eNews

What do supermarket tabloids, sports, topless women, the Bible, religious zeal, and political intrigue all have in common? They sell like hotcakes. And the hotcake vendor is Rupert Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch, Australian-born media tycoon, owns News Corp and a host of subsidiaries. He oversees and operates the vast majority of media outlets in Great Britain (News of the World, The Times of London, The Sun), Austral-Asia (The Australian, News Limited, The Perth Sunday Times) and Italy (Sky Italia). 

Murdoch thrives on the news industry, and in these days of digital news updates and free online news browsing, fewer people are purchasing printed papers.  To overcome the loss of revenue, Murdoch intends to start charging his online audience to read the respected London papers The Times and Sunday Times.  If his paywall effort works, it may lead a trend toward charging readers for online news.  On the other hand, if The Times' faithful readers just go elsewhere, news outlets will have to find other ways to generate revenue.  The thing most people want to avoid is a government bailout (read takeover) of major media corporations.

Murdoch's plan has its critics. Adrian Drury of BusinessWorld writes, "The inherent risk in The Times' strategy is that timesonline.co.uk stops becoming a destination for web audiences, costing News Corp a critical marketing channel. Others have made the mistake of placing their most popular content behind the pay-wall and have seen traffic to their sites (and hence their ability to convert users to a paid relationship) collapse."

The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal have both successfully implemented paywalls, but they also write for specific niche audiences.  Murdoch is betting that his readers will want to read The Times enough to pay a couple pounds per week for the privilege. 

Who Is Rupert Murdoch?
Keith Rupert Murdoch was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1931 to Sir Keith Murdoch, a respected journalist and managing director of Australia’s newspaper publisher News Limited. As a young man Rupert Murdoch began to buy up provincial and suburban newspapers throughout Western Australia. Murdoch has been gaining massive television and publication power here in the US over the past twenty-five years through Fox Entertainment Group, Twentieth Century Fox, and The New York Post, and is now poised now to do the same in China with Star TV.

In 1983, an estimated 50 corporations were responsible for the majority of world media. As of 2002, only nine were left, and eventually, Murdoch suggests, there will be perhaps three corporations dominating the world's media; News Corp will be one of them.

Under News Corp, Murdoch now owns or has controlling shares in Triangle Publishing (which includes TV Guide), MySpace.com, belief.net, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard magazine, The National Star, Fox Sports Net, HarperCollins Publishing, Hughes Electronics/ DirecTV, and hulu.com. 

If his paywall for The Times works, Murdoch may continue to charge for access to his other online news outlets.

Mixed Media 
Murdoch advertises himself as a Libertarian, but it is difficult to know Murdoch's personal religious, political, or ethical values based solely on the products he provides to the public. Taken as a whole, his various media outlets are often at odds with each other in the images they present, sending mixed and contradictory messages.

On one hand, Murdoch cultivated Great Britain's The Sun and The Daily Star, with their topless Page Three Girls, to infamy in the 1970's, and, on the other hand, he owns a controlling interest in evangelical book publisher Zondervan. While Fox News stories depict global warming as a hoax perpetrated on the public, Fox Entertainment Group, including the Fox Network, recently touted its "go green" campaign "0 by 2010" with the goal of reaching carbon neutral production practices for popular TV series such as the recently ended "24."

Mr. Murdoch seems to have built his kingdom on sensationalism: sex, violence, sports, war, even political and religious fervor. In other words, he is a classic capitalist; he sells what audiences want to buy.

Murdoch is an object of fear and scorn by many in the intellectual elite of Europe, especially in Great Britain where he is not a citizen yet holds great sway over news publications. Mr. Murdoch seems to pick his politicians the way he picks his news stories and television programs- by public appeal, depending on the latest trend.

He's used his TV news and publications to back various politicians in their bids for office. He openly supported George W. Bush and the war with Iraq, hosted a 2006 fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, and said of Barack Obama, with whom he held a private meeting in 2008, "He is a rock star. It's fantastic. I love what he is saying about education... he will win in Ohio and the election. I am anxious to meet him. I want to see if he will walk the walk."

Perhaps the benefit of being a Libertarian is the freedom to bounce around between affiliations and candidates. Though he is purportedly Catholic, and even holds a medal of knighthood from the Catholic Church, some journalistic voices cry out that perhaps Murdoch's religion is "Mammonism," and his political message is "Murdochracy."

No Government Bailouts:
What Murdoch does not want to see, and rightly so, is a government takeover of the news industry. He said recently:

The growing drumbeat for government assistance for newspapers is as alarming as overregulation. One idea gaining in popularity is providing taxpayer funds for journalists or giving newspapers "nonprofit" status - in exchange, of course, for papers giving up their right to endorse political candidates. The most damning problem with government "help" is what we saw with the bailout of the U.S. auto industry: Help props up those who are producing things that customers do not want. The prospect of the U.S. government becoming directly involved in commercial journalism ought to be chilling for anyone who cares about freedom of speech.

Murdoch's paywall idea may be just another way to pinch pennies from the pockets of his audiences. On the other hand, perhaps Murdoch is looking at another way to keep news free from government interference.

Ten people died in a series of bombings across Iraq Monday, reminding the world that the violence there has not ended. On May 2, a roadside bomb exploded near buses carrying Christian students to Mosul University. Minutes later, a car bomb detonated near those same busses. One bystander was killed and over 100 people were injured in the bombings in this northern city that boasts a large Christian population. While many attacks in Iraq are meant to cause general instability, a significant number purposely target Christians.

The Iraqi government has had its hands full to overflowing during the past few years trying to cool the fires of insurgent violence. Much of the violence comes from Al-Qaeda rebels and Islamic extremists who not only hate Christians, but the Sunni members of the Sahwa (or "Awakening") movement, who have sided with and assisted US coalition forces in the reformation of Iraqi democracy.

Shootings, bombings, rapes and kidnappings of middle class citizens, particularly Christians, increased markedly during the past year in Baghdad, Mosul, and the Sunni villages of the Nineveh Plain. This is one of the worst waves of violence against Christians since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when, ironically, Christians fled the violence in a mass exodus. While media coverage downplays the religious significance, sources on the ground in those communities repeatedly pinpoint Islamic extremists as the culprit. Not only religious differences, but also cultural and political differences fuel their drive to exterminate Christ-followers.

Christians in Iraq aren't necessarily being shot to death, kidnapped or raped for sharing their faith. They're often killed for owning a hair salon that cuts women's hair, for allowing women to socialize with men, for not wearing a birqa, for openly selling pork or liquor, or even for entering a voting booth.

According to Nina Shea, director of Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom:

Religious persecution in Iraq is so "egregious" that the country has now been included, alongside the likes of notoriously repressive Iran and China, on a recommended short list of "Countries of Particular Concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act, by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The following represents a small portion of the bombings and attacks perpetrated against Iraqi Christians during the past year:

-July 11, 2009: Two planted bombs exploded at St. Joseph Church in Western Baghdad. By the next day, five more bombs had exploded in five separate church buildings elsewhere in Baghdad.
-December 24, 2009: Basil Isho Youhanna was shot in front of his home.
-December 30, 2009: Zhaki Homo Bashir, aChristian deacon, was shot and injured as he entered his shop.
-January 11, 2010: Hikmat Sleiman, age 75, was shot to death in Mosul.
-February 14, 2010: Rayan Salem Elias shot to death outside home.
-February 15, 2010: Fatukhi Munir was shot to death in his own shop.
-February 16, 2010: Two Christian students were shot to death with an automatic weapon.
-May 2, 2010: A series of bombs blasted busloads of Christian students on their way to the University of Mosul.

On May 3rd of this year, the General Secretariat of the Islam Supporters sent a letter to an Iraqi bishop, warning Christians in Baghdad: "Leave the country of Muslims (Iraq) for good and immediately in the form of mass transmigration. Our swords shall be placed upon your necks and the necks of your followers and other Christians residing in Mosul."

Iraq is home to the world's oldest surviving Christian civilizations. The Christian population of Iraq is comprised of Chaldean Catholics, Assyrians, Armenian Christians, Syriac Orthodox believers, and Protestants. Believers there can trace their roots back 2000 years to when the Apostle Thomas shared the news of Christ with some of the first converts in the year AD 35.

The Christian population of Iraq is widely estimated to make up just three percent of the total population, approximately 500,000 to 800,000 people, yet Christians have been the targets of a majority Islamic terrorist acts. Christians also constitute 20 to 40 percent of Iraq's refugees.

Thanks in large part to Christian refugee organizations in the US and widespread communication and understanding of that assistance amongst the Christian communities in the Middle East, Christians escaping Iraq are often already registered with placement organizations before they flee.

Since The Invasion:
A 2004 article in Time touched on the sad irony of the US-led invasion - particularly that of American Christians, who backed Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq: "Many Iraqi Christians say their reversal of fortune has been especially disappointing given the backing the Bush Administration receives from evangelical Christians. 'Why did the US come here?' asks Mardirosian, the Armenian-Catholic leader, 'To protect the Christians or allow others to kill them?'"

Much of the recent increase in violence toward Christians was in preparation for Iraq's March 2010 parliamentary elections. Islamic extremists did not want Western-sympathizing Christians to vote. From February until the March 7th election date, Iraq Body Count tallies at least 228 people (Christians and non-Christians) killed, and another 176 people killed between election day and the release of the final results about a month later.

Certainly, Iraqi Christians need intelligent, outspoken support. Yet the UN's recent concessions to extremist Muslim leaders and Obama's failure so far to champion the Christian minorities in Iraq offer little political light to the dismal situation. 

Please continue to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters.  God's light shines brightest in dark places.

"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."   -Matthew 10:32-33

We are called to be light in the world. People of differing theological viewpoints are called to stand together, motivated by their faith, to work towards creating the kingdom of God here on earth. What we do is more important than what we believe.

"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me (Matt 10:37-38)."

"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." - 2 Timothy 4:2-5