OWNERSHIP Billionaire Kochs gain Time mouthpiece?

Moderately long article which looks not just at the Kochs' part in the buyout of Time magazine, but a wider picture of right-wing, conservative billionaires gaining influence by being allowed to buy up ever more of the US media, even where it means creating monopoly.

Of course, this was one of Chomsky's propaganda model's five filters, concentration of ownership, and is an historic trend explored in Curran and Seaton's classic study of press history, Power Without Responsibility.

‘Their own media megaphone’: what do the Koch brothers want from Time? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/27/koch-brothers-time-magazine-media-power?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

CHOMSKY ADVERTISER FILTER Stop Funding Hate D Mail campaign

FEB 2018 UPDATE: The campaign continues to have traction, an interesting reversal of the history of left-wing papers struggling to gain advertising. Not that we can say the Mail is struggling yet, other than with the general disruption of digitisation, with the online migration of advertising.
The campaign got multiple replies from advertisers pledging to cease placing ads in the Mail after tweeting about a Richard Littlejohn column condemning two gay dads, including celebrity swimmer Tom Daley.

Guardian: Center Parcs pulls Daily Mail ads after column against same-sex parents.

SFH aims to reduce what it sees as the baleful, malevolent influence over UK democracy (such as it is) and public opinion by pressuring advertisers with potential boycotts.

Peter Preston here recalls how left-wing reportage was discouraged through government encouraging advertisers to withdraw from newspapers that were critical of government 'defence' (ie, war!) policy, specifically the Suez crisis.

He develops a valid point - though once more here we can see the potential for social media and we media to have a greater impact on the poor practices of the press industry than the self-reliant IPSO.

Guardian: Bullying Paperchase and the Mail’s other advertisers just hurts everyone.

MURDOCH made deal with Prime Minister?

The machinations of Murdoch are widely assumed to include deals with sitting and wannabe PMs, but proving this is notoriously difficult. It's hardly in the interests of either to admit to this.

The pattern of incredible access to government, PM and ministers, of Murdoch and his minions under the Tory government was eventually revealed through journalistic investigation and Freedom of Information Act requests that were very reluctantly acceded to by that same government.

Now we have one former minister detailing how the News International chief Rebecca Brooks bluntly told him she was running government policy in partnership with PM Cameron, with the appointment of (later jailed) Murdoch man David Coulson as Press Secretary part of the deal.

A note of caution though: this is as filtered through the notionally centre-left Guardian (many of whose readers firmly disagree with that description so set up an alternative, actually left-wing Guardian online!)

Ken Clarke: Tories had deal with Rupert Murdoch for 2010 election https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/23/ken-clarke-cameron-had-deal-with-murdoch-for-2010-election?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

OFCOM censure Fox News - compare to IPSO...

Who'd have thought it ... the fabled 'fair and balanced' Fox News, Murdoch's right-wing agit-prop broadcast mouthpiece, responsible for making Americans doubt the nationality of their own president (Obama), has finally been found guilty of breaching UK impartiality laws for TV news.

That this comes after it's been withdrawn from UK broadcasts, so no longer has a license to defend, renders OfCom's ruling symbolic ... except that it could (should?) impact the Murdoch bid to buy up the 61% of BSkyB shares his corporation doesn't own, currently the subject of government scrutiny. Markets sent 21st Century Fox (the conglomerate for the film and broadcast holdings, with the troublesome but politically important print empire hived off into a separate, less profitable entity) shares down, reflecting worries that this boosts the prospect (unlikely?!) of the friendly Tory government blocking the bid.

It is highly instructive to draw a comparison with the press regulators. The PCC allowed great leeway under the banner of comment, for example in the Jan Moir column over Stephen Gateley's death, and IPSO continues this stance. OfCom explicitly conclude that commentary, opinion pieces, do not create an exception to the requirement of basic levels of balance, quite a contrasting stance.

Fox News shows broke UK TV impartiality rules, Ofcom finds https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/06/fox-news-shows-broke-uk-tv-impartiality-rules-ofcom-finds?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger