No one is enjoying the British scandal involving Rupert Murdoch’s media empire more than his American competitors.
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean are opening investigations into Murdoch’s media properties over accusations of cell phone hacking.
CNN, which competes against Murdoch’s Fox News Channel, took a few minutes Thursday afternoon to focus on what the network sees as a budding boycott movement against the global media titan.
“If you search the web right now for the terms ‘boycott Murdoch,’ you’ll find a bunch of social media sites dedicated to just that — boycotting media mogul Rupert Murdoch,” host Randi Kaye said Thursday on “CNN Newsroom.”
Kaye told her viewers about the latest in the scandal that led to Murdoch folding the 168-year-old News of the World tabloid, including all of the summons and arrests made involving News International employees, Murdoch’s flagship newspaper company in the UK.
“So let’s take a look at the online ‘Boycott Murdoch’ movement,” she continued, as a screenshot of a “Boycott Murdoch” Twitter account splashed across the screen. The avatar image showed a grimacing Rupert Murdoch with a red ‘X’ over his face. (Emails reveal White House calling Fox News host Baier a lunatic)
“It’s mainly one person’s opinions on the matter,” explained Kaye, as the account hung on screen for a solid 18 seconds, revealing 863 active followers.
“To be fair, the effort hasn’t gained that much traction,” offered the host. “The Twitter page has only a few hundred followers last we checked.”
“But that begs the question: If you wanted to, could you fully boycott Murdoch’s reach?” mused the anchor, before spilling into a list of steps one would have to take to completely avoid Murdoch’s media properties.
WATCH:
Kaye spits out a would-be playbook for anyone seeking to reject all things Murdoch, citing Hulu.com, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, American Idol, Fox, the Los Angeles Lakers, the New York Rangers, Los Angeles’s Staples Center and New York’s Madison Square Garden as either wholly or partly Murdoch-owned.
“But there is one event connected to Murdoch that you could watch for the next few years,” concluded Kaye. “That is the Super Bowl. Fox broadcast the game this past January from Dallas and won’t have it back until 2014.”
A full 40-minutes after the segment aired, the “Boycott Murdoch” Twitter account had gained ten devoted followers, bringing its total reach to 873.