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« Quiet | Main | Another CSA moves on »
Tuesday
Apr242012

Murdoch, media and the climate

Sharp-eyed reader Woodentop has noted a fascinating snippet in the evidence submitted to the Levenson inquiry into the relationship between the media and government, currently running into its umpteenth month in London.

The document in question (see link below, an excerpt from a much larger set of documents) is an email from Rupert Murdoch's European public affair boss, Frederic Michel, to the great media mogul himself. It outlines meetings he has had with the advisers of the prime minister, David Cameron, and his deputy, Nick Clegg. It appears that there are a series of proposals for Murdoch's News Corporation to assist the government's public relations efforts - copyright issues and Cameron's "Big Society" programme are mentioned. The quid pro quo appears to be the regulatory clearance of News Corp's bid to buy the shares of Sky TV that it did not already own.

At the end comes the interesting bit - what appears to be another bit of mutual backscratching:

Proposition for News Corp to attend a ministerial Climate Change meeting with Chris Huhne and No 10 to present our strategy so far.

How very, very interesting!

Excerpt

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

Reader Comments (24)

Very well done Bish and Woodentop. The plot thickens.

Apr 24, 2012 at 7:29 PM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Drake

Can't wait until Richard North (of EUreferendum in your blogroll) gets his teeth into this one!

Apr 24, 2012 at 8:12 PM | Unregistered CommenterRoyFOMR

hmmmm..... outrageous overt collusion between govt and media.

For all the problems of media and govt over here in the USA, I think that evidence of such overt collusion between the White House and a media empire (especially Murdoch's) would be a rather huge scandal here..... but perhaps I over-estimate the scandal sensitivities of biased media protecting their own......

Still, given how so-called "journalists" (sic) love to bash Murdoch's empire, this ought to be juicy stuff....

Apr 24, 2012 at 8:35 PM | Registered CommenterSkiphil

Skiphill - depends what you define as a 'media empire'. In the US many pieces of the media do the administration's bidding just out of priinciple. Few watchdogs and many lapdogs.

Apr 24, 2012 at 8:49 PM | Unregistered CommenterJEM

JEM, I don't doubt that this sort of thing goes on all the time, most often between ideological and political allies in and out of govt and media. My emphasis was on the word "overt" as in here is a record of an agreement to work together in collusion on common programs, so much for "independent" press ..... it's not every day that such "dirty laundry" gets aired and all (who are willing to look) can see what the bastards are really up to......

Apr 24, 2012 at 8:59 PM | Registered CommenterSkiphil

Will the BBC and the Guardian report this?

Apr 24, 2012 at 9:11 PM | Unregistered CommenterZT

Skiphill - Being the cynic I am, I'd expect no better of government, but this does look quite mercenary on News' part.

Apr 24, 2012 at 10:02 PM | Unregistered CommenterJEM

Mild tin foil hat warning...

I think it'd be interesting to see what the editorial guidelines are on climate change / global warming for Gannet Media group, AKA Newsquest UK = the UK arm of the US media giant that has close ties to the US military and CIA ..

Newsquest UK also - as I understand it has a near monopoly of the spineless, dreary supine local news rag market in the UK - who deliberately promote alarmism and warmist activism and keep the door very firmly closed to debate....


A trawl of their titles turns up eerily formulaic output ... surely not driven by skewed editorial guidelines tweaked to promote the Al Gore doom agenda?

Cameron is categorically nothing more than a shallow PR spiv - one cannot really express too much surprise that he's doing deals to further the marketing of the brand...

But yes... tug on this loose thread and let's see what unravels.... looks rather promising at the moment eh?

Apr 24, 2012 at 10:38 PM | Registered Commentertomo

Looks like 99% toadying to Vince Cable and Clegg, then out of the blue up wakes the no 10 machine from deep slumber with an inspirational proposition for News Corp to attend a ministerial Climate Change meeting with Chris Huhne and No 10 'to present our strategy so far'.

Overtaken by events.

Current status report- total abject disaster- damage limitation mode.

Apr 24, 2012 at 10:51 PM | Unregistered CommenterPharos

S anctimonious, socialite
P oliticians
I ngratiate
N ews International

Apr 24, 2012 at 10:55 PM | Registered CommenterGreen Sand

Why does this not surprise me?

Apr 24, 2012 at 11:14 PM | Unregistered CommenterDon Keiller

ZT,

It was the BBC, and its print version, and the Guardian that started this all off in an effort to ensure that the BBC remained the dominant news organisation in the UK.

Regards

Mailman

Apr 24, 2012 at 11:17 PM | Unregistered CommenterMailman

Interesting. In Australia, the evil Murdoch "hate press" is regarded as a nest of climate skeptics.

Apr 25, 2012 at 12:50 AM | Unregistered CommenterJames Lane

translation: We will help you politically if you turn a blind eye while we break the law.

Apr 25, 2012 at 3:24 AM | Unregistered Commenterferd berple

translation: We will help you politically if you turn a blind eye while we break the law.

If you or I did it, it would be called conspiracy - a criminal offense.

Apr 25, 2012 at 3:28 AM | Unregistered Commenterferd berple

Whilst I doubt that the Bish would wish this thread to go down a purely (?) political rabbit hole and whilst I am not convinced that the "free market" is any kind of panacea, I do recommend watching this:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ-4gnNz0vc&feature=player_embedded

Much to think about.....

Apr 25, 2012 at 7:47 AM | Unregistered CommenterMartin Brumby

Viva Le Revolution.

Just got a £400 electric bill for this quater and I ain't really had the heating on to save money.

Apr 25, 2012 at 8:26 AM | Unregistered CommenterShevva

If anyone monitors the news like I do, this has been blatantly obvious.

Apr 25, 2012 at 8:32 AM | Unregistered CommenterMike Haseler

the people saying murdoch media in australia and US are CAGW sceptics are people who don't read or watch Murdoch media ... or they are lying.

allowing one Murdoch writer in Australia to have a CAGW sceptic blog is akin to Delingpole and The Telegraph, tho at least the Tele has Booker as well.

pro CAGW Archant Media, with its UEA connected Chairman and Chief Executive, controlling so much of the regional press in England is akin to the pro CAGW free Murdoch papers in regional Australia.

General Electric, one of the biggest promoters, and winners, in the CAGW scam, is also a major owner of media, check Wikipedia.

Neil Wallis wasn't chosen to do Climategate damage control by chance.

Global defence and security firm QinetiQ were not contracted by the Norfolk Police to assist in their investigation of the CRU email leak by chance.

Apr 25, 2012 at 8:44 AM | Unregistered Commenterpat

Shevva - £120 per month here. No gas but if we had the central heating as much as most folk have our kerosene bill would be at least £2000 per year - the suppliers operate in a cartel. So have just spent £3000 ripping up all the floors to put in celotex underneath, and £2000 put in a bigger wood stove in centre of house. But split dry hardwood is now about £230 a tonne, so spend a lot of time gathering, splitting and stacking my own. Probably get through about 6-10 tonnes a year.

Apr 25, 2012 at 8:51 AM | Registered Commenterlapogus

Perhaps James and Elizabeth Murdoch should be given PhDs in climate science by the University of Easy Access?

Apr 25, 2012 at 9:32 AM | Unregistered Commentermydogsgotnonose


hmmmm..... outrageous overt collusion between govt and media.

For all the problems of media and govt over here in the USA, I think that evidence of such overt collusion between the White House and a media empire (especially Murdoch's) would be a rather huge scandal here..... but perhaps I over-estimate the scandal sensitivities of biased media protecting their own......

-Skiphil

Nope. The Daily Caller did a series on the George Soro's funded Media Matters group, discovering its close coordination with major journalistic outlets for White House stories.

Do you recall the outrage? The pious journalistic concern? Me neither.

Apr 25, 2012 at 10:38 AM | Unregistered CommenterOrson

Interesting quote from Rupert Murdoch today: All Prime Minsters hate the BBC, and all gave it what it wanted. (possibly a paraphrase, different outlets quote it differently).

Apr 25, 2012 at 7:02 PM | Unregistered CommenterCumbrian Lad

Murdoch = Oligarcy. Should there be any surprise?

Apr 27, 2012 at 9:53 AM | Unregistered CommenterFalsealrmism

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