The phrase, “behind every great fortune is a great crime”, certainly enters one’s mind when thinking about Rupert Murdoch, the owner of tabloid newspapers, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and other news publications.
We do not yet know if Mr. Murdoch himself, or his son, who is second in command of the news empire, knew about the alleged criminal activity of the last three heads of their organization or about how they continuously got the scoop on their competition, but common sense suggests that perhaps a fish rots from the head down.
The acts that got the Murdoch empire into trouble were the illegal tapping, not of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s phone to break the story that his 5 year old child has cystic fibrosis, but the tapping into the phones of ordinary people, like soldiers who had fought and been lost in Afghanistan or the phone of a child who had been reported missing, going so far as deleting her call waiting stored messages so that when other people call the phone to leave messages, Murdoch workers at The News of the World could hear them and announce what they had learned in their tabloid. That this illegal act led the parents of the child to believe their daughter was alive and had deleted the messages herself didn’t seem to stop the newspaper’s investigator.
That police at Scotland Yard were also paid bribes for information that showed up in the paper also didn’t seem to make it up to Mr. Murdoch’s porch overlooking the organization, or so he says. Meanwhile, the three most important people in his organization, the head of the British press, the head of the American Press including the Wall Street Journal, and the former head of the whole organization who became the Press Secretary of the Conservative Party Prime Minister of Great Britain, have all been charged with crimes and have been forced to resign.
Could Murdoch or his son plausibly deny that he knew all of this? Maybe. He might have thought that his papers succeed, just like the New York Post and Fox News succeed in America, by simply telling people what they want to hear or showing them the fleshiness of life that they want to see. From tabloids through networks, Rupert Murdoch sells more than all others and makes more money than anyone else because that is all he is interested in doing, making money. If the truth is complex, if the analysis is unpopular, if an opinion could be heard at other media outlets, don’t go with it. Make yourself heard, whatever it takes is Murdoch’s way, the only way to make serious money.
Journalistic standards, objective analysis, integrity in letting the facts shape the story, not commercial appeal, do not matter much in a Murdoch enterprise. The pursuit of truth is not a constraint for a Rupert Murdoch news enterprise. Money and power are the only alters at which he seems to worship.
What Rupert Murdoch did more ruthlessly than anyone else was say that the news was a product, a commodity to be sold like any other product, not an area to be studied, dissected, respected and enhanced the way an academic searches for the truth of a matter.
Perhaps it is not true that behind every great fortune is a great crime, but most often, behind many great fortunes is a ruthless person. Rupert Murdoch certainly is a man with a great fortune.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Rupert Murdoch
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I agree on some points, especially your last. The news is not a product. Nay, it is the objective voice; the purveyor of fact to a thirsty public.
ReplyDeleteI would argue, however, that Murdoch was unaware of the phone hacking scandal.
It is the general media that has become sensationalist. The news in general long ago abandoned its principles. Jon Stewart agrees, and it is why people watch him, he says.
And for every reactionary on Fox News, there is a Keith Olbermann, a Rachel Maddow, and an Arianna Huffington to answer. All of them, it seems, cannot stop foaming at the mouth.
There are, too, the serious outlets owned by Murdoch: the Wall Street Journal, for one. And there are also seasoned, respected reporters on Fox News: Chris Wallace, Bret Baier.
Still, though: while I think the backlash against Murdoch himself constitutes overreaction, this phone hacking scandal still is abhorrent. The people responsible need to be prosecuted.
Also: I hope everything is well! I miss discussing things with you. Let me know if you'd like to grab lunch.
Best,
JB
As an addendum to the above, I've wanted to come up with something to comment on for a while. But, honestly, it's been difficult. And this is mostly because your posts are rooted in classical, traditional values. So, my disagreements are essentially small quibbles.
ReplyDeleteAs an addition to the above: the sensationalist climate, I think, can be pointed to a general decline in Western civilization. Long ago, our moral direction was drained. We, as a society, have forgotten what it means to be human.