Sítio com vista sobre a cidade

O escândalo Murdoch teve o mérito de fazer alguma luz sobre a forma como Murdoch estendeu o seu império e o usou para moldar as opiniões públicas no sentido de as tornar mais receptivas a políticas conservadoras / liberais, e para condicionar resultados eleitorais. 

A Associated Press publicou um artigo interessante sobre o assunto, pelo que passo a citar alguns excertos:

"Rupert Murdoch is a political kingmaker in Britain and his native Australia. In the United States, he’s best known for promoting conservative opinion through media properties like the Fox News Channel. And in China, he’s primarily a businessman working to give his News Corp. [NWS] empire a toehold in that country’s tightly controlled media market (...)

Murdoch began building his power in Britain in the 1980s, when Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher allowed Murdoch to add The Times and The Sunday Times to his stable of media properties, including The Sun and the News of the World, the tabloid primarily connected to the hacking scandal. Murdoch shuttered the News of the World last week.

Murdoch returned Thatcher’s favor, and his papers strongly backed her conservative policies.

Murdoch continued to have relationships with British leaders after Thatcher stepped down. In the 1992 parliamentary elections, when it looked as though Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock might topple Thatcher’s successor, John Major, as prime minister, The Sun published a bold front-page headline: "If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights." That headline was credited with helping Major and the Tories to victory.

Murdoch eventually switched his allegiance to Tony Blair, the Labour prime minister from 1997-2007. Blair telephoned Murdoch repeatedly before committing British troops to the Iraq war in 2003, which was strongly endorsed by Murdoch’s newspapers across the world.

Vale a pena ler o resto, pois ficamos a saber mais sobre a influência de Murdoch nos EUA, Itália e até na China.

Capa do Expresso, detido por Balsemão, nas vésperas das eleições presidencias de 2006. Balsemão detém igualmente o canal de TV SIC, cuja licença foi atribuída no Governo de Cavaco Silva