Occupy Rupert Murdoch

Occupy The Media Billionaires was formed during Occupy Democracy’s tarpaulin revolution in October 2014.

A ‘D-Notice’ had apparently been ordered, so the most newsworthy events were being censored. There was precious little coverage of what was happening in Parliament Square. What coverage there was omitted the most compelling aspects; the demands we were making; the state’s thuggish overreaction; the sheer numbers of supporters.

The precious little coverage there was focused on the celebrity supporters, rather than what it was they were supporting.

Donnachadh McCarthy had pointed out how just FIVE billionaires own 80% of UK media. You can read more about this and the other pillars of the prostitute state in Donnachadh’s book, The Prostitute State.

Occupy The Media Billionaires identified Rupert Murdoch as a prime example of the UK’s corrupt media monopoly.

Murdoch is one of, if not the largest fish in the pond and one of the most persistently pernicious. It is difficult to express how vast his empire is, or how deeply toxic and divisive his influence.

Suffice to say, it made sense to have a go at him first. We occupied News UK headquarters at the mini-shard, near London Bridge, March 23-29th.

It was an action packed week, which started with us serving an arrest warrant on Murdoch and culminated in a show trial. (He was found guilty but sentenced to unconditional love, or somesuch).

 

We were joined by a variety of politicians, activists, trade unionists and celebrities.

Drift Report did this TREWS episode to plug it:

Dirty rock band, Shock ! Hazard brought their whole backline down with a generator and performed for us…TWICE! We had a moshpit outside News HQ!

I designed doublesided print copies of The Occupied Sun which were plastered all over London:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout the week’s occupation, we were only heckled once. A substantial number of us had undertaken Gandhian training in our preparations so there was little to no violence, in word or deed, by police or protesters.

The week of action got a ton of press coverage from both 1% media and alternative media (though understandably little to none from Newscorp and it’s subsidiaries…).

Since Occupy Rupert Murdoch week, Occupy The Media Billionaires have gone on to stage a Climate Crisis vigil, Occupying the Daily Mail’s headquarters, lobbying for meaningful, honest reportage of the unfolding ecological catastrophes. This lead to a meeting between the Daily Mail’s editor and Natalie Bennett to discuss the issue.