U.S.: Ted Turner Calls Rival
Media Mogul Murdoch
'Warmonger'
Ted Turner said on Thursday too few people owned too many media organizations and called rival media baron Rupert Murdoch a warmonger for what he said was Murdoch's promotion of the U.S. war in Iraq.
By Duncan Martell
Reuters - April 25, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ted Turner said on Thursday too
few people owned too many media organizations and called rival media
baron Rupert Murdoch a warmonger for what he said was Murdoch's
promotion of the U.S. war in Iraq (news - web sites).
"He's a warmonger," Turner said in an evening speech to the
Commonwealth Club in San Francisco of Murdoch, whose News Corp. Ltd.
owns the fast-growing Fox News Channel. "He promoted it."
Fox News Channel has been the most popular U.S. cable news network
during the conflict, trumping AOL Time Warner Inc.'s CNN, which
Turner started more than two decades ago and came to prominence with
its blanket coverage of the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites).
Asked by an audience member for his thoughts on Fox's larger ratings
share than CNN's, Turner said, "Just because your ratings are bigger
doesn't mean you're better."
"It's not how big you are, it's how good you are that really counts,"
Turner said, drawing hoots from the audience.
Turner, who has pledged to give $1 billion to the United Nations
(news - web sites) and is a vocal proponent of population control and
nuclear-arms elimination, criticized the concentration of ownership
of the vast majority of U.S. television networks, radio and TV
stations and newspapers in a few corporations.
"The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much," Turner
said.
Asked whether he would again try to launch a new network, Turner, who
is the vice chairman of AOL Time Warner and has been critical of the
merger of AOL and TimeWarner, said: "No. I think the space is filled
with the people already there.
FIVE COMPANIES
"There's really five companies that control 90 percent of what we
read, see and hear. It's not healthy."
Earlier on Thursday, BBC Director General Greg Dyke said U.S.
broadcasters' coverage of the Iraq war was so unquestioningly
patriotic and so lacking in impartiality that it threatened the
credibility of America's electronic media.
Dyke singled out for criticism Fox News Channel and Clear Channel
Communications Inc., the largest operator of radio stations in the
United States.
"Personally, I was shocked while in the United States by how
unquestioning the broadcast news media was during this war," Dyke
said in a speech at a University of London conference.
After Turner's initial remarks, the moderator for the question and
answer session noted that Turner would not be able to comment on the
ongoing federal investigations into AOL Time Warner.
The moderator had scarcely finished her statement when he leaned into
the microphone and said: "I can say one thing. As the largest
shareholder and the biggest shareholder (of the company), it's been
brutal."
Turner said he also liked bison.
"I got 35,000 of them," Turner said in response to a question about
bison. "I do eat them. You've got to eat."
The final question of the evening to Turner: What will be his
epitaph.
"I have nothing more to say," Turner said. "And that's what it
is."
