One Company having too much power

Peteee

One company controls much of what you see, hear and read throughout a day.

• HarperCollins Books
• The Sun Newspaper
• News of the World Newspaper
• The Times (England)
• Sunday Times
• New York Post
• 20th Century Fox Studio
• Fox Broadcasting Company
• FX Network
• Sky Television (Sky News)
• bTV a public broadcast television network in Bulgaria
• DirecTV (Basically Sky for americans)
• National Geographic Channel
• MySpace social internet site (Like bebo)
• IGN Website (Games and movies)
• 20% each of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers
• 9.8% of the Los Angeles Lakers

This is all controlled by one company, News Corporation, which is 'owned' by Rupert Murdoch.

From his wikipedia entry

"The newspapers frequently contain cross promotions and endorsements of other Murdoch products and business interests. For example, the Times newspaper devotes the large majority (all?) of its book reviews to books which are being published by a Murdoch owned publishing house such as HarperCollins.

The Newspapers in the United Kingdom display a strong anti-royal family leaning."

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

Another example of masive conglomorates are

Sony Corp

• 2nd largest electronics company (Sony)
• 2nd biggest music publisher (Sony BMG)
• One of the biggest Film companies (Columbia Pictures and MGM)
• Playstation2, most successful computer console

Time Warner

• CNN
• HBO
• AOL
• TIME magazine
• People magazine
• Sports Illustrated, a sports magazine
• MAD magazine, a humor magazine
• Fortune, Money Magazine, business and investing magazines
• Warner Bros (Movie Studio)
• New Line Cinema (Movie Studio)

Just those 3 companies above control well over 50% of what is shown in the cinema. Sony also makes a lot of the equipment used to capture, edit and show (TV's, Soon to be blu-ray discs etc) the movies, TV Shows etc

Does anyone else find amount of power held by one company a bit disturbing?

Also added to the mix could be Google (Judging by how easily it filters chinese searches) and Microsoft (90%+ of worlds computers controlled by one companies computers)

Just throwing it out there really, seeing what other peoples opinions on this are?

connundrum

But would you give it up if you were Murdoch? Sometimes I hate the idea of a monopoly, but if they are selling non essential items such as newspapers, TV stations etc, then I don't think I can have much of a gripe. No one is forcing you to buy the Sun.

If a company, per example the ESB were providing an essential product and had the monopoly on the market - then I have a major problem!

If I were Murdoch you can be damn sure I wouldn't give it up

Kernel

News Corp owns over 90% of all 'free' new media in the US. It's a very dangerous situation, and one which socialists like Karl marx have always said would arise from corporate capitalism. It was logically surmised that once corporations grew in power and size, they would then eat up the smaller businesses/competitors until they had almost complete market control - then, logically, they would expand into other markets which are usually related (or even opposed) to their own original market.

I recommend the following DVD:

http://www.thecorporation.com/

It's available on amazon also. It outlines the history of the corporation as an entity, and it's progression to legally unaccountable, unregulated and amoral giant that exists solely for profit above all else. Very dangerous, these corporations.

Corporations are now more powerful than governments. But corporations are not elected by the majority, rather they are controlled by a minority of rich capitalists on the board - many of whom are also sitting on the board of other corporations.

Globalisation is the child of corporate capitalism, and if they can continue to exist as unregulated as they are then it will mean terrible working conditions for proles (workers), consumerism and pollution.

WhiteWashMan

Peteee wrote:

One company controls much of what you see, hear and read throughout a day.

• HarperCollins Books
• The Sun Newspaper
• News of the World Newspaper
• The Times (England)
• Sunday Times
• New York Times
• 20th Century Fox Studio
• Fox Broadcasting Company
• FX Network
• Sky Television (Sky News)
• bTV a public broadcast television network in Bulgaria
• DirecTV (Basically Sky for americans)
• National Geographic Channel
• MySpace social internet site (Like bebo)
• IGN Website (Games and movies)
• 20% each of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers
• 9.8% of the Los Angeles Lakers

This is all controlled by one company, News Corporation, which is 'owned' by Rupert Murdoch.

From his wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch

Another example of masive conglomorates are

Sony Corp

• 2nd largest electronics company (Sony)
• 2nd biggest music publisher (Sony BMG)
• One of the biggest Film companies (Columbia Pictures and MGM)
• Playstation2, most successful computer console

Time Warner

• CNN
• HBO
• AOL
• TIME magazine
• People magazine
• Sports Illustrated, a sports magazine
• MAD magazine, a humor magazine
• Fortune, Money Magazine, business and investing magazines
• Warner Bros (Movie Studio)
• New Line Cinema (Movie Studio)

Just those 3 companies above control well over 50% of what is shown in the cinema. Sony also makes a lot of the equipment used to capture, edit and show (TV's, Soon to be blu-ray discs etc) the movies, TV Shows etc

Does anyone else find amount of power held by one company a bit disturbing?

Also added to the mix could be Google (Judging by how easily it filters chinese searches) and Microsoft (90%+ of worlds computers controlled by one companies computers)

Just throwing it out there really, seeing what other peoples opinions on this are?

no. whats your opinion on it?

Eoin

connundrum wrote:

But would you give it up if you were Murdoch? Sometimes I hate the idea of a monopoly, but if they are selling non essential items such as newspapers, TV stations etc, then I don't think I can have much of a gripe. No one is forcing you to buy the Sun.

That's all well and good, but what happens when you live in a city where there ALL the major daily papers are owned by the same company? I am trying to find details on this, but apparently this is the case in many American cities.

connundrum wrote:

If a company, per example the ESB were providing an essential product and had the monopoly on the market - then I have a major problem!

And what if they provide a loss-leading service in many areas? It is the same with Dublin Bus. Believe it or not, but very few of their routes are profitable; most are provided because a service is necessary. If many essential services were opened up to competition, the private companies would pick and choose what services to provide, and many less-off / isolated / expensive to cater for areas will suffer because of it.

rmacm

Peteee wrote:

Does anyone else find amount of power held by one company a bit disturbing?

This coming from someone who frequently bows down and kisses the arse of a certain company

Yes I'd have to agree it is a bit disturbing at times. It leads to a lack of variety in debate of various issues particularly in the news media where the views of the ownership tend to put a slant on stories that are reported by various outlets.

Microsoft have freqently pushed competitors out of the market using "embrace, extend and extinguish" to reduce peoples ability to interoperate with MS software. Although this maybe changing it bloody well took them long enough.

There is an inherent danger when one company e.g. News Corporation controls a vast swathe of an industry as the owners and shareholders interests take priority and their priorities may not be the best for everyone else.

Cheers
Rory

Kernel

rmacm wrote:

There is an inherent danger when one company e.g. News Corporation controls a vast swathe of an industry as the owners and shareholders interests take priority and their priorities may not be the best for everyone else.

Their only 'interest' is to make more profits. Post a higher profit each quarter to secure more investment. In the broadcast news arena, they achieve this by sensationalising and pandering to their demographic in order to ensure that people don't switch to another news channel. Have you ever noticed how paranoid and sensationalist the US news channels are? It's insane! They'll post a bulletin about how walking under a palm tree could kill you and your children... all designed to get your attention and keep you in a state of fear.

Peteee

WhiteWashMan wrote:

no. whats your opinion on it?

My opinion, is that, out of the companies above I think News Corporation is by far the worst, and I feel it has too much power, due to it owning all those newspapers (The australian list of newspapers owned by News Corp. is massive) and News (Sky News and Fox news, which are both oversensationalist garbage most of the time)

NEWS FLASH: J Lo got a new hair cut and her arse is still huge :rolleyes:

kernel wrote:

Their only 'interest' is to make more profits. Post a higher profit each quarter to secure more investment.

Yeah, its pathetic, but thats capitalism, and its far better then communism.

Rmacm wrote:

This coming from someone who frequently bows down and kisses the arse of a certain company

Well spotted I just cant resist Sonys shiny electronics!

but if they are selling non essential items such as newspapers, TV stations etc, then I don't think I can have much of a gripe. No one is forcing you to buy the Sun.

Yes, but when you have an issue where the sunday times ONLY reviews books from HarperCollins, then you have a problem.

Also, I would consider Newspapers and TV stations as an extremely important service, as it influences mass opinion, which is what happens in this case, by a company controlling several prominent news outlets, all (Either subtly or sensationally ala Fox news) pushing thier own agenda

Kernel

Peteee wrote:

Yeah, its pathetic, but thats capitalism, and its far better then communism.

Depends on your way of measuring what is a better system. If it's generation of wealth then yeah, it's capitalism. If it's equality of citizens, then it's communism. Worth remembering that a concentration or work camp system is one of the best ways to generate wealth, but does that make it the 'better' system? What if we aren't the ones working in the camp, but we benefit directly from those who do?

Red Alert

Microsoft is another of these dangerous monopolies.

Cianos

Ive seen the corporation, very interesting alright.

hullaballoo

Unilever and Nestlé are also fairly big in terms of corporations. The company that worries me the most, however, is McDonald's. They're actually poisoning people, whereas the rest of those companies aren't really doing anything wrong.

I can't wait to get the "left-wing" point-of-view.

Eoin

Kernel wrote:

Depends on your way of measuring what is a better system. If it's generation of wealth then yeah, it's capitalism. If it's equality of citizens, then it's communism. Worth remembering that a concentration or work camp system is one of the best ways to generate wealth, but does that make it the 'better' system? What if we aren't the ones working in the camp, but we benefit directly from those who do?

Do you think Communist Russia was a better and more equal place than "capitalist" Ireland? Why did the elite have their own lanes to drive in? What about the censorship in China? They probably can't even have a discussion like this over there.

Reminds me of the famous quote:
"Capitalism is the worst system except for all the rest"

netwhizkid

This is a topic I could go on & on about, but I won't. Rupert Murdoch is a very succesful Buisiness man. If any one here is familiar with Stormfront you will see that is none to much liked. The fact that He controls about 90% of the media is extremly dangerous. People can rant on & on about Government Censorship but this man has global power. People often rant on about the Illuminati, George W. Bush, The DaVinci Code, "The Jewish Agenda to wipe out white people and colonise America" The last one appearing quite often on stormfront. His monopoly should be broken without a doubt. Like look at Fox News it should be renamed George W. TV or the Capitalist Channel. These people are very dangerous and are not really to be messed around with. They control the world Kodos & Klang Stlye. I know some of what I just said dosen't make sense and is more suited to the "conspiracy Theory" forum. But lots of people believe in all the New World Order mumbo jumbo. The Illuminati are I feel the biggest "non-conformative" threat exsisting in this world today. From a hard-leftist point of view I fell they should all be Nationalised and their profits used to build a better tommorow. Thats my tuppence worth.

segadreamcast

netwhizkid wrote:

This is a topic I could go on & on about, but I won't. Rupert Murdoch is a very succesful Buisiness man. If any one here is familiar with Stormfront you will see that is none to much liked. The fact that He controls about 90% of the media is extremly dangerous. People can rant on & on about Government Censorship but this man has global power. People often rant on about the Illuminati, George W. Bush, The DaVinci Code, "The Jewish Agenda to wipe out white people and colonise America" The last one appearing quite often on stormfront. His monopoly should be broken without a doubt. Like look at Fox News it should be renamed George W. TV or the Capitalist Channel. These people are very dangerous and are not really to be messed around with. They control the world Kodos & Klang Stlye. I know some of what I just said dosen't make sense and is more suited to the "conspiracy Theory" forum. But lots of people believe in all the New World Order mumbo jumbo. The Illuminati are I feel the biggest "non-conformative" threat exsisting in this world today. From a hard-leftist point of view I fell they should all be Nationalised and their profits used to build a better tommorow. Thats my tuppence worth.

Oh jayyyyysus. "Back to the 80's" - that's what we should call ye.

What a load of craptrap from this thread in general though. Yes, NewsCorp control an unreal amount of stuff - however, there ARE alternatives and these ARE non-essential items. I'd imagine at least half the people in this thread use one of their products - myspace, sky et al - yet how many of you then complain about their monopoly? Hypocrisy.

Communism the better system? Good lord, don't make me laugh. Humans have self-interests - it's part of our condition. This fundamentally undermines the whole concept of communism.

mountainyman

eoin_s wrote:

Reminds me of the famous quote:
"Capitalism is the worst system except for all the rest"

It was Churchill and he said: "Democracy is the worst form of government in the entire world...except for all the rest. ..."

Democracy not capitalism.

Ireland is by no means an untramelled capitalist society. We have a heavily social democratic (still a form of capitalism I know) development model. Our Taoiseach is a socialist for goodness sake.

So why you are talking about 'capitalist Ireland' god only knows.

To the original poster: News Corp are not that important in Ireland; Independent News and Media are much more powerful.
I very much doubt that News Corp control 90% of America's media. Whereas in terms of newspaper sales by reader INM are over 70% in Ireland.


My own opinion is that capitalism is a not a good system but it is the only game in town. So regulate, regulate, regulate.

Adam

Yeah!

monkeyfudge

The media is a hugely important service.

There used to be a co-operativly owned not-for-profit super market here in coolock. The prices there were incredibly cheap due to the fact that all money made only went to cover the costs of running the place.

The commerical supermarkets in the area took notice and took out massive adverts in the papers which showed a large discount on the prices tins of beans (or some such). People saw this great deal on beans, that the co-op couldn't match, and flocked to the commerical supermarkets.

The co-op eventually went out of business and the prices of beans went back up in the commerical stores and the community lost out in the end.

And it was through the media that the commercial opperators were able to destroy the not-for-profit super market that was purely there to serve the community.

Of course we responded to this by setting up a a co-operately owned not-for-profit radio station as it's very important that the media that shows us the world isn't purely owned by commercial interests, or by state interests either for that matter.

Eoin

mountainyman wrote:

It was Churchill and he said: "Democracy is the worst form of government in the entire world...except for all the rest. ..."

Democracy not capitalism.

Ireland is by no means an untramelled capitalist society. We have a heavily social democratic (still a form of capitalism I know) development model. Our Taoiseach is a socialist for goodness sake.

So why you are talking about 'capitalist Ireland' god only knows.

To the original poster: News Corp are not that important in Ireland; Independent News and Media are much more powerful.
I very much doubt that News Corp control 90% of America's media. Whereas in terms of newspaper sales by reader INM are over 70% in Ireland.


My own opinion is that capitalism is a not a good system but it is the only game in town. So regulate, regulate, regulate.

That was the quote I was thinking of - the quote I mentioned exists, but was not the correct one. Thanks for the proper quote. Ireland probably meets the definition of "Capitalist" anyway.

Really the main thrust of my post was to argue against communism being the best for equality in society as was posited by another poster. In fact, China is moving towards a Capitalist and Communist society.

With regards to the media - we are lucky that Ireland has a relatively diverse range of papers, in particular that our Irish Times is run by a trust as opposed to a speficically commercial interest (as is my understanding). However, as I alluded to earlier, many cities in the States are not this fortunate and a good few of them can only get a variety of papers from the one owner.

Kernel

eoin_s wrote:

Do you think Communist Russia was a better and more equal place than "capitalist" Ireland? Why did the elite have their own lanes to drive in? What about the censorship in China? They probably can't even have a discussion like this over there.

No, I don't think communist Russia was better. But that doesn't mean the system of communism isn't. I prefer to describe myself as a social democrat. Our current model of corporate capitalism clearly needs to be changed, and I have no doubt that eventually it will be. After how much trouble and strife in the world, it's hard to know.

Peteee

NoelRock wrote:

however, there ARE alternatives and these ARE non-essential items. I'd imagine at least half the people in this thread use one of their products - myspace, sky et al - yet how many of you then complain about their monopoly? Hypocrisy.

Yes, there are alternatives of course, But as someone pointed out above sometimes there isn't.

Look at the list of newspapers he owns ffs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch#Australia

Even in england he has the sun and the times. Two widely different papers bought by two different demographics, controlled by one company. One part of the company is competing against the other.

Yes, I do have Sky downstairs, People in my house buy the sun which I read (Though I prefer the times, oh look on sunday its printed by the same damn company as the trash we buy during the week!) and I often go to see 20th Century Fox films.

I try and get news sources from many different outlets to get a different outlook on things (google news is great for this)

segadreamcast

The flaw though Peteee is that there are no barriers to entry or exit. If The Times and The Sun suddenly become monotonous propoganda machines or duplicates of each other, you can bet there'll be people that will be willing to make the other opinions heard. Which, to an extent, explains the rise of Blogs.

I used to be concerned by such a thing too - but citizen journalism is keeping media outlets more in check than ever before.

kaimera

Peteee wrote:

<snip> (google news is great for this)

Didn't that just get *zinged* with a fake Will Ferrell death story?

segadreamcast

Highlights the fluidity of journalism these days Kaimera though - a rumour created, spun around and debunked entirely within five hours? Odds are, twenty years ago, that would've made a few newspapers tomorrow morning.

This is why I think the new forms of journalism are so wonderful and this is why, despite the power News Corp may have, they can't actually control anything without being scrutinised by a news-savvy, vigilant portion of the public.

Peteee

NoelRock wrote:

The flaw though Peteee is that there are no barriers to entry or exit. If The Times and The Sun suddenly become monotonous propoganda machines or duplicates of each other, you can bet there'll be people that will be willing to make the other opinions heard. Which, to an extent, explains the rise of Blogs.

2 big broadsheets in Ireland, The Times and The Sunday Independent.

Notice the creep towards tabloidism in the independent.

Whose going to take their place? If someone does, why dosent News Corp just buy them out?

There may well be no barriers to entry, but when/if you become powerful enough, you are liable to be gobbled by a big entity.

Which is exactly why music/films have only 4 big companies in each respective industries. Many of them have fingers in both pies (Sony & Universal (Universal is owned by NBC who are a big TV operator in America...notice a trend on how a lot of entertainment & media are coming from only a few sources?)

Kernel

NoelRock wrote:

The flaw though Peteee is that there are no barriers to entry or exit. If The Times and The Sun suddenly become monotonous propoganda machines or duplicates of each other, you can bet there'll be people that will be willing to make the other opinions heard. Which, to an extent, explains the rise of Blogs.

I used to be concerned by such a thing too - but citizen journalism is keeping media outlets more in check than ever before.

But most people read newspapers or watch TV and get programmed. Do you think that it's not possible to control blogs? How many spurious proganda blogs have I read, from Iraq, supposedly written by your average joesoap, who then go on to glorify the US occupation and policy. Such blogs are easy to spot, since they are usually linked to from a NEWS CORP news website. I wouldn't be surprised is US intelligence had entire departments of people whose sole responsibility was to put out spurious blogs and disinformation.

I remember reading a story a while back of an elderly lady who had worked her lifetime with Reuters News Agency, and when she retired, she said that sometimes she was shocked to see the stories that would not be reported by the big news broadcasters. Inevitably, they reported facts that would paint the US in a bad light, such as statistics of civilian casualties in the middle east.

slipss

Peteee wrote:

One company controls much of what you see, hear and read throughout a day.

• HarperCollins Books
• The Sun Newspaper
• News of the World Newspaper
• The Times (England)
• Sunday Times
• New York Times
• 20th Century Fox Studio
• Fox Broadcasting Company
• FX Network
• Sky Television (Sky News)
• bTV a public broadcast television network in Bulgaria
• DirecTV (Basically Sky for americans)
• National Geographic Channel
• MySpace social internet site (Like bebo)
• IGN Website (Games and movies)
• 20% each of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers
• 9.8% of the Los Angeles Lakers

This is all controlled by one company, News Corporation, which is 'owned' by Rupert Murdoch.

From his wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch

Another example of masive conglomorates are

Sony Corp

• 2nd largest electronics company (Sony)
• 2nd biggest music publisher (Sony BMG)
• One of the biggest Film companies (Columbia Pictures and MGM)
• Playstation2, most successful computer console

Time Warner

• CNN
• HBO
• AOL
• TIME magazine
• People magazine
• Sports Illustrated, a sports magazine
• MAD magazine, a humor magazine
• Fortune, Money Magazine, business and investing magazines
• Warner Bros (Movie Studio)
• New Line Cinema (Movie Studio)

Just those 3 companies above control well over 50% of what is shown in the cinema. Sony also makes a lot of the equipment used to capture, edit and show (TV's, Soon to be blu-ray discs etc) the movies, TV Shows etc

Does anyone else find amount of power held by one company a bit disturbing?

Also added to the mix could be Google (Judging by how easily it filters chinese searches) and Microsoft (90%+ of worlds computers controlled by one companies computers)

Just throwing it out there really, seeing what other peoples opinions on this are?

Looks like someone needs a visit to The Underpants Gnomes

tunaman

eoin_s wrote:

With regards to the media - we are lucky that Ireland has a relatively diverse range of papers, in particular that our Irish Times is run by a trust as opposed to a speficically commercial interest (as is my understanding). However, as I alluded to earlier, many cities in the States are not this fortunate and a good few of them can only get a variety of papers from the one owner.

Think again.

http://www.unison.ie/southern_star/stories.php3?ca=38&si=1577987&issue_id=13788

McDowell’s Press Council an attack on free speech

The freedom of the press is under threat. Justice Minister Michael McDowell has plans for a State Press Council, set up by himself, whose purpose is the creation of a neutered media – the kind politicos have long sought.

Britain has a Press Complaint Commission, as have many European countries, but the body McDowell is proposing will be the first of its kind in the democratic world.

It will facilitate government control of the media.

But whatever way his plan is looked at, it’s scary – if for no other reason than the fact that he’s behind it. Even the dogs in the street can see that the Minister is not the right person to set up a State body to regulate the newspaper industry, because his actions speak for themselves.

patzer117

OK, liking this thread. First off though Peteee Rupert doesn't own the New York Times, that's a very respectable newspaper you've tarnished just there.

On topic though I think the best example of all of this is the great ol' Silvio Berlusconi who is not only prime minister of Italy but has a net worth of $12 billion and owns a majority of the media in Italy. This does not mean he is without criticism over there, just this weekend he walked out on a media interview on one of his channels cause the reporter was asking too tough questions. Abroad the criticism of him is far worse, especially if you read the economist.
It really brings home the problem though - he controls the media and the people, there is a huge conflict of interest. And it kind of proves the phrase that he himself is the essence of democracy - one man, one vote. He makes the decisions and can help influence the reporting on them.

Is this fair? Probably not. But is it right? Certainly. He has as much right to run for government and tell us what to do as anyone else, he's just better at it it seems.
All of the individuals named above like Murdoch obviously have motives, but their primary motive is profit. They may be influencing elections and the people, but that isn't their main aim. And even if it was well I'd rather allow it than suffer the alternative. I hope the thread doesn't turn into a communist bashing vs Capitalist bashing thread though.

As long as people can still form their opinions then i'm ok with it. It's when there is no opposition to speak against Murdoch and Silvio that i'd be worried. For the moment we have a free and open media system with no restrictions on setting up your own newspaper. If you have views and want them heard - set up your own. If you can sell products better than sony, or feel they are doing something wrong, then make your own company and market against Sony telling people they are evil.

Capitalism and Democracy have in-built defences against these empires: YOU

patzer117

tunaman wrote:

Think again.

http://www.unison.ie/southern_star/stories.php3?ca=38&si=1577987&issue_id=13788

McDowell’s Press Council an attack on free speech

Yeah, that's a really fair and balanced article itself :rolleyes:

The press council is set up by the government which is elected by you. Therefore you control it. If you have a problem then you go to the courts who will decide if it's unconstitutional. That frankly is one of the most biased articles i've ever read.
I'm not saying i support the press council idea, but it's for journalists like that - 'cronies' 'state control' 'McDowell's control of the media' (why would he want that) 'government yes men open to corruption' 'a goebbel's like desire'- ffs that's simply outrageous. That newspaper is a rag and you should be ashamed at posting a link to it.

patzer

tunaman

patzer117 wrote:

Yeah, that's a really fair and balanced article itself :rolleyes:

I take it you have no problem with the accuracy of the information in that article then?

Fair and balanced in the same way FOX news is?

The press council is set up by the government which is elected by you. Therefore you control it.

The World Association of Newspapers, an organisation that represents 18,000 publications, has demanded that McDowell abandon the proposals because they are an attack on press freedom and a poor example of democracy.

If you have a problem then you go to the courts who will decide if it's unconstitutional. That frankly is one of the most biased articles i've ever read.

Irish libel laws are archaic in the sense that recourse to the courts is the only option a person has when the media maligns one’s reputation. The problem is that financial costs and procedures ensure that only a tiny minority can afford to take a court case.

I'm not saying i support the press council idea, but it's for journalists like that

The newspaper representative body, the National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI), is resisting the plan and wants to establish its own independent complaints commission comprising an office of press ombudsman and a Press Council.

- 'cronies' 'state control' 'McDowell's control of the media' (why would he want that) 'government yes men open to corruption' 'a goebbel's like desire'- ffs that's simply outrageous.

The Irish government is rife with corruption as we have all witnessed numerous times,and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

This Mcdowell lad is no stranger to abusing his power either as his displayed when he destroyed the livelihood and career of journalist Frank Connolly by using Dáil privilege to blacken the journalist’s name. Connolly’s Centre for Public Inquiry was in the process of drawing attention to McDowell’s selection of the $80-million Thornton Hall site for a new prison.

That newspaper is a rag and you should be ashamed at posting a link to it.patzer

Just a rag?

Earlier in the year he described Daily Ireland as a Nazi rag and when the editor sued for defamation McDowell again claimed parliamentary privilege – the Pinochet argument.

Truth hurts.

mountainyman

eoin_s wrote:

Really the main thrust of my post was to argue against communism being the best for equality in society as was posited by another poster. In fact, China is moving towards a Capitalist and Communist society.

Of course Ireland is a capitalist society even if a bit unique, I was trying to be tongue in cheek, came off like asshole sorry.

Communism brings relative equality. The elite in Russia under the old system were not as much better off than ordinary people as the elite now.
There are a hell of a lot downsides with every communist society ever created though.

MM

lostexpectation

20% each of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers

Good god no! the first baseball then the world?

Gordon Gekko

One company controls much of what you see, hear and read throughout a day.

HarperCollins Books
The Sun Newspaper
News of the World Newspaper
The Times (England)
Sunday Times
New York Times
20th Century Fox Studio
Fox Broadcasting Company
FX Network
Sky Television (Sky News)
bTV a public broadcast television network in Bulgaria
DirecTV (Basically Sky for americans)
National Geographic Channel
MySpace social internet site (Like bebo)
IGN Website (Games and movies)
20% each of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers
9.8% of the Los Angeles Lakers

This is all controlled by one company, News Corporation, which is 'owned' by Rupert Murdoch.

Sorry to let the facts get in the way of a good rant, but Rupert Murdoch most assuredly does not own The New York Times. Given that the New York Times is effectively America's paper of record, and the most influential paper in the US, this is a pretty big mistake.

Peteee

Gordon Gekko wrote:

Sorry to let the facts get in the way of a good rant, but Rupert Murdoch most assuredly does not own The New York Times. Given that the New York Times is effectively America's paper of record, and the most influential paper in the US, this is a pretty big mistake.

My bad sorry, I must have misread the article. He owns the new york post, a tabloid.

I'll edit the orginal post.

Whoops!

Terry

god bless rupert murdoch.
i love sky's programming.