Beware the preacher!

From Bolts blog:

Nick Cater never dared confess to me that he’d not only worked for the BBC but had a sociology degree.  He’s now a fellow Murdoch minion, editor of The Weekend Australian, and explains how he came to love the evil Rupert Murdoch:

It’s interesting to imagine what would happen if an Australian government, presumably one better disposed to the fourth estate than this one, passed a law forbidding The Australian’s readers from voting with their wallets. The energy would drain out of this office in a month, or probably less. We would become lazier and more complacent, and start publishing stories that matter to our colleagues rather than our readers. Politically, we would start drifting towards the territory currently occupied by The Age.
Far worse would be the loss of restraint, the obligation to consider the interests of the whole country, not just the inner-city enclaves where most journalists probably live. We would end up hostage to group-think, reinforcing our own prejudices and eventually coming to secretly despise the readers. I know, because I once worked in such a place.

I agree with Nick. No Murdoch, and the debate in Australia would shrivel. Few other proprietors are as willing to risk profits to defend free speech and defy the political class that dominates the institutions.

A similar take from Marxist Brendon O’Neill on the Leveson show trial in Britain:

Here, we can glimpse what is really fuelling Leveson: not a simple desire to hold to account the small number of people who did wrong at the (Murdoch-owned) News of the World, but a thirst to remake politics in the image of the anti-Murdoch “decent classes”. It is their boredom with parliament and their disdain for the masses that has led them to see Leveson as the saviour of the political realm. In truth, this lordly show trial of politics and the press doesn’t enliven democracy - it endangers it.

Be very mindful of those who preach one thing whilst doing another. Pause and reflect.