Appendix 2
Resources for Tutors
It goes against our nature; but the left has to start asserting its own
values
The progressive attempt to appeal to self-interest has been a catastrophe.
Empathy, not expediency, must drive our campaigns
o
, Monday 11 October 2010 20.59 BST G.Monbiot The Guardian
So here we are, forming an orderly queue at the slaughterhouse gate. The
punishment of the poor for the errors of the rich, the abandonment of
universalism, the dismantling of the shelter the state provides: apart from a few
small protests, none of this has yet brought us out fighting.
The acceptance of policies that counteract our interests is the pervasive mystery
of the 21st century. In the US blue-collar workers angrily demand that they be
left without healthcare, and insist that millionaires pay less tax. In the UK we
appear ready to abandon the social progress for which our ancestors risked their
lives with barely a mutter of protest. What has happened to us?
The answer, I think, is provided by the most interesting report I have read this
year. Common Cause, written by Tom Crompton of the environment group WWF,
examines a series of fascinating recent advances in the field of psychology. It
offers, I believe, a remedy to the blight that now afflicts every good cause from
welfare to climate change.
Progressives, he shows, have been suckers for a myth of human cognition he
labels the enlightenment model. This holds that people make rational decisions
by assessing facts. All that has to be done to persuade people is to lay out the
data: they will then use it to decide which options best support their interests
and desires.
A host of psychological experiments demonstrate that it doesn't work like this.
Instead of performing a rational cost-benefit analysis, we accept information that
confirms our identity and values, and reject information that conflicts with them.
We mould our thinking around our social identity, protecting it from serious
challenge. Confronting people with inconvenient facts is likely only to harden
their resistance to change.
Our social identity is shaped by values that psychologists classify as extrinsic or
intrinsic. Extrinsic values concern status and self-advancement. People with a
strong set of extrinsic values fixate on how others see them. They cherish
financial success, image and fame. Intrinsic values concern relationships with
friends, family and community, and self-acceptance. Those who have a strong
set of intrinsic values are not dependent on praise or rewards from other people.
They have beliefs that transcend their self-interest.
WEA North West – Feb 2011
Few people are all-extrinsic or all-intrinsic. Our social identity is formed by a
mixture of values. But psychological tests in nearly 70 countries show that
values cluster in remarkably
consistent patterns. Those who strongly value financial success, for example,
have less empathy, stronger manipulative tendencies, a stronger attraction to
hierarchy and inequality, stronger prejudices towards strangers and less concern
about human rights and the environment. Those with a strong sense of selfacceptance have more empathy and greater concern for human rights, social
justice and the environment. These values suppress each other: the stronger
someone's extrinsic aspirations, the weaker his or her intrinsic goals.
We are not born with our values. They are shaped by the social environment. By
changing our perception of what is normal and acceptable, politics alters our
minds as much as our circumstances. Free, universal healthcare, for example,
tends to reinforce intrinsic values. Shutting the poor out of it normalises
inequality, reinforcing extrinsic values. The rightward shift that began with
Thatcher and persisted under Blair and Brown, whose governments emphasised
the virtues of competition, the market and financial success, has changed our
values. The British Social Attitudes survey shows a sharp fall over this period in
public support for policies that redistribute wealth and opportunity.
This shift has been reinforced by advertising and the media. Their fascination
with power politics, their rich lists, their catalogues of the 100 most powerful,
influential, intelligent or beautiful people, their obsessive promotion of celebrity,
fashion, fast cars, expensive holidays: all inculcate extrinsic values. By
generating feelings of insecurity and inadequacy – which means reducing selfacceptance – they also suppress intrinsic goals.
Advertisers, who employ plenty of psychologists, are well aware of this.
Crompton quotes Guy Murphy, global planning director for JWT: marketers
"should see themselves as trying to manipulate culture; being social engineers,
not brand managers; manipulating cultural forces, not brand impressions". The
more they foster extrinsic values, the easier it is to sell products. Rightwing
politicians have also, instinctively, understood the importance of values in
changing the political map. Margaret Thatcher famously remarked that
"economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul".
Conservatives in the US generally avoid debating facts and figures. Instead they
frame issues in ways that appeal to and reinforce extrinsic values. Every year,
through mechanisms that are rarely visible and seldom discussed, the space in
which progressive ideas can flourish shrinks a little more. The progressive
response has been disastrous.
Instead of confronting the shift in values, we have sought to adapt to it. Once
progressive parties have tried to appease altered public attitudes: think of all
those New Labour appeals to middle England, often just a code for self-interest.
In doing so they endorse and legitimise extrinsic values. Many greens and social
justice campaigners have also tried to reach people by appealing to self-interest:
explaining how, for example, relieving poverty in the developing world will build
a market for British products, or suggesting that, by buying a hybrid car, you
WEA North West – Feb 2011
can impress your friends and enhance your social status. This tactic also
strengthens extrinsic values, making future campaigns even less likely to
succeed. Green consumerism has been a catastrophic mistake.
Common Cause proposes a simple remedy: that we stop seeking to bury our
values and instead explain and champion them. Progressive campaigners, it
suggests, should help to foster an understanding of the psychology that informs
political change and show how it has been manipulated. They should also come
together to challenge forces – particularly the advertising industry – that make
us insecure and selfish.
Ed Miliband appears to understand this need. He told the Labour conference that
he "wants to change our society so that it values community and family, not just
work" and "wants to change our foreign policy so that it's always based on
values, not just alliances … We must shed old thinking and stand up for those
who believe there is more to life than the bottom line". But there's a paradox
here, which means that we cannot rely on politicians to drive these changes.
Those who succeed in politics are, by definition, people who prioritise extrinsic
values. Their ambition must supplant peace of mind, family life, friendship –
even brotherly love.
So we must lead this shift ourselves. People with strong intrinsic values must
cease to be embarrassed by them. We should argue for the policies we want not
on the grounds of expediency but on the grounds that they are empathetic and
kind; and against others on the grounds that they are selfish and cruel. In
asserting our values we become the change we want to see.
• A fully referenced version of this article can be found on George Monbiot's
website
The Tories seize Labour’s language Maurice Glasman
Published 19 August 2010
The Miliband brothers remain defined by the Blair/Brown psychodrama.
It is hard to exaggerate how unimpressive the Labour leadership contest has
been so far. And how repressed. The repression lies in the lack of recognition of
the pain and disappointment of the past 13 years, and the particularly
unpleasant nature of the past four. There has been no account of how Labour
failed to realise Tony Blair's promises of stakeholding, democratic
decentralisation and solidarity - all lost in managerialism, marketing and
militarism. No reckoning, either, with the stale, European, social democracy that
Gordon Brown inhabited, sucking the life out of the Labour tradition.
The Blair/Brown psychodrama was the environment within which both David
Miliband and Ed Miliband developed as political leaders. Leadership of the
"progressive" left is the mantle they both claim from their father, Ralph, a
Marxist academic. Neither has succeeded, so far, in articulating a Labour position
WEA North West – Feb 2011
that could transform the party and the country. What began as a family
argument within the Labour Party has turned into a political argument in one
particular family.
Contempt for custom
The disembedding of the economy through globalisation was the defining feature
of New Labour's political economy, which refused to recognise any distinction
between financial and manufacturing capital. This left the economy exposed to
financial volatility and was an abandonment of a key aspect of the Labour
tradition, which was built on a distinction between a real economy, in which
people fed, clothed and housed each other through their labour; and a formal
economy, in which the only criteria was the maximisation of returns on
investment.
Labour's idealism and mission of change were channelled through the state in a
virtually Maoist conception of public-sector reform, in which all traditional
patterns of work were overridden by managerial prerogative, line management
and unattainable targets in every aspect of life - ranging from obesity to teenage
pregnancy, literacy to drinking. The end was everything and the means were
nothing.
A militant public-sector morality emerged in which the homogenisation of our
high streets and working life was combined with an insistence on diversity and
the erosion of a common culture. The contempt for custom and tradition made
the constant restructuring of management in the public sector all the more
grievous.
The Brown government was incapable of action, changing the dynamics of defeat
or renewing itself in office, because it thought of itself as righteous and
successful: public buildings had been renewed; redistribution was genuine.
Labour still shows no understanding of how unappealing the people of England
found all of this.
The problem was that although the people did not trust the Conservatives to
protect the things they loved or promote the change that was needed, they
thought Labour was worse. Its claims to economic modernisation were revealed
as fantastical by the crash; its claims to a superior political morality were
exposed by expenses-fiddling in parliament. No sense of sacrifice was called for
in hard times, no sense of organisation towards a common end was pursued and
no powerful forces were confronted as the banks and the City were given a free
pass while small businesses went to the wall.
Labour has paid the price with a loss of credibility and trust. The Conservatives
have seized Labour's language with their vision of a "big society" - and not only
its language but its history. By stressing mutual responsibility, commitment to
place and neighbours and the centrality of relationships to a meaningful life, and
by laying claim to the mutuals, co-operatives and local societies that built the
labour movements, the coalition government is seizing Labour's future by
stealing its inheritance. Labour should assert its ownership of the language and
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practice of organised social action for the common good. Democracy all the way
up and all the way down.
The response of the leadership candidates so far has been a cross between
Brezhnevite progressivism and low-grade relationship therapy: it's time to turn
the page, move on, fix our gaze on the sunlit uplands - and it's all a cover for
cuts, anyway. But this will lead Labour further towards the same uncreative
incoherence that blighted its effectiveness in government.
Ed Miliband has said that the big society was "a load of rubbish". While David is
more sympathetic, he has not succeeded in defining his idea of a bigger society
or how it would fit his overall platform. He has not spelled out a proper critique
of Blair any more than Ed has of Brown. The truth is that Brown corrupted the
left for a generation. He talked left but acted state - the result is a right-wing
government that can credibly claim that Labour is a statist party without concern
for democracy, liberty or efficiency. This is fatal for any political party. That's
how it was at the last election and how it will be again, unless Labour can grasp
the language of reciprocity and responsibility. Unless David can give a clear
account of how he differs from Blair, and Ed of how he differs from Brown,
neither will be a change candidate.
Common good
Labour needs to tell a credible story about public sector fantasies and waste. It
cannot entangle capital without extending democracy. It cannot set a limit to the
market without also recognising the limits of the state. Both limits must be set
by a democratically organised society. The two brothers support the living wage
- an important step towards recognising the dignity of work and the dependence
of all employees on each other. Yet, in both cases, it is something of an orphan,
not connected to a wider change of which that should be a part.
The establishment of city parliaments is needed to build a politics of the common
good. We need regional banks to make capital available to small and mediumsized businesses, a cap on interest rates to limit exploitation and democratic
corporate governance in the public and private sectors. Unless either of the
brothers can move towards this terrain, it doesn't matter which of them wins,
because they will not be able to act effectively or offer a plausible account of a
transformational, democratic politics. And Labour will lose again.
Maurice Glasman is the author of "Unnecessary Suffering: Management, Markets
and the Liquidation of Solidarity" (Verso, £12) and has worked with London
Citizens for the past decade.
WEA North West – Feb 2011
British media join forces against Murdoch takeover of BSkyB
Letter to Vince Cable signed by many of UK's leading news providers warns £8bn
deal would damage democratic debate
Analysis: Turning up the heat on Murdoch's News Corporation
Datablog: how powerful would the takeover make Murdoch?
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Dan Sabbagh
guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 October 2010 17.32 BST
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is proposing a full takeover of satellite
broadcaster BSkyB. Photograph: Hyungwon Kang/Reuters
Fleet Street's highly factionalised newspaper industry today set aside historic
differences to join forces in an unprecedented assault against the power of
Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
The companies behind the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail – both supporters
of the Conservatives – united with the owners of the Guardian and the Labourbacking Daily Mirror to petition Vince Cable, the business secretary, to consider
blocking News Corporation's proposed £8bn full takeover of the satellite
broadcaster BSkyB, which trades under the name Sky .
Fearful of the combined might of an integrated News Corp-Sky operation, which
would include the Sun, the News of the World, the Times and book publisher
HarperCollins, the complainants said the "proposed takeover could have serious
and far-reaching consequences for media plurality".
The letter, signed by Murdoch MacLennan, chief executive of Telegraph Media
Group, Sly Bailey, chief executive of Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily Mirror,
and Andrew Miller, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, was sent to Cable
today. The signatories argue against a combined Murdoch multimedia empire
that would have a turnover of £7.5bn compared with the BBC's £4.8bn.
They are joined by Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC; Ian Livingston,
chief executive of BT; and David Abraham, chief executive of Channel 4.
Thompson was the first to publicly call for Cable to review the deal "given the
scale of the potential ownership in UK media", in an interview last week with
Charlie Rose on the PBS channel in the US.
The document is also backed by a memo prepared by the City law firm Slaughter
& May, which sets out legal arguments for the minister to intervene. It presents
WEA North West – Feb 2011
a political headache for David Cameron's coalition government. His Conservative
party came to power with the help of an enthusiastic pre-election endorsement
from the Sun – Britain's bestselling newspaper – and other Murdoch titles, but
Cable's Liberal Democrats enjoyed no such support.
Cameron also employs the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his
director of communications. Coulson, whose editorship of the Sunday tabloid
remains mired in controversy about phone hacking, is close to key figures in
News Corporation's newspapers, led by News International's chief executive and
former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks.
The submission is made all the harder to dismiss with organisers including Lord
Black, the well-connected former Tory party director of communications, who
now works at the company behind the Daily Telegraph; and Paul Dacre, veteran
editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail, whose newspaper is regarded as the authentic
voice of middle England. Over the past week both the Telegraph and the Mail
have been critical of the government's plans to cut child benefit for higher-rate
taxpayers, indicating strained relations between the two right-of-centre
newspapers and Cameron's government.
Although Murdoch is closely identified with Sky, chaired by his son James, he
does not own all of the fast-growing satellite broadcaster. In June News
Corporation proposed an £8bn, 700p-a-share buyout out of the 61% of the
company it does not own.
The deal must first be approved by regulators. News Corporation is expected to
file for regulatory approval with the European commission on competition
grounds, but Cable would then have 25 days to choose to order an inquiry into
the transaction on public interest grounds, as defined by "media plurality" being
compromised.
The business secretary is expected to make his ruling within 10 days of the
European commission being notified, and his decision will have to be rubberstamped by Cameron. The media plurality test – which would be carried out first
by the communications regulator Ofcom and then by ministers – is a looselydefined concept by which Cable would have to be convinced that rival
newspapers and broadcasters were at risk of closure or cuts that would damage
democratic debate.
What a merger might mean
Matthew Parris and Trevor Kavanagh – columnists for the Times and the Sun –
may be regular guests on Sky News, but critics of the proposed News
Corporation takeover of BSkyB believe the potential for integration would be far
deeper in the event of a full tie-up.
Today, Sky News has an independent editorial structure with channel editors
reporting through the satellite broadcaster and its board – and despite the close
links between Sky and News Corporation, any sharing of content and journalists
has been very limited.
WEA North West – Feb 2011
Under a merged company Sky News could be brought more closely into line with
the company's UK newspapers. Although the titles are run independently, Rupert
Murdoch takes a close interest in each, ringing editors regularly if not daily, and
each has a similar political tone – which saw all four back David Cameron before
the election.
News Corporation argues that its planned takeover of Sky is "essentially
financial" and that it is not driven by cost savings or new business ideas, but
Murdoch has taken a keen interest in developing new digital products for the
iPad.
In August News Corporation announced plans to develop an integrated digital
product, with content from across its US portfolio – including Fox News, the Wall
Street Journal and the New York Post. It is hard to believe that a similar idea is
not under active consideration in the UK, where for a monthly fee iPad owners
will get a new multimedia service – a fusion of print and video beyond the
immediate means of most newspapers.
WEA North West – Feb 2011
Turning the heat on Rupert Murdoch
Media groups must raise the political temperature if they are to halt News Corp's
bid to take full control of BSkyB
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(63)
Dan Sabbagh
guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 October 2010 17.11 BST
Article history
Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation is aiming to take full control of BSkyB. Photograph: Ron
Sachs/Rex Features
It is March 2015, a couple of months before the general election. One media
company bestrides British politics – spanning television, newspapers and the
internet. It is more than twice the size of the BBC, with a turnover of £9bn.
Controlled by Rupert Murdoch, it is called News Corporation.
Bound by none of the BBC's tradition of impartiality, the Murdoch family is
deciding whether to endorse David Cameron for a second term. They meet in the
knowledge that behind them lies the support of a company whose Sun and
Times titles account for two-fifths of all newspapers sold in Britain and whose
broadcasting operation is larger than the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 combined. This
vision of financial and political power has so terrified rivals that they are already
ganging up in alarm. From the Daily Telegraph to the Daily Mirror, from the
Guardian to the Daily Mail, a joint letter has been prepared for the business
secretary, Vince Cable. Sent today, the purpose of the memo is simple – to
persuade Cable to block News Corp's proposed £8bn bid to take full control of
BSkyB.
WEA North West – Feb 2011
Some have called it Britain's "Berlusconi moment". Yet even in Italy, it could be
argued that Silvio Berlusconi's dominance of the media is less complete. The
Italian prime minister controls three mainstream television channels through his
company Mediaset, but he is not allowed to own any newspapers in the country although one small title is controlled by his brother.
Berlusconi or not, what the protest does present is an unexpected headache for
David Cameron and the coalition government. The prime minister's natural
supporters in Fleet Street are split. Leading the rebels is Lord Black, the
Conservatives' director of communications under Michael Howard, who is now an
executive director at the company behind the Daily Telegraph – with close
support from Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief at the Daily Mail.
And while Cameron's party owes much to pre-election support from the Sun and
the Times, including an endorsement from Simon Cowell in the red-top paper,
the Liberal Democrats have no such debt.
What so frightens Britain's newspaper owners today is what would happen when
the profits of Sky are aligned to the power of the Sun and the Times, creating a
media company whose size and scale is unheard of in British history.
Sky is already larger than the BBC today, with a turnover of £5.9bn, while News
International turns over £1.7bn. The BBC, by contrast, has a turnover of £4.8bn
– but its licence fee income is widely expected to be cut, amid what BBC insiders
describe as "neo-con" political pressure from Murdoch's newspapers.
On its own, Sky has the ability to outbid rivals at will. When the broadcaster
snatched the rights to the next two seasons of Mad Men earlier this month, it
offered £225,000 an episode. The BBC had been paying just £65,000. It spends
more than £1bn a year on sport, this season sweeping up the rights to every
single Champions League game, except for a single match a week that Uefa
reserved for ITV.
Yet today, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp only owns 39.1% of the business,
meaning that the majority of profits leak to outside investors, British and
American pension funds. Sky's cadre of independent directors, whose ranks
included Tony Blair's publisher Dame Gail Roebuck, the former Royal Mail
chairman Allan Leighton and Jacques Nasser, who was chief executive of Ford,
help ensure Sky's cashflows are directed to all of its shareholders' benefit. If
News Corp were to wholly own the company, it would control a profit flow of
£626m as measured at the last set of accounts, rising to £1.4bn by 2015. That's
according to data prepared by the investment bank Nomura, which also predicts
that Sky will have a turnover of £7.8bn on that date, nearly £2bn more than
today, and a £1bn marketing budget, which could be used to help promote its
newspapers as well as the broadcasters.
What the newspaper groups fear is that News Corp could use its extra wealth to
cross-promote television and newspapers, a simple concept known in the media
industry as "bundling".
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Lord Puttnam, the filmmaker who is now deputy chairman of Channel 4, says:
"Not only could it be possible for Sky subscribers to be offered print copies of the
Sun or the Times cheaply – but there is the scope for massive discounts on
electronic services that you or I haven't even thought of."
Sky has taken advantage of bundling in the past to grow at the expense of
competitors. The company has long been the leader in pay television – its
market share is 80% – but four years ago the company decided to get into
broadband. It did so by undercutting BT, offering a basic service for free to
existing subscribers, at a time when regulations prevented BT selling at a loss.
Sky's broadband service quickly grew, with half the customers taking the free
product – and while the free offers have largely stopped, the company now has
2.6 million customers. Yet, when BT tried to complain about Sky's predatory
pricing, the communications regulator, Ofcom, didn't investigate.
Murdoch has long pursued a strategy of price cutting at the Times and the Sun,
which this year has been sold as cheaply as 20p. Accounts filed at Companies
House suggest that already some of his British newspapers are having to be
supported by other parts of the company. The loss for the Times and Sunday
Times was £87.7m in the year to 28 June 2009, a level described by the Times's
editor, James Harding, as "unsustainable" – and was partly supported by a
£40.3m profit at the Sun and the News of the World.
Competition lawyers say Sky exhibits what is known as "increasing dominance" –
a virtuous circle in which its financial success allows it to spend more money to
bring in more customers, and in turn generate more profit. Sky's financial
strength allows it to outbid rivals for an ever-increasing range of sports rights,
and now it is moving into buying up US programming. There is technological
innovation: this month it became the first broadcaster to launch a 3D channel,
with coverage of the Ryder Cup. With a better service it wins more customers –
a momentum that is hard to stop.
Over the past two decades, the growth in Murdoch's economic power went
unchecked. Labour politicians were reluctant to take on the media mogul, partly
because of the fear of losing the support of his newspapers but also because, in
the words of one former minister, "it wasn't preordained that Sky would succeed
– so why should they be punished?"
The fact, though, of a specific transaction – the £8bn attempt to buy Sky
outright – does give competition authorities and politicians an opportunity to
intervene. However, the problem for the anti-Murdoch camp is that competition
authorities see television and newspapers as two separate markets, even if they
are related. Anti-Murdoch lawyers concede that it would be hard to block the
deal on pure competition grounds because Sky is getting no bigger in television
and News Corp no bigger in newspapers as a result.
Cross-media ownership has instead historically been a matter for primary
legislation rather than competition law, but today's rules lag behind the
economic reality.
WEA North West – Feb 2011
So the only clear-cut rule is that preventing News Corp or Sky owning more than
20% of ITV.
But after a share raid back in 2006 designed to prevent ITV falling into the
hands of Virgin Media, Sky owns 7.5% – taking advantage of a loophole that
allows the Murdoch family to have a crucial say in ITV's future if a foreign media
company tried to mount a bid.
That is why any appeal to Vince Cable has to be made on the woolly grounds of
"media plurality". The argument is that News Corp and Sky together are so large
relative to rivals that their combined financial muscle will lead, inevitably, to the
gradual erosion of the positions of rival newspapers.
"If they cut the price of the Times, I think it would be the Financial Times and
the Daily Telegraph that would suffer first," said Puttnam.
Yet the plurality argument relies on an impossible-to-prove notion that other
newspapers could be harmed or even collapse from some as yet unspecified
cross-promotion or subsidy. It means that in reality, Fleet Street's most unlikely
alliance has to raise the political temperature if it is to have a chance of
succeeding. By coming together in this fashion, the Mirror, Mail, Guardian and
Telegraph might just do that.
WEA North West – Feb 2011
DATA
Rupert Murdoch and BSkyB: how powerful would a takeover make him?

Rupert Murdoch wants to own all of broadcaster BSkyB. If he gets his
way, the shape of British media could change forever, according to a
leaked report. See what the data says
Rupert
Murdoch and BSkyB broken down. Click image to get graphic. Illustration:
Finbarr Sheehy for the Guardian
Rupert Murdoch is keen to buy up the rest of BSkyB - he presently controls
39.1% of the company which is increasingly dominating British broadcasting.
A memo signed by a coalition of British media companies, including the
Guardian, asks Business secretary Vince Cable to refer the proposed takeover to
Ofcom.
So, if Murdoch succeeds, just how powerful would he become in the UK?
According to a confidential report from respected media analyst Claire Enders to
Vince Cable - subsequently leaked to media site BeehiveCity - it would
substantially change the British media landscape.
As Dan Sabbagh writes on BeehiveCity:
Allowing the deal to go through would amount to Britain's 'Berlusconi moment'
You can download the leaked report at the site and it includes tonnes of data
and a damning final verdict on the proposed takeover.
The key points are, according to Enders:
WEA North West – Feb 2011
Products currently separately offered by BSkyB and News Corp titles may be
combined in bundles… Strategic initiatives of this nature could lead to a much
more rapid decline in competitor newspaper circulations than we have assumed,
boosting News Corp's newspaper market share above 40% by 2014…
…Stories from Sky News (especially video) will presumably be carried more and
more frequently on News Corp websites … Progressively, News International
papers and BSkyB channels, particularly Sky News, may merge into one stream
of fact and opinion. If this occurred, plurality would decline, even if the combined
organisation continued to maintain newsrooms that are nominally separate…
…The loss of the independent BSkyB shareholders will allow News Corp greater
opportunity to influence, tacitly or otherwise, the editorial coverage of Sky News
and other BSkyB channels…
The final point is perhaps the most serious:
We believe … that there is a risk of a reduction in media plurality to an
unacceptably low level
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