Murdoch Scandal: Somalia Famine Cartoon Fans Phone Hacking Flames

The Times Somalia Cartoon: Rupert Murdoch's Paper Enrages the Public

The Times ran a political cartoon depicting starving children in Somalia. One of the kids, with a bloated belly, says, "I've had a belly full of phone hacking". What the Murdoch-owned paper is saying is, "move along to more important issues", perhaps missing the point that a powerful corporation corrupting the police to facilitate its own access to citizens' private lives is, when you think about it, pretty important.

• The Times (Paywall)
  

That aside for the moment, the Times Somalia cartoon is in astoundingly poor taste, and readers were not shy about letting the paper know.

If News International was trying to divert attention from the Murdoch phone hacking scandal, it's difficult to imagine a bigger failure.

Vanity Fair Daily's Emily Gilby Keller (also husband of NYT exec editor Bill Keller) tweeted,

Edelman is the Pr and lobbying firm hired by News Corp. to manage the fallout from the phone hacking scandal.

While the Somalia famine is a big story, it's not a new one. Somalia has been starving for a generation, and the west only notices the lawless country when one of its ships gets hijacked.  The Times is only trying to guilt-trip readers into ignoring its intrusions into their private lives, and we all know it.

The Times is not exercising editorial judgement as much as running a condescending, tokenist smokescreen campaign.

You can see the Somalia cartoon below; click for larger size.

Photos

The Times: Somalia Cartoon Draws More Murdoch Anger

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uploaded by NowPublic Staff