Where The Sun don't shine

The Murdoch media have been less-than-subtly ramping up their attacks on the BBC in recent weeks, arguing that Auntie should not be allowed to publish what amounts to a free newspaper on its very extensive website. This is of course in no way connected to Rupert Murdoch's musings about starting to charge for news content on his own websites in the next twelve months.

Now James "I got the job on pure merit" Murdoch, President of News Corp, has pitched in with an all-out assault on the BBC and on the regulation of UK media. Murdoch wants the BBC to be "much, much smaller" and wants it to stop using public money to compete with commercial newsgathering operations such as Sky News. He also wants the requirement for TV to provide unbiased news coverage to be eliminated.

Let's see if I understand this. It's OK for News Corp., owned and controlled by a man who changed his nationality in order to circumvent media ownership rules in the United States, to seize a near-monopoly of satellite TV in the UK; it's OK to take most live sport off the free airwaves, coming close to destroying the actual sports in the process, and it's OK to use the group's print media, especially The Sun, to provide shameless plugs for the rest of the group's outlets. But it's an outrage for the publicly-owned BBC to disseminate the products of its newsgathering team, which is probably still the best in the world, over the Internet in competition with Murdoch's rather less vaunted crew.

As for the "unbiased" requirement, anyone who has seen Murdoch's Fox News outlet in the US (motto "Fair and Balanced"!) will perhaps have some doubts about letting the same breed of knuckle-dragging bigots loose on the British airwaves. (Mr Eugenides provides a link to a hilarious piece by Fox's singularly loathsome Glenn Beck here).

The worrying thing is that the BBC has so few defenders among the political classes these days. Labour has probably still not forgiven the whole "dodgy dossier" episode, and has certainly taken Murdoch's shilling in the past ("it was The Sun wot won it"). Now that Murdoch is clearly planning to endorse the Tories in the next election, you wonder what favours he may be looking for in return.

Reportedly, James Murdoch and Robert Peston got into a big shouting match after Murdoch's speech. Normally this would be one of those fights where I'd be rooting for both egomaniacal combatants to get KO'd, but in this case I'm firmly in Pesto's corner.