Monday, December 10, 2012

The Real Murdoch Scandal



Some time ago, I announced that this blog would soon present a film about the real Rupert Murdoch scandal -- the dirty little secret that makes phone hacking seem like a minor offense. Alas, the project -- intended to be a half-hour or more in length -- was never finished.

This scandal is huge, international in scope, and rather more complex than what you see here.

Since the original elements for the video have gone missing, I can't easily finish or reconstitute the beginning sequence. This rough assemblage, put together for a few friends, is all that exists. For the most part, this segment offers a very, very pared-down summary of a BBC Panorama investigation of Murdoch's outrageous business practices.

Please note that this is NOT a video about the phone hacking scandal, but about something even worse. Note, too, that I usually edit to a "robot" narration track; human narration was to be added at the very last stage. Don't worry -- the robot sounds reasonably human, and she shuts up after the first couple of minutes.

At this time, it is especially important to publicize Murdoch's sordid way of doing business. Rupert Murdoch wants to establish a media monopoly in this country -- with Obama's help!
Murdoch is currently jockeying to buy the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, which just so happen to be the largest newspapers in the nation’s second and third largest cities. That will add to his current media empire in the United States, which includes the most watched cable news network in the nation, Fox so-called News, and the most circulated newspaper in the nation, The Wall Street Journal.

The only thing standing in Murdoch’s way of full-spectrum media domination in America are Federal Communication Commission rules that forbid one company from owning both a newspaper and a television station in one community. Murdoch already owns local television stations in both Chicago and Los Angeles.
The LAT is still a great paper in many ways. God help my former home city if Murdoch takes over what's left of the news business there.

Please publicize this video. Tell people about the real scandal. Let them know that Rupert Murdoch is even more devious and underhanded than his harshest critics suppose.

(Despite the robot narration track, this video is, I think pretty zippy and fun-to-watch.)

8 comments:

prowlerzee said...

um, do you need a narrator? I actually can't listen to this, and would volunteer to redo it in human.

Alternatively, could you print the text of this?

thanks.

Joseph Cannon said...

Can't redo it, zee. The point is I lost the folder containing all the pieces of the video -- the clips and so forth. Accidentally deleted. So I can't load the project into my video editing program, and I can't separate out one element of the soundtrack from everything else. This rough assembly is all that exists.

Most of it is a pared down version of the British documentary plus some overseas broadcasts. So the "robot narrator" shouldn't annoy you very much.

Besides, I think the voice is pretty good. Now I have a new text to speech voice named Audrey installed on this system. She's British. And she's downright sexy. I really am going to have to write something filthy for her to say...

b said...

Have you drawn the following analogy?

Maxwell...Promis...
Murdoch...this...

Anonymous said...

I did know about the card hacking as well. But while it is outrageous for me its not the biggest scandal. For me the worst crime was the bribery of senior officers of the Metropolitan police when they were engaged in their original investigation of the royal phone hacking in the early 2000's. The investigation appears to have failed directly because of the bribery. Interestingly, a private eye associated with this issue was murdered. No one was ever prosecuted for the death.

A very dirty fight and a very dirty company

Harry

b said...

What kind of British accent has Audrey got? Home Counties 'n' horsey?

prowlerzee said...

Well, I can't understand why it can't be redone, Joseph, with subtitles or something text-based, so we could read instead of listen, but I do understand a jones for accents...mine are latino, French, Gaelic and Jamaican.

As far as voice talent and voice systems go, you can't beat Amtrak's Julie...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Seitter

She rivals the Progressive Insurance talent....

Joseph Cannon said...

Zee, I couldn't even redo it with text. There is no way to redo it without the text-to-speech. If you've never used a modern video editing system, I can't explain it to you further.

Anonymous said...

OT, sorry Joseph.

Have you been reading Daniel Hopsickers tear on CIA/drug connections and the itch to get rid of Correa?

Ben