<p>So who is he? What did he do exactly? I was on vacation and when I came back he’s all over the newspaper and TV.</p>
<p>I tried to google him but since this is a developing story I keep getting bits and pieces of the complete news. I know that he’s a newspaper supergiant who hacked into people’s phones to get private info for his tabloids… </p>
<p>Can anyone tell me the full story so far?</p>
<p>He owns a media empire, and one of his companies (News of the World, in England) got into a huge scandal where they were hacking into people’s phones and such (in one case, deleting messages from the voice mail of a murder victim, giving her family false hope that she was alive). I’m pretty sure they went under.</p>
<p>Anyway, since he also owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, people are wondering if they’re doing unsavory things, too.</p>
<p>RM is a bazillionaire media mogul.
Owns the Wall Street Journal (you have probably never read on copy), Fox News, and 80 year old husband of one chop socky wife, Wendi Deng.</p>
<p>How does anyone over 18 (presuming since you’re in college life) not know who Rupert Murdoch is? It’s like not knowing who Richard Branson is.</p>
<p>Murdoch… he even sounds like a villain.</p>
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the dude from Superman II, right?</p>
<p>Who is Richard Branson? I knew Murdoch but not him haha in my defense I’m still 17 for five more weeks… :)</p>
<p>Richard Branson’s claim to fame is naming an airplane after Stephen Colbert. Also, some billionaire, flying, world record, commercial spacecraft stuff on the side.</p>
<p>momomo- really? Didn’t know Richard Branson? </p>
<p>Rupert Murdoch is also the biggest thing to have come out of Australia in terms of business. </p>
<p>I know for one that over here, out of our two major newspapers one is owned by Murdoch’s News Corporation, the other is from his biggest competitor in Australia. With this it has been hilarious to see the difference in coverage of the News of The Wold scandal, the ‘unbiased journalists’ at news corp have made Murdoch out to be a completely innocent bystander.</p>
<p>It is no wonder modern day journalism is as prejudiced as ever, the major players have too much market share.</p>
<p>Why did someone try to stuff his face with a pie a few days ago?</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is that Murdoch is far more powerful than what his money permits. His empire controls how a huge number of people find and interpret their information.</p>
<p>^what are you talking about? News can be interpreted and filtered? That can never happen. I read the slogan of Fox News and they said they were “Fair and Balanced.” Unlike other news stations, Fox gives both sides of the story and is nothing but unbiased, uninterpreted news brought to you by friendly faces such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hanity.</p>
<p>Why would people know about Richard Branson? I mean he’s not a nobody but he owns: an airline (admittedly a nice one, but who can name the CEO of American Airlines or Delta or United?), a budget (in the US at least) cell phone company and wants to start a service for sending people to space (albeit for about 15 minutes but it’s still pretty cool). It’s not like he’s Charlie Sheen (an attention-getting maniac) or the President (somebody EVERYBODY should know).</p>
<p>And yeah, Fox News isn’t that bad during their general news coverage, obviously their prime time stuff (and Glenn Beck, formerly) has a conservative slant but for the most part it’s about as dry and mundane as CNN or MSNBC outside of 8-11PM.</p>
<p>I was on vacation last week, completely missed South Sudan becoming a country.</p>
<p>“After on and off civil wars, South Sudan is one of the poorest countries with possibly the worst health situation in the world.”</p>
<p>[South</a> Sudan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sudan]South”>South Sudan - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Charming!</p>
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<p>I love Bill O! Why would anyone hate Fox News? Bill O, Sean Hanity, Glenn Beck, three of the funniest comedians I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. Throw in a late night sermon by Joel Osteen and you’ve got yourself the best channel on television.</p>
<p>I meant that news corporations can select which stories to include, which photographs will be published, who they interview… news should be unbiased, but as an earlier poster noted, the portrayal of Murdoch in some of the Australian NewsCorp papers is very different to how he’s portrayed in other publications. Anyway, news companies select which information to include, and this in itself limits what the average Joe finds out. </p>
<p>Murdoch’s empire also includes book publishers, cable TV and movie production companies. I’m not saying that these function to persuade viewers/readers or a particular contention, but the individuals within the empire who choose which books, shows and movies are produced do have power over the information that the public receives.</p>
<p>I do realise that you guys were probably being sarcastic, but yeah, even if news corporations try to be as unbiased as possible, there’s an inherent bias as information has to be selected anyway. I think that’s the scariest part of news empires - rather than just being rich, they have some control over how we view the world.</p>
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<p>I was so close to responding seriously. Damn, I need to get my sarcasm detector fixed.</p>