Rupert Murdoch Apologizes!

February 25, 2009 By mario piperni

Rupert Murdoch

Wow…who would of thought? Rupert Murdoch, head honcho of News Corp, apologized for the cartoon which appeard in the New York Post which linked a dead chimpanzee with the stimulus bill (see The Stimulus Bill and Racial Overtones). Many saw it as a veiled racist remark toward President Obama.

Well, after three days of refusal by the Post to apologize for the cartoon, Murdoch stepped in. While I am no fan of Rupert Murdoch, I do applaud him for saying what he did today in today’s Post. Here is what he wrote:

“As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me.

Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.

Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you – without a doubt – that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.

We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.”

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Comments

DanC says:

February 25, 2009 at 10:47 am

Do not for a second believe in the sincerity of this guy! Murdoch has proven to be a contriving, lying manipulator. If he’s apologizing for anything, it’s because he know it’ll help him in some way.
mario says:

February 25, 2009 at 4:38 pm

Dano sent me an email saying he had a problem posting his comment – browser glitch. Here it is:

—

I seldom hear of what’s in the tabloids until it bears on an issue of general interest, but I am easily offended by the offhand racial slurs that the speaker doesn’t even realize until he or she is made aware of their audience.

Whatever the News Corp of Mr. Murdoch may publish or broadcast, I will ever remain aware of the source. Personally, I don’t watch the Fox News network because of its obviously conservative bias, even though the entertainment Fox channel animations are done with some flair.

Well, does he own the news? I don’t think he should.

-Dano
mario says:

February 25, 2009 at 4:42 pm

No, Murdoch does not own the news…but he does try to influence the flow of information. He has admitted this much when he said last year, in an open forum, that Fox News did deliberately try to influence opinion in the leadup to the Iraq war.

This was quite admission by the head of ‘news’ network which claims to be “fair and balanced”.

I’ll post the link to the Murdoch statement as soon as I track it down.