MURDOCH evil genius?

As I've said many times, a fantastic case study for anyone interested in business.

Some quick links I was just sharing with a student, as they're a useful starting point on ole Rupe (and wee James):

the documentary Outfoxed (here it is) for looks at how Fox News reflects his very right-wing world-view; 'the most humble day in my life'; the pie attack; secret recordings of Murdoch; how Murdoch answered (or didn't) questions about phone-hacking; an icon of journalism condemns Murdoch as pretty much evil...  The Guardian wrote an editorial on how awful he is! They also did a handy video on his history!
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OWNERSHIP Australia debates market restrictions

It's still at the discussion stage, so it'd be no great surprise if pressure from the Murdoch or Packer empires killed the move, BUT ... at least Australia is discussing what should be the most urgent task for Media regulators, namely tackling concentration of ownership and monopolistic practices.

Full article here.

They are rather modest proposals, but as Murdoch has already stated his opposition, expect the flak to fly in a country which had a notorious history of press influence over government - look up the shady history of Gough-Whittam, viewed as too left-wing by the US, being forced out as Australian PM.

We get quite the opposite in the UK. The ITC began the great deregulatory shift, while the 2003 Communications Act makes deregulation a legal duty of the super-regulator OfCom, and a right-wing government with a friendly press behind it is hardly likely to tighten ownership laws. Indeed, C4 faces forced privatization and some feel the BBC is being run down to prepare public opinion for its eventual sale too, in the manner of the Post Office.

See: Changes to Australia's media ownership laws to be introduced within six months (Guardian)

OWNERSHIP POLITICS Maggie, Rupert: The Bare Truth

UPDATE: Graham Stewart, author of the volume of the History of the Times (which I've read, and has been used as a prop in an AS film this year!), has hit back at Evans' claims, strongly arguing that Murdoch's was the only credible bid, without which both Times papers might have gone bust (much as he argues in the book).

Not a new story, Leveson was quite withering on Murdoch's apparent inability to remember a meeting of questionable legality with Thatcher that seemed to ensure his Times bid wasn't sent to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. There are parallels with the Murdoch meetings with Conservative ministers decades later when his bid to buy up remaining BSkyB was suspiciously waved through, only for Hackgate to torpedo this, and ultimately lead to Leveson, part of his brief being to investigate improper relationships between press and politicians.

The news hook - aside from a left-wing paper seeking to raise a right-wing spectre at election time - is the revised 5th edition of Harold Evans' excellent book on the press, a great read for a wider view of the press, and a useful counterpoint to Curran and Seat on, given Evans was a Tory-supporting Sunday Times editor.

How Thatcher and Murdoch made their secret deal.

Sunifesto Murdoch right-wing vision made explicit

Wee bit careless to present so few ethnic minority faces?

I can't recall seeing quite so detailed, especially from a tabloid, as this before - an all-encompassing manifesto that quite neatly provides the clearest possible evidence of The Sun and thus Murdoch's (as much as he absurdly continues to deny influencing his papers' viewpoints and agenda!) ideological orientation.

The timing is smart - the political parties are yet to publish their manifestoes, and UKIP, Labour, Lib Dems and Tories (the major right-wing/centre-right parties) will all feel some pressure to adhere to some of this classic neo-liberal agenda.

Roy Greenslade has been discussing Murdoch's recent, rather surprising, use of Twitter to make public his previously 'private' (they were clear enough if you read his papers!) views and partisanship:

For Murdoch’s inner circle, such open political expression is a thing of wonder. Before the age of social media, he kept himself firmly in the background, careful not to expose his own public views while actively seeking to sway elections through the editorial endorsements in his many newspapers across the globe.“He made clear to his editors which politicians deserved support and those that didn’t,” said a former News Corporation executive. “But unless it was time for an endorsement, those conversations remained private.”The former executive added: “Now with his Twitter feed, the world can see how he is thinking all the time. Which is unusual for Rupert, who liked to keep his own counsel. It has surprised many of us to see him go so public.”

Its worth reading his article in full. A bit more:

Murdoch watchers see the dual-track emoting of his Twitter feed and the editorial pages of his newspapers as symbiotic. The social media site does not only provide the media magnate a direct channel to vent his opinions – it also acts as a prompt for Murdoch’s editors, they say.
David Folkenflik, who is NPR’s media correspondent and the author of Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires, said that “Twitter has changed the ball-game. Every Murdoch editor around the world will be monitoring that feed very closely – they check it repeatedly – to see whether he’s expressed himself again.”
As the power of newspapers has waned amid the fragmentation of digital discourse, the relationship between Murdoch and his newspapers has arguably turned upside-down. Before the proliferation of other news sites, he used his newspapers to amplify his personal political views; today, with the News Corp empire bigger than ever, he uses his personal Twitter feed to amplify the influence of his newspapers.
As the former News Corp executive put it: “As newspaper endorsements become less and less important, this is one way for him to maintain a high political profile.”
That trend remains visible in the UK, where Murdoch pushed the power of newspaper endorsements to the limit with the Sun’s famous 1992 front page on the day after the Conservative party’s general election victory: “It’s the Sun Wot Won It”. Today, the Sun has to work that much harder to have the same impact – this week it launched the endorsement process for the UK’s May general election, 100 days before the event. It dubbed the paper’s campaign the “Sunifesto” and flagged it as “100 days to save Britain”.

THE SUNIFESTO: ANALYSIS

As to that 'Sunifesto', there are a few especially interesting points to consider:

Hackgate: is Murdoch next in the dock? PM Cameron too?

Rupert Murdoch has been officially informed by Scotland Yard that detectives want to interview him as a suspect as part of their inquiry into allegations of crime at his British newspapers. (source)

Rupert, and indeed James, Murdoch may have edged a step closer to facing criminal trial themselves, though there remain considerable barriers before such a remarkable event could come about.

The verdict on Coulson increases the possibility that Murdoch's UK company, News UK (formerly News International) could be charged as a corporation, which in turn could potentially lead to the prosecution of members of the UK company's former board of directors, potentially including Rupert and James Murdoch.

IPSO: Joan Smith's scathing verdict

The press is obviously awash with news of the Hackgate trial outcome, which I'll come to in time, but here's a very succinct (taking just the 1st paragraph quoted below) view on why IPSO is just yet another figleaf for press business as usual by veteran journalist Joan Smith:

The grandly named Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) is just the discredited Press Complaints Commission (PCC) in a new guise. We have been round this course many times, going back several decades, following a nearly identical trajectory: scandalous behaviour by sections of the press, public outrage, the announcement of an inquiry, followed by a new regulator which looks very much like the old.

Select Committee role: the 2011 Murdoch hearing

As well as the formal media regulators we have to consider the role of Parliament in overseeing media regulation. Governments can set up one-off investigations at times of scandal over media (usually press) behaviour, as happened with the 1970 Younger Committee, 1989 Calcutt Committee, and the Leveson Inquiry (July 2011, reported November 2012, with a 2nd part to come following the end of criminal trials). The 1985 Peacock Committee was set up with the aim of getting support for privatising the BBC or at least applying free market principles to the TV sector rather than any scandal.

When issues are seen as too sensitive for one party/government to deal with, the major parties can agree to set up a Royal Commission, as has happened three times on the press.

Its easy to overlook the important role of backbench MPs here.

Through the Culture, Media, Sport Select Committee they can investigate any area of the media, and have been holding regular hearings into press standards, privacy and libel, with some particularly famous hearings including appearances by the Murdochs. You can watch the entire July 2011 hearing at which Rupert Murdoch, having declared this was the "most humble day in my life", was attacked with a shaving foam pie and rescued by his much younger wife (who would divorce him in 2014). James Murdoch also took considerable umbrage at Labour MP Tom Watson's description of News Corp as a "mafia-like organisation".

Some useful links:
Wiki: DCMS
2010 guide to junior Culture ministers
Wiki: Culture Secretary
Shadow Culture Secretary (2013: Harriet Harman)
Mail report on the July 2011 hearing
NY Times on the same

Times/Murdoch + (non-)Freedom of Press

When Murdoch took over The Times newspaper in 1981 he was forced to guarantee editorial freedom from proprietorial interference (ie, from him). Independent directors were added to the board, and its written into the company's constitution that, for example, an editor can neither be appointed nor fired without their agreement. I'm about half way through the 1,000+ page official history of The Times (the volume covering the 80s; there are 5 or 6 more equally long books covering the earlier history!) in which the takeover features extensively - it has in any case been heavily featured in every book written about the press since the 1980s, as Murdoch's ability to control the editorial line of 'his' papers is seen as the exemplar of owner interference.
This came to mind from reading Roy Greenslade's column (Jan 2013), in which he urges the current independent directors to resign en masse as The Times editor has just resigned, stating Murdoch made it clear he wanted someone else in, but the board weren't consulted. This is a great, contemporary, example that helps evidence the argument that proprietors (owners) do have editorial influence over their papers.
Full article copied in below.

Times independent directors are not independent and should resign

When James Harding "resigned" as editor of The Times a month ago he told the paper's journalists:

"It has been made clear to me that News Corporation would like to appoint a new editor of the Times. I have, therefore, agreed to stand down."

His decision evidently surprised Rupert Murdoch. And it certainly shocked the independent national directors (INDs) of Times Newspapers Holdings. One of them was so upset he told friends he was planning to resign.
Given their remit, as set out in their witness statement to the Leveson inquiry in October 2011, I believe all should have resigned en masse. But there's no dishonour in doing it now.

Ken Clarke's pro-statutory reg arguments

We're not far away now from Lord Leveson's initial findings, but no matter what the outcomes of the Leveson Inquiry you need to be able to outline and critically discuss arguments for and against each form of regulation (statutory, quango, mixed [BBC], industry self-regulation, wider laws, laissez faire non/de-regulation [Desmond/Northern Shell]). Former Justic Sec Ken Clarke's arguments, presented to the Inquiry, are very useful as an example of well-reasoned pro statutory regulation arguments. It seems likely his Conservative government colleagues will oppose any such change, as this clashes with their free market ideology (and political opponents accuse them of being too close to Murdoch still), with PM Cameron and Michael Gove making prominent speeches on this line.

I've copied in below the full article, which has stats from a YouGov poll for Hacked Off which outlines the extremely high level of public distrust of the media and support for statutory regulation (as with any poll its worth asking how well informed the public are in making such judgements), and outlines Clarke's main points and proposals for a much beefed-up PCC-successor with powers to fine and force apologies on any page they wish.

Ken Clarke tells Leveson he supports statutory press regulation

Clarke's remarks come as poll shows overwhelming public support for greater controls despite other ministers' opposition

• Patrick Wintour, political editor
• The Guardian, Wednesday 17 October 2012 18.38 BST

Ken Clarke backs a fully independent body capable of imposing fines in a letter to Lord Leveson. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

Ken Clarke, the minister without portfolio, has written to Lord Leveson saying he is not opposed to a form of statutory regulation for the press, pointing out that a similar statutory underpinning of the judiciary has not undermined its independence.
Clarke also dismissed those who claim that regulation would amount to Armageddon and backed a fully independent body capable of imposing fines.
His intervention follows sharp warnings by other ministers, including Francis Maude and Michael Gove, opposing any intervention to inhibit press freedom in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.
Clarke's remarks come as a poll showed overwhelming support for greater controls over the media and widespread distrust over the closeness of politicians to those in the media.

Churchill to Blair: history of PMs + press owners

How Guardian's Steve Bell covered Blair's appearance

There's been a lot written in the last 24 hours about ex-PM Blair and his ties to the Murdoch press, following his appearance at the Leveson Inquiry.

The closeness of PMs to the press owners (press barons still?) has been an issue for at least a century (see Toynbee article below), but when PM Thatcher knighted/ennobled several right-wing proprietors and editors, it seemed the walls between the fourth estate and those it is meant to hold to account could not be brought any lower. We're seeing this come out every day in Leveson: our PM is close pals with various key Murdoch employees; the Culture Secretary and his special advisor swapping 100s of emails and text messages with News Corp's PR chief. Gordon Brown rather desparately brought together a motley crew:

The media mogul also recalled a time of better relations with the Browns, when Sarah Brown, the then prime minister's wife, hosted a "slumber party" attended by Brooks, Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, and his daughter Elisabeth. Smiling at the recollection of the "pyjama party", Murdoch sought to downplay the intimacy of the event, saying it was "just a bunch of women, complaining about their husbands probably".

(This was from Murdoch's 2011 evidence to Leveson) None of them, arguably, went quite as far as Blair, who become godfather to Rupert Murdoch's child with his new wife.

This extraordinary level of closeness fuels the wide belief that our most senior politicians have made deals with Murdoch to gain his papers' support:

At the end of last year Lord Mandelson said the Sun was supporting the Conservative party because News International had agreed a "contract" with David Cameron. The Tories responded by saying that, if there was a contract, Mandelson should explain what contract existed when the Sun supported Labour in 1997, 2001 and 2005.

Well, now we know what that contract was. Price explains in his book:

Blair and [Alastair] Campbell took to heart the advice of the Australian prime minister, Paul Keating, on how to deal with Murdoch: "He's a big bad bastard, and the only way you can deal with him is to make sure he thinks you can be a big bad bastard too. You can do deals with him, without ever saying a deal is done. But the only thing he cares about is his business and the only language he respects is strength."
Blair and his team believed they had achieved exactly that. A deal had been done, although with nothing in writing. If Murdoch were left to pursue his business interests in peace he would give Labour a fair wind.

In the footnotes Price, who worked at No 10 as Campbell's deputy, attributes that final sentence to "private information".

Of course, this makes Mandelson's claim (which the Tories deny) about a "deal" of some kind between Cameron and Murdoch all the more plausible. But we'll probably have to wait until we get the first Price-type book from a Tory insider until we learn any more detail.

This comes from an article about Lance Price's (former press spokesperson for PM Blair) book:

Where Powers Lies: Prime Ministers v the Media covers all the premiers from David Lloyd George to Gordon Brown and it shows that, in some respects, nothing much has changed since 1916. If you don't believe me, try the prime ministers v the media quiz, which shows that journalist and politicians have been saying the same things about each other for almost 100 years.

Steve Bell cartoon from back in 1998. See this Indie article from the time: "Murdoch's courtship of Blair finally pays off"

Here's an excerpt from a review of that book; this backs up what Toynbee says below about the long, long history of press owners bullying seemingly all-powerful politicians. (If you read further in the article, there's an interesting point on how, in dumbing down political communication to the tabloid level of enquiring after Susan Boyle's health (Brown) or writing in a tabloid to call for the release of a fictional soap character (Blair), politicians have fuelled the decline in respect for politcians and political discourse).

Winston Churchill threatened to close down the Daily Mirror. An utterly ­paranoid Harold Wilson punched a reporter in the stomach. Stanley Baldwin denounced the press barons as harlots. John Major drove himself demented by reading the first editions of the papers before he went to bed and once called the editor of the Sun to Number 10 in order to whinge about a story ­alleging that he was using hair dye. Tony Blair was eulogised by most of the media when he arrived in Downing Street and departed denouncing it as "a feral beast". Gordon Brown is a ­journalist who now seems to hate most members of his former profession.
The relationship between prime ministers and the media is a complex and combustible mix in which mutual fascination exists alongside reciprocated fear and loathing. It was ever thus. Bill Deedes, information minister under Harold Macmillan and later editor of the Daily Telegraph, observed: "There is a great invisible struggle going on as to who really has the most power – the government or the newspapers."

Blair responded to Price's claims at Leveson, arguing that 6 major decisions went against Murdoch's interests:

They included BSkyB's aborted attempt to buy Manchester United, the establishment of media regulator Ofcom, successive increases in the cost of the licence fee and expansion of the BBC's channels and online offering.

...........................................

If we move on now to Polly Toynbee (famous left-wing Guardian columnist), she wrote an article which explicitly tackles the impact of the lack of political/ideological diverisity in our mainly right-wing press; are Labour leaders/PMs under greater pressure to strike deals with media magnates? There's a lot of very useful detail in the following excerpt from the full article (28.5.12):

The warped press is the single greatest obstacle to Labour gaining power. Once having gingerly stepped inside, the party never feels secure and fears its own shadow. Spin was in fact self-defence, using what Blair called Labour's first professional media operation. Never forget what Labour is up against: 80% of newspaper readership for a hundred years has belonged not just to conservatives, but mainly to extreme maverick press barons, using their power to control politics.

The next paragraph takes us back to the early 1940s, still in the era of the press barons such as Beaverbrook + Northcliffe; it then moves on to recent years (Conrad Black owned the Tele, now its the billionaire Barclay brothers [Gdn articles]):

Churchill had to take Beaverbrook into his wartime cabinet to keep him quiet. Northcliffe, asked for his formula, said he gave his Mail readers "a daily hate" – and Blair was dead right to decide nothing could be done about the Mail's poisonous hostility. Conrad Black, after years of hectoring Labour with his off-the-scale neocon views in the Telegraph, is only just out of jail. The Barclay brothers are scarcely more reasonable, tax-avoiding in their feudal fiefdom of Sark, while Red Hot TV owner Richard Desmond's Express is beyond parody.Now Murdoch and his empire are at last in the dock for the vile activities of his gutter press, as scrutiny turns to his cat-and-mouse intimidation and manipulation of politicians.

There's the impact of the 1992 election campaign, widely seen as being won by the Tories because of hysterical press opposition to Labour, but also the way in which the more neutral TV news covers press stories, giving their biased agenda further publicity and influence (the Italy example: see my links list; imagine Murdoch owned even more of the press/TV AND was Prime Minister...):

Historians underestimate the might of the media forces against Labour: apart from Berlusconi's Italy, Europe's media is more balanced. Blair rightly says our broadcasters' agendas are dragged along by the frenzy of sound from the press. He talked of how deeply he and his entourage were seared by the treatment of Neil Kinnock in 1992, with that "It's the Sun wot won it" gloat. "I was absolutely determined that we should not be subject to the same onslaught."
John Major marked his downfall from the day Murdoch turned against him – the day Murdoch gave Blair the thumbs up. What did it take? Blair was open: whatever it took to placate, charm and persuade him to give Labour a fair hearing. Did that include shaping policies to please Murdoch? No, he absolutely denied it. No, he never gave Murdoch what he wanted commercially either: not ITV, not sport's crown jewels or Manchester United – nor did Labour cut back the BBC. And Murdoch detested the strengthening of Ofcom.

That last point on OfCom is an important one: the 2003 Communications Act is widely seen as a stitch-up that rather suspiciously enabled Murdoch to buy C5 (he didn't, beaten to it by Desmond) BUT, even though OfCom was explicitly set up to deregulate, it still held much more power than Murdoch wanted - he'd surely love a TV regulator as weak as the PCC? Blair also makes the point we've talked about many times: any party that tried to regulate the press would face intense opposition from the press, and would struggle to win an election.

But once in power, why didn't Blair stand up to Murdoch? "Frankly, I decided as a political leader that I was going to manage that and not confront it." Since Margaret Thatcher set aside media ownership laws to let Murdoch acquire 40% of readership plus Sky, why didn't he break up overmighty empires? Impossible, Blair said, for any government: he left his "feral beasts" attack to his last days. Taking on the overmighty press would have meant an "absolute major confrontation" lasting years, while the public wanted action on health, schools and crime. "That's the political judgment you have to make."

.....................
Leading off that last point, Blair accused the Mail in particular of pursuing a personal vendetta against him and his family:

Tony Blair has accused Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against his wife, revealing that their lawyers had sent more than 30 letters of complaint about the paper's coverage over a five-year period between 2006 and 2011.
Blair, who once likened the media to a "feral beast", told the Leveson inquiry that newspapers were guilty of an "abuse of power" by vigorously pursuing people it did not like or disagreed with "full on, full frontal, day in, day out".
"I think a certain amount of comment is perfectly legitimate," said Blair. "Some of the papers, in particular the Mail group, took it too far and it turned into a personal vendetta.
"You're always going to feel sensitive about your own family but I thought and do think that the attacks on her and my children were just unnecessary and wrong.
"The fact is when you fall out with the controlling element of the Daily Mail that is when you are going to be subject to a huge and sustained attack."
Blair said he had asked his office to analyse 50 Daily Mail stories about him after the 2005 general election, and 50 stories prior to his departure from Downing Street. He said all 100 were negative.

 You can read how the wider press covered his performance here.

2003 Commns Act: Blair-Murdoch deal?

For now, just this:

Leveson inquiry: Tessa Jowell quizzed Tony Blair over Murdoch deal

Former culture secretary sought assurances from then prime minister that there had been no backdoor deal with Rupert Murdoch on cross-media ownership rules

• Dan Sabbagh
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 May 2012 11.32 BST

Tessa Jowell gives evidence to the Leveson inquiry

Tessa Jowell, the former culture secretary, has told the Leveson inquiry that she sought assurances from then prime minister Tony Blair that there had been no backdoor deal with Rupert Murdoch when she was given the job in 2001.
The former Labour cabinet minister had the task of reviewing cross-media ownership law as part of the Communications Act that was due to go before parliament at that time – and wanted to be assured she had a free hand in rewriting the rules.
Giving evidence before the judicial inquiry into press standards on Monday morning, Jowell said she saw Blair "within a couple of days of my appointment".
She asked the prime minister about whether his relationship with the media mogul would colour her thinking.
"I asked him whether or not any deal had been done with Rupert Murdoch on … the cross-media ownership rules. He gave me an absolute assurance which I completely accepted that there had been no prior agreement," she said.
Given that, Jowell said that she told Blair that it was best "if you don't see the parties", by which she meant any interested media owners, and that it was her job to "take this and come back to you with proposals". She told Lord Justice Leveson that Blair was content with this approach.
Jowell steered through the Communications Act, which eventually saw a partial relaxation of cross media ownership rules – allowing US groups such as Disney and Murdoch's News Corporation to buy British free to air broadcasters. That could have allowed News Corp to buy Channel 5.
The former culture secretary also told the inquiry that Blair asked her to see if cross-media ownership rules could be relaxed to the point where News Corp could have bought ITV or Channel 5.
Jowell had presented proposals that would have prevented News Corp, or any UK newspaper owner with a market share of more than 20%, from taking over ITV or Channel 5.
However, at a private meeting in March 2002, Blair asked for "further discussion of the merits and effects of the different approaches we could take to the rule preventing anyone owning 20% of both the national newspaper market and a Channel 3 [ITV] or Channel 5 service", according to a note prepared by officials at Jowell's Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Jowell told the inquiry that said she had no detailed recollection of the conversation at the meeting. But she acknowledged that when it came to cross media ownership rules Blair's "instinct in relation to this were, I think, more deregulatory than mine".
Shortly after, a second meeting between Jowell and Blair concluded that it was appropriate to allow News Corp to buy Channel 5 – but not ITV. An official note from April 2002 confirms this final, agreed position.
Jowell said the change in thinking was an example of the normal policy development process and that the proposed change in rules as regarding Channel 5 was not a big development.
The Channel 5 proposal went forward and became part of the Communications Act which was passed by Parliament, while the ITV restriction remains today.

More to follow

2012/13 Government Media policy bill?

JUNE 2014 - IN BRIEF: Analysis of what the Tory-led government might change in media policy/regulation through a new Communications Bill. This bill seems to have quietly disappeared! Its not among the final 13 announced in June 2014, before the May 2015 general election.

Analysis of the decision to delay the Communications green paper at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/17/communications-green-paper-delayed. With Culture Secretary Hunt preoccupied with preparing for an appearance at Leveson, and facing calls for his resignation (163 emails released by Leveson appear to show he kept News Corp briefed on gov policy even as he was supposed to be assessing the company's bid to take over the rest of BSkyB in his capacity as gov minister), the new bill on media laws has been delayed, and won't now appear until autumn 2012. Even then, it will probably be delayed further as Leveson reports in October 2012, so his recommendations will probably be worked into a revised bill which may not be released until 2013.
Indeed, (this is my analysis, not whats said in the article) given the accusations of collusion, possibly criminal, between Hunt + PM Cameron with Murdoch/News Corp, any media/communications bill from this Tory-led gov are likely to face long drawn out debates, and may struggle to get passed before the 2015 election.
What direction might a new bill take? In a word, deregulation (again, this is my analysis, not whats said in the article): slashing regulation of the terrestrial 'public service broadcasters' (allowing ITV, C4, C5 to broadcast less news/regional/children's programming, lengthen the amount of ads per hour, and allow further concentration of ownership, such as a merger between C4 + C5), and probably some form of attack on the BBC (which Tory London Lord Mayor Boris Johnson claimed this week [May 2012] was "left-wing" and must in future be headed by a Tory [he seems to ignore the fact that the BBC Chairman Lord Patten is a Tory!!!]). As far back as 1985, the Conservatives have sought to kill the idea of an independent, publicly-owned broadcaster: when Thatcher appointed Lord Peacock to report on the future of the BBC + UK TV generally, she expected him to recommend privatisation - but his 1986 Peacock Report explicitly stated that a free market in TV would simply lead to dumbed-down TV and argued that a license fee-funded independent BBC, NOT funded by advertising, should remain as a guarantee of quality UK TV). See this post for more on the Tory/right-wing hatred of the BBC.

[Whats this 'Communications green paper' I hear you ask: 'The green paper marks the start of a legislative process that will culminate in a communications bill scheduled for the 2014/15 session of parliament.' Don't forget you have access to links about the main communications acts from the past 30 years at this post, links such as these:

Future Tory Communications Act?

Jeremy Hunt to 'radically rethink' media regulation [Gdn Jan2011];
Leveson inquiry: questions for Mr Hunt [Gdn editorial Apr2012];
No Minister: Any chance for the Communications Act? [Gdn Dec2011];
Organ Grinder/Steve Hewlett (TV reg equiv to Roy Greenslade as leading UK expert) micro-site for Jeremy Hunt articles;
How Hunt got his fingers burnt (Broadcast Apr2012 - Broadcast is TV industry's leading mag);]

Communications green paper delayed while Jeremy Hunt deals with Leveson

Policy thinking on internet piracy, public service broadcasting and spectrum unlikely to be published until the autumn

• Dan Sabbagh
• The Guardian, Friday 18 May 2012

Policy thoughts go on the back burner … Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt had hoped to publish the communications green paper in the spring. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The planned publication of a communications green paper has been put on hold until after Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, has given evidence to the Leveson inquiry and dealt with accusations that he favoured News Corporation in its negotiations to buy all of BSkyB.
Those close to Hunt's Department for Culture, Media and Sport say the communications green paper, which will set out the government's initial policy thinking in areas as diverse as internet piracy, public service broadcasting and spectrum allocation, has largely been written but is now unlikely to be published until autumn at the earliest.
Hunt and his deputy, Ed Vaizey, had hoped to publish the document in the spring but Hunt's attention has been concentrated on the need to give a full account to Lord Justice Leveson of his relationship with Rupert Murdoch's company and see off Labour calls for him to resign.
One source said Hunt and the DCMS were distracted by the Murdoch controversy and it would be impossible for the document to be published until September at the earliest, assuming the culture secretary gives a successful performance before the judge.
There are also suggestions that the green paper could be shelved completely, with ministers instead moving to publish a white paper that by then would incorporate any relevant recommendations arising from the Leveson inquiry about the future of press regulation.
Leveson is due to report in October, and if his document appears before the green paper, it may have to be redrafted to include the government's initial response to his findings.
If Hunt were to be replaced, a new culture secretary would want to review the document before agreeing to release it. The culture secretary has been under fire after 163 pages of emails written by News Corp lobbyist Frédéric Michel were released by the company to the Leveson inquiry.
Those emails, written over several months, appeared to show that Hunt's office was passing information about the minister's BSkyB bid approval process to the company during 2010 and 2011. Michel repeatedly described information he had obtained to his boss, James Murdoch, as emerging from Hunt himself.
The culture secretary denied there was an inappropriate relationship between himself and News Corp. But his special adviser Adam Smith did resign when it emerged that the bulk of Michel's contact was with Smith rather than Hunt directly.
Hunt said that the "volume and tone" of the Smith/Michel communication could not be justified, but insisted that he oversaw the Sky bid correctly in a "quasi-judicial" manner.
Ministers are still officially insisting that the green paper will emerge in the spring. But the joke understood to be circulating in at the DCMS is that spring in Whitehall can run from anywhere from February to November.
The green paper marks the start of a legislative process that will culminate in a communications bill scheduled for the 2014/15 session of parliament.
Meanwhile Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, told a meeting of the campaign group Hacked Off that there should be the "equivalent of the knife amnesty" for newspapers and politicians before regulatory reforms are introduced for the press. She said both sides needed to stop attacking each other and start with a clean slate once the Leveson inquiry made its recommendations.
"At the end of the day what I hope is that we have is no victors and no vanquished here," she said.

Oborne proposes jailing lying journalists!

Rather unexpected contribution to the current debate, from Tele columnist Peter Oborne; he proposed in his appearance before Leveson that both politicians and journos should be jailed if they knowingly lied. He also attacked the over-cosy relationship between press/politicians, saying that political coverage had become little more than two elites talking within a closed circle; the press were manifestly failing to carry out their vital democratic function of holding government + politicians generally to account. He highlighted the attendance of PMs, gov ministers, party leaders and other media bigwigs at the annual News International bash as a strong symbol of this unhealthy lack of distance, and the power of Murdoch in particular. He also criticised the way the Sun in particular covered the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which actively pushed readers to support "our boys", and the wider press for ignoring the Guardian's isolated reportage of the Hackgate scandal.
Leveson didn't seem impressed by the idea of criminalising lying, but its an interesting one - and notably doesn't involve a regulator but wider laws.

Leveson inquiry: make political lying a criminal offence, says Peter Oborne

Severe sanctions could restore politicians' and journalists' integrity, Daily Telegraph columnist tells hearing

Lisa O'Carroll, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 May 2012

Peter Oborne has called for the integrity of parliament to be restored

Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph columnist, has told the Leveson inquiry that "political lying" should be made a criminal offence for both politicians and journalists reporting on Westminster.
Oborne, the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator, said during his witness appearance at the inquiry on Thursday that it had become far too easy for politicians to lie or make misleading statements to parliament and a severe sanction might restore some integrity in Westminster.
He said directors of publicly listed companies could go to jail if they make false or misleading statements on shares and assets. "Whereas politicians I have noticed, freely make entirely false statements about how they are conducting themselves and why one should vote for them," Oborne added.
He said it would very healthy if such a criminal sanction could be applied to politicians and journalists.

Lord Justice Leveson put it to him that such a draconian penalty would have "a chilling effect upon journalism".

Oborne said it could be a workable system if the standard of proof was high enough. "A lie, is a deliberate untruth, something you write or something which is not true, which you say or right down in the full knowledge that it is not true."

Earlier, Oborne told Leveson that journalism was a "noble profession", but many in the lobby system in Westminster did not seek out the truth but merely "suck up to powerful people".

He decried the cosiness between successive governments and News International, which he said was regularly brought into the "inner sanctum" with privileged seats at Labour and Tory party conferences.

The News International annual party in the conference season had an "extraordinary power", attended by the "entire cabinet" and "influence brokers and the senior members of the media class", he said.

"Our democracy was starting to become a private conversation between elite groups," Oborne added. "Political reporting, as I observed it, had become a matter of private deals, arrangements invisible to voters."

He blamed new Labour for creating this system where favours would be traded with pet journalists, while those who remained fastidiously outside the system, such as the Daily Telegraph's former political editor George Jones, would be "frozen out".
He said Labour had created a "narrative … that there was a hostile press" when, "on the contrary", they had "manipulated a particular kind of acceptable public truth".
In a sustained attack on Labour and its policy of spin, he said "they were interested in truth if it served their political purpose".

He called for a new "apartheid" to be introduced which would put some distance between politicians and journalists.

"[We are at] a moment in British history where a political system is coming to an end, based on media dominance. Parliament has an opportunity to re-assert its traditional function," Oborne said.
He added he was pleasantly surprised when he heard from a "relevant" figure that when David Cameron first became Conservative leader he decided to keep some distance from Rupert Murdoch.
Oborne said a News International source had told him that they had coached Cameron on what to say when he first met Murdoch, but he had not played ball and the meeting went "badly".
The inquiry has heard that Cameron became close to the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, attending her wedding in June 2009 and signing off texts "LOL".

Oborne was also critical of the Sun's coverage of the Iraq and Afghan wars. He claimed the Sun's one dimensional coverage of "our boys" had failed to engage on the serious questions of Britain's complicity in rendition, illegal killings, use of drones and human rights abuses.

He added that there was an unethical silence on this across Fleet Street with some notable exceptions, such as the reporting by the Guardian's Ian Cobain.

Oborne said the press had also operated an "omerta" when it came to phone hacking but urged Leveson not to conclude that this was because any alleged illegal activities were going on at rival papers.
He put it to Leveson that there should not be more press regulation because of the phone-hacking scandal because this was a failure of the police to enforce the law.
Leveson said this would be like a motorist caught speeding protesting that the police had not enforced the law.

(emphasis added by me)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/17/leveson-inquiry-political-lying-criminal-offence

PLURALISM: cap News Corp?

V useful article here which examines the concept of pluralism - the concept of having diverse opinions present and represented through our media, not a narrow range or limited number. This is a 'wider social issue', and also tied to the very dea of regulation: without some regulation the 'free market' would inevitably lead to concentration of ownership even worse than we currently have, and the ever-larger scale of these few global conglomerates would likely narrow even further the diversity of views and opinions represented. Such corporate behemoths as News Corp are unlikely to favourably report moves to increase Corporation Tax, the top end of Income Tax, to boost wages or strengthen trade union power, because none of this is in the self-interest of a large corporation.
Enders & Goodall specifically suggest a 15% market share (of all media, not just a single sector whether TV or press) should the maximum permitted; any company which rises above this should be forced to sell off media assets until they fall below 15% again. As we'll see, OfCom have in the past forced News Corp to sell shares in ITV companies as this went against the fundamental principle of pluralism.

Article link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/30/cap-media-ownership-lessons-leveson

News Corp case shows a cap on media ownership is the way forward

The lessons from the Leveson inquiry are clear: the hold on our media of proprietors like Murdoch must be restricted

• Claire Enders and  Chris Goodall
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 April 2012

The Dow Jones news ticker in New York's Times Square displays part of the headline on News Corp's bid to buy the Down Jones Company in May 2007. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/REUTERS

In the past few days an impressive political unanimity has been developing behind the view that Britain needs to reintroduce clear limits on media ownership and define what plurality means. The UK dismantled most of the specific rules governing who can own media companies in 2003, and in all but a few cases the competition authorities were left with complete autonomy.
Indeed, only a last-minute amendment to the Communications Act allowed governments to intervene to protect plurality. Without that protection, the full takeover of BSkyB would have proceeded with no check whatsoever, even though it enlarged the scale and scope of News Corporation, already the largest media company in the UK and, indeed, the world.
The concept of plurality remains entirely undefined in law. To date Ofcom and other bodies have largely assumed that plurality is entirely about the media providing a wide range of news and opinion to citizens. In the UK, News Corp controls over 35% of newspaper circulation and most news on commercial radio and BSkyB, and has significant financial muscle. An increase in this scale and scope could have detrimental effects on all News Corp's competitors, and thereby on British democracy.

P.Morgan says Murdoch scorned PCC

I read about this recently in The Phone Hacking Scandal book by Keeble & Mair (2012), though I can't recall which chapter - so I googled and found an account of the same point here.

Morgan chimed in: “Having been one of his editors, I know that whenever we tripped up over what are, by these standards, relatively minor indiscretions, in terms of breaching the Press Complaints Commission Code or whatever, he was always incredibly quick to be publicly censorious of me or whoever the editor was … and remind us forcefully, personally, ‘You’ve got to abide by the rules of the game.’”

Morgan’s on-camera testimony deviated significantly from his account of Murdoch’s attitude in The Insider, Morgan’s memoir of life on Fleet Street—in which Murdoch is portrayed as privately dismissive of all such rules. “I’m sorry about all that press complaining thingamajig,” Morgan quotes Murdoch as apologizing after publicly taking him to task, in one instance of misbehavior, for appearance’s’ sake. “He doesn’t really give a toss about it.”

The 1st paragraph above was Morgan on TV in July 2011; the 2nd quotes from his own book (which I've read - its entertaining and informative about the press generally, even if it is probably inaccurate on many counts) and shows the utter contempt Murdoch held for the PCC. He's publicly go through the motions of treating it and its rulings as a serious matter, but privately simply shrugged off and ignored (according to Morgan) it. In the book chapter I read, Murdoch went on to ask about his strategies for boosting circulation/profits; economics (and influence?) are the press baon's priorities this would suggest, not probity or quality, fair, responsible or accurate journalism. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the PCC.

James Murdoch humiliated + pushed out

You'll find pretty much all you need to know from this article by the author of a biography of his old man: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/04/james-murdoch-news-corp-scion
You can find much more at www.guardian.co.uk/media/jamesmurdoch
(As I've previously noted:

Michael Wolff's The Man Who Owned the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch (look at the 'Customer who bought this also bought' list for more useful reads - this one has the 'Look Inside' feature meaning you can preview some content for free and take notes).

If you're doing business, Murdoch/NewsCorp makes for a great case study - including the current moves to shift him out of NewsCorp by shareholders.)

OfCom gets tough on Murdoch!!!

I'm not often taken by surprise by media matters, but this one does come as a shock...
24 hours after the PCC announced its intention to dissolve itself, form an interim body (what a nonsense!), and form a new press self-regulator in time to try and pre-empt Leveson's report and recommendations, OfCom drops its own bombshell. According to R5 news this morning, it is set to formally investigate whether Murdoch meets the 'fit and proper person' test to head a broadcast media organisation.
While I think this is a laudable move (that perhaps should have happened some time ago), the surprise is that it comes now. The Tories openly spoke about scrapping OfCom and 'repatriating' (taking back) the powers of the independent regulator into the DCMS (government) during the election campaign, leading to OfCom - disgracefully I felt - abandoning the pro-active stance it had been developing and shrinking itself in advance of such Tory action.
So, two years into the Tory-led coalition government (the Culture [DCMS] Secretary is a Tory, Jeremy Hunt), this is effectively a fight-back by our 'independent' regulator (the extent to which they'd bowed to government pressure, and changes made by Hunt in office, have made the extent of the independence rather more questionable than before - though part of the Tories' hostility was that they felt OfCom chairman Ed Richards was a Labour place-man).
Lets be clear though: the Murdoch issue is not confined to one party. Tony Blair went to extraordinary lengths to win Murdoch/News International's support for Labour; in 1996 he flew to Australia to address a News Corp shareholders conference and hold private talks with Murdoch, who shortly after had his UK papers announce their support for Labour (who then trounced the Tory government in the 1997 election). Labour desperation to retain that support seemed to influence their media policy, as it had the Tory Thatcher government before them, with new media laws seemingly designed specifically to advantage Murdoch's media empire. Even after Murdoch reverted to Tory-supporting in Sept 2009, Gordon Brown's Labour tried desperately to win back that support, leading them to back off ensuring a proper investigation was held into phone hacking (Brown himself was not only hacked but allegedly blackmailed by The S*n).
Video: Sun abandons Labour for Conservatives [PressTV news report]

That doesn't mean there isn't a left/right issue though: 'New Labour' was widely seen as a basically right-wing party, and Blair the real heir to Thatcher - the party Murdoch's papers supported was no longer a left-wing party, having concluded that with such a hostile right-wing press in the UK, there was no hope of left-wing policies getting them elected.

Some further reading:
'Snouts in the trough: 'Independent' media regulator costs taxpayer millions and holds Middle England in contempt' - classic right-wing pov from Daily Mail in 2011

Talk to anyone in the insular, self-regarding, oh-so-liberal London media world about Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards and they will say he’s brainy, self-assured and carries a vast amount of information around in his head.
 ...

But more than anything, Ed Richards is a leading member of the New Labour political establishment, an interconnected, back-scratching mafia that, while bankrupting Britain, made its own members seriously rich.

For Richards has done extremely well for himself — the total amount of his salary and pension benefits since he took the helm of Ofcom in 2006 is heading towards the £2 million mark. [...]

www.politics.co.uk/reference/ofcom - Brief but solid outline
'Jeremy Hunt's links with Rupert Murdoch empire under scrutiny' - D.Telegraph report, Dec 23rd 2010
'MPs attack Sky News spin-off to clear way for BSkyB bid: Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, came under fire from MPs for his decision to clear the way for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to takeover BSkyB.' - D.Tele report 3rd March 2011 (with a video report on the page):

In a statement in the House of Commons Mr Hunt said he was minded to wave through the proposed deal after News Corp undertook to spin off Sky News into a new independent company.

Labour's Dennis Skinner called the decision a "disastrous day for democracy", while Green Party leader Caroline Lucas said Mr Murdoch had an "unhealthy influence" over Britain's media landscape. [...]

There were signs of the fightback from OfCom in January 2012: 'Ofcom chief: new regulatory regime could cover all media: Arguing for common standards across TV, web video and digital publishing is not call for 'super regulator', says Ed Richards' - Media Guardian report (and the proposal surely would merit the descriptor super regulator'?!)
Wiki
Indie reports on the story I heard on R5: 'Ofcom looks at stripping Murdoch of BSkyB: Mogul under scrutiny in 'fit and proper' test' (9th March 2012) Details 'Project Apple', under which OfCom is investigating whether Murdoch has failed the 'fit and proper persons' criteria required under the 1990 and 1996 Broadcasting Acts for anyone holding a broadcast license. 
'Dancing around the inevitable: The Oxford Media Convention by David Elstein, 27 January 2012 Regulatory reform of Britain's media is coming: the question is how, and when. This year's annual Oxford event brought the big players together to wrangle over the future of the press.'
Interesting + useful site, not just the article; from the SpinWatch blog: 'Ofcom and BSkyB bid: We should have looked at News Corporation’s political influence' [1st Feb 2012]

Ed Richards, Ofcom’s chief executive, told Lord Justice Leveson that if given another chance to look again at News Corporation’s aborted bid for total control of BSkyB it would have placed more emphasis on the “risk to the democratic process.”

...

on reflection, Ofcom now felt the proposed BSkyB takeover did raise the need for a wider review of plurality because the conventional analysis of the concentration of media ownership was based on the proportion of readers and viewers and that was deficient because it did not measure the influence on the political process which a company might exercise.

Lord Justice Leveson said Ofcom’s admission that its regulatory regime “did not do the job properly” with regard to the democratic process was highly significant to the work of his inquiry. The judge is taking evidence from politicians and media proprietors in May and he said he would like to know before the end of June the scope of any recommendations which Ofcom intended to make to the government; he and his team of assessors intended discussing possible options by early July.

Earlier in his evidence Richards explained that companies could acquire “a very substantial share of the media market” not solely by mergers or similar transactions but also by the sudden closure of other media outlets.

“You could find because of organic growth that a media company could have too much political power...the current legislation has no means of assessing that...that is a very serious deficiency in a highly dynamic market.”

After Lord Justice Leveson said Ofcom’s investigation into the scope of its own regulatory role “plays absolutely full square” into the work of  his own inquiry, Colette Bowe, Ofcom’s chairman, said the regulator would do its utmost to ensure that the judge was supplied with details of any proposals Ofcom intended to make to the government.

She agreed with Ed Richards about the deficiencies in Ofcom’s power to look into the impact of significant power in the media market; Ofcom already had such powers in relation to the telecoms sector but did not have the same powers with regard to media plurality and the impact on the democratic process.

During their oral evidence neither the judge nor the inquiry’s counsel Corine Parry Hoskins asked either Richards or Bowe about the pre-election pledge given by David Cameron in June 2009 that a future Conservative government would remove Ofcom’s policy-making functions and return them to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Cameron said that in future Ofcom’s remit would be “restricted to narrow technical and enforcement roles” because the regulator had become an “unaccountable bureaucracy” which was taking decisions which should be the responsibility of ministers “accountable to Parliament.”

The Sun hailed Cameron’s announcement as the first sign that a new Conservative-led government would curb the activities of the “Ofcom busybodies.”

But Cameron’s promises to curtail Ofcom seem to have been dropped in their entirety, along with News Corporation’s bid to take total control of BSkyB – all part of the fallout from the revelations about the hacking of the mobile phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler which resulted in the closure of the News of the World in July 2010.

Murdoch the hegemon

Steve Hewlett, a Media Guardian columnist who specialises in business, highlights the growing grip of Murdoch and his family over our media - see http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/18/steve-hewlett-rupert-murdoch-bskyb (especially the last paragraph)

Murdoch and monarchy

When Murdoch first arrived in Britain it was still largely the practice for newspaper owners to be Lords or minor aristocrats; seen as a crude, vulgar Australian, his appalled rivals gave him the nickname of 'the dirty digger'. This has relevance for this exam Q given the way he has systematically undermined another key pillar of Britishness.
If WW2, and the pride that the endeavours of the British Army (and airforce and navy) created, were key to the cementing of a common British identity in the last century, then so too was the popular support for the Royal Family. Seen (and certainly marketed as by the state) as a symbol of nationhood, the monarch and her family had achieved a hegemonic status as unquestionable icons of Britishness.
The Australian Murdoch brought with him an intense dislike for the privilege and elitism of monarchy, and personally loathed the idea that a British monarch was his head of state. This republicanism is one rare exception to Murdoch, and his paper's, thoroughly right-wing ideology (left-wingers are more commonly associated with hostility to monarchy).
As the Sarah Ferguson sting in his NoTW recently showed, Murdoch's papers are prepared to be brutally ruthless in their pursuit of sensational, paper-selling scoops, no matter how much damage this does to the whole system of monarchy. Before he came, anything like this would have been utterly unthinkable.

Murdoch 'warmonger'? A comprehensive summary of Murdoch policies

  (The relevant part starts about 1:10 in)

The image is from http://www.septicisle.info/uploaded_images/rupert_murdoch_europe-725350.jpg
The following article is from one of the many leftist or liberal sites, zines and blogs that have prospered on the web even as the mainstream, mass-market press has grown ever more narrow in its right-wing ideological slant; the Curran & Seaton book (Power Without Responsibility) I keep recommending tracks how this has come about in the UK, demolishing the myth of a liberal press.
The article is a comprehensive attack on Murdoch's record, values and operating methods, and is a useful summary of many of the key right-wing policies he's associated with (and thus NewsCorp).

Who is Rupert Murdoch?

July 16, 2004

In recent years, Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch has used the U.S. government's increasingly lax media regulations to consolidate his hold over the media and wider political debate in America. Consider Murdoch's empire: According to Businessweek, "his satellites deliver TV programs in five continents, all but dominating Britain, Italy, and wide swaths of Asia and the Middle East. He publishes 175 newspapers, including the New York Post and The Times of London. In the U.S., he owns the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Fox Network, and 35 TV stations that reach more than 40% of the country...His cable channels include fast-growing Fox News, and 19 regional sports channels. In all, as many as one in five American homes at any given time will be tuned into a show News Corp. either produced or delivered." But who is the real Rupert Murdoch? As this report shows, he is a far-right partisan who has used his empire explicitly to pull American political debate to the right. He is also an enabler of the oppressive tactics employed by dictatorial regimes, and a man who admits to having hidden money in tax havens. In short, there more to Rupert Murdoch than meets the eye.
In 2003, Rupert Murdoch told a congressional panel that his use of "political influence in our newspapers or television" is "nonsense." But a close look at the record shows Murdoch has imparted his far-right agenda throughout his media empire.
MURDOCH THE WAR MONGER: Just after the Iraq invasion, the New York Times reported, "The war has illuminated anew the exceptional power in the hands of Murdoch, 72, the chairman of News Corp… In the last several months, the editorial policies of almost all his English-language news organizations have hewn very closely to Murdoch's own stridently hawkish political views, making his voice among the loudest in the Anglophone world in the international debate over the American-led war with Iraq." The Guardian reported before the war Murdoch gave "his full backing to war, praising George Bush as acting 'morally' and 'correctly' and describing Tony Blair as 'full of guts'" for his support of the war. Murdoch said just before the war, "We can't back down now – I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly." [New York Times, 4/9/03; Guardian, 2/12/03]
MURDOCH THE NEOCONSERVATIVE: Murdoch owns the Weekly Standard, the neoconservative journal that employed key figures who pushed for war in Iraq. As the American Journalism Review noted, the circulation of Murdoch's Weekly Standard "hovers at only around 65,000. But its voice is much louder than those numbers suggest." Editor Bill Kristol "is particularly adept at steering Washington policy debates by inserting himself and his views into the discussion." In the early weeks of the War on Terror, Kristol "shepherded a letter to President Bush, signed by 40 D.c= opinion-makers, urging a wider military engagement." [Source: AJR, 12/01]
MURDOCH THE OIL IMPERIALIST: Murdoch has acknowledged his major rationale for supporting the Iraq invasion: oil. While both American and British politicians strenuously deny the significance of oil in the war, the Guardian of London notes, "Murdoch wasn't so reticent. He believes that deposing the Iraqi leader would lead to cheaper oil." Murdoch said before the war, "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy...would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country." He buttressed this statement when he later said, "Once [Iraq] is behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else." [Guardian, 2/17/03]
MURDOCH THE INTIMIDATOR: According to Agence France-Press, "Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of 'The Simpsons' over a parody of the channel's right-wing political stance…In an interview this week with National Public Radio, Matt Groening recalled how the news channel had considered legal action, despite the fact that 'The Simpsons' is broadcast on sister network, Fox Entertainment. According to Groening, Fox took exception took a Simpsons' version of the Fox News rolling news ticker which parodied the channel's anti-Democrat stance with headlines like 'Do Democrats Cause Cancer?'" [Source: Agence France-Press, 10/29/03]
MURDOCH THE NEWS EDITOR: "When The New York Post tore up its front page on Monday night to trumpet an apparent exclusive that Representative Richard A. Gephardt would be Senator John Kerry's running mate, the newspaper based its decision on a very high-ranking source: Rupert Murdoch, the man who controls the company that owns The Post, an employee said yesterday. The Post employee demanded anonymity, saying senior editors had warned that those who discussed the Gephardt gaffe with other news organizations would lose their jobs." [NY Times, 7/9/04]
Just as Fox claims to be "fair and balanced," Rupert Murdoch claims to stay out of partisan politics. But he has made his views quite clear – and used his media empire to implement his wishes. As a former News Corp. executive told Fortune Magazine, Murdoch "hungered for the kind of influence in the United States that he had in England and Australia" and that meant "part of our political strategy [in the U.S.] was the New York Post and the creation of Fox News and the Weekly Standard."
MURDOCH THE BUSH SUPPORTER: Murdoch told Newsweek before the war, Bush "will either go down in history as a very great president or he'll crash and burn. I'm optimistic it will be the former by a ratio of 2 to 1…One senses he is a man of great character and deep humility." [Newsweek, 2/17/03]
MURDOCH THE BUSH FAMILY EMPLOYER: As Slate reports, Murdoch "put George W. Bush cousin John Ellis in charge of [Fox's] Election Night vote-counting operation: Ellis made Fox the first network to declare Bush the victor" even as the New Yorker reported that Ellis spent the evening discussing the election with George W. and Jeb Bush. After the election, Fox bragged that it attracted 6.8 million viewers on Election Night, meaning Ellis was in a key position to tilt the election for President Bush. [Source: Slate, 11/22/00; New Yorker, 11/20/00]
MURDOCH THE MIXER OF BUSINESS AND POLITICS: James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly points out that most of Murdoch's actions "are consistent with the use of political influence for corporate advantage." In other words, he uses his publications to advance a political agenda that will make him money. The New York Times reports that in 2001, for example, The Sun, Britain's most widely read newspaper, followed Murdoch's lead in dropping its traditional conservative affiliation to endorse Tony Blair, the New Labor candidate. News Corp.'s other British papers, The Times of London, The Sunday Times and the tabloid News of the World, all concurred. The papers account for about 35% of the newspaper market in Britain. Blair backed "a communications bill in the British Parliament that would loosen restrictions on foreign media ownership and allow a major newspaper publisher to own a broadcast television station as well a provision its critics call the 'Murdoch clause' because it seems to apply mainly to News Corp." [Atlantic Monthly, 9/03; New York Times, 4/9/03]
MURDOCH THE NEW YORK CITY POLITICAL BOSS: The Columbia Journalism Review reported that during New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's first term "News Corp. received a $20.7 million tax break for the mid-Manhattan office building that houses the Post, Fox News Channel, TV Guide and other operations. During Giuliani's 1997 reelection campaign, News Corp. was also angling for hefty city tax breaks and other incentives to set up a new printing plant in New York City. Most dramatically, Giuliani jumped in to aggressively champion News Corp. when it battled Time Warner over a slot for the Fox News Channel on Time Warner's local cable system…Three years into Giuliani's first term, veteran Village Voice political reporter Wayne Barrett asked Post editorial page editor Eric Breindel if the paper had run a single editorial critical of the administration; Breindel, he says, admitted it had not. According to Barrett, the paper pulled off a perfect four-year streak" of not one critical editorial. [Columbia Journalism Review, 6/98]
Rupert Murdoch thinks of himself as a staunch anti-communist. But a look at the record shows that when his own profits are on the line, he is willing to do favors for the most repressive regimes on the planet.
MURDOCH THE DEFENDER OF REPRESSIVE REGIMES: The last governor of Hong Kong before it was handed back to China, Chris Patten, signed a contract to write his memoirs with Murdoch's publishing company, HarperCollins. But according to the Evening Standard, when "Murdoch heard that the book, East and West, would say unflattering things about the Chinese leadership, with whom he was doing satellite TV business, the contract was cancelled. It caused a furor in the press - except, of course, in the Murdoch papers, which barely mentioned the story." According to BusinessWeek, internal memos surfaced suggesting the canceling of the contract was motivated by "corporate worries about friction with China, where HarperCollins' boss, Rupert Murdoch, has many business interests." [Evening Standard, 8/13/03; BusinessWeek, 9/15/98]
MURDOCH THE APOLOGIST FOR DICTATORSHIPS: Time Magazine reported that while Murdoch is supposedly "a devout anti-Soviet and anti-communist" he "became bewitched by China in the early '90s." In an effort to persuade Chinese dictators that he would never challenge their behavior, Murdoch "threw the BBC off Star TV" (his satellite network operating in China) after BBC aired reports about Chinese human rights violations. Murdoch argued the BBC "was gratuitously attacking the regime, playing film of the massacre in Tiananmen Square over and over again." In 1998 Chinese President Jiang Zemin praised Murdoch for the "objective" way in which his papers and television covered China. [Source: Time Magazine, 10/25/99]
MURDOCH THE PROPAGANDIST FOR DICTATORS: While Murdoch justifies his global media empire as a threat to "totalitarian regimes everywhere," according to Time Magazine, Murdoch actually pays the salary of a top TV consultant working to improve the Chinese government's communist state-run television CCTV. As Time notes, "nowadays, News Corp. and CCTV International are partners of sorts," exchanging agreements to air each other's content, even though CCTV is "a key propaganda arm of the Communist Party." [Source: Time Magazine, 7/6/04]
MURDOCH THE ENABLER OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS: According to the LA Times, Murdoch had his son James, now in charge of News Corp.'s China initiative, attack the Falun Gong, the spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government after 10,000 of its followers protested in Tiananmen Square. With Rupert in attendance, James Murdoch called the movement a "dangerous" and "apocalyptic cult" and lambasted the Western press for its negative portrayal of China's awful human rights record. 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." Murdoch also "said Hong Kong democracy advocates should accept the reality of life under a strong-willed 'absolutist' government." It "appeared to some to be a blatant effort to curry favor" with the China's repressive government. [LA Times, 3/23/01]
MURDOCH THE HIDER OF MONEY IN COMMUNIST CUBA: Despite a U.S. embargo of communist Cuba, the Washington Post reports, "News Corp.'s organizational chart consists of no less than 789 business units incorporated in 52 countries, including Mauritius, Fiji and even Cuba." [Washington Post, 12/7/97]
From union busting to tax evading, Rupert Murdoch has established a shady business record that raises serious questions about his corporate ethics.
MURDOCH THE UNION BUSTER: The Economist reported that in 1986 Murdoch "helped smash the British print unions by transferring the production of his newspapers to a non-union plant at Wapping in East London." The move "proved to be a turning-point in Britain's dreadful industrial relations." AP reported Murdoch specifically "slashed employment levels" at the union plant and said he would "dismiss the 6,000 striking workers" who were trying to force concessions out of the media baron. The London Evening Standard called the tactics "the biggest union-busting operation in history." [Sources: The Economist, 4/18/98; AP, 1/27/86; Evening Standard, 11/12/98]
MURDOCH THE CORPORATE TAX EVADER: The BBC reported that "Mr. Murdoch's die-hard loyalty to the tax loophole has drawn wide criticism" after a report found that in the four years prior to June 30, 1998, "Murdoch's News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only $325 million in corporate taxes worldwide. That translates as 6% of the $5.4 billion consolidated pre-tax profits for the same period…By comparison another multi-national media empire, Disney, paid 31%. The corporate tax rates for the three main countries in which News Corp. operates - Australia, the United States and the UK - are 36%, 35% and 30% respectively. Further research reveals that Mr. Murdoch's main British holding company, News Corp. Investments, has paid no net corporation tax within these shores over the past 11 years. This is despite accumulated pre-tax profits of nearly $3 billion." [Source: BBC, 3/25/99]
MURDOCH THE LOVER OF OFFSHORE TAX HAVENS: When a congressional panel asked if he was hiding money in tax havens, including communist Cuba, Murdoch responded "we might have in the past, I'm not denying that." The Washington Post reports, "through the deft use of international accounting loopholes and offshore tax havens, Murdoch has paid corporate income taxes at one-fifth the rate of his chief U.S. rivals throughout the 1990s, according to corporate documents and company officials." Murdoch "has mastered the use of the offshore tax haven." His company "reduces its annual tax bill by channeling profits through dozens of subsidiaries in low-tax or no-tax places such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. The overseas profits from movies made by 20th Century Fox, for instance, flow into a News Corp.-controlled company in the Caymans, where they are not taxed." [Source: Congressional Testimony, 5/8/03; Washington Post, 12/7/97]
MURDOCH THE ABUSER OF TAX LOOPHOLES: Even though Murdoch changed his citizenship in order to comply with U.S. media ownership rules, many of his companies have remained Australian, allowing them "to utilize arcane accounting rules that have pumped up reported profits and greatly aided Murdoch's periodic acquisition sprees." IRS officials point out that "U.S.-based companies face U.S. taxes on their offshore subsidiaries in the Caymans and elsewhere if more than 50 percent of the subsidiary is controlled by American shareholders. But that doesn't apply to News Corp., an Australian company." [Source: Congressional Testimony, 5/8/03; Washington Post, 12/7/97]