Following my essay in the latest edition of literary journal Overland on cultural boycotts, politics, Palestine and Sri Lanka, the magazine interviewed me on various matters: Passionate and outspoken about Israel/Palestine, among other things, Antony Loewenstein is a freelance independent journalist based in Sydney. Author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution, he is…
Showing all posts tagged Murdoch
An interview on Palestine, boycott, Jews, Zionism, Australia and blindness
My following interview, conducted by Sarah Irving, appears in the Electronic Intifada: Antony Loewenstein (“antonyloewenstein.com) is a writer and journalist based in Sydney, Australia and a founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices. His first book, My Israel Question, was an Australian best-seller and was short-listed for the 2007 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award; an…
Murdoch empire and ethical reporting will never go together
Here’s yet more evidence: Pressure is building on the Metropolitan police to expand their phone-hacking inquiry to include a notorious private investigator who was accused in the House of Commons on Wednesday of targeting politicians, members of the royal family and high-level terrorist informers on behalf of Rupert Murdoch’s News International. Guardian inquiries reveal that…
I mean, what would Desmond Tutu know about apartheid anyway?
He’s compared the situation in Palestine today to those suffered by blacks under apartheid in South Africa. But comically, Murdoch’s Australian newspaper – always a wonderful defender of the underdog as long as they have solid business or media contacts – thinks Tutu should shut up about Palestine. It’s not like he has any clue…
Fox News as a propaganda unit
Fascinating Rolling Stone feature: At the Fox News holiday party the year the network overtook archrival CNN in the cable ratings, tipsy employees were herded down to the basement of a Midtown bar in New York. As they gathered around a television mounted high on the wall, an image flashed to life, glowing bright in…
Murdoch logic; backers of war should receive a peace prize
Noam Chomsky has won the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize over his legendary support for human rights and challenging power it all its forms. That makes him an enemy of a Murdoch empire that spends its entire time wanting to be intimate with government and business. The poor dears can’t understand why a man who opposes…
How Serco thrives by failing constantly
Australia’s immigration detention system is in chaos and yet the company running them, Serco, is about to be rewarded. Again. The perverse logic of privatisation: The federal government is believed to have signed a contract to outsource the management of defence base operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan to the foreign company running Australia’s…
Obama’s Middle East words as empty as air
My latest article for New Matilda appears today: The US President is delivering sterner speeches on the Israel Palestine conflict but until he bolsters his rhetoric with action, it’s hard to see how progress can be made, writes Antony Loewenstein Forget about what he actually said. Imagine if US President Barack Obama said something like…
Serco must face the music and accountability forced upon it
The role of British multinational Serco in Australia is a murky affair. How much money is the federal government giving them? Can the media and general public get reliable answers from them? Hardly. Yesterday’s Australian editorial touched on this (but of course didn’t acknowledge that inserting the profit motive into detention centres distorts the system):…
Glimpses of Israeli occupation in leading Murdoch space
Now and then, the Australian Murdoch press features a story about Zionist occupation that reveals deep truths about what Palestinians are living through. Their main website (in the travel section) ran the following piece about Hebron yesterday: Mohammed Saadeq has had rocks, bleach and even dead rats thrown at his home but so far it…