August 7, 2012 6 Comments
The Church of England has pulled its £1.9m investment from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in a protest over its handling of the News of the World phone hacking scandal.
The Telegraph has the details.
July 13, 2012 1 Comment
Via the eChurch blog:
HarperCollins have now confirmed their acquisition of Christian publisher Thomas Nelson.
HarperCollins Publishers today announced it has closed on the acquisition of Thomas Nelson, a leading trade publisher providing multiple forms of inspirational Christian content including: books, Bibles, e-books, journals, audio, video, reference curriculum, digital apps and live events.
Thomas Nelson will continue to operate as an independent company with its unique editorial focus on inspirational and Christian content. Details, such as how Thomas Nelson will benefit from HarperCollins global print and digital platform, will be forthcoming.
Thomas Nelson self-report as the largest Christian publisher in the world and the seventh largest trade-book publisher in the United States.
HarperCollins is a division of Murdoch’s NewsCorp which already owns Zondervan, the main rival of Thomas Nelson and the largest publisher of bibles in the world.
It’s being reported that HarperCollins paid $200 million to private-equity firm Kohlberg & Co. for Thomas Nelson.
According to trade sales figures this aquisition will give Murdoch roughly 50% of the Christian publishing market.
As long as he doesn’t get his paws on Ignatius, I’m happy… and safe…
July 19, 2011 2 Comments
Writes Damian Thompson:
Rupert Murdoch’s obvious frailty is a complicating factor in this case, and a rather shocking one. He’s able to understand the questions he’s being asked, but it’s hard to work out whether his monosyllabic answers are stonewalling or confusion. (He couldn’t remember Les Hinton’s surname for a second there.) Perhaps it’s a mixture of both. All of which puts extra pressure on James Murdoch, whose answers are difficult to understand because they are so slathered in clumsy jargon. Either James can’t express himself succinctly, or – as Tim Montgomerie suggested on Twitter – he’s trying to run down the clock. This is a sad spectacle for many reasons.
July 18, 2011 4 Comments
Would you buy a Bible from Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation?
You probably already have.
His empire across the English speaking world includes not only the troubled tabs in the phone hacking scandal, as well as Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, but also Zondervan, the world’s largest publisher of Bibles, which he’s owned for 23 years.
Will Braun observes at the Holy Moly Blog:
Zondervan … owns exclusive North American print rights to the popular New International Version of the Bible which it says has sold over 300 million copies worldwide. Zondervan also publishes books by leading Christian authors like Rick Warren (over 30 million copies of his Purpose Driven Life have been sold), Tim LaHaye, Jim Wallis, Eugene Peterson, Brian McLaren and Shane Claiborne.
This bugs Braun who says God doesn’t need News Corp.,
Bald greed has no place in Bible publishing….
Now Braun acknowledges that perhaps this a teeny redeeming gesture for Murdoch who, he notes “was awarded a papal knighthood by Pope John Paul II in 1998.” (It’s an honorary title given to people of “unblemished character,” including non-Catholics, who have worked for the good of society.)
And maybe, Braun writes, the link is too tenous for a world with bigger woes than
… the ethics of Bible publishing … It’s just that I believe there should be absolutely no link at all. Bald greed has no place in Bible publishing…
We do not need to accept this arrangement. Christianity does not need to be about the best and biggest deal, and we can trust that the Good News does not require the help of an unscrupulous empire…
Food for thought…
And having read the above, I went through my modest library and sadly now too have to admit that there are more than a few Zondervan’s including the NIV Archaeological Study Bible and NIV Study Bible. Need I repent?
On a more positive note, I must say that I am now (and have been for a while) focusing on and using primarily Bibles from Ignatius. It makes me feel a lot better…
News Headlines
