None of that just-when-I-thought-I-was-out, they-pull-me-back-in stuff for James Murdoch. Last summer he departed for good from the family business of profiteering on the greedy ignorance of others; he became a Biden contributor and uses some of his inherited $2 billion for battling fake news, whose ground zero lies squarely among the platforms that brand others as dispensing it.
James is careful to not pointedly finger progenitor Rupert's most infamous outlet of primetime "toxicity" — his assessment — as a falsehoods and fakeness player. But he needn't do so. In a Financial Times interview, his indictment of election-fraud-spewing media is clear and encompassing enough: All its profiteers are as guilty, says James the Youngest, as Trump-supporting politicians who "know the truth but choose instead to propagate lies."
I would add that non-propagating yet silent pols are equally guilty. If there has ever been a time to speak up and forcefully condemn the rhetorical rot and uncivil warring of Team Trump, this is it. The exhortation should be too copiously self-evident to flog. Yet here we are, surrounded by the booming echoes of Washington D.C.'s Fort Sumter, while the Army of the Mum does nothing.
But back to James Murdoch, who adds: "The damage is profound. Those outlets that propagate lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years. I hope that those people who didn’t think it was that dangerous now understand, and that they stop."
The media moguls won't stop, of course. And they won't stop simply because they're as sociopathically acquisitive as the bloated hotelier who started it all. In their tireless pursuit of material gain, they "are only too happy to make a mess and burn things down," as James himself notes. Why would they ever consider putting a stop to something that makes them so happy?