“The survey – commissioned by BT, Guardian Media Group, Associated Newspapers Limited, Trinity Mirror Plc, Northcliffe Media and Telegraph Media Group”

My word, now that really is surprising.

You mean all the incumbents in the media are unhappy about the idea of facing a more powerful competitor?

Gosh, whatever next?

And conducted by ICM. So we can be fairly sure it was a decent survey, That a survey is commissioned by a partial body has no bearing on its accuracy.

I hope the BSkyB deal goes through, to balance competition with the monopolistic left leaning BBC.

@3: “the monopolistic left leaning BBC”

“left leaning” with the Pope given airtime to broadcast Thought for Today after the shameful record of the Catholic Church on covering up child abuse? A recent TV news programme not on the BBC:

“A Channel 4 News investigation reveals that more than half of the Catholic priests convicted for child abuse and sentenced to more than a year in prison, in England and Wales since 2001, remain in the priesthood – with some still receiving financial support from the Church and living in church houses.”
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/catholic+church+abuse+paedophile+priests+remain+in+catholic+church/3767477.html

The notion that the BBC is “leftist” is laughable after what followed when Andrew Gilligan referred to the government’s “sexed up” dossier on Iraq’s WMD in an interview on 29 May 2003, just after 6am in the BBC Today programme. He was obliged to resign as the Today’s defence correspondent and find another job:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Gilligan

A little further on Greg Dyke, the BBC’s director general, was obliged to resign as well and all that was for a report that was true in all important essentials.

The dossier on Iraq’s WMD was sexed up – it claimed no less than four times that Iraq could use weapons of mass destruction within “45 minutes” of a command from Saddam Hussein but no WMD were found in Iraq after the invasion in March 2003.

Try this independent assessment of the objectivity of FoxNews – a Murdoch news channel in America:
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php

@1 Tim

In case you missed the fact it was members of the public that gave their views on this subject over 2,000 of them? Not the media groups themselves.

Sure, but you can write an opinions poll’s questions to get absolutely any answer you want.

I have actually done this professionally myself….

6 Tim W

..and your anecdotal evidence that it is possible to skew the results of a survey automatically makes this one suspect?

Unless you are arguing that ICM was somehow “got at” your protestations simply look odd. I doubt you would have gotten substantively different results using any other polling organisation, whether they had been paid by those opposed to Murdoch, the Tory party, or some independent body with no axe to grind.

OK, then let’s turn this around entirely then.

The current non-Murdoch media are obviously so good at gettting their fear of Murdoch into the populace, as this result shows, that we need a greater Murdoch presence in hte media in order to counter the propaganda of the non-Murdoch media?

8

Ah yes, because the “populace” are just too stupid to know that a diet of Fox News and Murdoch in control of the whole shebang would be a “good thing”… hell, why not go the whole nine yards and just appoint Murdoch DG of the BBC?

Good grief…. have you been on something over the Festive Season?

Cheering news overall, although I have to say that if this – “84% said that a single organisation should not be allowed to control too much of the news media” – was phrased in the question as it is in this article, I’m surprised the statistic wasn’t 100%. How many people are realistically likely to say “I think X should be allowed too much control of Y”?

@ Tim W

“The current non-Murdoch media are obviously so good at gettting their fear of Murdoch into the populace, as this result shows, that we need a greater Murdoch presence in hte media in order to counter the propaganda of the non-Murdoch media?”

Oh dear. Do you really think that people only form their views from propoganda? Perhaps we need a greater pro-Hitler* presence in the media to counteract the obvious anti-Hitler press bias evidenced by general public opinion of Hitler?

*And no, I am not equating Murdoch with Hitler, and this isn’t godwinning, it’s reducto ad absurduming.

“Do you really think that people only form their views from propoganda?”

But that is the argument you’re using to insist that Murdoch shouldn’t be allowed to own the station through which he already pumps his propaganda.

Isn’t it.

It would be nice just once to see a united fron from the spineless politicians of all parties and just say NO.

@ 12

“But that is the argument you’re using to insist that Murdoch shouldn’t be allowed to own the station through which he already pumps his propaganda.

Isn’t it.”

Nope.

There’s a difference between saying that propaganda has some effect and saying that nothing else has any effect. The anti-Murdoch side is doing the former by saying that one man should not get a huge amount of control over news services and the like. You are doing the latter by suggesting that anti-Murdoch propaganda is obviously the ONLY reason people don’t like Murdoch and not, for example, the horrible, self-serving views promoted through his newspapers and channels.

I’m surprised I have to point out the difference, and frankly suspect you’re being obtuse for the sake of it.

For fucks sake, Mr Worstall, is there any subject on which you cannot be relied to post weary fatuous contrarian bollocks?

It’s not big and it’s not clever.

“and frankly suspect you’re being obtuse for the sake of it.”

What? Me?

“It’s not big and it’s not clever.”

Ohh, but it can be. It can even be where wisdom resides.

Just think a moment, if some bod said, you know, I can make energy for nearly nothing. Cold fusion (yes, I know it doesn’t work) or the like.

We would quite obviously have a campaign by those large businesses that already supply us with our energy saying that cold fusion was going to leave us all murdered in our beds. And force all women to wear Burkas and in the Mail, no doubt there would be a story about how immigrants using cold fusion would damage house prices.

Now you, being lefty types of people (as indeed am I) click to this, understand the point. Incumbents will use, in any market, whatever they can to beat off competitors in a nice cosy oligopoly.

As soon as it comes to the media, where it is lefty style media that might face the competition, you’re all up in arms.

Why?

We actually have one of the very best newspaper selections in the world. Precisely because we’ve got supposedly high brow Times, Torygraph, Guardian. Indy, on varying parts of the left/right political scale. Middle brow I admit is a bit righty, low brow the Mirror is still giving the Sun/Star a good run for their money.

Then there’s the Morning Star, etc (BTW, bet you didn’t know that that paper is included in every Cabinet Minister’s set of papers? I even know, from personal experience, that the Queen (or her press secretary) gets it every day).

That’s what media diversity looks like. Why are you so frightened that this might happen in broadcast?

Why are you lefties arguing for, against so much of lefty ideals, the current incumbents?

@ 16

Aha! Worstall has his sensible head back on!

“That’s what media diversity looks like. Why are you so frightened that this might happen in broadcast?”

I think this is starting to sound a bit more like media homogeny. We’re talking about one man who already owns the best-selling paper in Britain, plus possibly the most respected broadsheet (included for completeness, although I’m not too worried about the Times at present), plus Sky. Allowing him to buy his way into even MORE power is worrying to say the least.

If the broadcast news media are mainly leftist to the extent that Murdoch’s seedier products are rightist, I’d say you had a point. If Bleeding Pinko Heart News was how millions got their information, it’d seem right to support a British version of Fox to balance things out. But this isn’t the case.

“Why are you lefties arguing for, against so much of lefty ideals, the current incumbents?”

Regardless of how you want to couch this, I don’t see anything inherently leftwing about media freedom or about encouraging corporate propaganda. Quite the opposite in the latter case. And it’s disingenuous to suggest that this is just about attack the Tories – do you really think the left would be supporting this proposal if Labour were still in power?

“plus Sky. Allowing him to buy his way into even MORE power is worrying to say the least.”

This is the second thing I don’t understand about all this. You say he owns Sky. But he doesn’t. That’s what he wants to buy.

I agree, he’s got 40% shareholding and management control, but what he’s actually trying to do is buy the 60% he doesn’t currently own. Given that he’s already got management control, why all this fuss?

“I have actually done this professionally myself….”

So have I Tim, (as have a few others on here) and I’ve been around the industry long enough to know that on the big political issues the main companies generally don’t risk their reputations on conducting surveys that aren’t decent.

If you want to claim this poll is unreliable then demonstrate it, don’t just use ad hominems.

@ 18 Tim

Sorry, unclear on my part. He’s currently got a large interest in Sky and is the person with the most control over the company, but he hasn’t got the crucial majority control.

The difference between dominance and majority control is rather semantic. He’s been able to put his son in as MD for example, which shows pretty much dominance.

There are some legalities (like do you account for profits/dividends upon a minority basis or consolidated) but those again tend to go with dominance and control rather than majority shareholding.

One other thing I’m not sure people get about Murdoch. He’s interested in making money, not in pushing a particular political line. If he thought there was a gap, a gap which would make him money, for a TV or news outlet on the left then he’d do that. As it is, in the US, he thought that one on the right would (Fox).

His various Asian adventures (erm, Star?) aren’t “right wing” in any normal sense.

The Sun did, after all, support Labour at at least one GE didn’t it?

@ Tim

“The difference between dominance and majority control is rather semantic.”

In a day-to-day sense, that’s very true. If you disagree with the guy holding a 40% interest over what colour the new Sky logo should be, it’s probably not worth turning up to vote. But having less than 5X% does prevent him from being able to force through absolutely anything he wants, regardless of what the rest of the shareholders think. Now, it may be the case that at least 10% of current shareholders will happily back whatever Murdoch wants, but that’s subject to change.

“One other thing I’m not sure people get about Murdoch. He’s interested in making money, not in pushing a particular political line.”

Absolutely, but there are two risks here. One is that the best way to make money, in terms of ad revenue gained from papers sold and viewers gotten, may well involve pushing popularist but one-sided and inaccurate political dogma. I don’t think the Sun represents an accurate reflection of Murdoch’s views, but with its eye on the bottom line it’s hardly a beacon of responsible journalism either.

The second risk is that certain political lines may well allow Murdoch to get more money, the most obvious example being that he would probably benefit from the election of a party with a laissez-faire approach to business. The problem here is compounded by the fact that not only can he use his influence to boost this party’s support (as he quite shamelessly does), but that the starting stance of each party will be edited to be as Murdoch-friendly as possible to avoid being castigated in the Sun and on Sky.

I refer to both of these as “risks”, but it’s probably more accurate to call them “existing issues” as they happen already.

“a beacon of responsible journalism either.”

Sorry, could you define responsible journalism for me?

Is it something more than just journalism whose prejudices you already agree with?

If it is then how are we to ensure that such a thing thrives and survives? Given that there’s so damn little of it about at present? (The one piece which I would argue is truly so would perhaps be Nick Davies deconstruction of all that wibble from Julie Bindel and Harriet Harman over trafficking into the sex industry. I might add Christopher Booker’s (yes, despite his sometimes odd views on other matters) work on the children/family courts/social services stuff. Maybe the Telegraphs MPs expenses stuff? Anything else?)

Me, I would say that the best method of ensuring such is a large, open and vibrant market. Anyone is allowed to publish using whatever prejudices they care to display. And I would no more ban Murdoch from running a “right wing” news source than I would the SWP from perpetrating their idiocies. Or their counterparts, the BNP.

“Given that there’s so damn little of it about at present? ”

“Me, I would say that the best method of ensuring such is a large, open and vibrant market”

I’d say it was precisely market forces that ensured much of the decent investigative stuff was dropped from the major newspapers. The simple reason being it costs money, both in terms of staff and legal costs and it doesn’t attract advertising. Its cheaper to just have interns using the copy and paste function on press releases. You can still get the decent stuff if you pay for it, but it is confined to specialist media.

The existence of specialist media is not “a large, open and vibrant market” in what manner?

It’s not well read though.

The implicit assumption we are making is that investigative journalism is a public good for a democracy, and my argument is that market forces have confined it to specialist media. This is a bad thing because investigative journalism needs to be well known and understood.

“We actually have one of the very best newspaper selections in the world.”

Does not say much for the rest of the world then.

“The implicit assumption we are making is that investigative journalism is a public good”

You might be, I’m not. Not in this discussion at least.

To return to the point at hand. If we do want to have a large open and vibrant media (to leave the market bit aside) how are we advancing that by saying that one person’s not allowed to pay his own money to publish as he sees fit?

26

Very true, but Tim Rand will not agree because he is obsessed with market forces, so he sees no problem with the news being profit lead. In Timmy’s world the news should be whatever the hell people want the news to be. As Fox has proved.

It always amuses me that the Right wing , and most politicians say publicly that the media has no effect on elections, yet they spend so much time prostrating themselves to media moguls like Murdoch. Begging on their knees for their support.

@ 23 Tim

“Sorry, could you define responsible journalism for me?

Is it something more than just journalism whose prejudices you already agree with?”

Yep. It’s journalism that seeks to uncover the truth, rather than bend it to get sensationalist headlines, and that at least attempts to be impartial in news reporting, although not in its leader columns. I don’t remember saying it had to conform to my prejudices; would you mind pointing out where I said that?

“If it is then how are we to ensure that such a thing thrives and survives? Given that there’s so damn little of it about at present?”

Trickier, but we could start by opposing moves to actively crush it, such as giving Murdoch even more power. I think one more positive method would be to make the press more responsible for their actions if they’re caught publishing misleading or outright untrue information.

“Me, I would say that the best method of ensuring such is a large, open and vibrant market. Anyone is allowed to publish using whatever prejudices they care to display.”

Or the prejudices they care to disguise, of course. So in your mind, money = responsibility. I guess that never in history have people with a lot of cash been shown to act outside the common good…

“To return to the point at hand. If we do want to have a large open and vibrant media (to leave the market bit aside) how are we advancing that by saying that one person’s not allowed to pay his own money to publish as he sees fit?”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly

Ropert controlling but not owning, or controlling and owning, Sky, makes absolutely no difference at all to the barriers to entry in the media market.