Jump to full article: PR Watch, 2007-07-05
Author: Anne Landman's blog
Intro: As Australian-born media magnate Rupert Murdoch gets ever closer to adding the coveted Wall Street Journal to his media empire, it is instructive to examine how Murdoch's ownership and corporate relationships have affected media coverage in the past. Information on this can be found in tobacco industry documents.
Murdoch has long maintained a relationship with cigarette maker Philip Morris (PM). PM has put untold dollars into advertising in Murdoch's publications . . .
PM cultivated a close relationship with Murdoch, and it has served PM's interests admirably. An internal PM issue presentation titled The Persepective of PM International of Smoking and Health Issues, states PM's intent to exploit its relationship with Murdoch:
A number of media proprietors ... are sympathetic to our position -- Rupert Murdoch and Malcolm Forbes are two good examples. The media like the money they make from our advertisements and they are an ally that we can and should exploit.
Another PM internal report shows that information that could negatively affect the tobacco industry was routinely withheld from Murdoch-owned newspapers: . . .
Murdoch left PM's board in 2001, but little has changed. . . .
Murdoch must have been aware in 1991, when he dutifully served on PM's "Social Responsibility Committee," that PM's products kill massive numbers of its customers. After all, by then the U.S. Surgeon General had already issued fully 22 official reports detailing the hazardous health effects and addictiveness of smoking.
Either Murdoch's idea of "social responsibility" is out of step with rest of the world or he just doesn't care much about human life. Probably both.
Is this the kind of person the Bancroft family wants owning the Wall Street Journal?
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