Hot on the heels of the scandal where Rupert Murdoch's papers wiretapped the Royal Family (bad show, wot -- those limeys seem to like their inbred snooty royals, go figure), now it appears that Sir Rupe's criminal enterprises have extended to circulation fraud -- basically defrauding advertisers. Senior executives in New York, including Murdoch's right-hand man, Les Hinton, were alerted to the problems last year by an internal whistleblower and apparently chose to take no action. The whistleblower was then made redundant.
In short: News Corpse committed a crime -- fraud -- against its advertisers by claiming it had one circulation, when it actually had a (much smaller) one. Looking for Sir Rupe to go to jail in 3... 2.... 1... *NEVER*. Because it's always a "few bad apples" who do these criminal things, right?
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Well, they can't expect their propaganda to sway *these* customers to believe their bullshit. These customers are corporations, and take a dim view of someone stealing their life's blood away.
ReplyDeleteWere I an advertiser, I would both initiate a devastating lawsuit, and insist they run my ads for free, until further notice.
If a newspaper can make a single fatal mistake, this is it.
It is always a few bad apples and Rupe Murdoch is the baddest apple on the tree. He just needs to be acknowledged for it.
ReplyDeleteKinda puts the so-called "Solyndra scandal" to shame, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteThis latest Mordork bullshit is emblematic of something I've been thinking about for a long time (and which was the subject of that Ranger Against War post that you linked to on the Helicopter Ben bit) -- the epidemic of "Fake Everything."
ReplyDeleteFake circulation figures. A fake news network which is actually a propaganda megaphone. Fake unemployment and inflation numbers from the .gov. Fake assets on banks' books courtesy of "Mark to Fantasy" accounting. Fake milk in China. Fake gold reserves in Fort Knox? Fake WMDs in Iraq. Fake Iranian assassination bomb plot. Fakery in the 9/11 attacks? There are so many falsehoods floating around that anything could be true -- ask a Truther.
Trouble is, a curtain of lies is no way to run a complex civilization. You have to be able to trust that things are real, or you spend too much time and money verifying everything. It's like a tax, the Lie Tax. One more thing sapping the vitality of society. All this bullshit is adding to the entropy that will bring on The Big Collapse.
The people that replace us will have an iron will when it comes to detecting and destroying bullshit and greed.
ReplyDeleteOf course, they might be hunter-gatherers.