UK’s Brown Copies Obama Playbook By Attacking News Corp. Over Media Coverage

Just as the Obama administration decided to attack News Corp. owned Fox News by claiming it works as “the communications arm of the Republican Party,” the Labour party in Britain is now attacking News Corp. owned News International Ltd by claiming it is working with the rival Tory party.

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who is said to be increasingly the public face of Gordon Brown’s government at 10 Downing Street, alleged yesterday that the British newspaper publisher News International Ltd and the Conservative Tories had,

“Effectively formed a contract, over the head, incidentally, of the newspaper’s editor and their readers, in which they are sort of bound to one another.”

Mandelson cites as evidence the onslaught of poor coverage British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has received from News International’s The Sun for the mistakes Brown made in a handwritten letter to a mother of a British soldier that was killed in Afghanistan.

“What The Sun can do for the Conservatives during the election is one part of the contract and, presumably, what the Conservatives can do for News International if they are elected is the other side of the bargain. But there is a wider question. When The Sun creates the news in this way, this is then followed up by Sky News, which then puts pressure on the BBC to follow suit.”

Of course, many people would find the poor media coverage deserved since Brown failed to carefully address the mother of a fallen soldier who died fighting for the country the prime minister leads.

However, some may point to a pattern here of world leaders attacking News Corporation, and the Murdoch family which runs News Corp., for its media coverage of world leaders.

Though Gordon Brown’s government is the latest to attack News Corp. over having received poor media coverage this year, the Obama administration was not the first to do so.

The government that has been the most aggressive in attacking the Murdoch family and News Corp. for some time now has been Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government.

Berlusconi’s complaints mostly surround the Italian leader’s claim that the London Times, a News Corp. owned daily publication, was stoking the flames of his alleged prostitution and corruption scandals.

The conservative leading Italian leader blames Rupert Murdoch’s desire to take down Berlusconi’s media empire as Murdoch’s motivation.

However, in the cases of all three governments, the facts of the news reports being put out by the News Corp. media outlets have been backed by the evidence.

Brown has admitted and since apologized for writing an outrageously misspelled letter to a fallen soldier, tape recordings of Berlusconi cavorting around with ‘escorts’ are on record, and the Obama administration has connections with ACORN, has admitted socialists within its administration, etc.

Instead of blaming the messenger, the government’s led by Obama, Berlusconi and Brown should root out their own problems within their own administrations and within themselves.

And another note, maybe the Labour party should have waited to see how things played out in the Obama administration vs. Fox News battle in the United States before trying to copy the White House playbook.

Today the White House agreed to an interview between Fox News’ Major Garrett and President Obama after the administration said recently that Fox News would be granted no interviews for the remainder of the year.

Likely not by coincidence, the news of the interview comes one day after White House communications director Anita Dunn resigned.

A good lesson for democratic governments around the world to learn is never attack the messenger cause it will just come back to bite you in the ass.

But what does Gordon Brown have to lose? After all, he’s getting creamed in the polls anyway.

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