Center for Citizen Media Rotating Header Image

So Now Murdoch Cares About Doing the Right Thing?

NY Times: ‘Ill-considered’ book, interview called off after fierce criticism. Bowing to intense pressure both outside and inside the company, the News Corp. on Monday canceled its plans to publish a book and broadcast an interview with O.J. Simpson in which he was to give a hypothetical account of how he might have murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Let’s see just how fully canceled these abominations really are. News Corp. could easily sell the book to another publisher, and it could sell the “interview” — from reports, little more than a two-hour promotion for the book — to another network.

Should we snicker, meanwhile, at the alleged pressure from inside Rupert Murdoch’s empire? Bill O’Reilly is shocked, shocked to learn that News Corp., which has done more to corrode honorable journalism than just about any company in recent memory, is engaged in a sleazy stunt? Sure.

Then there’s his fatuous — and utterly wrong — claim that Fox News has nothing to do with Fox network, when they’re owned by the same company and run by the same man. Ignorant or a liar. Take your pick.

Which still puts him a cut above his boss, however. Murdoch, who ultimately made the right decision, made his choices for mercenary reasons, pure and simple, when he chose to sponsor this travesty in the first place.

Comments are closed.