Their Master's Voice

"You have got to admit that Rupert Murdoch is one canny press tycoon because he has an unerring ability to choose editors across the world who think just like him," writes Roy Greenslade. "How else can we explain the extraordinary unity of thought in his newspaper empire about the need to make war on Iraq?" Murdoch publishes 40 million papers a week and dominates the newspaper markets in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and none "has dared to croon the anti-war tune. Their master's voice has never been questioned." In France, Murdoch's paper distributed a story calling French President Jacques Chirac a "worm." In the U.S., his New York Post has called France and Germany an "axis of weasel" for refusing to support Bush's war plans, and recently published a cover photo with the heads of weasels superimposed over the faces of French and Germany ministers at the U.N.