This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Seth: Feel free to add non UK information, i figured that an American might have a better idea of his American influence and same for Australia.
JW: Should add the part of him being a Villain with Good Publicity
Seth: Why is he a villain? Rich and powerful doesn't always equal C.M.Burns
Eric DVH: Yeah, you can't say that someone's a psychopathic evil overlord just because they are!*
- *Note: Does not apply if you are dead or do not speak English.
Danel: He got his start working on rats and filth, and nothing has changed. For all his rhetoric about capitalism leading to freedom, he's prepared to bow to the Chinese government - giving them milksop interviews and dropping potentially embarrassing documentaries from his channels in order to be allowed to sell over there. He's an Evil Overlord.
Seth: No china is a dictatorship with heavy censorship. Everyone who operates in China needs to bow to their censorship or they don't do business with them. Even UNICEF makes concessions when they operate within Chinese borders, google censors it's search results for them - it's a fact of life. If you want to do business there (Which any good capitalist would) then you do what they want.
Doesn't make him evil, just greedy, like every single other person on earth - or at least every other CEO - they need to make money.
If you are going to criticise Murdoch point out that he paid no corporation tax for about a decade - not that he does what every other capitalist company does - otherwise you are just being a sheep and hating the biggest target — Like people who hate Wal*Mart just because they are the biggest chain, regardless of the fact they are the cheapest and good to their employees. Everyone does this stuff. "Hate the game, not the player"
Oh and he got his start because his father owned a hell of a lot of shares in newspaper companies and became successful by publishing a TV guide, so i don't know where you get "Rats and filth" from.
Besides, none of this has anything to do with TV Tropes, he was included because of his ownership of such a wide range of media and because there was a red link.
Danel: Oh, I hadn't been keeping an eye here - had no idea you'd replied. I'm not objecting to his censorship within China - that's an unfortunate fact of life, though even such a thing as that is somewhat contrary to the political principles that his media empire professes. It's that, in the interests of doing business with a dictatorship his empire had been heavily criticising up until that point, he soft-pedalled criticism of China everywhere. The pleasant interview was in the Times. The documentary was to have been screened in the UK.
He wields a degree of political influence that is somewhat unseemly in a democracy, and he's neither a resident nor a citizen of the country. The biggest-selling newspaper and the most 'respectable' broadsheet are utterly tied to his opinions - and this is sometimes a good thing when he acts as a restraining influence - in the interests of retaining sales - on the lunatics he appoints as editors.
Seth: Wow, it's just occurred to me i've been checking this page a year to see your reply. Even after i stopped editing with this name for ages.
I must admit i was ill informed about his china soft peddling. I'm aware of his censorship within china but hadn't looked into his stated opinions. As far as murdoch is concerned i see him as a natural development of capitalism. Some groups or people will gain too much power, murdoch for all his power hasn't openly abused it so i give him a pass.
Sane Troper: this entire page is nothing but a pile of baseless bashing and half-truths over someone who is a) sucessfull and b) tied to media that isn't leftist. Vote for the whole page to be corrected into something less ridiculously strawmanned, and if it turns to be impossible to write about someone to the right of fucking Stalin in a way that doesn't involve insults, then the whole page should be removed.
Seth: As the author of this article and a right leaning person i'm not entire sure what you mean. All the article does is explain that he owns a lot of things and that he happens to have a lot of political influence in the UK. There are no insults that i can see, but if you find issue with any part feel free to edit it or add anything you feel it needs.
Paireon: Beginning your intervention with the self-indulgent "Sane Troper" monicker - implying rather blatantly that you consider yourself something of an Only Sane Man - is not helping your case. I am a left-leaning person, contrary to Seth, and yet I tend to concur with his previous statement. I should also add that your contribution, for all its accusations of strawmannism (hey, maybe we should try getting these words in the dictionnary!), is a rather obvious example of it. Your use of deliberately broad terms in an attempt to shoehorn as many people on "your side" of the argument is clumsy, and accusing others of being insulting by being even more insulting is rather juvenile. You should at least take the time to create a contributor page and link your nickname to it, because as it is, you look either foolish, inconsiderate and uncaring about this Wiki except as an occasional soapbox, or like a coward unwilling to face even the rather minor consequences your actions on this Wiki may hold for you.
