Adam Curtis has just republished a post on his BBC blog about that class act Rupert Murdoch. One segment concerns the late talk show host Russell Harty, who played a sort of jackass interviewer on TV, but certainly did not deserve to be hounded by Murdoch reporters as he lay dying in a hospital bed from an AIDS-related illness. An excerpt:

“In 1989 – on the 20th anniversary of buying the Sun – Murdoch helped write an editorial that trumpeted his vision of himself as a revolutionary:

‘The Establishment does not like the Sun. Never has

There is a growing band of people in positions of influence and privilege who want OUR newspaper to suit THEIR private convenience. They wish to conceal from readers’ eyes anything that they find annoying or embarrassing.

LIVING LIES AND HYPOCRISY ON HIGH CAN HAVE NO PLACE IN OUR SOCIETY

IT IS THE STRUGGLE OF ALL THOSE CONCERNED FOR FREEDOM IN BRITAIN.’

But the liberal elite were already fighting a counterattack. It had begun with the chat-show host Russell Harty the year before as he lay dying in a hospital bed from hepatitis.

Harty was a homosexual who had been hounded by the News of the World. With his illness this had turned into a media frenzy – with reporters from all the tabloids pursuing him in a hospital, posing as junior doctors demanding to see Harty’s medical notes, and photographers renting a flat opposite his hotel room.

At Harty’s funeral in 1988 the playwright Alan Bennett publicly accused the tabloid press of accelerating his friend’s death. ‘The gutter press finished him.’

The Sun chose to reply:

‘Stress did not kill Russell Harty. The truth is that he died from a sexually transmitted disease.

The press didn’t give it to him. He caught it from his own choice. And by paying young rent boys he broke the law.

Some – like ageing bachelor Mr Bennett – can see no harm in that. He has no family.

But what if it had been YOUR son Harty had bedded?'”