Bill Moyers Takes on Murdoch

Bill Moyers has put into words the anguish many feel over the pending takeover of the Wall Street Journal by Murdoch Inc.
"When it comes to Money and power [Murdoch] is carnivorous -- all appetite and no taste. He'll eat anything in his path," Moyers says in a video commentary posted on YouTube earlier today. "He hires lobbyists the way Imelda Marcos bought shoes. He stacks them in his cavernous closet along with his conscience."
Moyers on Murdoch
Click here to watchThe commentary will air on PBS tonight as the closing segment of Bill Moyers Journal. (Check local listings).
"Rupert Murdoch has told the Bancrofts he'll not meddle with reporting. But he's accustomed to using journalism as a personal spittoon," Moyers says. "His worst offense with Fox News is not even its baldly partisan agenda. Far worse is the travesty he's made of its journalism. Fox News huffs and puffs, pontificates and proclaims, but does little serious original reporting."
Now Murdoch is vying to bring under his wing one of the best national newspapers we have left. With so much of the national news agenda being filtered through the lenses of a few companies, it's time we thought twice about the ways we allow these massive conglomerates to gobble up local outlets and dominate local airwaves for private gain.
"The problem isn't just Rupert Murdoch," Moyers concludes. "His pursuit of the Wall Street Journal is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, buyouts and other financial legerdemain that is making a shipwreck of journalism. ... Instead of checking the excesses of private and public power, these 21st-century barons of the First Amendment revel in them. The public be damned."
Watch the video.