Crazy Idea to Stem the Flow of Disinformation or Lack of Information

I was rambling in another thread and I thought about it and had this crazy idea.... I was talking with someone tonight about how conservatives have a problem with disinformation or lack of information - really most of America does. And that reminded me of some maneuvering that Rupert Murdoch seemed to be taking of late to prevent any takeover attempts of Fox.... If I remember correctly, he was trying to set up some kind of rule that made it difficult for any one person to buy up more shares than he had.... What if one person didn't buy up more shares than he had? (Go to work research hounds!)What if a bunch of people bought up more shares than he had? Surely if so many Americans were willing to donate to the campaigns perhaps they would be willing to buy a share or two of stock in Faux News to take it over.... Perhaps even base it out of DU and elect people from here to run the company. Any thoughts? I checked out their annual report for 2003 and found this bit:

Commitments and contingencies
Shareholders’ Equity:
Preferred stock, $.01 par value per share; 100,000,000 shares authorized;
0 shares issued and outstanding as of June 30, 2003 and 2002 — —
Class A Common stock, $.01 par value per share; 1,000,000,000 authorized;
352,436,375 and 302,436,375 issued and outstanding as of June 30, 2003 and 2002, respectively 4 3
Class B Common stock, $.01 par value per share; 650,000,000 authorized;
547,500,000 issued and outstanding as of June 30, 2003 and 2002 6 6
Additional paid-in capital 12,780 11,569
Retained earnings and accumulated other comprehensive income 1,513 517
Total shareholders’ equity 14,303 12,095
Total liabilities and shareholders’ equity $ 23,299 $ 22,876

Source: http://www.newscorp.com/feg/fegreport2003/FoxAnnual2003.pdf

I take this to mean there are roughly about 900 million total outstanding shares of stock in Fox. The question is this: how much does Murdoch have? And also, how much would we need to over buy him by in order to get control free and clear? By my rough estimate if everyone that voted for Kerry bought on average nine shares of Fox, about $30 a share now, it could be done. Maybe Uncle George can help :) Any thoughts? Anyone knowledgeable about such things?

just make sure to ask a corporate laywer, but this is not a bad idea... do we have a corporate lawyer in the house that will help?

Just imagine his face... Kondracke YOU ARE FIRED... Malloy you are HIRED....

A) It wouldn't be cheap - an average of $240-270/person.
B) And that's counting on full Kerry electorate participation which is impossible.
C) So you'd be depending upon bigger pockets to finance big grabs while the little people chip away in 2's and 3's.
D) Rest assured once Murdoch found out he would find a way around it. Possibly by dumping the 100,000,000 unissued "preferred" shares into the mix and scarfing them up.

How about Democratic Underground News Channel for Everyone. DUNCE! Perfect for the former Faux News watchers!

It was posted here a couple of weeks ago. He's willing to be a white knight to any hostile takeover attempt.

Kingdom Holdings is advertising (and probably invested) in CNN and MS-NBC, too. What does that tell you?

it doesn't have to be MORE shares than he has to cause some grief.

Gay and Lesbian activists fought Cracker Barrell in part by buying ONE share of stock. It entitled them to get their annual statement (a lot of one-share investors runs up THAT cost), and it entitled them to show up at stockholder meetings, and of course vote.

i thought it was an absolutely brilliant strategy at the time, and think it still has merit.

Here's where he did it.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1308161/000119312504194637/d8a12b.htm

Note classA stock has no voting rights, only class B do.


He and his family trust :
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1024835/000118143104052365/xslF345X02/rrd57338.xml

Ownership trust :
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1252118/000119312504166307/d424b3.htm
Lots of big owners, trusts owning trusts owning trusts.


The cruden and British sky that are permitted some control, are also controlled by Murdoch. As well as ... well see for yourself.

http://www.moderateindependent.com/v2i4world.htm

He also issued a few million new shares recently for executive bonuses.

Any idea what he was afraid of? Like who he thought was after control?

Obviously such an effort would have to expand beyond DU to be fully successful, but Eloriel made the point that you don't have to take control to be a thorn in their side.

I have no idea who or what that he was afraid of. Maybe the people on the Freerepublic.com thought he was getting to liberal and they had the same idea :)