by Mark Kleinman, for Sky News, November 30, 2009.

This is turning out to be a busy season for reforming the corporate governance of UK plc.

Last week, we had Sir David Walker’s recommendations about the future of bank boards and pay.

Tomorrow, Sir Christopher Hogg, the former chairman of Allied Domecq, GlaxoSmithKline and Reuters Group will outline how Sir David’s report can be applied more widely across British industry.

It should make interesting reading. I understand that the Financial Reporting Council, which Sir Christopher chairs, will recommend that at the very least, all FTSE 100 chairmen should put themselves up for annual re-election.

That would mark a significant change from the current regime, in which non-executive directors tend to get elected for three-year terms.

It is also likely to have an impact on the dynamic between institutional investors and major companies by making board members the focal point for shareholder anger about management or strategy…(continue reading)

Is this really helpful? There is a campaigned video of over how women shouldn’t become victims of Rape???

I get that they are saying be smart about alcohol consumption and the like. But it is painting it in a light as if it is their fault the treacherous act occurs. And then almost padding the ego’s of the guys by ‘reminding’ them to ask for sex. To use a UK phrase, this is daft! It is a campaign solely based on fear. It is one thing to make people aware and encourage good decisions it is another to create a worldview rife with fear, don’t get me wrong i disagree with the rape and get what the underlying message is but come on, show a little respect for both genders here. I am sure their intentions are pure, but the medium and the message don’t line up…

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Christmas-Rape-Warning-New-Campaign-Urges-Women-Not-To-Drink-Too-Much-And-Men-To-Seek-Consent/Article/200911415478449?lpos=UK_News_Top_Stories_Header_4&lid=ARTICLE_15478449_Christmas_Rape_Warning%3A_New_Campaign_Urges_Women_Not_To_Drink_Too_Much_And_Men_To_Seek_Consent

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/White-House-Gatecrashers-Michaele-and-Tareq-Salahi-Pictured-Meeting-US-President-Barack-Obama/Article/200911415477034?lpos=World_News_Second_World_News_Feature_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15477034_White_House_Gatecrashers_Michaele_and_Tareq_Salahi_Pictured_Meeting_US_President_Barack_Obama

It was on the tips of their collective tongues, the D-word. Fortunately, society still isn’t at the place where you can toss around that SEO-sucking mother completely at will, but the day when you turn on Sky News and read the words: “This person might die! Look at us! Look at us until they die! Look! Look!” is assuredly imminent.

The networks got a taste of it with Michael Jackson, had a little shufti at the viewing figures and decided that a little mortality goes a long way. So, “man in car accident” becomes “most famous sportsman in the world might die” becomes “Tiger Woods’s organs were splattered all over the windscreen of his Cadillac SUV, from where his tepid, clotting blood dripped into the gaping mouths of children below like olive oil drizzling onto the world’s worst salad. AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH.” In terms of overkill, it’s the equivalent of choking on a fish bone and deciding, on the basis of this, to destroy all fish everywhere. Julius Caesar actually once tried to do this. He was told to go and have a long lie down. To his eternal credit, he did.

Of course, Tiger Woods did not DIE DIE DIE BLOOD TORTURE HOW MANY MORE (although a few dozen people on a train in Russia did, meh). Moreover, it became very quickly and very suddenly apparent that he was not going to die. The news agencies were still hammering out their obituaries when the local mayor popped up on CNN and announced that Woods had left hospital, and the newspapers were busy reinstating their original front pages for tomorrow when Woods’s agent declared that the World’s Greatest Sporting Thing was “fine”.

How the words cloyed in SkyNewsWoman’s mouth as she uttered them.

“We’re just getting news from Tiger Woods’s agent saying that he is… ‘fine’”, she drawled in the manner of a surly child being forced to apologise. “That’s… a great relief,” she added with a wicked note of defiance. Then the tactical retreat began.

“We were, of course, going on reports in the Orlando Sentinel that he was in a ’serious’ condition.” No longer was she the interpid face on the tiller in this time of global catastrophe. She was Emperor Hirohito, sheepishly admitting to the nation that, well, you know this whole, ‘fight to the death’, you know, thang?

“Obviously, it now appears his injuries were less serious than first thought.” Damn right. No BAFTA for you, sunshine. Now. What’s on E4?

Sky news report on the UK economy’s latest shrinkage.  And I use the word ‘report’ in the most generous fashion possible for all I see is a couple of dolly-birds just waffling any old shite.

Once again, kudos to liarpoliticians.

The  classic line of “people are changing their spending habits”…  Well, thanks for pointing out the bleeding obvious.  Sometimes I do digress at the state of our news stations.  Don’t get me wrong, always nice to see a lovely looking woman but too much emphasis is on image instead of content nowadays.

If I wanted to be to a pervert, I wouldn’t be watching a gal in a suit for fuck’s sake.

uganda art

uganda art

Yoweri Museveni makes PolPot look like Mother Theresa

Yoweri museveni

Commonwealth Pros And Cons

By: Adam Boulton

Every two years when Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet for CHOGM, at least one think tank produces a report branding the organisation irrelevant or worse.

For the 2010 CHOGM, an internal report commissioned by the Commonwealth itself has rained on the parade. The Policy Studies Unit and Electoral Reform International claim the Commonwealth has lost “moral leadership” for failing to stand up for democracy, particularly in Zimbabwe.

Ironically the Commonwealth’s commitment to democracy is enshrined in the so-called “Harare Principles”, agreed in the 1990s at the Zimbabwe CHOGM back when Robert Mugabe was regarded as a good guy.

So is the Commonwealth making a stand on Zimbabwe this year? No it’s not – or at least, as so often before, it’s deploying the carrot rather than the stick.

Gordon Brown has backed a message to Zimbabwe’s new national unity government, that subject to many further reforms, President Mugabe and his UDC rival, the Prime Minister Morgan Tvangirai, could be back round the table as soon as the next CHOGM in 2011.

Britain is taking a tougher line on who should get the “honour” of hosting that CHOGM by opposing Sri Lanka because of the way it conducted the campaign against the Tamil Tigers and Tamil population.

However it is far from clear that the other countries will back Britain’s ban and there is already much huffing and puffing along the lines of “Who do the British think they are, they are not still in charge of the British Empire, you know”.

Yet for all the criticism the Commonwealth is actually growing – up to 53 member states – and thriving as indicated by two developments here in Trinidad. Rwanda, which was not a British colony is applying to join the club.

And President Sarkozy of France is stopping off on the way back from Brazil to discuss climate change with the meeting. (He will be allowed to speak French because they’ll be s special sidebar meeting with him not formally part of CHOGM).

For all it’s weakness as a deliberative council, and the highly questionable democratic credentials of many of its members, the Commonwealth remains a unique body at least encouraging, if rarely enforcing, better behaviour by its members.

As Gordon Brown likes to point out the grouping gathers a cross section of the Globe: from the richest nations (including Britain, Canada and Australia), to the rapidly rising (India, South Africa, Malaysia) to some of the world’s poorest mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa and here in the Caribbean.

If a Climate Change agreement is to be reached next month, the discussions in this forum will be crucial. To help the process on its way Gordon Brown has today proposed “the Copenhagen Launch Fund”.

This is a further component of the payments developed countries will make to developing countries to secure an agreement.

In the transition period before a Copenhagen Agreement comes into force in 2013, the new fund would offer up to $10billion, half of it on a conditional basis if action is taken.

In other words countries would only get the cash if they stop cutting down trees or start reforestation.

Britain’s payment into the fund would be about £800 million. In these times this is unlikely to be popular with voters at home. But it’s the way international politics works and the Commonwealth still amplifies Britain’s voice.

The UN is admitting failure in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  A new report even claims that UN forces have aggravated the conflict in North and South Kivu provinces with the UN trained Congolese Army and the rebel group the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

Richard Dowden of The Guardian writes, “There have been signs that elements of the UN force are going local and also taking to trading minerals and abusing local people.”

But not everyone agrees with the findings.  Reuters South Africa reported Information Minister Lambert Mende as saying such accusations are “really what we can call an exaggeration. If the situation is now worse, what is that based on? How many people were dying before this operation? How many are dying today? he asked, arguing there could have been many more victims of fighting if the offensive had not taken place.”

The FDLR, an ethnic Hutu militia that relocated to the Congo after the 1994 genocide from the neighboring country of Rwanda, continue to wreak havoc in the region.  They have been accused of such crimes as murder, rape, pillaging, and taking advantage of the natural resources of the Congo including smuggling gold.  According to Sky News “Congolese records show only a few kilos of gold are exported legally every year, but the country’s own senate estimates that in reality 40 tonnes a year – worth £743m – gets out.”

It is a troubling problem that continues to fund and fuel the trouble in Central Africa from an international network of buyers from dozens of countries, including the United States and Europe, according to the UN.

The New York Times predicts the new UN report will force the US government to do more, including  “urging Congress to pass legislation that would bar American companies from buying Congo’s “conflict minerals,” which include gold, tin and coltan, a metallic ore used in many cellphones and laptop computers.”

There have recently been calls for a televised debate between the leaders of the three main political parties in the UK ahead of the next general election.

Gordon Brown (Labour), David Cameron (Conservative) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) have all agreed, in principle to the debate and Sky News have been running an online petition to gain support from the public and cement it in history.

The televised debate has been a feature of American politics for a number of years. I remember studying Politics at school and discussing Nixon v Kennedy in the first of four televised debates during their presidential campaigns of 1960.

Nixon had recently been discharged from hospital and campaigned right up until the first debate. He also refused television makeup. Kennedy on the other hand had rested. He was tanned, clean-shaven and well prepared. Nixon looked lost, pale, under-weight and was bearing stubble.

The vast majority of the 80 million television viewers thought Kennedy had won the debate. Even with television footage in black and white, his photogenic appeal is widely held as the explanation why. This explanation is reinforced when we consider listeners on radio throughout the U.S regarded Nixon as the winner.

‘Politics in a new light’

Whatever happens the debate in the UK can be seen as a modernisation of democracy and a necessary step towards more transparent politics in the UK. After the expenses scandal and the failure to present a coherent strategy on Afghanistan, it is up to all three leaders to rest and tan (as it were). The British public needs to be reintroduced to politics in a new light and the leader’s debate is a useful opportunity to do so.

This opportunity should be used not necessarily to attack others, nor persistently dig up manifesto promises which have been fulfilled in times gone by, or what I like to call, ‘recalling the glory years’. Nor should it be used to complain about manifesto promises which the government have failed to turn into legislation.

The leaders need to sew together reputations as clean, honest and committed personalities who have a clear outline for the methods they will use to regain public support and bring politics closer to its people.

In my eyes that is what the general election is all about. It is about bringing politics closer to the people it has alienated. It is about parties fighting for votes from a pool of people who might now abstain. It is about increasing the importance of transparency in UK Politics. It is about committing to reforming the pay structure and perks of MP’s and it is about tabling a coherent, visible strategy for Afghanistan, rather than just echoing Barack Obama every three weeks.

The question of image

Bearing all of this in mind, we can return to the question of whether or not image will determine the winner of the debate as it did so famously for Kennedy during the 1960 Presidential election. Fifty years on it seems that image is more important than ever before. With not only colour, but now high-definition television, the leaders will have to be weary of the problems encountered by Nixon in 1960.

The viewers will be able to measure the depth of individual creases and crows feet on the leader’s face.  If they fail notice it themselves, rest assured it will be printed on tabloid front pages with in-depth analysis detailing ‘the terrain of a modern politician’s face’. In many ways it is an unfortunate aspect of being an important player in politics today, something you must accept is that you will look 60 when you are actually 40 years old.

Having detailed what I think needs to be the focus of the leaders debate and the general election as being based around personable characteristics, it follows that image may well play a large part in determining the outcome. People’s images can create a subconscious confidence in what comes out of their mouth.

In my opinion, any leader looking tired and dishevelled on the night of the debate will find it hard to portray a rejuvenated character who is ready and willing to head up a government for the next four or five years. A leader looking rested, tanned, clean-shaven and youthful may benefit from the ‘Kennedy effect’, presenting the public with a confidence and a readiness which will translate into votes.

By Nick Higgins

“PM’s Pledge To Flood Devastated Cumbria” is a headline today on Sky News. I thought it unfortunate, and wondered how he plans to get the waters to rise above the level of the local mountains. Presumably his plan involves damning the lakes, levelling Scafell Pike, etc etc, and building a huge dyke around the county before letting the North Atlantic rush in?  Flooding the county further seems a little unnecessary, given the “Act of God” (though one has to ask which one is intended by that phrase?) which has already done a pretty good job.  Still if you are in Cumberland or Westmoreland might I suggest starting to build an ark, and voting Tory? (I can’t believe I suggested the latter…)

My friend DC comes from Seaton near Cockermouth — I can’t see him being impressed by this latest government initiative. Or maybe Sky News intended to say “PM’s Pledge to Assist Cumbria, Devastated by Floods?” I assume the latter, but my reading was more interesting!

Best wishes to all Cumbrians struggling with the flood, and all News Editors struggling with the English language.

cj x

PS They have now an hour later changed the headline to “PM’s £1m Pledge To Help Flood-Hit Cumbria”

Shame the former version was more interesting, while significantly less accurate!

I always aim to watch the State Opening of Parliament by Her Majesty The Queen on TV, not because I’m particularly interested in the contents of the speech itself (which was, in any case, widely trailed in advance this year) but because I like to watch the ceremonial. After 40-odd years wearing the Queen’s uniform I find it instructive to see how other servicemen comport themselves. As an ex-RAF man it was pleasing to note that this year there seemed to be more retired Air Marshals than ever carrying out various little jobs.

The presenters and pundits on the various TV channels usually find something new to talk about during the boring parts of the proceedings. For example, I hadn’t realised, or perhaps I had forgotten due to advancing years, that while HM is in Parliament a government MP is held hostage in Buckingham Palace just in case the politicians decide to kidnap the Monarch. (Thanks to the Daily Telegraph for informing me that the MP in question this year was Helen Jones.)

The speech from the Throne was so short that Her Majesty must have wondered whether it had been worth her while getting dressed up. (For the benefit of my overseas readers, let me tell you that the Queen does not write the speech; she has to read out what the government of the day has written for her – and must not betray by expression or intonation whether or not she agrees with the content.) Prince Philip looked mightily relieved when it was time to go because it is clearly not easy to sit comfortably for long when encumbered by the trappings of an Admiral of the Fleet.

The subsequent debate in the Commons was interesting for a short while. The two government back-benchers who had the honour to Propose and Second a vote of thanks to HM gave highly entertaining, and at times moving, speeches, as did the Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron. Dave seemed to catch the PM on the hop several times by asking questions that apparently had no answers or ‘lines to take’ in the PM’s script. Ad libbing is definitely not one of Gordon Brown’s finest talents. On the other hand when he has learned his lines he takes every conceivable opportunity to repeat them at length. Unfortunately we’ve all heard them so many times before that we have stopped caring whether what he is saying is true or not, or even whether they are in any way relevant to the question asked (usually they are not!). I expect the Leader of the Lib Dems was there somewhere but before the PM had completed his woeful speech my eyes had glazed over and I only woke up when my Sky Plus Box automatically changed over to Channel 4 in time for Countdown.

I meet the Duke of Edinburgh at RAF Valley 1968

My excuse for showing this image of me in front of my Hunter F6 being presented to Prince Philip at RAF Valley in 1968 is because of what happened immediately afterwards. Any royal personage doing a walkabout is always followed by a gaggle of officers, in reducing order of rank of course. On this occasion Prince Philip, having moved off a few steps, suddenly about-turned and came back to ask me another question. The gaggle of following officers, having been unable to stop after the unexpected about turn, bumped into each other and Prince Philip like a collapsing file of dominoes. Prince Philip ignored the ensuing chaos behind him and grinned at me while he asked his question. I am quite certain he did the about turn deliberately to see what would happen – and to brighten up what was probably a rather boring day for him. I am sure his grandsons would be delighted to hear that story!

PR Week’s website carried a story over the weekend about Labour minister Peter Mandelson’s handling of the row concerning the mis-spelt letter sent by Gordon Brown to the mother a soldier killed in Afghanistan. Mandelson went on to the Today programme to defend the embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown and managed to turn the interview into a stinging condemnation of the Sun newspaper, Sky News and even his BBC hosts.

The main thrust of his attack centred on a perceived deal that the Sun and Sky’s proprietors, Rupert Murdoch’s News International, has struck with the Conservatives, conveniently ignoring the deal Labour struck with Murdoch before the 1997 election. He also accused the BBC of following an agenda set by the Sun and Sky News. The interview became less about the letter and more about Mandelson’s accusation of ‘the Sun’s bad taste and crude politicking’.

The Sun’s first offensive against Labour in the build-up to the election has not only back-fired in the short-term but could also lead many voters to believe that their political coverage has been compromised by their relationship with the Conservatives. The PR Week article is here, and Mandelson’s Today interview is here.

Sometimes you hear stories that make you stop and go “WHAT?!” This is one of those stories. In Auckland, New Zealand at Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World a shark was giving birth but there were a couple of complications. So another shark is swimming alone and I don’t know if the wailing of the shark or something else made him think “fuck this” and bite a huge chunk out of her stomach. This shark literally swam up to her, biting her on the side to give her a c-section.

Pictured: Most Awesome Surgeon. Ever.

He bit her with the right strength in the right place to save her life and the 8 pups’ lives! The link for the full story is below.

Link

Cheers for this Alan…

Cooper to play The Devil’s Double for Tamahori

9 November, 2009 | By Jeremy Kay

Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day, XXX: State Of The Union) will direct to join what Corsan CEO Paul Breuls described as a taut action tale about the extraordinary life of Latif Yahia.

Corsan World Sales is talking to buyers here at AFM and the Paradigm Motion Picture Finance Group is representing domestic rights.

Yahia, a dead ringer for Saddam Hussein’s sadistic and widely despised son, was forced against his will to stand in for Uday in potentially dangerous situations. Through his role, Yahia gained access to Hussein’s inner sanctum and witnessed corruption, violence and debauchery.

Michael Thomas adapted the screenplay from Yahia’s books I Was Saddam’s Son and The Devil’s Double.

Cooper currently appears alongside Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard in An Education and his credits include Mamma Mia!, The Duchess and The History Boys. He will next be seen in Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe.

Lee Tamahori

Lee Tamahori arrived in Hollywood having helmed “Once Were Warriors“
and then wasted his talents on films like “xXx: State Of The Union” and “Next.” Well his next film, about the late Uday Hussein’s body double, actually sounds pretty interesting. Titled “The Devil’s Double” it’s based on the true story of Latif Yahia, a dead ringer for Uday, who was forced against his will stand in for the hated, crazed and sadistic son of Saddam in potentially dangerous situations. As a result, he got a first hand look inside the wild world of the Husseins and went on to publish three books about his experiences, two of which – I Was Saddam’s Son and The Devil’s Double – will serve as the foundation of the film. The picture will begin shooting in January in Malta, and Dominic Cooper is the first confirmed cast member, while Ludivine Sagnier is currently circling the project.

A long interview, but interesting that Murdoch wants to challenge even the “Fair Use” doctrine.  And the fact that Murdoch agrees with Glenn Beck saying that President Obama was a racist that hates white people tells us a great deal about how Fox News determines what stories they will be running with.

H/T to Crooksandliars

Actually the most interesting part my be that he admitted that while his websites were profitable, they simply were not profitable enough and that people should be charged with viewing content.  And even though he compared his plight to that of the music industry regarding pirated content, it is clear that this is an apples and oranges comparison. 

No, the most interesting part is that he thinks Fox News is fair and balanced. 

Being surrounded by newsroom cuts, lay offs, everyone is wondering about the irritatingly future of the media industry,one even suggested to allow sports betting on newspaper Web sites case in point,some British newspapers make millions on betting games like Bingo.Another one,Arthur Gelb wondered about the virtue of getting some Vegas showgirls in the newsroom, doing a little performance and charging admission.Desperate measures for desperates times as Maureen Dowd put it so eloquently.

Because its a matter of facts,the british media BSkyB jumped the shark as they always do in term of innovative solutions and proposed their users to watch live sports on Sky Sports and ESPN as well as Sky News over a wi-fi connection for £6 a month.Smart Coup ! Just imagine millions of football fans in the UK with millions of Ipods watching in amazement Chelsea vs Barcelona; that’s called how to be a billoinnaire !

Maybe the newspaper industry should take a lesson from this: charging for mobile content delivery.With millions of phone users around the world they might have a chance to turn profitable !

]]> http://andrewtytla.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/copyright-fight/ Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:22:56 +0000 andrewtytla http://andrewtytla.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/copyright-fight/

Interesting opinions on News Corporation’s approach to paid content.

Sit back and watch Rupert Murdoch’s interview on Sky News. Although rather long at 37+ minutes, you’ll get something out of it…

He’s got a point: good content takes time and money to produce. It nobody pays for good content, it will go away. Then what?

credit : New York Daily News

Our  favorites two famewhores who will use anything in their obsession for attention explained us that they were totally made for each other.Jon Gosselin and Levi Johnston appeared together in Times Square in NYC on Sunday. Levi was in town for his Playgirl shoot when he says he ran into Gosselin, who was in town filming commercials. The two posed for photos in near-identical pea coats. “You never know when celebrities turn up,” one onlooker marveled.We might accidentally see in horror and amazement Jon Gosselin showing it all before the camera for the next Playgirl issue ;a prerequisite for landing a scary movie gig in Hollywood.

Rupert Murdoch says he wants one of his children to succeed him at News Corp. “I am sure one of them will emerge,” he says. “It would be nice.” His family, with about 40% of the voting rights, will “have a lot of say.” Murdoch, 78, adds that he will step down “when I start to lose it.”Meanwhile he told Sky News interviewer David Speers that he will remove his news sites — The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Times of London and many more — from Google’s search index.Watch the interview

AOL is appointing Susan Lyne, the former CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, to its board of directors, as the online company continues to put its leadership together ahead of its spinoff from Time Warner. The spinoff is still expected before year-end.

Village Voice Media, the publisher of 14 local U.S. publications, including the 54-year-old Village Voice, is focusing on growth in Internet advertising, with its recently launched Voice Local Network. The Internet side of the business is up 75% from last year.

And Gabourey Sidibe a plus-size, African-American actress with less-than-perfect features – fits no casting agents definition of a leading lady. But she is not deterred. I never wanted to be an actress, said Sidibe, 24, the star of the just-released Precious, whose understated performance as an abused, 350-lb, illiterate teenager has garnered critical acclaim and unexpectedly catapulted her onto the shortlist of potential Oscar nominees

Andre Agassi is primarily concerned with Andre Agassi, according to a New York Times review of his ghostwritten autobiography Open. Reviewer Janet Maslinwrites that Agassi’s interests do not extend far “beyond tennis, more tennis, the misery of tennis, the way sportswriters misunderstand tennis and the irritating celebrity that tennis stardom confers.”

Other admissions from the book: Agassi took crystal meth in 1997, the worst year of his career; he’s lied about his love of tennis to interviewers over the years; and his frosted mullets may have included portions of toupee. Maslin calls the book “anticlimactic” but says it is saved by “somebody on the memoir team” with “great gifts for heart-tugging drama.

source: LevineBreakingNews

When I read the title to this article I had the same reaction as I’m sure your having now: what?  Billionaire Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Googles search index, in an attempt to get people to pay for content online.  My opinion? The words crazy and absurd come to mind.

The mogul said, in an interview with Sky News Australia, that newspapers in his media empire – including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal – would consider blocking Google entirely, after enacting plans to charge people for reading their stories via their websites.  This is ridiculous. In the day and age that we live, with the internet at many of our fingertips every second of the day and the endless amount of sources out there, it’s an impossible task.  Not to mention one that most definitely will result in a mass boycott of some sort.  Web users will not stand for this and for Mr Murdoch to think otherwise is crazy.  Trying to step in and change the dynamic by which people obtain their news and information and slapping a price tag to read news online? Please.  They, like myself, will find another of the 100000000 FREE sites that provide the same quality information as those owned by the mogul.  The days of charging for “news” and information on the web are long over.

- Bilal Asgher

Once again, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is bucking the system. Sky news reports that he may be taking all paid content from his papers off of Google.

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has suggested the company’s online newspaper pages will be invisible to Google users when it launches its new paid content strategy.

He claimed that readers who randomly reach a page via an internet search hold little value to advertisers.

This defies all conventional wisdom about the future of news and journalism. Information wants to be free, and Murdoch is about the only guy in town holding strong, and threatening to go even further. More on this from Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolf.

Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch’s latest attack on the BBC has a tired feeling to it. In an interview/advertisement with the oh-so-hostile Sky in Australia – I bet that was probing – he said it was a scandal that everyone in Britain with a television was compelled to pay a licence fee. As opposed to paying between £18 and £60 a month for Sky.

Murdoch’s real battle is against BBC news. He wants to dominate TV news and his increasingly sensationalist Sky News has failed to break into the mainstream news market. Hence attacks by him and various members of his family against the corporation.

Murdoch has a virtual monopoly on independent radio news in the UK. He would like nothing better than to see off ITN completely, and if he could then do the same to the BBC, or at least manacle it financially and politically, he would be unchallenged.

Why is that so bad? Aside from his news often being geared towards serving his master’s voice – see the fawning coverage of China where Murdoch wants a slice of a potentially massive pie – you only have to look at the disgustingly xenophobic and ultra right-wing Fox News in the USA to see what awaits if it’s left to him.