Linda Ronstadt had Rupert Murdoch's number as far back as 1983, thirteen [not three, like I first posted before an astute commenter corrected me] years before he launched Fox News. Appearing on Australia's Don Lane Show, she said, "Australia gave us Rupert Murdoch. Thanks a lot you guys. Take him back. We don't need him here."
"He's the king of the rags, actually," Lane said, laughing. At the time, Murdoch owned the Boston Herald, which had just changed to a tabloid format.
"Yeah he's very responsible too, you know," she said sarcastically. "I mean, you see these screaming headlines in his newspapers about politics, or a shooting, or a killing, that are only made to inflame terror and horror … it's bad for journalism. It's bad for the responsible journalists out there."
Here's the clip:
