Climate activists with the group Extinction Rebellion on Tuesday broke windows at the London headquarters of News Corp UK and Ireland.
A video shared by the activist group shows two protesters cracking large front windows at the building’s entrance. Activists spray-painted Tell the Truth and 40 degrees = Death, a reference to record-breaking temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in the U.K. this week.
This act of nonviolent civil disobedience comes as a response to the media’s coverage of the current heatwave, Extinction Rebellion said in a statement. Instead of warning readers of the increased risks from such heatwaves as the climate crisis intensifies, The Sun chose to cover their front pages in images of women in bikinis, beach goers and happy toddlers with ice creams.
The protesters targeted the Murdoch press, a reference to News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch. News Corp UK is the publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun, among other newspaper, digital and radio products. In the U.S., the Murdoch family owns Fox News, in addition to News Corp assets like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
These newspapers have spent 30 life-or-death years denying or ignoring the climate crisis to ensure that Business As Usual keeps the money flowing into their already obscenely-bloated bank accounts. As a result, millions of us still have no clue about the terrifying dangers that threaten us, said Extinction Rebellion member Steve Tooze, who was formerly a journalist at the Sun and Daily Mail.
We are being betrayed by our press, said protester Caspar Hughes. My son is 15 years old, which means he’s facing possible societal collapse by the time he reaches his thirties. He and I will live and die in a world where famine will be measured in billions, war, disease and extreme weather will be far more common place.
