Bill Moyers: Rupert Murdoch 'is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity' Muriel Kane

Published: Friday June 29, 2007 Print This Email This Bill Moyers will inveigh Friday, in a video essay released early by PBS to RAW STORY , against Rupert Murdoch and his bid to purchase the Wall Street Journal. "Rupert Murdoch is no saint," says Moyers of the Fox News owner. "He is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity. When it comes to money and power, he's carnivorous, all appetite and no taste. He'll eat anything in his path" Moyers speaks further about Murdoch's ability to win over politicians, complaining, "Now Bill and Hillary Clinton, who know on which side their bread is buttered, like having it slathered by their new buddy, Rupert. Our media and political system has turned into a mutual protection racket." "But the problem isn't just Rupert Murdoch," concludes Moyers. "His pursuit of the Wall Street Journal is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, buyouts, and other financial legerdemain that are making a shipwreck of journalism. ... Murdoch just the predator of the hour." Paul Krugman's subscription-only Thursday column for the New York Times discusses the same issue, pointing out that in a 2003 poll on erroneous beliefs about the Iraq War, "two-thirds of Fox devotees believed that the United States had 'found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al-Qaida terrorist organization.'" "If Murdoch does acquire The Journal," writes Krugman, "it will be a dark day for America's news media -- and American democracy. If there were any justice in the world, Murdoch, who did more than anyone in the news business to mislead this country into an unjustified, disastrous war, would be a discredited outcast. Instead, he's expanding his empire." The following video will appear on Friday on PBS's Bill Moyers' Journal.





