Murdoch resigns from newspaper boards

anne allan

I don't blame him. He must be sick of clearing up behind crooked reporters and useless editors.
Doubtless, James Murdoch is hard nosed, but the sheer corruption and inefficiency of the staff on these newspapers is breathtaking. In addition, he is also covering for the fact that his father is easily beguiled by ruthless women.

Percy

Not a bad thing, he's pretty dumb and the least talented of the Murdoch spawn, they need to get a real shitkicker in there.

David Lindsay

All right, so the resignation of James Murdoch turns out to be rather less than it might at first have appeared to be. But the fact that even that could happen demonstrates that we are in the last days of the Raj. We must be clear as to what must come next.

The television license fee should be made optional, with as many adults as wished to pay it at any given address free to do so, including those who did not own a television set but who greatly valued, for example, Radio Four. The Trustees would then be elected by and from among the license-payers. Candidates would have to be sufficiently independent to qualify in principle for the remuneration panels of their local authorities. Each license-payer would vote for one, with the top two elected. The electoral areas would be Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and each of the nine English regions. The Chairman would be appointed by the relevant Secretary of State, with the approval of the relevant Select Committee. And the term of office would be four years.

We need to ban any person or other interest from owning or controlling more than one national daily newspaper. To ban any person or other interest from owning or controlling more than one national weekly newspaper. To ban any person or other interest from owning or controlling more than one television station. To re-regionalise ITV under a combination of municipal and mutual ownership. And to apply that same model to Channel Four, but with central government replacing local government, subject to very strict parliamentary scrutiny.

The above model for the election of the BBC Trustees should be extended to the new Independent National Directors of Sky News, who should come into being entirely regardless of the ownership structure of BSkyB. Not least in view of cross-subsidy, they might usefully double up as the hitherto most ineffective Independent National Directors of The Times and the Sunday Times. Alternatively, and perhaps preferably, the subscribers to those newspapers would by the same means elect their Independent National Directors.

Cogito Ergosum

It seems he resigned in September, but did not bother to mention this to the Commons Committee in November.

I am unimpressed.