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Rupert Has a Hissy Fit

by Mike Copeland | 12, Add your Comment | Nov 10, 2009

There is a great new media/old media showdown brewing. News Corp. is continuing to make noise about “pulling” all its content from Google News and the search engine generally.

Rupert Murdoch, is a greedy old twit who is, apparently, running out of continents to pollute with his presence. The wretched old money glutton started out in Australia, moved on to Great Britain and, lastly, came to the United States to see how much damage he could do to the body politic while piling up billions. He has managed to pile up many, many billions and do unfathomable damimgname--i_never_thought_it_would_get_this_bad_rupert_murdoch---50226711--rupertage to the social fabric of the country.

He is a complete schmuck, the whole package.

Schmuck though he be, he is a real force, politically, socially and economically. Over and over he has been able to subvert the will and dreams of others to his own designs. Now, however, it appears pouty and pompous Rupert may be up against something he simply doesn’t understand and cannot bully. He simply cannot understand how to make the internet serve his demands for money. In the past, whether he demanded political obedience, or monetary payment, all he had to do was use his media control and clout and everybody got into line. This time, he just can’t seem to generate the required prerequisite fear necessary to bring everybody to heel.

Rupert lacks the imagination required to figure out a new business model that will work in an internet age. So he has decided, as indicated in this article, to commit economic suicide. Hooray for Rupert!!

Rupert, the mad Murdoch, has decided that, unless Google pays him money every time one of his media outlets pops up in a search result, he will “pull” all his many sites from the search engine.

In an official response, Google has wished him well.

What a crock. Rupert intends to punish Google by limiting access to his media outlets. In the first place, this may not be technically possible. About the best Rupert can hope for is to have the sites he owns, that do pop up in a search, restricted to paying subscribers. Given all the different ways in which the world’s search engines look for relevant sites in response to search inquiries, it is doubtful even the mighty Murdoch can block them all.

In the second place, to whatever degree he is successful in this silly Knutian effort to “hold back the tide” he and his various “news” outlets will suffer at least as much as the search engines he seeks to tame. Indeed, all of News Corp is such a small part of the total daily search requests on any engine, Google included, none of them are likely to be able to measure its loss.

Hit ‘em Rupert! Hit ‘em again and again. Keep hitting them until you kill your company. It is a shame you couldn’t have figured out away to this a couple of decades ago. The world would be a much better place.

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12 Responses to “Rupert Has a Hissy Fit”

  1. Robert Lamb Bob Lamb says:

    Sorry, but this kind of name-calling bilge serves no one and no purpose. Dew needs to shore up its standards regarding what’s news and/or entertaining commentary.

  2. Bob Lamb,

    Of course, you are absolutely correct when you write “…this kind of name calling bilge serves no one and no purpose.” Frankly, to do justice to a giant polity eating worm, an elongated politivor, if you prefer, one needs profanity and lots of it. Unfortunately, the editorial staff at “Like the Dew” have made it clear to me that I cannot use such language on the site. So, one does what one can.

  3. Matt Winkeljohn says:

    Bob,

    What’s the problem with editorial license? We live in a world that’s too concerned about being politically correct, about treating everyone and everything with kid gloves. Good grief, a Texas politician recently complained that all hurricanes have Caucasian names and there should be an African-American representation. Another one: a mother at my daughters’ (twins) school complained that perfect attendance awards discriminate against children who get sick; she’s worried about feelings being hurt. Crazy as these anecdotes are, they’re also examples of how we’re not only entitled to opinions, but to express them. And when the day comes that we all agree on everything, and that we all agree that nobody should ever have their feelings hurt or be criticized is the day the world ceases to be a creative, functionable place.

  4. Frances says:

    You go Mike! I agree 100% with Matt above

  5. Robert Lamb Bob Lamb says:

    PC is not the problem here; the problem is the injury to reason and civil discourse. Name-calling is not now and never has been a legitimate way to assail someone whose policies you don’t like. Such writing is, in fact, harmful to journalism and to the body politic. If that’s your cup of tea, drink your fill. Such writing isn’t “editorial license,” which to me is a new term; it’s editorial abuse — and, as the saying goes, such writers tell us much more about themselves than about their subject. That goes for its supporters, too.

  6. Tis’ true, tis true. I squat in open view, exposed to all the world as the puffed up, ruby crested boffin I am. Nothing more than an spotty faced, nimrod whose only talent is a facility with names.

    I admit it.

    Never the less, the damage to journalism notwithstanding, Rupert is still a schmuck.

  7. Brenden Brenden says:

    If it weren’t for Rupert, toward whom would you angry leftists froth your foamy ranting unhinged apoplexy that you substitute for political theory, news judgment and informed commentary? I guess there’s always Rush. Rupert’s ratings don’t lie though. Viewers, readers, etc., flee from the legion Democrat news outlets that wontonly fellate the Obomocrat leadership in favor of folks who ask a difficult question from time to time. There is a secular economic aspect to the Democrat media failures but no doubt more than a few decided to change channels and cancel subs due to the coverage of recent political events that left offensive Clintonian smudges on the blue dresses of the nation’s political sensibilities.

  8. Brenden,

    Good to hear from you.

    Now, Bob, see, this is truly elevated, and elevating, name calling. Talk about your frothy, foaming ranting, this is classic.

  9. quincy dee says:

    Hmm, I could have sworn that Rupert was paying Google News to have his “news” placed at the top of the heap! It seems that whenever I look at the list of 4,4500 versions of a story I could pull up, FOX is at the top.

  10. quincy dee says:

    Hmm, I could have sworn that Rupert was paying Google News to have his “news” placed at the top of the heap! It seems that whenever I look at the list of 4,500 versions of a story I could pull up, FOX is at the top.

  11. Matt Winkeljohn says:

    I don’t fancy Fox News, not at all. But I’m not in the mood to rip RM just because.

    But this is a forum for many things, including opinion.

    Mike has a freaking opinion. He wasn’t vile, didn’t critique RM’s family, or appearance. He referenced the man as childish. Is that debatable? I hardly think so.

    Even if I was a right-winger, I couldn’t pull that off in debate class.

    Brenden, you’re in the dark. Left wingers don’t aim their barbs; they just fire them into space, for all to consume. The right? They use laser-scope sighting.

  12. Meg Gerrish says:

    Although Mike’s editorial is about the fun of watching Murdoch shoot himself in the foot — and I agree with Mike, waytuhgo Rupert! — the thread is very entertaining. — Thanks to all.

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Mike Copeland
About the author Mike Copeland: I am sixty-one years old, married with three grown children. I have a B. A. from Birmingham Southern College and a Master's in City Planning from Georgia Tech. I have worked in SC State government for over a decade leaving as the Deputy Executive Director of the State Budget and Control Board, the state's administrative agency. I have owned the Fontane Company since 1984 and am the managing member of viscerality.com.llc (www.viscerality.com) amd technology management, marketing and consulting company.

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