I agree with Cath Elliott’s post about the right-wing Murdoch press and their conduct in this General Election (I am can just see the re-run, ‘It was the Sun wot won it’…). The power of the media with them trying to dictate and control the outcome. Now that’s scary.
And Cath reminds us of Wapping. Oh yes, Fortress Wapping. The dispute between printers and the might of the Murdoch press lasted for 1 year. I too like Cath went to Wapping. It was a steep political learning curve especially on the first anniversary in January 1987 where the police indulged in an orgy of unrelenting violence, riot cops smashing anyone and anything up (they destroyed the temporary ambulance where people were being treated further traumatised by this level of police brutality). I remember that night. Listening to the speakers on the platform while people were running from the mounted police and riot cops, it was surreal as many were taking refuge on the stage from the violence. I witnessed friends, comrades and strangers being beaten up. I was lucky… I was saved from some comradel who pushed my head forward and saved me from being whacked by the police.
The lies as well peddled by the media, protesters were demonised while the saintly police were just doing their job against these rowdy bunch of troublemakers (and that’s how the right-wing press liked to portray principled activists and trade unionists fighting for their rights).
My parents swallowed the lies as we watched the news televising a car being pushed over by protesters towards the cops, a real distortion of what really happened. I remember my parents condemning the protesters I just sat their overwhelmed by shock as I stuttered, ‘But that didn’t happen like that, they’re lying’! What really happened was the cops overturned a car pushing it towards protesters and the protesters pushed the car back to stop people being hurt. The media were economical with the truth…..
So to this day I detest Murdoch….
Remember the sensationalist and screaming headlines of The Sun at the time of the arrests especially the racist bile towards Winston Silcott. Half a front page had a headline along with a police photograph of Winston Silcott leaked to the tabloid back in early 1986.
“Face of a man in riot PC murder charge”.
As David Rose points out in his excellent bk, The Murder of PC Blakelock and the Case of the Tottenham Three (1992), “In a case where identification, or the lack of it, was certain to be a substantial issue, a more serious contempt of court could hardly be imagined’.
”The Sun had spat in the face of the legal process. It had utterly disregarded the principle that material of this kind should not be published while a case remains sub judice.”
Hillsborough…some choice headlines from The Sun
The Truth: some fans picked pockets of victims; some fans urinated on the brave cops; some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life (front page of The Sun, 19th April 1989)
POLICE were battered with beer bottles and cans as they desperately tried to save a dying man at the height of the G20 riots in London last night. (The Sun, 2nd April 2009).
Don’t let the Murdoch press control this election!
I haven’t bought the Sun since the miner’s strike and I think I’ll make a point not to buy any of his titles at all now.
[...] Murdoch's gutter press « Harpymarx [...]