Barack Obama: Murdoch divided Western societies

Barack Obama has suggested that Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has led to greater polarization in western societies through news coverage designed to “make people angry and resentful”.

Speaking to a capacity crowd of about 9,000 people in Sydney, Obama mixed childhood memories of transiting through Australia as a child with pointed observations about the current political discourse and the rise of China.

He expressed concern that media trends of consuming media they felt they were ideologically aligned with, and the use of identity politics, are worsening the issue of polarization. Obama also discussed his greatest regret, the lack of action on gun control in the US despite continued mass shootings.

He was critical of the actions of Vladimir Putin and “the broader contest that is taking place around the world between … an ancient way of conceiving of power that is essentially determined by violence and coercion and might-makes-right and is about domination and subordination and taking what you can, and a more modern notion of nation states respecting each other regardless of size and rule of law.”

Source: The Guardian