Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., was overtaken by his son James for the first time in The Guardian's  ranking of the most powerful figures in British media published on July 14.

35-year-old James Murdoch, chairman of satellite broadcaster BSkyB in Britain and News Corp. Europe and Asia's chairman and chief executive, ranked second in the list, while his father was in fifth position.

James Murdoch is very familiar for Chinese people because he demonstrated a speech in February 2001 in Los Angeles, and at that time, he called the Falun Gong spiritual movement a "dangerous" and "apocalyptic cult" and lambasted the Western press for its negative portrayal of that giant Asian nation.

The Rupert's second child James, then was the Vice Executive President of the News Corp, as well as the chairman of News Corp.'s Hong Kong-based Star Group.

James said as a "dangerous" and "apocalyptic cult", the spiritual group "clearly does not have the success of China at heart."

The younger Murdoch startled even China's supporters with his zealous defense of that government's harsh crackdown on Falun Gong and criticism of Hong Kong democracy supporters. He said "these destabilizing forces today are very, very dangerous".

His comments attracted lots of attention, specially caused the dissatisfaction from members of Falun Gong.

In October, 2001, Rupert Rupert was forced to listen to what the Chinese are doing to the "peace-loving" Falun Gong movement at his 2001 AGM in Adelaide by Falun Gong's man in Australia, John Deller. John Deller asked him,"Does James Murdoch realise by making those comments he is effectively supporting the torture and murder of peaceful Chinese citizens."

Murdoch answered that based on his own "limited" knowledge of Falun Gong he "would have agreed" with James' remarks. Having been present when James made the comments, Murdoch said he knew immediately that his son had said something very "undiplomatic."

Also, Murdoch said he will pass the spokesman's remarks to James "so that we may all look at all sides of this controversy with a very open mind."

(Facts.org.cn, July 22, 2008)