Brooker on Murdoch (jnr) on the BBC

Amusing commentary on James "Son of Rupert" Murdoch and the News International empire:

... Damien Thorn, offspring of Satan, was educated at Yale before inheriting a global business conglomerate at a shockingly young age and using it to hypnotise millions in a demonic bid to hasten Armageddon. James Murdoch's story is quite different. He went to Harvard. (1)

It doesn't really get beyond the cheap shots, though think referring to Fox New's Bill O'Reilly as a "bellicose human snail" and the network itself as "about as plausible and useful as an episode of Thundercats" is appropriate and apt. He does finish with an important point, however:

Now there's a lengthy, valid, and boring debate to be had about the scope and suitability of some of the BBC's ambitions but, quite frankly, if their news website (a thing of beauty and a national treasure) helps us stave off the arrival of the likes of Beck - even tangentially, even only for another few years until the Tories take over and begin stealthily dismantling the Beeb while a self-interested press loudly eggs them on - then it deserves to be cherished and applauded.

Amen to that. In the war against the Daily Mailification of the world, where choice will be between the middle-class pants-wetting of the Mail and the the chauvanistic laddishness of the Sun, then every inch of territory is vital.

1 - "Charlie Brooker's screen burn," by Charlie Brooker, published in The Guardian, 5th of September, 2009. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/sep/05/charlie-brooker-on-james-murdoch)