Bill Moyers Rips Murdoch On PBS Show Tonight

By: Joe Strupp Tonight's edition of Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS contains a stinging criticism of Rupert Murdoch by the show's host, who uses the pending sale of Dow Jones & Co. to Murdoch as an excuse to point out what he deems are the News Corp. chairman's worst traits.

"If Rupert Murdoch were the Angel Gabriel, you still wouldn't want him owning the sun, the moon and the stars," Moyers starts his video essay. "That's too much prime real estate for even the pure in heart.

"But Rupert Murdoch is no saint, he is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity. When it comes to money and power, he is carnivorous, all appetite, no taste. He'll eat anything in his path," Moyers adds. "Politicians become little clay pigeons to be picked off with flattering headlines, generous air time, a book contract, or the old-fashioned blackjack that never misses, campaign cash.

"He hires lobbyists the way Imelda Marcos bought shoes. And stacks them in is cavernous closet along with his conscience. This is the man, you remember, who famously kowtowed to the communist overlords of China, oppressors of their own people, to protect his investments there."

He cites Murdoch's links to numerous politicians, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, while touching on his company's history of paying little or no federal income taxes in recent years.

But Moyers does not limit his critique to Murdoch, taking to task the ongoing trend of newspaper companies and owners either selling out to private owners or cutting staff, declaring "Murdoch is just the predator of the hour."

The nearly four-minute essay, slated to be broadcast on tonight's edition of PBS' Bill Moyers' Journal, can be seen here .