Rupert Murdoch: An Alternative View

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Mr Murdoch already does "educate" his readers. He regurgitates simplistic twaddle that the readers lap up. Mind you, most other papers do likewise:

Did you know that 50% of children get below average marks in tests? And that 40% of teachers' sickness absence is on a Monday or a Friday?

[Mandryka]

An interesting concept, however surely one of the reasons for Mr. Murdoch's great success and wealth is that he knows his consumers. I think that if The Sun started to try and educate it's "readers", they'd soon take their white vans off to buy the Daily Star instead.

When R.M. purchased the Sun in 1969 (beating off a rival bid by one Robert Maxwell), the main (only?) daily paper serving the working-classeswas the Daily Mirror, though to call the Mirror of that time a 'working class paper' would be to do it an injustice: though it had its light-hearted side, for the most part it dealt in serious, literate journalism. The Murdoch Sun dealt it a fatal blow by serving up a 'populist' diet of scandal, trivia and ladies with enhanced mammary glands: this 'innovation' forced the Mirror to follow the Sun downmarket in order to retain some of its original readership and led to the creation of numerous Sun-alikes.

The moral of this tale would seem to be: place before the general public a) a meal cooked by a Michelin-starred chef and b) a cheeseburger and chips 'fresh' from the microwave and the majority of people will go for the cheeseburger and chps, because a) it's familiar and b) it looks easier to eat.

The solution? Replace the cheeseburger and chips with a second Michelin-starred dish. Then the public will have no choice but to go for 'quality'.

Eltist? Me? Never.....

[LeMartinPecheur]

look at the author

"[M]y beloved Sun" - not exactly an everyday phrase, at least with the capital letter on the noun

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

When R.M. purchased the Sun in 1969 (beating off a rival bid by one Robert Maxwell)...

...speaking of whom - wasn't he the one who was discovered to be raiding his workers' pension fund to pay for "other things". The pension fund was effectively depleted. Shock/horror!

Yet this is precisely what successive governments have done with public service pension funds - spending it on whatever they chose, and moaning about it later. Of course, with inflation, the amount they can recoup from current contributors to the schemes does not match what they have to pay out now. So they attempt to demonise public servants and when the truth comes out, they try to divert the argument, ultimately ending up up look rather silly.