl’s family, to blaming the Hillsborough disaster on the victims.
Murdoch has also been hailed as one of the worst things to ever have happened to world politics, spewing hatred and directly influencing the success or failure of politicians. He’s played a leading role in dismissing and trivialising climate change, arguably playing a role in the systematic destruction of the environment.
If that all didn’t tell you enough, the James Bond villain Elliot Carver, a media mogul trying to incite World War III for personal gain, is based on Rupert Murdoch and his actions.
If you didn’t know it before, Rupert Murdoch is public enemy number one. Simply because he has singlehandedly made the world a worse place to live.
