The big global media companies have been slow to embrace the idea of corporate responsibility, in part because it’s hard to define what that means when it comes to their core product–entertainment and news. Or, perhaps, they don’t want to grapple with the question of how their content impacts society. I’m told, for example, that this summer at the Allen & Co. media powwow, Dick Parsons, the CEO of Time Warner (and my ultimate boss) waxed eloquent about the company’s gossipy, prurient website TMZ.com. Parsons is a smart and serious man who knows that TMZ.com isn’t especially good for the world, but he probably doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it in that way.
Which brings me to Rupert Murdoch, and his surprising climate-change crusade. Goodness knows I’m no fan of his news outlets in the U.S., but he has done a brilliant job with Fox’s entertainment properties and he runs an impressive company–decentralized, entrepreneurial, fast-moving, filled with lots of smart people who seem to enjoy what they do. And so now he is mobilizing News Corp.’s considerable resources to do something about global warming. Once again, he’s ahead of the pack. Today’s CNNMoney.com column takes a look.
Here’s how it begins:
Readers of the The Sun, a British tabloid best known for its bare-breasted Page Three girls, opened their newspapers to see a young woman named Keeley Hazell wearing only green paint. Ms. Hazell is the face – well, not just the face – of the paper’s campaign against global warming.
You can read the rest here.
