The New York Times | The Huffington Post
What besieged mogul wouldn’t welcome a story about getting his bounce back? “In the last several weeks,” Amy Chozick writes, Rupert Murdoch “has exuded a satisfaction and sure-footedness that people close to the company said they had not seen since before Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper unit became embroiled in a phone hacking scandal.” In Chozick’s story, Murdoch all but raises the Jolly Roger: A pair of scandals at News Corp. U.K. rival the BBC is dinging The New York Times, and the planned split of his company into two divisions is freeing him up to make acquisitions — 49 percent of New York’s Yes Network, maybe even the Los Angeles Times.
But one tweet about the “Jewish-owned press,” and suddenly the PR win feels a little hollow. Murdoch apologized to the Anti-Defamation League for a tweet pondering why, in Murdoch’s view…actually, I think I’ll let him handle this one:
Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti- Israel in every crisis?
— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) November 18, 2012
Murdoch later allowed on Twitter that, as a nameless Huffington Post reporter put it, “phrases like ‘Jewish owned press’ carry a certain unpleasant whiff about them.” And:
He later apologized in a letter to the Anti-Defamation League and a phone call to director Abraham H. Foxman. Murdoch called the tweet “awkward and inappropriate,” according to a statement from the organization. The ADL announced Monday that it has accepted his apology.
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