Malcolm Turnbull labels Lachlan Murdoch ‘stupid’ and News Corporation ‘a political propaganda operation’
Malcolm Turnbull has sensationally described Lachlan Murdoch, the presumed heir to the News Corporation empire, as “stupid” and the family’s media operation as “a political and propaganda operation”.
The former prime minister was part of a panel on Tuesday night at an event organised by the independent news site Crikey, probing defamation law in Australia and the influence of the Murdoch machine.
Malcolm Turnbull has launched a fresh attack on the Murdoch media empire.
I am the oldest boy
Name-calling, even when it’s factually correct, aside let it not deflect from the real issues here.
News Corp lied to its audiences in the US and was complicit in an attempted coup.
News Corp engaged in criminal phone hacking in the UK.
News Corp has consistently lied and dissembled to undermine action on climate change, insisting to 2019 mega fires in Australia were caused by arsonists.
The Murdoch’s do not pass a ‘fit and proper character test’ by any stretch of the imagination yet they have been granted their bully pulpit in Australia by cowed and/or conniving politicians for too long.
We have seen how important a responsible free press is to democracy and that public interest journalism is vital to its survival in a form any reasonable person would find tolerable. Yet time after time, News Corp sides with the authoritarian right, spreads lies and misinformation, punches down and persecutes anyone with the temerity to stand up to the oligarchs and their enablers. They hide behind corporate platitudes like ‘Your Right to Know’, but they are a political interest group in their own right and have accomplished a level of state capture that is undemocratic, anti-competitive and downright dangerous.
A Royal Commission is urgently needed and action against a quasi-fascist News Corp merited.
I’m starting to feel the wheels of progress moving forward on a long awaited Royal Commission into Murdoch’s corrupt juggernaut. Thanks to the persistence of Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd (and others).
Shannon, Fox Corp settled with Dominion, not News Corp. News Corp is a different company, which shares common ownership with Fox Corp.
Malcolm is fighting for a worthy cause.
[Moderated under Mumbrella’s comment policy]
This is not news, this is just Malcolm catching up.
Maybe be so, but things need to get to a tipping point and we all can’t be first in line and finally having politician’s publicly recognize and call out corruption (Murdoch media corrupt the polity) is a very good thing.
Lachlan was “interviewed” for a Mumbrella keynote session years ago and he was lack lustre and completely demotivating to listen too. There was nothing #leadership in that session!
As the saying goes, if you point a finger there are four fingers pointing back.
I don’t doubt what Turnbull is saying – yet it’s always been that way and he had no issue with it when it suited him and he chose to work with it. Only now after it’s turned on him and he’s bitter and twisted about being out of office does he chose to challenge it. The younger Murdoch may be dumb but Turnbull is an opportunist with zero conviction – his own party and the public saw right through that which is the primary reason he’s out.
The days of having to go cap in hand to Rupert to get his annointment are just about done with
Sensational? Hardly. That is a very mild terms considering the sheer amount of pure damage that empire has done to democracy in the name of pure greed. Only wish he’d said it when he had real power – but of course, he’d likely no longer have that power then.
when the queen dies we’ll have a republic.. when Rupert karks the media landscape will improve.. right
Could’ve done something about it when you were in office champ.