SAUDI PRINCE AND RUPERT MURDOCH STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIP

Making news recently was the fact that Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal has become the 2nd largest shareholder in Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, parent company of Fox News. It has now been learned that the purchase of stock in ownership is being reciprocated on the part of Murdoch. Talal has a media company as well - Rotana Media - and News Corp has bought a $70m stake in it according to the Financial Times:

The move will mark News Corp’s most significant investment so far in the Middle East, where faster GDP growth, a young population and maturing advertising markets have begun to draw US and European media groups facing slow growth in their home markets.

”This is a qualitative leap not just for Rotana but for the whole Arab world,” Prince Alwaleed told a press conference. ”We are set to gain deep experience from News Corp ... on television, movie production and technology,” he said. ”They own MySpace ... We can learn from this, the new media field.”

It has widely been acknowledged that along with Talal's interest in News Corp. has come the ability to influence content. Diana West at the Washington Examiner reported on Talal's boasting that he was able to contact Murdoch by phone during the Muslim riots in France and successfully got the news channel to change the banner identifying the rioters as Muslim.

Alwaleed has bragged that it only took a phone call to ensure that Fox coverage of Muslim rioting in France not be described as "Muslim" rioting in France, a boast News Corp. has never denied.

Even more telling is when Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid, who is a News Corp. stockholder, questioned Murdoch about the incident at the 2006 annual meeting. Murdoch's answer was borderline absurd:

At the annual meeting of News Corporation, parent of Fox News, chairman Rupert Murdoch confirmed that a call from a Saudi Prince had resulted in a change in how the Fox News Channel covered the Muslim riots in France in 2005. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a significant investor in News Corporation, told Murdoch he objected to highlighting the Muslim role in the riots. Murdoch said the change was made after it was determined that there was a Catholic role in the riots.

Yes, you read that right - "Catholic" car burners in France. Back to the piece in the Financial Times. Something increasingly worth paying attention to is the heir apparent to Rupert Murdoch, his son James.

The prince is not on News Corp’s board of directors, but last month anointed James Murdoch, head of News Corp’s European and Asian operations, as his father’s eventual successor.

“If he [Rupert Murdoch] doesn’t appoint him, I’ll be the first one to nominate him to be the successor of Mr Rupert Murdoch, God forbid if something happens to him,” the prince told Charlie Rose, a US television interviewer.

While Rupert has repeatedly shown that his allegiance to any form of conservatism is a distant second behind bottom lines, there has at least been a trace of the former. His son, according to the aforementioned piece in the Examiner, is...

a left-wing global warmist with virulently anti-Israel views

Considering the overwhelming anti-semitism toward Jews that exists in the Middle East, shouldn't this be a bit of a concern?

h/t to Free Republic