<< But almost immediately he began looking for ways around that rule. >>
Just as, for the past dozen years, the LYING, WHORE New York TIMES has been "looking for ways AROUND" minimum standards of journalistic decency and honest reporting.
No doubt, this NYT article is a very good expose of Rupert Murdoch's use of cash and media to arm-twist (extort) legislation and favors that will benefit his empire.
But as Gene Lyons and Joe Conason detail in their book, "The Hunting of the President," the New York Times, itself, has been resorting to LIES and atrocious reporting for almost a decade-and-a-half in an effort to boost their (neo-con, media-conglomerate) agenda, whatever the cost to victims harmed by their journalistic lies. (Vince Foster driven to suicide by the bogus "White House Travel Office 'scandal,' Wen Ho Lee falsely accused of spying; Webster Hubbel convicted of "overbilling partners and clients" while the WHORE Times turns a blind eye to Cheney's Halliburton contracts and billions missing from Iraq war funding; American votes ROBBED of their votes while the Whore Times pretends Republican disenfranchisement and electronic vote theft don't exist, etc. etc. etc. etc.)
MEDIA WHOREDOM, thy name is "New York Times", and it is good to see you get all jealous and touchy about your long partner in press-media crimes, Rupert Murdoch.
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The Murdochracy
Mixing Government and Media
This article was reported by Jo Becker, Richard Siklos, Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner, and written by Ms. Becker.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/business/media/25murdoch.html
In the fall of 2003, a piece of Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling media empire was in jeopardy.
Congress was on the verge of limiting any company from owning local television stations that reached more than 35 percent of American homes. Mr. Murdoch’s Fox stations reached nearly 39 percent, meaning he would have to sell some.
A strike force of Mr. Murdoch’s lobbyists joined other media companies in working on the issue. The White House backed the industry, and in a late-night meeting just before Thanksgiving, Congressional leaders agreed to raise the limit — to 39 percent.
One leader of the Congressional movement to limit ownership was Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi. But in the end, he, too, agreed to the compromise. It turns out he had a business connection to Mr. Murdoch. Months before, HarperCollins, Mr. Murdoch’s publishing house, had signed a $250,000 book deal to publish Mr. Lott’s memoir, “Herding Cats,” records and interviews show.
An aide to Mr. Lott said the book deal had no bearing on the senator’s decision, and a spokesman for Mr. Murdoch chalked it up to coincidence. Still, the ownership fight showcases the confluence of business, political and media prowess that is central to the way Mr. Murdoch has built his global information conglomerate.
His vast media holdings give him a gamut of tools — not just campaign contributions, but also jobs for former government officials and media exposure that promotes allies while attacking adversaries, sometimes viciously — all of which he has used to further his financial interests and establish his legitimacy in the United States, interviews and government records show.
Mr. Murdoch may be best known in the this country as the man who created Fox News as a counterweight to what he saw as a liberal bias in the news media. But he has often set aside his conservative ideology in pursuit of his business interests. In recent years, he has spread campaign contributions across both sides of the political aisle and nurtured relationships with the likes of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
More than 30 years after the Australian-born Mr. Murdoch arrived on the American newspaper scene and turned The New York Post into a racy, right-leaning tabloid, his holding company, the News Corporation, has offered $5 billion to buy a pillar of the business news establishment — Dow Jones, parent company of The Wall Street Journal.
The sale would give Mr. Murdoch control of the pre-eminent journalistic authority on the world in which he is an active, aggressive participant. What worries his critics is that Mr. Murdoch will use The Journal, which has won many Pulitzer Prizes and has a sterling reputation for accuracy and fairness, as yet another tool to further his myriad financial and political agendas.
“It is hard to imagine Rupert Murdoch publishing The New York Post in Midtown Manhattan, with all of his personal and political biases and business interests reflected every day, while publishing The Wall Street Journal in Downtown Manhattan with no interference whatsoever,” James Ottaway Jr., a 5 percent shareholder and former director of Dow Jones, said recently.
Members of the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones, have sought elaborate assurances from Mr. Murdoch that he will preserve the independence of The Journal’s news coverage. Last night, advisers to both sides said they were close to reaching an agreement on editorial control, but it was unclear whether the Bancrofts would approve a deal. When he bought The Times of London in 1981 he gave similar assurances, but some former editors say he meddled with news operations anyway.
Mr. Murdoch declined a request for an interview, but has recently said he would preserve The Journal’s independence. Gary L. Ginsberg, a News Corporation executive, said it was “insulting” for anyone to suggest that Mr. Murdoch would compromise the integrity of “one of the world’s great newspapers” adding, “It’s not good business and it’s not good politics and it’s absurd on its face.”
From his beginnings as a proprietor of a single Australian newspaper, Mr. Murdoch now commands a news, entertainment and Internet enterprise whose $68 billion value slightly exceeds that of the Walt Disney Company.
The American newspaper industry has never seen a publisher quite like him. Mr. Murdoch has long been a pivotal figure in England and Australia, and in the dozen years since he has moved his base of operations to this country, he has insinuated himself into the political and financial fabric of the United States. His businesses have thrived in a highly regulated environment in part because of his remarkable ability to mold the rules to fit his needs.
This became clear in the regulatory fight over media ownership, a battle critical to Mr. Murdoch’s audacious creation of a fourth national television network, Fox. He has also turned his political clout on business rivals, as he did when he mounted a campaign recently against the Nielsen television rating agency.
“Rupert is sort of an 18th-century guy: the world is still forming, and he’s going to do what he can to hack out a place in the wilderness and defend it,” said Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Time Warner, who both competes and socializes with Mr. Murdoch.
Political Relations
Shortly before Christmas in 1987, Senator Edward M. Kennedy taught Mr. Murdoch a tough lesson in the ways of Washington.
Two years earlier, Mr. Murdoch had paid $2 billion to buy seven television stations in major American markets with the intention of starting a national network. To comply with rules limiting foreign ownership, he became an American citizen. And to comply with rules banning the ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same market, he promised to sell some newspapers eventually. But almost immediately he began looking for ways around that rule.
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