Media Ethics and Scandal

Role of Media (1260 words- 6 minutes reading time- Note down your time)

The current Sep 2011 Top Media Ethics Story in the world- Fall from Grace after expanding for 60 years- Murdoch story

Queries to Students:

1) What was the size of Rupert Murdoch Media business in June 2011?

2) Did he enjoy power in influencing decisions by politicians?

3) Was he planning a big acquisition in July-Aug 2011?

4) Was there any financial or marketing or Human Resource problems?

5) What was the show stopper? Why the deal was abandoned?

6) Was it a new problem that cropped up or an old one?

Size of Business of Rupert Murdoch – Media Moghul :Extracts from http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-business/news-corp-rupert-murdochs-multi-media-empire/articleshow/9144449.cms

In May 2011, News Corp. reported a net profit for its fiscal third-quarter of $682 million (8.3%) on annual revenue of $8.26 billion(Indian Rs 38,000 crores)

In summer of 2011, News Corp. was seeking to buy the 61 percent of BSkyB which it does not already own. BSkyB is powerful media player which holds most of the rights to English Premier League football. The acquisition was withdrawn in August 2011, due to Media Ethics Hacking Probe in UK detailed below.

An Australian who became a US citizen in 1985 to expand his newspaper and television holdings in the United States, Murdoch started in the newspaper business in the early 1950s after inheriting The Adelaide News from his father.

His conquests in Britain include The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times, and the News of the World, Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper.

Besides its British newspapers, News Corp. also owns The Australian and other papers in Murdoch's native Australia and the New York Post.

In his biggest coup, Rupert Murdoch in 2007 won a hard-fought proxy battle for Dow Jones & Co. and its prize asset, The Wall Street Journal, in a $5.6 billion deal that redrew the US media landscape.

While newspapers are Murdoch's...