Leveson Inquiry, Murdoch and Jeremy Hunt

We have had an explosive day at the Leveson Inquiry, and quite frankly, this one damages not just James Murdoch, who continues to sound like an executive trying to get round claims of dodgy dealings by claiming incompetence, in which case he shouldn't have been in the role in the first place; it not only damages the Con-Dem government, by showing that Jeremy Hunt and his office and advisers had had contacts with BSkyB, News International and James Murdoch, and thus also damages the credibility and position of Jeremy Hunt to the point where he has no option but to resign; but also damages the whole newspaper industry and the Conservative Party.

Not surprisingly, Conservative Central Office have sent out the party loyalists to both BBC and Sky to defend Jeremy Hunt, but quite frankly, what we are talking about is indefensible.  Before he went into DCMS, he was pro-BSkyB, aggressively so, and his actions during the NewsCorp bid to gain full control of BSkyB do absolutely nothing to change the perception that he was a Murdoch puppet, and as such, he was the wrong person to rule on the takeover.

JEREMY HUNT MUST RESIGN!

James Murdoch resigns as Chairman of BSkyB

When this broke in the 1pm BST hour today, I was stunned.  I was not expecting this to have happened today.  In fact, I wasn't expecting it at all.  James wil stay on as a member of the board, but he's no longer Chairman.

Ofcom is investigating whether NewsCorp is a fit and proper company to hold a broadcasting licence.  There are many investigations in the UK, the USA and Australia right now.  But I cannot honestly see how NewsCorp can continue to own assets like British Sky Broadcasting, Foxtel and Fox Broadcasting Company.

I also think the FCC should take this as an opportunity to finally regulate the cable broadcasting market in the US. 

Of course, James's resignation is another line of firewall, designed to protect Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp's investments across the world. Just last week, Panorama on BBC1 reported how NewsCorp subsidiary company NDS had been invloved in breaking the Canal Plus encryption system that On/ITV Digital was using.  Then the Australian Financial Review released emails detailing NDS's involvement in breaking other encryption systems of competitors.  Currently, Cisco Systems is seeking to acquire NDS Group.

No matter how many levels of firewalls Rupert Murdoch puts in, everything goes back to him, one way or another.  Murdoch is well known for handling things himself and being very hands on.  Because of that reputation, he will not be able to wash his hands of all the controversies that now dog him.

Murdoch claims independent journalism threatened by "dominant" BBC.

So James Murdoch, the head of NewsCorp in Europe, says a dominant BBC damages independent journalism in the UK.

The hypocrisy of that statement is positively drooling out of his mouth even as he says it.

NewsCorp has never been interested in independent journalism. All they are interested in is making sure that the conservative viewpoint is the dominant viewpoint. All other viewpoints are to be disparaged, dismissed, and generally made fun of. To them, there is only one truth, the one they manufacture to fit their own prejudices, whether it happens to fit the facts or not.

It gets better! Giving the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival, he said "The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision."

He said this with no sense of being a hypocrite, no sense of irony, seemingly no sense of anything. If he had, he wouldn't have said what he said.

News provision has been dominated by conservative media over the years, especially in newspapers. UK newspapers are predominantly conservative in political bias, and that bias has been getting steadily more pronounced over the years, especially since the 1990s.

Broadcast news has less choice, with BBC, Sky and ITN basically dominating the market, and no other provider really stepping up to the plate since the demise of BSB back in 1990.

NewsCorp really wants to dominate news provision over here, in the way that FOX News Channel dominates cable news in the US. They see the BBC as a barrier to that kind of dominance, a barrier that doesn't exist in the same way in the US.

There's another fact that renders his statement factually incorrect. You're reading it. A blog. There are millions of them, across the world. There is also Twitter, which I consider to be the digest version of the blog. Tweets of no more than 140 characters, meaning you have to be very concise with your text.

If I were to tweet this, it would come out something like "Murdoch says BBC threatens independent journalism. Massive hypocrisy, blogs and tweets are the new independent journalism." That comes out at 123 characters. You'd be surprised what you can say in 140 characters or less.

Blogs and tweets are the new independent journalism that anyone can do, and best of all, anyone can read you. My own blogs and tweets have been followed and read by state governments, multinational companies, broadcasters, and politicians. I can't pretend that I am a major influence, but it is fascinating to know these people are interested enough in what you write to read it.

So you see, it just goes to prove that James Murdoch's statement was not only factually wrong, but way behind the times. Sky is not the new kid on the block anymore. There are media moguls a plenty out there on the web, and some of them may well be the next Rupert Murdoch in the next 10-20 years.