The Murdoch empire strikes back

We examine Rupert Murdoch's relationship with the UK government; plus, Nigeria's 'brown-envelope' journalists.



Concerns are growing that the UK's Conservative government is trying to reshape and influence Britain's media landscape as it continues to befriend media mogul Rupert Murdoch's empire.

Shortly after David Cameron's outright election victory in May, his government announced a review of finances at the BBC, an organisation some Conservatives had denounced for harbouring a liberal agenda, slashing one-fifth of the publicly owned broadcaster's annual budget.

Just weeks before making that announcement, Rupert Murdoch - a long-time critic of the BBC and owner of News Corp, which includes pro-Tory newspapers The Sun and The Times as well as SKY TV - met senior members of the government twice.

Murdoch's UK newspapers have a long history of lending support to the Conservatives, and in recent months have joined ranks in deriding Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

And in the past week, Trevor Kavanagh, a former political editor at The Sun who had deplored the investigation of Sun journalists over the phone-hacking scandal while at the paper, has been appointed to the board of a new press regulator - the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).