Sydney, Oct. 12, (dpa/GNA) – A petition calling for a probe into Rupert Murdoch’s Australian “media monopoly” had amassed more than 90,000 signatures by Monday – just over 48 hours after its launch.
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd announced the national petition in a tweet on Saturday, labelling Murdoch’s media empire “a cancer on democracy.”
In the accompanying video – which has been viewed over 1 million times – Rudd said the royal commission should look into “the abuse of the media monopoly in Australia” and make recommendations to “maximize media diversity ownership.”
Rudd told ABC News on Monday that Murdoch controls 70 per cent of the print media in Australia and in the state of Queensland he owns “virtually every single newspaper.”
Rudd has accused Murdoch-owned News Corporation of reporting in favour of the conservative Liberal government, saying nobody is brave enough to speak out against it.
“Wherever you go people are scratching their heads about the fact that the Murdoch print media platforms no longer provide anything approaching balanced news reporting,” Rudd said.
“Too many people in Australia, both in politics and journalism, and in the broader community, are too frightened to put their hand up and say ‘this is wrong.’ They fear the Murdoch empire.”
In August, Rupert Murdoch’s son James resigned from the board of News Corp, citing “disagreements over certain editorial content” published by the company’s news outlets.
In a report by the New York Times on Saturday, the media mogul’s youngest son gave detailed reasons for leaving the board, saying News Corp was legitimizing disinformation.
“His words, not mine,” Rudd said.
GNA