Murdoch against the EU

The billionaire Rupert Murdoch owns several, diversified press groups in Australia, Hong Kong, the US and the UK. As a result, he controls a good share of the information that shapes the views of many ordinary people in these different countries. In Australia, for instance, about 60% of the media, both national and local, is under the grip of his holding group. In the US, Murdoch´s main vehicle is anchored on Fox TV, which has a tremendous influence on the conservative public opinion. In the UK, his empire is built around the daily tabloid The Sun, but comprises other means, including TV, and also that “old lady” of the British press, The Times.

Murdoch, who is now 85, loves political power and the games that go along with it. He is always ready to play a major role in the building of the most populist political agendas and to actively support the blatantly conservative causes. All that is rooted in a very old fashioned way of looking at the world from an outdated and long gone Anglo-Saxon perspective.

His British media tools were decisively behind the Brexit propaganda. His loyal scribes made use of them to actively and purposely misinform and misguide the British grassroots readers. And also to promote the key advocates of quitting. Lies and half-truths make excellent headlines.

Now that the referendum results are in the bag, Murdoch has instructed his agents to move to the next stage of his anti-EU crusade: to attack the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. The insinuations and fabrications have started in a very subtle way by placing dismissive and unsettling words in the mouth of no-name-mentioned German diplomats. They are abundantly “quoted”, but nobody knows their identities. And the Murdoch boys and girls are doing it in a smart way, by using the very serious Times, instead of the more sensationalist papers the group controls. The Times pretends, and then other media outlets take the cue from it, that Germany sees Juncker as major problem and therefore it will be asking for Juncker´s departure later in the year or soon after that.

This is the new stage of Murdoch´s anti-EU demolition initiative.

It is also a smart move to justify the Brexit option to the very sceptic eyes in the UK. Particularly now, that the Brexit promoters are in some kind of disarray and also under fire. The best and better informed sectors of the UK are on the offensive against the “quitters” and their irresponsible behaviour.

In the near future we will see the anti-Juncker campaign moving to the level of the personal insult. That will the task reserved for the tabloids Murdoch owns. They will be gladly accompanied by other European media organs, both in the UK, including by The Telegraph, and elsewhere. That´s a good way to continue the job of undermining the EU and its institutions.

And Rupert Murdoch, if we let him on the loose, will be able to claim that he is always a winner.