Rupe’s hacks dodge flak

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=/data/opinion/2011/July/opinion_July151.xml§ion=opinion

Geoffrey Robertson (Debate)

30 July 2011, 7:10 PM

There is an Australian legend about the young Rupert Murdoch, his local newspaper, and a politician who displeased him.

“Whaddaya want?” Rupert asked him. “A bouquet of roses every day, or a bucket of shit every day?” Apocryphal or not, the story was called to mind by his cheerful admission to the parliamentary committee investigating what now appears to be the systemic and illegal pattern of phone hacking at Murdoch’s now shuttered News of the World. At the hearing, Murdoch noted that British Prime Minister David Cameron had invited him to Downing Street to thank him for his papers’ propaganda bouquets at the last election. The gratitude was clandestine — Cameron arranged for him to enter through the back door, so the public would not know how politicians repaid their debts to media moguls.

Kowtowing to Rupert has been the political norm on three continents, but most excruciatingly in Britain. His tabloids are believed to be capable of delivering the working-class vote more effectively than trade unions are. It has taken a massive fit of moral outrage at the obscene actions of News Corporation contractors to bring Murdoch to some form of accountability. So there he was, with son James, eating slices of humble pie before a parliamentary committee.