Whatever one’s opinion of Elon Musk and his undoubted power as someone who owns X, the hysterical reaction of much of the media averse to Musk/Trump of late is amusing, if not downright ironic and perhaps worse in some instances.
That reaction has become particularly heated in recent days since Musk’s widely reported comments on the resurrected – and appalling – scandal over Pakistani rape gangs in England, as reported on Gript earlier this week.
I happened, by coincidence, to catch the BBC News last night as I waited to see the documentary on Alex Ferguson, who I find a far more interesting character than the English Premiership, in which I have no interest. Nor do I have much interest in the BBC, and normally I would immediately change channels, but it was late.
Anyway, it was notable the way in which the Beeb – and from a cursory trawl of the interweb I can see they are not unique in this – has begun to spin a narrative in which the victims in the call for a full inquiry into the grooming rape networks are not the young working class girls but Labour Minister Jess Phillips who has rejected the call for an inquiry – the call for which, by the way, did not originate with Musk – and the villain(s) under focus are Elon and others rather than the rapists and indeed their protectors.
Not to be behind the wall, the Anglophone Irish left liberal media has rallied to the defence of their beloved British Labour Party – their last standing icons since the Democrats lost the States and the Scandinavian social democrats have gone all For Roysh on their ass over immigration.
And so Pat Kenny of Newstalk took to the airwaves to attack the “tech entrepreneur” Musk, “multi billionaire … mate of Trump” and so on. Such courage we have never known.
Again, this seems to be all sparked by the outrage that the British Labour Party ought to be perhaps “called out” over what is potentially a child abuse scandal on a massive scale, and one in which that party’s local apparatus in Rotherham and elsewhere may have questions to answer over what many believe may have been a racially and politically motivated cover up.
That aside, when it comes to multi billionaires who does Kenny work for? Is Newstalk a worker owned co-operative? Is it a charity? Does it report all of the news without fear or favour and host presenters who represent a wide range of opinions – for instance, anything you might not hear at a Dalkey cocktail party?
To begin with, as has been pointed out, Newstalk is owned by a family, the Bauers of Hamburg, whose owner Heinz Bauer was worth $1.8 billion in 2011. According to Forbes the majority stakeholder Yvonne Bauer is now worth $2.2 billion. Prior to the German Bauer Media Group taking over Newstalk in 2021 it was owned by Denis O’Brien. He is actually worth more than Yvonne Bauer. The bould Pat K seems to have had no issues with O’Brien’s ownership and has no issues with the Bauers.
Nor has the Irish state any issue with the encroachment of Bauer into a quite commanding position within the Irish media. Last November, the Department overseeing the media here was happy to inform Bauer that Minister Catherine Martin was “of the view that the media merger proceeding as proposed will not be contrary to the public interest in protecting the plurality of the media in the State.” That merger was of Bauer with Light Blue which is a UK-based company that has interests here.
Bauer itself claims to be “the country’s largest radio group.” Apart from Newstalk it also owns Today FM, Spin, 98FM, Red FM and Beat. Which means that if you happen to spin the dial you are very likely to be tuning into a station owned by a German billionaire. Let he/she/them who does not work for a billionaire media tycoon cast the first virtual stone.
Outside of Ireland, Bauer owns a whole host of popular magazines and popular music stations in 15 different countries. Some of you might be familiar with Heat, Bella, Take A Break, and Kerrang! It is perhaps interesting here that “talk radio” is one of the Bauer flagships given that even radio stations that in other countries are part of the ephemeral and superficial genre that you might have on in the car have placed themselves at the forefront of public discourse.
Bauer’s main interest clearly is in popular culture and it has attracted little attention for any overt political reasons. Ironically, it did briefly land itself in hot water in Germany itself in 2013 over publishing a World War Two military magazine Der Landser that was alleged to have Nazi sympathies. In Scotland its acquisition strategy has recently and mostly resulted in criticism that it was replacing genuine local content and flavour in the smaller stations it had taken over by blandness. The very idea!
So, who owns these things is important as they clearly do have a role in shaping public opinion especially when the main presenters are all people who- let us call a spade a spade – all sing more or less from the same songsheet. No more George Hooks and Niall Boylans to upset “Carer of two labradoodles, Stepaside.”