Media Barons

We have discussed the control of the media by barons, one of whom, Ted Turner, was a kettle calling the pot black, as Reuters (28/4/03) reported: "CNN founder criticizes media cartels. The former owner of CNN, Ted Turner, said that too few people owned too many media organizations and called rival media baron Rupert Murdoch a warmonger for what he said was Murdoch's promotion of the US war in Iraq. "He's a warmonger," Turner told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "He promoted it." Murdoch's News Corporation owns Fox News, the fastest-growing news channel in the US. Fox News was the most popular US cable news network during the conflict, trumping AOL Time Warner's own news channel, CNN, which was launched by Turner more than two decades ago. CNN came to prominence with its blanket coverage of the 1991 Gulf War. Turner, who has pledged to give US$1 billion to the United Nations and is a vocal proponent of population control and nuclear-arms elimination, criticized the concentration of ownership of the vast majority of US television networks, radio and TV stations, and newspapers in a few corporations".

Ronald Hilton - 4/28/03