I think Rupert Murdoch has jumped the shark and here’s why:
Overnight, Rupert Murdoch tweeted that some of the victims of phone hacking undertaken by his News International were scumbags.
Charlotte Church, Hugh Grant and Jacqui Hames met with British Prime Minister David Cameron. The meeting was announced, its purpose public. Rupert Murdoch tweeted:
Told UK’s Cameron receiving scumbag celebrities pushing for even more privacy laws. Trust the toffs! Transparency under attack. Bad.
This is a bit rich coming form someone who presided over a company that was ultimately responsible for systematic hacking of the phones of the three and many others and a company that secretly courted favour with British politicians, the Police force and others.
Everyone who was responsible for the phone hacking, the cover up of the phone hacking, the cultivation of secret relationships with politicians and the police force … they are the scumbags.
Labelling Charlotte Church, Hugh Grant and Jacqui Hames as scumbags is an indicator of the decline of Rupert Murdoch.
In a later tweet he quite factually referrred to one of the “celebrities” as someone who was arrested for indecent behaviour on an LA freeway, and the other as a parent who abandoned a child. From my sense of values this would put both into the scumbag category. I am with Rupert on this one – he is being uncharacteristically honest.
These seem ill considered comments from Murdoch. Although they are unlikely to effect the outcome of the Leveson inquiry in the UK they suggest that the head of News Corp thinks he’s fire proof.
But with ethics at the BBC now being called into question following the Jimmy Saville revelations who knows what the media in the UK will look like next year.