ROD LIDDLE TO BECOME EDITOR OF MORNING STAR
NO, not really of course.
But the disturbingly right wing Rod Liddle could become the editor of the Independent, an issue of such concern that Paul Flynn and Dianne Abbot have tabled an Early Day Motion in parliament, and Sunny Hundal, among others, has been persuasively campaiging against it. There has , for example, been this facebook campaign.
The issue of course is media ownership. Newspapers owned by millionaires and corporations can appoint who they like as editors; and in the long run millionairres and corporations prefer editors who kow-tow to the interests of millionatires and corporations.
That is why we will never see a headline saying that Rod Liddle, or any other right-wing lickspittle, has become editor of the Morning Star, because uniquely the Morning Star is owned by its readers, and several trade unions have a stake in the Peoples’ Press. So even though it is a small voice in the national media, it is a voice always on our side, that we can rely upon.
It would be nice if Diane Abbot batted for her working class constituents in Hackney occasionally rather than worrying about the media.
Comment by Paul Stott — 20 January, 2010 @ 2:11 pm
“The issue of course is media ownership. Newspapers owned by millionaires and corporations can appoint who they like as editors; and in the long run millionairres and corporations prefer editors who kow-tow to the interests of millionatires and corporations.”
I’m not sure I agree with your implication. A good capitalist will want his editor to be someone who produces a newspaper that lots of people buy, so that he can make a profit. It may be of course that such an editor kowtows to the interests of Ms and Cs; but that won’t normally be the reason for his appointment.
But that’s by the by. Are you suggesting that millionaires and corporations should be prohibited from owning newspapers? If so, who should be allowed to own them? How rich would you have to be to be banned from newspaper ownership in Newman World?
Comment by Jonny Mac — 20 January, 2010 @ 3:17 pm
“I’m not sure I agree with your implication. A good capitalist will want his editor to be someone who produces a newspaper that lots of people buy, so that he can make a profit.”
Newspaper companies work by selling readership markets to advertisers. The price tag on the paper doesn’t cover the cost of production.
“Are you suggesting that millionaires and corporations should be prohibited from owning newspapers?”
Along with anything else. That’s how socialism works…
“If so, who should be allowed to own them?”
Their readers, that was an easy one.
Comment by Simon — 20 January, 2010 @ 5:30 pm
The idea of individual or private corporate ownership of newspapers is as unreasonable as the idea of individual or corporate ownership of a hospital or school or a TV or radio station. And the root of the problem is the necessity to make a profit or to be sustained by a profit centre located elsewhere.
Deprived of the selective allocation of advertising revenues by the rich newspapers, magazines and TV or radio stations could not exist without the patronage of their readers (or supporters). And that is where ownership should be located.
A Sun readers and supporters network could be established to sustain a paper of that nature. Deprived of the cross subsidy provided by other Murdoch titles and media interests I am sure that its circulation would soon settle at a level that reflects the real demand for such a paper.
Comment by Nick Wright — 20 January, 2010 @ 5:41 pm
Liberal ‘freedom of the press’ equating to private ownership by a handful of billionaires would be a complete joke if it were not already established practice.
It has got to be said that the Morning Star represents a much more democractic form of media, as it is owned by its readers.
I would be interesting in hearing what Jonny Mac considers to be freedom of press?
Comment by George W — 20 January, 2010 @ 6:00 pm
“Are you suggesting that millionaires and corporations should be prohibited from owning newspapers?”
Is Johnny Mac serious? Virtually all newspapers are owned by millionaires and corporations and virtually none by anyone else!!!! The worst you could claim of socialism is that it would just reverse current reality.
Comment by JamesT — 20 January, 2010 @ 6:00 pm
“uniquely the Morning Star is owned by its readers”
How does that work ? If Rod Liddle buys up a couple of print runs does that give him control ?
Comment by Laban — 20 January, 2010 @ 10:02 pm
It’s a cooperative with membership.
Comment by Simon — 20 January, 2010 @ 10:23 pm
To go into a little more detail, the Morning Star is owned by the shareholders of the Peoples Press Printing Society co-operative. Shares, which are open to individuals or labour movement organisations, cost £1 and the maximum holding is £20,000, but, irrespective of shareholding size, every shareholder has one vote only and there is no proxy voting.
Votes are cast in person at the PPPS AGM, which meets usually in Glasgow, Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff and London in early June to elect the paper’s management committee and to approve the paper’s accounts and record over the past 12 months.
A brief report is given in the Morning Star in the following week.
Comment by john Haylett — 21 January, 2010 @ 6:31 pm
“The idea of individual or private corporate ownership of newspapers is as unreasonable as the idea of individual or corporate ownership of a hospital or school or a TV or radio station.”
So Nick Wright finds nothing of merit on ITV or commercial radio. That will come as a surprise to union members in those organizations.
“A Sun readers and supporters network could be established to sustain a paper of that nature. Deprived of the cross subsidy provided by other Murdoch titles and media interests I am sure that its circulation would soon settle at a level that reflects the real demand for such a paper.”
Such a paper! So sad the working class is so stupid to buy it. So sad that the working class’s proclivity for Jingoism, reaction, hate and last but not least, young breasts, sells it in such numbers that the Sun’s profits cross -subsidizes Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal venture.
Comment by Hugh — 21 January, 2010 @ 8:44 pm
“So sad the working class is so stupid to buy it.”
In my experience people buy the Sun & similar papers because it’s cheap, for something to read during breaks at work, as a distraction that doesn’t require much effort or concentration. They know the paper is shit. I doubt it would sell many copies if it wasn’t heavily subsidised by advertising revenue, & was sold at or above the cost of production. Or if it didn’t have football, tv, page 3, & loads of other stuff that isn’t really news.
The Sun doesn’t particularly represent or reflect working class views, or indeed those of anyone except its owner. Which is the whole point about capitalist control of the ‘free press.’ In reality, the opinions of the working class are extremely diverse, though few are satisfied with the status quo or see Cameron’s mob as a better alternative.
Neither does the Sun particularly influence people, at least not consciously or in isolation from the rest of the corporate & state media. Rather, it is part of the media environment of disinformation & propaganda that continually repeats the same ideas again & again: that immigrants are “a problem”; that Muslims are “a threat”; that striking workers are “greedy”; that the unemployed are “lazy”; that soldiers are “heroes”; that the wars are necessary, or justifiable, or at worst a mistake (there’s some disagreement on that one, within permissible boundaries, obviously); that “there is no alternative” to capitalism, except maybe “totalitarianism”; etc, etc…
That’s what happens when the media is owned by millionaires, corporations & the capitalist state.
Comment by Anonymous — 22 January, 2010 @ 4:53 am
Anonomous,well said sir.your not an editor, are you.
Comment by howard — 22 January, 2010 @ 6:43 am
Hugh at 10 above might find that the highly talented and creative people who work in ITV and commercial radio (including my extremely talented children) are quite capable of taking an objective view of the quality of their output.It is, after all, their labour power that they are selling. Not their souls.
Similarly, he might find that the readership of the Sun and other such publications manage to retain a sharply critical view of of the contents they are presented with and retain a measure of objectivity about the ownership patterns of the media.
Audiences are complex things. Capable of holding nuanced views. More than some contributors to this discussion.
Comment by Nick Wright — 22 January, 2010 @ 10:39 am
I thought the working class bought the paper for page three and the back.
Comment by howard — 22 January, 2010 @ 12:02 pm
There was a survey done of the Sun readership back in the 1980s when the Red top was at its most Thatcherite pith, just under 60% of its readers thought the political stance of the paper was pro-Labour, and over 70% intended to vote Labour in the comming election.
… power of the press hey?
Comment by Pete Shield — 22 January, 2010 @ 2:02 pm
#15. That is possibly the result of many Sun readers not particularly noticing the politics, because that is not why they buy the paper. It could also be the result of personal stupidity.
However, the Sun is part of a media environment, as noted in #11. The constant drip-drip effect of that type of slant may or may not cause attitudes to form, but it is likely that it reinforces them if they already exist. It is part of the larger issue of ideology and the way the media, or most of it, utilise it for bourgeois purposes. I doubt whether even committed lefties are immune.
Comment by Mark Victorystooge — 22 January, 2010 @ 2:30 pm
“it is a voice always on our side, that we can rely upon” lol
Comment by Paul Ross — 22 January, 2010 @ 2:40 pm
PaulR, “lol” - so my 10-year-old daughter tells me - means either “lots of love” or “laugh out loud.”
Which one are you using?
Comment by Karl Stewart — 22 January, 2010 @ 2:47 pm
Mark VS and Howard are correct. The popularity of right wing tabloids among the working class is really a good example of classical Marxist ideas about superstucture and the way bourgeois ideology comes to dominate all forms of discourse. What the Sun sells back to it’s unquestionably working-class readership is the contemptuous stereotypes the ruling class have of them. This then becomes a large part of the value system held by a significant section of the working class.
Comment by Omar — 22 January, 2010 @ 6:33 pm
The Morning Star has improved out of sight recently; unfortunately it remains out of sight to most would-be readers. Anyone who hasn’t seen the paper recently, and believes it to be either thin, dry or narrow of perspective should think again; it’s a genuinely invigorating read. Because it relies on committed socialists - hopefully, that’s everyone reading this - to buy and sell the thing we have a responsibility to get into our local shops and workplaces. What excuse could we have for not doing so?
Comment by Chris — 22 January, 2010 @ 6:39 pm
I’d love to be editor of the Morning Star, the first daily paper I ever bought. And still read today.
I’m not frighteningly right wing, or right wing at all. I’m well, well, to the left of most of the people who’ve been slandering me recently; a member of the Labour Party who left upon Blair’s accession and returned recently, with misgivings.
The EDM, incidentally was dropped when Paul Flynn withdrew. Flynn is a good man and I’m not sure why he signed up in the first place. Nor, when I spoke to him, was he. Sunny Hundal, meanwhile, is a bourgeois idiot. I don’t accept this metro liberal media argument that certain things shouldn’t be talked about, and talked about strongly and sometimes nastily. I am not kidding when I say that at least part of the opposition to me supposedly taking a job at the Indy is class-based. I have no media friends; the people I mix with are from a very different milieu indeed. The people Labour left behind in 1997 (and you might argue before).
This is the first time I’ve responded to any of this rubbish and do so here because of a sympathy with the general political standpoint, if not with the rodliddleisatwat agenda which is boring and diversionary. Just for the record, I believe in higher taxation, a higher minimum wage, state control of national utilities (and railways) and for all british people to be treated as equal. My opposition to the free movement of labour from eastern Europe was that it undercut the wages of the indigenous working class while subsidising the middle class. My opposition to Islam is based upon what I see as its authoritarianism, homophobia and misogyny. I may not express things the way you like, but I am not right wing, and neverhave been.
Comment by rod liddle — 4 February, 2010 @ 10:57 am
Rod - I can buy into the bulk of what you state as your beliefs. So could most of the general public.
The problem is talking like that you will never edit a British newspaper, and would never even be allowed across the reception area at the Guardian or Observer.
Comment by Paul Stott — 4 February, 2010 @ 12:49 pm
Well, I used to work for The Guardian. But that aside, I suspect you’re right, Paul. I don’t really mind about that; I dislike the media with a real avidity, and don’t really feel part of it, which is an odd position for someone who is, uh, a MSM journalist. But I do think there’s an element of fascism and hysteria in the attacks recently. There are plenty of reasons for people not to want me to edit a newspaper: I don’t agree with the metropolitan liberal agenda, for a start. But they seem to need to invent new ones.
Comment by rod liddle — 4 February, 2010 @ 3:01 pm
Rod, I think it’s pretty hard to make the case that a left-wing person would write this:
“The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community. Of course, in return, we have rap music, goat curry and a far more vibrant and diverse understanding of cultures which were once alien to us. For which, many thanks.”
Or call Somalians stupid, or lesbians “hideous”, or say that a woman should be “kicked in the c**t.” You have chosen the weakest groups in Britain and abused them verbally, for money, in the right-wing press.
You say you support causes like a higher minimum wage but in seven years as a columnist, where have you written a high profile article calling for that, compared to the hundreds of articles you have written savaging immigrants, women etc? Your protests of being left-wing come too late, after too many insults to the very people left-wingers defend.
I am black. I think I have given this country more than “rap music” and “goat curry”. Indeed, I think I have given it more than you. I have produced three patriotic children, and worked as a nurse in NHS hospitals for thirty years. I regret to say I will have no choice but to cancel my subscription to the Independent if they make the terrible judgement of appointing you editor.
Comment by Andy — 4 February, 2010 @ 4:40 pm
Out of interest, could you define “the metropolitan liberal agenda” please?
Comment by Andy — 4 February, 2010 @ 4:41 pm
Andy, seen in isolation I think you’re right. The piece on street crime was part of a longer debate I was having about multiculturalism, with which I DO have problems (as opposed to multiracialism, which I certainly don’t). The figures back up what I said but a little further on you will see that I said there are certain crimes which can be laid at the door of a group defined by age, gender, race; that it;s not a question of skin colour, but of culture. I don’t remember saying “kick her in the c” but it’s entirely possible, I spose, on a Millwall supporter website, where most posts revel in a pretty coarse and outrageous humour.
Metro left agenda? Sure; an attitude to immigration (particularly from within Europe) occasioned by economic determinism (as I said in my first post on here) - whereby the working class see its wages reduced, its rents increased as the consequence of an influx of cheap labour which services the middle classes. That’s putting it very crudely.
A refusal to even entertain debate on a bunch of issues because of their alleged sensitivity; and a howl of outrage when these issues are discussed.
A sort of vague and ill-thought out commitment to multiculturalism (as opposed to multiracialism, which we can all embrace), and which has led to a whole host of illiberal and iniquitous impositions, largely upon members of black and asian communities.
There’s much much more, of course.
I don’t necessarily expect you to agree with me + I think there’s a valuable and difficult debate to be had about multiculturalism, about the personal and the public manifestations of it and so on. I’ve been banging on continually about the injustice of banning certain Muslim groups simply because they say something with which, generally, we disagree. But at the same time criticising what I think is an authoritarian ideology.
But ripping stuff out of context doesn’t represent me fairly and seems to me typical of the mindset I’m talking about.
Yes, I write for what you would call the “right wing” press for money. But I don’t think it has ever influenced what I write. Maybe, in that, I’m comfortably deluded.
Anyway, apologies for the lateness of my reply. I’ll try to find a piece about what I consider to be the middle class liberal metro agenda, once I;ve done my work. The above is just a very brief and crude attempt to encapsulate it.
All the best
Comment by rod liddle — 5 February, 2010 @ 11:24 am
Hmm - a bit of confusion here. Writing about how the Afro-Carribean community has contributed nothing to Britain except knife-crime and goat curry doesnt look like a thoughtful contribution to a valuable albeit difficult debate about multiculturalism. It just looks like being a c*nt.
Comment by Larry Teabag — 5 February, 2010 @ 2:58 pm
You say you don’t have problems with multiracialism Rod. Yet under the name “monkeymfc”, which you have admitted to being your username with an exclusive password, you wrote on a website for football hooligans that black people are “ten points thicker” than white people. You also said black people “have their own TV programme: Crimewatch.” You lied about being monkeymfc at first then had to admit it.
I think it’s a shame you don’t have the courage of your convictions. Why won’t you just admit these are your views? Why continue with this pantomime that you are only criticising multiculturalism when you say black people in Britain have done nothing but stab white people and introduce “goat curry”?
Comment by Andy — 6 February, 2010 @ 1:43 am
I don’t really think you can expect a black person to accept the salutation “all the best” from you. Rod, or to read a newspaper you edit. I don’t mean to be churlish, but you said, very explicitly, that black people have contributed nothing but knife crime, “goat curry”, and rap music to Britain. How did you expect us to react? With pleasure? To have a little chuckle? To see it as part of a seminar on the flaws of multiculturalism? Your attempts to raise the tone come too late in the day. You need to own your own bigoted statements, and stop screaming “fascism!” when people use them to say you have rendered yourself totally inappropriate to edit a newspaper.
Comment by Andy — 6 February, 2010 @ 1:46 am
Andy, I didn’t say that they were ten points thicker, as I’ve repeatedly made clear. And I did not lie about anything. The comment about rap and goat curry seems nasty, and probably is, but far less so when seen in the context of the previous posts and blogs. You react how you like, Andy. The only people whose skins I do not like are those which preternaturally sensitive.
Comment by rod liddle — 7 February, 2010 @ 12:36 pm
“Andy” is not me by the way
Comment by Andy Newman — 7 February, 2010 @ 1:03 pm
You did lie. You told the Mail on Sunday you weren’t Monkeymfc, then had to admit you were. Anyone can see it, you have admitted it. Now you have invented a preposterous claim that most of the quotes are not you, despite being in exactly the same style as your writing, and making very similar points to the ones you make, and nobody could log in without knowing your password.
These lies make you even less admirable in my book Rod.
Comment by Andy — 9 February, 2010 @ 12:23 am
THE SPECTATOR SHOULD SACK ROD LIDDLE NOW FOR HE IS AN EVIL RACIST SELF PITYING UNCHRISTIAN BULLYING WIFE BEATING NEO NAZI UGLY SKELETON TEDIOUS BORE.
1 ) As well as it being in the public domain that Rod Liddle has been cautioned for beating up his partner. Which should invalidate him from any high level in the media.
2) As well as needing viagra. Which shows him as pathetic.
3) As well as writing articles on the spectator supporting bullying. Which shows he is ideologically evil.
4. As well as then claiming all black people are muggers even though he seems to like bullying if it is done by white people.
Rod Liddle went around with his username monkeymfc
posting bizarre racist BNP supporting abuse
So aswell as a in real life being a total ****head he is even more of one in reality.
Here are some of grotesque comments he has made using the racially suspicious term of monkeymfc
HERE ARE SOME OF HIS COMMENTS AS monkeymfc
1. And in another, called BNP political broadcast, monkeymfc writes: “I’d get down to that polling booth. Vote early, vote often, vote BNP.” There a neo nazi end of story.
2. “It’s ****ing outrageous that you can’t smoke in Auschwitz. I had to sneak round the back of the gas chambers for a crafty snout. Also, I wasn’t convinced by the newish Auschwitz Burger Bar and Grill.”
There you go a neo nazi scumbag who jokes about Auschwitz.
He then excused himself with the self pitying bile of
“My point … was that I felt it had been stripped of its awfulness and bleakness … festooned with no smoking signs and disabled access ramps.”
Oh wow like, I mean millions of jews got killed, but hey who cares but hey Rodless Liddle was not allowed to smoke there wow, the pain the agony. What ****hole. What kind of anti semitic ****head goes to a concentration camps and the most profound comment he can comment on was that he was not allowed to smoke. What an evil psychotic monster.
3. Monkeymfc on Swindon’s black footballer Kevin Amankwaah: “**** off you spearchucking African ****.
4. “Stupid bit*h. A year eight sociology lecture from someone who knows fck all … Someone kick her in the cnt”
As always a violent scumbag.
5. That stupid black cow, though, with her white daughter was disgusting. Thick bitch. More terrifying comments from this creep.
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Comment by Anonymous — 20 March, 2010 @ 12:29 am