I couldn't agree more. There's a need for a newspaper that scares the people who deserve to be scared. And once Private Eye has finally stopped slapping itself on the back for lasting 50 years, it needs to recover the sharpness (and biting wit) that once made it an essential read.

Agreed JK

I agree but I think the News Ltd has attempted to drag everyone into the gutter with them- except obviously some have resisted- Guardian and so on.

I think closing the NoTW was a calculated gamble that was planned at the beginning of the scandal with a view of just replicating The Sun as a Sunday..but I doubt that will happen.

Power has corrupted News Ltd and that spreads like wildfire. I always knew it would stumble at some stage..not this way though.

Murdoch is quite unique . He has absolutely no values at all- unlike other media barons that were at least basically Conservative. He corrupts everything he touches. People say he is a 'great newspaper man'. He's the opposite. He has done more damage to newspapers than any other individual.

What he is great at is juggling financial balls.

We might have to agree to differ on Murdoch, Veritas - I'm biased due to the very human ingredient of having met the man and spent a Concorde flight chatting with him - a very intelligent, witty, nice, gregarious man. Having said that, I was there during the Wapping era and well remember the tea drinking lazy printers sat beside the old machines doing nothing, so for that reason feel he DID save newspapers.

Watching him at the House of Commons session I saw a declining 80 year old. I felt he made a wrong decision when he started charging for satellite dishes after saying he wouldn't and the fire walls were a dreadful mistake - still are.

And opinions about James are generally negative.

I do agree that his influence on the morality, responsibility and creativity of media was partly negative due to mistaken concentration on profitability but that's a shared problem (Maxwell was worse). Much though The Guardian is my favourite National, it too makes some dreadful mistakes and can be equally foolish.

I agree to differ with JK. Murdoch is not a 'nice man'. Nice men and tabloids don't mix. What Murdoch has is 'charm'...as did Robert Maxwell. Ruining people takes buckets of 'charm', they do it blatantly with a smile on their face. The velvet glove of evil...and when sometimes they get it right (ie bent cricket) they will then use that to go on to destroy the innocent.

I don't trust any of them.

Point taken FC - for "nice" substitute "charming"!

JK2006 wrote:


Watching him at the House of Commons session I saw a declining 80 year old.

The old goat was jogging in London the day before with a big grin on his face. Then he mysteriously turned into the 2000-year-old man for his day in Parliament. Ludicrous!

It's probably far more complex than we can imagine JK.

I always remember my very first job with a little old Jewish man , concentration camp survivor who ran a giant empire from a tiny little office.

He gave me a job and wanted me to remember one thing-that when corruption starts from the very top it seeps down and infects every aspect of an entity....he was talking about business but obviously referring to his WW2 experience. That's the rule I apply when looking at anything.

Murdoch may be charming..a thousand bankers will attest to that..but what does he believe in ?

# I still remember my first job in Sydney in News Ltd when it was run by Lachlan ..far too nice and polite for the rough and tumble of a newspaper. He sent a memo around to everyone saying not too use the internet as it was a 'passing fad".