Key lesson for the day. Rupert Murdoch and his minions don’t like being attacked (or not helping to select future leaders of a country. Real democrats):
After a lifetime at the helm of the world’s most powerful media organisation and in the crosshairs of the left, Rupert Murdoch has, of necessity, developed a reasonably thick skin.
The Dirty Digger is how he is disrespectfully referred to by Private Eye. Spitting Image always portrayed him as a shouty figure, irredeemably uncouth.
But his son James seems less ready to turn the other cheek, as it were. And this would seem to be the most plausible explanation for why Murdoch the younger, the chairman and chief executive News Corporation Europe and Asia, caused a media sensation on Wednesday by striding across the editorial floor at the Independent newspaper to berate its editor-in-chief, Simon Kelner.
In common with so many of the unpleasant episodes involving angry young men in modern London, it was a squall about reputation and respect. The newly relaunched Independent had produced a series of relatively innocuous promotional ads assuring readers: “Rupert Murdoch won’t decide this election. You will.”
There is no evidence that Murdoch senior has even seen the ads, but witnesses report that directly upon seeing Kelner, who was supervising the final production stages of that night’s paper, Murdoch the younger began angry remonstrations. “What are you fucking playing at?” was his opening gambit.
A bewildered Kelner quickly ushered his visitors into his office, where they remained for what have been described as “frank and full discussions” for another 20 minutes. All were grim-faced as Murdoch, carrying a promotional copy of the Independent, accused the rival editor of breaking the unwritten code that proprietors do not attack each other and of besmirching his father’s reputation. With his piece said and with the matter unresolved, the aggrieved media mogul left.