Feel that? The media power axis just shifted
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Every few hundred thousand years, the magnetic field of the earth reverses. If it happened today, then compasses that once pointed north would suddenly point south, and all our understandings would have to be realigned. Last night, something similar happened in the world of media, politics and power with the appearances of James and Rupert Murdoch before the British parliamentary committee. Once, being close to Murdoch was a political plus. Now politicians can’t get away from him fast enough, and having met him and his lieutenants is a political liability. For decades, the legend of Rupert — the man who knows everything — has persisted. We have been asked to believe that he has his fingers on the politics of every country in which he owns media, and the editorial policies of every newspaper he owns. That he is always watching. But last night his evidence could have been summed up by his words half way through, when asked about his dealings with editors: “I am not in touch.” What many have suspected is now made clear: he is not always watching. His hand is no longer firmly on the tiller. He is losing, or has lost, his touch. Certainly in this affair not knowing things might have been convenient, but Murdoch was clearly not faking it when he claimed not to have been told about key moves and revelations in the affair. He looked like an old man. Apparently hard of hearing, he had difficulty in understanding questions and difficulty in recalling or clearly stating even basic facts about the affair on which he had been called to account. Certainly it is understandable that as CEO of a global media company he might not have been across the details of a newspaper that represented a tiny part of his empire. But his answers last night — and some of the answers of his son James — suggested he had not been reading the clippings of papers like The Guardian over the last six months, after the affair went toxic and began to represent a major reputational risk for News Corporation. Murdoch’s habit of slapping the table to make a point, which for years has caused editors and others to quake, looked less like authority and more like the sad mannerism of an old man trying to assert his authority — like the thump of a walking stick on sidewalk. Long before Lear-like tragedy lurched into melodrama when a member of the audience threw a custard (well, shaving cream) pie, it was not hard to feel sorry for Rupert. In the early parts of the hearing, I was thinking it would not be too strong to say he looked broken. His statement early on “this is the most humble day of my life”, and his later emotional recount of how his father had given him a newspaper so that he could do good, were convincing. He looked like a man whose self image, whose internal narrative and personal mythology, had taken a body blow. And yet later, there were signs of the old arrogance, and suggestions the full implications of the affair still haven’t hit home. The dropping of the BSkyB bid was because competitors had “caught us with dirty hands and they built hysteria around that”, he said. And who was responsible? Would he resign? Certainly not, he said. The people who were responsible were the lieutenants who had let him down. They should pay. And “I think I am the best person to clear this up”. By then it was surely hard to agree. James Murdoch’s performance was more assured. He proved he can perform under pressure. News Corp shares increased in value on the New York Stock Exchange during the hearing, surely because the market had been factoring in a disastrous performance. It was not that. Yet it is achingly clear this is the beginning, not the end of the calling to account. The most shocking revelation was that the company had been, and probably still is, paying the legal fees of convicted criminals, namely the private eye who hacked murdered schoolgirl Milly Downer’s phone, Glen Mulcaire. James declared himself “surprised and shocked” when he found this out. Yet it took the MPs asking directly to extract a promise this would stop, providing doing so did not breach contracts. James made it clear he would not release civil litigants from confidentiality clauses in out of court settlements, so they could tell more about what was done to them. Why not? The MPs did not manage to extract an answer, due to limited time. And if the Murdochs claimed to have been misled, who misled them? Rupert said he would trust News International CEO Les Hinton with his life, and indicated he also trusted Rebekah Brooks. So who is to blame? He seemed to finger former editor Colin Myler, saying it was he who had briefed lawyers who conducted the internal inquiry into the affair. But within minutes Myler had issued a statement denying that he had any role in this. And what about the key folder of emails that, according to what Lord Macdonald told another parliamentary committee contained “blindingly obvious” evidence of payments to police and criminal conduct? Who saw it? Who prevented it from being properly investigated? There were no clear answers. Nor was James really able to explain who made the decisions to make out of court settlements. He claimed to have become aware of the extent of the problem at News of the World only in late 2010, as civil cases lead to more evidence emerging. Since then, he said, the company had handed everything over to the police and was fully cooperating with inquiries. In short, the performance of the Murdochs was little better than a holding statement. Key questions remain unanswered, or not answered in any credible fashion. James showed his skills, there was a clear suggestion that he is effectively the boss. But they were clearly very, very far indeed from in the clear. Following all this Brooks had little to add. It was more of the same. She knew nothing. She learned about the hacking of Milly Downer’s phone when she read about it in The Guardian. So who did she blame? She couldn’t comment thanks to criminal investigations. We know there is more bad news for News International to come, because Brooks told her staff so when she announced the closure of the newspaper. There were some hints of what it might be. MPs last night asked James if he was aware of any investigations into News International by taxation authorities, the major fraud squad or the financial services authority. He said he wasn’t aware of any such investigations. There was also a question about what he would do if News International staff were found to have hacked databases. This affair has only just begun. It will run for years. But nobody who saw Murdoch give evidence yesterday could retain in their mind the image of an all powerful, dominant mogul. He is an old man, perhaps a broken man, though still with temper and bite. So what, if anything, does all this mean for the Australian arm of News Corporation? I would suggest the Murdochs’ performance, and their description of how delegation works in the company, makes it clear what I have long suspected — that the local lieutenants have become much more powerful and important over the last decade as News Corporation internationally became more an entertainment company than a journalism company. Certainly there is a strong international corporate culture, and those who rise within News Limited are comfortable fitting in with and sustaining that culture. The culture has both good points and weaknesses. But when it comes to particular stories and particular issues, the strengths and weakness of News Limited newspapers are those of the local bosses. It is hard to believe Rupert is following closely, even though he doubtless makes his views known, and editors are quick to jump and guess at his wishes. It would be wrong to assume that, if he wasn’t paying attention to News of the World, that he cares all that much about the Australian newspapers on a daily basis. Murdoch’s evidence suggests that it is News Limited CEO John Hartigan, and title editors, who take credit and blame for what the local mastheads do. After all, when Murdoch spoke to News of The World editors, they apparently didn’t think to brief him on out of court settlements worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, for example, we can assume the decision to allow to litigate the dismissal of former Herald Sun editor Bruce Guthrie would have been made locally. The Storm imbroglio would have been handled locally. So too the editorial line and the campaigns — good and bad. The meritorious sustained attention to indigenous Australia by The Australian. The line on the NBN. The line on climate change. Murdoch promised a review of global operations to ensure there was no illegality, and a renewed focus on journalism ethics within the company. It will be interesting to see what that means in practice. What about the idea of a public inquiry into the media in Australia? The Greens want it, the prime minister hasn’t ruled it out. Some are saying the terms of reference suggested by the Greens are too broad, intruding on matters of legitimate journalistic practice and discretion. And now the journalists’ union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, is saying that, on the contrary, the terms are too narrow and what is really needed is a broad inquiry into ownership and the multiple challenges facing the news media. Probably, the inquiry won’t go ahead, and there are reasons for this. One of these is that we already have a very important and powerful inquiry — or investigation — underway in the Convergence Review. As I wrote a while ago, its latest issues paper suggests it will fundamentally alter media ownership regulation, and many other things besides. Even if we had never heard of the News of the World, we would be facing big changes in the Australian media landscape. So any new inquiry would have to find a sharp point of difference, and avoid tripping over the feet of the convergence review. What issues are left? There is privacy, but that has already been the subject of inquiries. The only question is whether the government will move on their recommendations. That leaves issues to do with power, its uses and abuses, and the sustainability of media business models, and what that means for society’s journalistic capacity. There is no real doubt that in Australia, the News Limited story is about not illegality but the uses and abuses of power. While it would be a brave media CEO who ruled out the possibility that an Australian journalist somewhere, sometime might have paid an official for information, or hacked a phone, nobody suggests the practice is common here, let alone institutionalised in the way it has been in Britain. I would be surprised if any evidence was found. But when it comes to power, there are issues of considerable concern. Leaving aside political bias, what worries me is that News Limited has been a player in the dangerous and murky area of police politics. Two examples make the point. June 12, 2010. Chris Mitchell, editor in chief of The Australian, writes to the Victorian Office of Police Integrity after it had shown him a draft report concerning its investigation into a leak: ”I assure you The Australian newspaper will use every journalistic and legal measure available to pursue what can only be described as an outrageous fabrication … should our concerns not be addressed.” And what Mitchell threatened came to pass. What followed was a vigorous campaign against the OPI and the Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland, including siccing investigative reporter Hedley Thomas on to the case. At the same time, there was a Federal Court action aimed at suppressing the OPI report. Overland didn’t help his own cause, making a series of significant errors of judgement, yet it is also true the News Limited campaign was a factor leading up to his recent resignation. And also in June last year came the allegation, reported by The Age, that Hartigan had told NSW police they could either work with News or against it. The coppers, according to The Age, took this as a threat. Now Hartigan denies having said these words. Here’s what he told Leigh Sales on 7.30 last week:
Let’s take Hartigan at his word and assume the NSW police misunderstood him. There is still the issue of perceptions. And that arises because everyone knows that News Limited is an influential political player prepared to use its muscle. As the continued existence of The Australian — a loss-making masthead — proves, News Corporation cares not only about commerce, but also about power. The Australian is, for all its weird campaigns and personal vendettas, home to some of the best journalism in the country. We will be the poorer if and when it closes, as will almost inevitably be the case if Murdoch loses control of the empire, or is forced to sell up the newspaper business. One of the best things about Hartigan’s interview on 7.30 last week is that it gave viewers some insight into the self belief that fuels the local News arm. The line he took — that only The Australian does a proper job of reporting politics in this country — is sincerely believed and often repeated by journalists I query about why The Oz does what it does. Yet there are also an increasing number of dissenters, and with the realignment of the compass that is taking place due to Murdoch’s troubles, more and more of them are coming out. I have been approached by 13 News Limited insiders in recent days wanting to express their concerns — though not, sadly, on the record. So it is that I heard the story of how Mitchell was “excited” about running this story putting The Age editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge on the front page and accusing him of presiding over database hacking. The story, my sources said, was clearly recognised by insiders as a long bow, but in Mitchell’s eyes it was legitimate because, in his view, Fairfax newspapers had erred in putting the News of the World story on the front page day after day. This was meant to put them in their place. Now, there is a legitimate point buried there somewhere. Journalists do work in the world of the unauthorised disclosure. And it is fair to ask what divides the publication of stolen information — such as WikiLeaks — from what the News of the World has done. The answer, as every journalists’ code makes clear, is serving the public interest. It is worth spelling out the differences between what The Age did in the ALP database story, and what the News of the World did. Most importantly, The Age declared what it had done in its original story, detailing its sources and how it obtained the information. Not so the News of the World. Second, it hacked nothing. Instead, it used passwords provided by those who had authorised access to the database. This makes the story analogous to a leak, rather than a hack. And no journalist is going to oppose leaking. Lastly, while the story was arguably overplayed (surely we all knew that political parties kept such information), there was undeniably a public interest component. So why did The Oz go after the all too mild mannered Ramadge? Once again it is about power. In the United Kingdom, humble and repentant is the flavor of the Murdoch approach at present, albeit with that tetchy hammering of the table, the signs of continued arrogance. But here in Australia, it is all about attack, all about self belief and an almost narcissistic inability to tolerate criticism. The paper has systematically turned on its critics — and even those who merely report criticism. In the last week the ABC, Fairfax and Communications Minister Conroy have all come in for return fire. Locally, News Limited asserts that the News of the World crisis has nothing to with it. There is no need for humility. Yet this crisis does change things locally. Never again will it look good or wise for politicians or police to be seen as close to News Limited, or any other journalistic organisation for that matter. And that is a major realignment. It should mean that arrogance and attack is less sustainable. But will it? True north is no longer where it used to be. In the months ahead, a lot of people — police, politicians and media organisations — will have to explore new ways forward. |
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48 Comments
“meritorious”?
**but Murdoch was clearly not faking it when he claimed not to have been told about key moves and revelations in the affair.**
Wah?
“but Murdoch was clearly not faking it when he claimed not to have been told about key moves and revelations in the affair” and “James Murdoch’s performance was more assured. He proved he can perform under pressure”
- was I watching the same committee?
I look forward to more public figures from all walks of life deciding that they don’t have to live in fear of the press any more, and we start finding out just how far the kickbacks & vested interests go.
It won’t be just News Corp that gets cleared out, I suspect.
Susie….does Marg take drugs? i think she’s hallucinating.
Not sure you can blame Rupert for not understanding the questions from the MP with the broad Scots accent. They sailed past me, too.
Meanwhile on Fox in the US they are reporting that NotW was the VICTIM of a hacking scandal. The only thing that links that organisation to the concept of “news” is its name. Sort of like Orwell’s Ministry for Peace. It is a propaganda organisation and nothing more. Brooks actually said as much in her resignation letter: “At News International we pride ourselves on setting the news agenda for the right reasons.” Note she didn’t say “fearlessly and accurately reporting the news”, or “diligently informing people about the news”. Nope, it’s all about setting an agenda, and that agenda is old Rupe’s, even if he is now too gaga to remember it (which I for one very much doubt).
I’m afraid I can’t be as charitable as you Margaret, with so much at stake, it looked to me like some stage-managed revue by the “Foggy Bottom Amateur Players” - starting with that “press release” they wanted to read, telling us all how sorry they were they’d been caught.
Then when “Murdoch the Elder” finally did get to read it, where was “the emotion”, one would expect “all that sort of remorse” would have generated?
***Meanwhile on Fox in the US they are reporting that NotW was the VICTIM of a hacking scandal. ****
That’s the last straw, I just can’t deal with it and I am going to lunch, “cling clang”
“James Murdoch’s performance was more assured.”
Were we watching the same broadcast?
The man could not string a sentence together without “um”-ing, “ah”-ing, or
repeating the last word he spoke, every 3-6 words.
It was painful to watch, and harder still to work out if he was actually saying anything worth listening to.
Then there’s their record for “thorough” internal inquiries, and what they’ve produced in the past - the sort they want to have “again”? Til they get one right?
And what do “top executives” at Limited News get paid so much for? “Stunted interest in company affairs”?
I was most taken by the way they seemed to regard “politicians” - rather off-handedly.
By the way that “Harbottle & Lewis document” - what was that about? A “murder”?
My only regret about last night was missing the pie throwing episode. I agree that James Murdoch handled some questions quite poorly with some hesitation and he wass often struggling for words to divert attention away from from the subject he wasn’t answering, or like a second rate actor not being able to remember the script.
It is inconceivable that the extent of malfeasance within NoTW was not known to those at the top, and it looks like they hoped they could bluff andbuy their way out of it through a combination of bribery and denial, to say nothing of treating the enquiry process with a degree of contempt until I was summoned formally to give evidence. Of course denial is the only option left to them regardless of how stupid it makes them look.
Those claims about “a policeman who investigated a crime” - and in turn drew the “attention” of the NotW? Like here?
You make “The Oz” sound like “The Island of Dr Moreau”?
I think Rupert behaved like an arrogant old goat and James was clueless in the extreme.
Not a hint that the company was dudded with massive under the carpet pay outs worth 10 times more than any other normal settlement.
Now the Dowler family probably deserve payments 20 times higher than normal due to the filth perpetrated on them.
It was rivetting TV, not to be missed and I suspect had massive world wide audiences for the sunking.
The dirty digger looked to be more worried about being caught and the man at the top who takes no responsibility for the crimes is no man at all, just a snivelling coward.
None of them seem to grasp how revolted the world is at their behaviour though.
Don’t agree about the OO anymore, they have become nothing but a sheet of daily hates.
Do you really think Tony Abbott will “sever his ties”?
The Murdochs are still paying the criminal phone hacker. Hence their contrition, humility and apologies are all utterly hollow and hypocritical.
In Australia, if Justice Kaye cannot believe John Hartigan’s testimony under oath, why should anyone else believe anything he says?
They are all laughing at us with derision and contempt at this very moment.
Enough said! Isn’t it time for a general boycott? Limited News products are and will forever be tainted! Stop purchasing or watching Limited News media. Do not advertise in Limited NEWS media! Nobody genuinely believes Limited News to say or do anything unless it benefits their bottom line. Even the ABC, awfully difficult as it may be, should desist quoting Limited News slogans and headlines and discontinue inviting Limited News representatives, puppets or cronies onto their programs.
What a contrast between the performance of Sir Paul Stevenson and then his deputy, John Yates and that of the Murdochs. Stevenson resigned because for him, it was what a leader should do when such events overtake them on their watch. He and Yates came across as decent, hard working and extremely competent public servants who saw their duty to the public as being of paramount importance. Unlike the Murdochs who either prevaricated endlessly (James) or admitted that they didn’t have a clue (Rupert). Obviously neither of them apply the same strict ethical standards to themselves as do those ex police officers but the question has to be asked, do they apply any ethical standards to themselves at all or do they truly believe themselves to be beyond such considerations? Do they think that they are above the human pack? To my mind it appears that they do.
On another tack, initially I too thought it Lear like with Rupert playing the role of Lear to perfection but later on came to realise that the Bard had pinned it already with Macbeth, Rupert of course being Macbeth, blind ambition etc, Wendy Deng as Lady Macbeth who’ll probably be cursing that ‘damned spot’ for the rest of her life, Banquo being all of those who the Murdochs have ruined over the years and Burnham Wood being those of us who can’t wait to see the end of this absolute abuse of power by the Murdochs and the break up of their domains.
MARGARET SIMONS: You are, IMHO, going way over the top in implying pity for an old man. A mere four months ago this same ‘broken’ (?) old man was strutting the world stage and reducing hundreds of people to obedient yes-men/women who asked no questions beyond saying how high do you want me to jump?
I feel the same amount of pity for Rupert Murdoch’s ageing problems as I did when learning that Slobodan Milõsevíc had cheated his war crimes trial by having an unusual and premature death. Age vindicates nothing.
As for the pie/shaving cream incident, ha! All the signs of a put up job to engage public sympathy. How did the perps elude all the security tick boxes which must have been pretty strict? An inside job if ever there was one.
Son James has the same eyes as a late aunt of mine, devoid of emotion, and quite pitiless. Which superficially has nothing to do with his expertise with his job. However, if we all thought Rupert Murdoch was a bustard James will be a lot more pitiless than dear old Dad ever was.
“In the United Kingdom, humble and repentant is the flavor of the Murdoch approach at present, albeit with that tetchy hammering of the table, the signs of continued arrogance. But here in Australia, it is all about attack, all about self belief and an almost narcissistic inability to tolerate criticism.
The paper has systematically turned on its critics — and even those who merely report criticism. In the last week the ABC, Fairfax and Communications Minister Conroy have all come in for return fire.”
Not only in Australia - apart from the F*x “News” response mentioned above, the Wall Street Journal has been equally aggressive defending News and accusing its attackers.
The display of penitence by the “Wapping Three” was about as genuine as Rupert’s crocodile tears after meeting the Dowlers - it’s obviously on advice from the PR firm News Intl hired..
Anyway, thanks for pointing out that dubious links with the police are something News Ltd shares with its UK counterpart!
PS: “”It would be wrong to assume that, if he wasn’t paying attention to News of the World, that he cares all that much about the Australian newspapers on a daily basis.”“
Why should he care? His Oz media, especially the tabloids and the Australian, have editors who volunteer to invoke self-censorship. The Melbourne Hun only decided to mention the NotW scandal days after the rest of the MSM covered it, by having a tiny para tucked away on P 28. About 6cms X 4cms in size.
Wonderful analysis, Margaret, but I really don’t see anyone in the Australian media or political landscape right now who actually has the power to take News Corporation on and hold them to account - having the moral and political courage to do so.
There can be no doubt that News Corporation are abusing their media power in ways that simply beggar belief - the daily Telegraph failing to mention Peabody’s the 5 Billion dollar takeover of MacArthur coal last week a day after details of the carbon tax was announced is a prime example. Far be it for the Daily Terror to undermine Toxic Tony and Toorak Taliban’s political message of the day - the coal industry in this country is doomed
But with the ALP too busy counting heads and reading polls trying to decide whether knifing Julia Gillard might save a few of their jobs at the next election to be bothered even getting out on the front foot to sell their climate change package, it’s hard to imagine too many of them will be able to summon up the testicular fortitude to get into a knife fight with Rupert Murdoch’s right now.
Aside from Media Watch and a few other the lone voices at the ABC, no one seems really willing to get stuck into Murdoch on this issue of his media mafia better known and News Corporation systematically abusing their
power
I however totally agree with you about the Australian media’s narcissistic incapacity to tolerate criticism - a prime example of which was Chris Uhlmann’s vitriolic attack on Bob Brown a couple of months ago for having the audacity to criticise the Australian media to systematic indulgence in cockfight journalism.
It seems to me that whilst many in the Australian media are enjoying watching News International being slowly basted under the harsh light of greater scrutiny in the UK and USA, very few here actually have the courage nor the moral integrity to similarly hold News Corpse to account in this country.
It’s very much a case of “circle the wagons, no enemies in the media” .. no one really wants to embrace a higher standard of journalistic integrity in this country because that might mean journalists might actually have to do some work, instead of engaging endlessly in “he said/ she said” polemicism
I thought it was toss-up as to whether Murdoch Snr was acting like Mr Grace from Are You Being Served having forgotten his ear trumpet or was he really at the beginnings of senility. His careful consideration of answers would reflect the former.
One scandal that needs to be unearthed is the very questionable concept that the NSW Police do not ‘work’ with the media. The opposite is true. The police play the media like the harlots they are who re-print police media releases (and the police PRs could always get a job in Hollywood) verbatim without fail, never questioning or investigating just acting as an arm of the wallopers.
Just ask a few criminal defense barristers or lawyers and they will tell you how they have to use every legal trick in the book to get cases delayed to diminish prejudicial police propaganda.
There is need for an enquiry into the media and that should include the police being investigated for their unfair use to prejudice those charged. Or has everyone forgotten Bob Carr’s and John Hatzistergos odious use of the media to denegrate those who have yet to appear before courts.
I think the whole rudd turnbull thing was orchestrated by this mob and carried out by their supporters/confidantes/traitors in each party.
I could be wrong, but the English scenario has been used before, and it looks like it was used again.
conservatives cant get in for love nor money by themselves
the other mob a shot ducks because of the previous devastating leaks and constant negative press when the worlds financial market has explosive diarrhoea.
they need to team with the better of two evils
In England they sided with the better fo two evils
Out here, he was flat out convincing his own parents to side with him
Just a thought
Margaret - Just a small point, but I think it is important to get these things right. The young girl who was murdered, I thought her name was Millie Dowler?
Apart from that, I think your article is very kind to Rupert and James. Agree with some of the comments above, having watched the whole performance.
Gocomsys - that’s easy for you to say, but up here in Queensland we only have one paper with it’s form guide, death notices and personal ads.
And I’ll bet you haven’t got a psychotic budgie - nothing else “does it for him”. He won’t crap on anything else.
I was staggered by the Murdochs’ performance. Rupert appeared genuinely not to care about all the damage his corporation had done, and was evidently contemptuous of the U.K. parliament, while James couldn’t speak a coherent sentence if his career depended on it (and it did). Thank God I don’t have shares in their befuddled network.
I take hope from the fact that the U.K. pollies know all the stonewalling, hand-washing and obfuscation tricks, since they use them routinely. Surely they saw through the fake apologies: like a kid saying “Sorry” and meaning “I’m just sorry I got caught”.
JamesH - possibly so self regarding a journalistic paragon as Simons simply doesn’t know the difference between meritorious and meretricious.
I’ve still ploughing through her abject apologia for the inexcusable (remember her affronted lese majeste re Wikileaks) but agree with the first three comments, and many of the other comments, above. Is Simons seeking a berth on a sinking ship? I think we should be told.
News Corpse , very quick and witty Acidic Muse . Will add it to my list .
James didn’t do a good job this morning , repeating the questions and talking in circles and dodging answers. I didn’t see the brave James leap at the” Attacker ” ? Hiding behind his father and leaving Wendy to assault the bloke and stopping the foam pie. Looks like nobody was watching anything or anybody inside news corpse.
Kudos to Margaret Simons for being the first to spot the evidence that perhaps Rupert Murdoch does not, contrary to popular belief, exert close control over all his newspapers to use them as political soapboxes for manipulating helpless electorates. Individual editors have far more influence. This will probably fall on deaf ears of conspiracy theorists who watch too many of those seedy BBC thrillers in which the cast all wear badly fitting suits and nobody ever makes a joke.
For those wondering if there will be any investigation of News in Australia … you’re looking at it. In this matter there’s nothing the Parliament can do that can’t be done better in the court of public opinion, with no rules and none of this “innocent until proven guilty”. Margaret Simons will no doubt continue to be a breath of fresh air while others indulge in hypocrisy and hysterical witchhunts, but it’s all grist for the mill.
The Australian is my preferred newspaper, because of its high content of non-journalist contributions, the fact that most of its journalists are graduates of something other than media studies, and the fact that it stands alone both as a national newspaper and as a right-of-centre serious broadsheet.
That doesn’t make it, or all of its editors, faultless. I’ve previously documented in Crikey how certain editors at the Australian went out of their way to destroy Malcolm Turbull’s leadership of the Liberal party in 2009, apparently for the purpose of installing Peter Costello as Liberal leader (but there’s no evidence of Costello being a party to it).
These kind of Machiavellian games often don’t turn out as planned. Costello resigned. Kevin Rudd (whose popularity soared while Turnbull was being white-anted in the right-wing press) lasted only seven months after normal political coverage resumed. Tony Abbott — who everybody thought was a miracle worker for the bounce in the polls following Turnbull’s demise and Costello’s resignation — has yet to be held to account for losing what should have been an unloseable 2010 election. The only winners from the Australian’s machinations in 2009 seem to be Julia Gillard, the Greens, Tony Windsor … basically everybody except the Coalition and the Australian people. The Abbott leadership and the 2010 election fiasco are therefore both, in part, unintentional creations of the Australian newspaper.
Things have changed at the Australian in recent weeks. Tony Abbott’s extended two-year honeymoon with the Australian appears to be over, and they are putting the hard word on him for some policy (and who knows, he may be capable of it). The front page has started to look like a newspaper once again, as the polemic retreats to the inside commentary pages and becomes distinguishable from the news. (A bit of introspection seems to have followed a recent editorial which accused the Age — correctly — of having blurred the very same line.) It’s a shame the Australian waited until almost a year after the election before toning down the Tony Abbott fan club look, but better late than never.
I look forward to a feeding frenzy in which the news organisations drop all Marquis of Queensbury rules and go for each other’s throats. Seriously, draw some blood, crash some careers, do your worst. I will cheer from the stands like any punter at a good boxing match who’s only got a gentleman’s bet in it and really just wants to see some blood. It’s all healthy and I expect the Australian news media to come out the stronger for it.
But let’s forget about this proposal for regulating the media and applying Orwellian tests to who may publish. Let’s not hear any rubbish like “publishing is a privilege not a right”. The High Court struck down a law in 1992 that sought to regulate political advertising, finding that the Australian Constitution has an implied right to political expression. That probably means any such attempt to silence dissent would have a slim chance of success, but even attempting to do so would be a very ugly day for Australia.
To hear the sanctamonious statements from John Hartigan and now Malcolm Turnbull completely blowing any chance he ever had of becoming PM because he has attacked Julia Gillard for questioning News Ltd.
Tell me what would happen if ANY other company with such a high profile had acted in a similar fashion-outright illegal actions and then serious attempts to pervert the course of justice- what company could survive in this country yet merely questioning News Corp is being used against people.
Are these politicians thick ? Do they really think the majority of Australian people cannot join the dots and know News Corp in Australia is Murdoch’s most beloved baby despite his claims otherwise?.
And what about the potential lawsuits ?
Rupert admitted last night that he dropped the ball and all these illegal things happened under his nose.
Was that whoooshing sound the noise of collective shareholders consulting their lawyers?
Lawsuits..and personal ones against the Murdoch family for years to come is what I see. Basically we saw the end of Rupert Murdoch last night. And James a swell.
Maybe, Shaz, you just saw whatever you wanted to see, which was a foregone conclusion.
Margaret, your link to Chris Mitchell’s letter to the police watchdogs doesn’t work (and it was only a link to the MediaWatch story about the letter anyway, not to the letter itself). The full copy is here: media.theaustralian.com.au/pdf/100611-mitchell.pdf
Why was Margaret, why was James Murdoch, shocked at the paying of a “convicted criminal’s” legal expenses? Did anyone suggest it was hush-money? No, so let’s set that aside.
Paying to make sure that everything that can be done to provide a defence to someone who is/was presumed to be innocent until proven guilty, and allowed appropriate appeals, is surely commendable, and, indeed almost morally obligatory if it concerns someone you employed.
It is credible IMO that Rupert simply regarded the NotW as a current cash cow which ran on well established lines and had no great future in the emerging digital economy so that, its being, approximately as he said, 1 per cent of his vast worldwide operation, it was not something he spent time asking questions about. The best counter view is perhaps Tina Brown’s that Rupert wouldn’t have been able to resist the old journo’s question “how did you get that story”. But that presupposes that someone was telling him on Saturday night in the US that the sleazy tabloid in the UK was about to defame some coke sniffing MP. Do the math on his 24 hours of each day.
Assuming Rupert really didn’t know about the hacking, his argument that he’s not to blame because he trusted others is defective because, if it’s legitimate for him to advance that defence, then it’s legitimate for people like Les Hinton and Rebekah Brooks to do the same. Would Murdoch himself accept that defence from subordinates? Where is the line to be drawn? As former US President, Harry Truman, used to say, “The buck stops here”. In the armed forces, in the government, and certainly in large corporations, the supreme leader, whatever the title, must accept ultimate responsibility for the consequences of actions taken by others within the organisation. If trust was placed in others and it turned out to be misplaced, then that’s your mistake and your responsibility, you wear it. The shareholders of News Corporation trusted Rupert , they were wrong to do so and Rupert should pay the price.
Indeed the question of “responsibility” doesn’t seem to have been discussed on either side of the table with great discrimination. But your argument, Frank B, could lead to the absurdly anachronistic argument for minister’s resigning because of things that went wrong on their watch - which happens about every 30 years in the Westminster system, not least in Westminster - extending to the PM - and why didn’t George lll abdicate when the US colonies were lost???
Why couldn’t Rupert have said “if you mean personal responsibility then of course I am accepting the duty to answer legitimate questions which is what ‘responsibility’ means. I am doing that here and I shall do my best to tell the board and the shareholders what measure I propose, or have been implemented, that will avoid the same problems in future. If you mean that the buck stops with me then that is almost exactly right except that ultimately the board answers to the shareholders. So, yes, I have great responsibilities but the principal one is to do my job as CEO to the best of my ability to assure that all stakeholders receive their due [leaving unsaid perhaps the inevitable problem of not all stakeholders being able to be accommodated in the way they would regard as their due]” The only virtue of all that would be that he did not deny that he was responsible as, on one view, he appears to have done.
Oh yes, Rupert is a veritable Mr Magoo, doddering around the upper echelons of News Corp completely unaware of the goings on below.
Come on, Margaret.
This man lives and breathes the media, and there are mountains of evidence to show how he uses his organs to infiltrate and manipulate the political systems of the countries within which his media operates.
The current and previous PMs of Britain as well as the two (now former) top cops of London have now been shown as hopelessly compromised by corrupt operators within Murdoch’s organisations, and you expect us to think that the big man himself was looking the other way the whole time?
And that’s just Britain. Let’s not even glance over the Atlantic to note that 6 of the Republican presidential candidates in this year’s primaries are on the payroll of Fox News!
Rupert is Machiavelli with the power of a king. Or for a modern analogy, the Sith Lord masquerading as a humble and benevolent Emperor Palpatine.
When Murdoch “ran” Ansett in the last 1990s, Rupert was just as ignorant about what was happening with the airline. He received regular financial reports (weekly) but apparently never read them. The one pleasing thing that happened but didn’t last was when his son Lachlan started quizzing Rod Eddington regularly about the terrible state of the airline and why none of Eddington’s promised improvements ever amounted to anything. Lachlan and Eddington had a massive falling out over it and Lachlan just ignored Eddington at meetings and public events. Eddington was just lucky the Air NZ board were stupid enough to buy Ansett without completing any due diligence.
James Murdoch, in a recent McTaggart Lecture in the UK, argued strongly that only profit makes a media organisation genuinely responsible to its audience.
I suppose that makes The Australian newspaper a form of vanity publishing.
Anyone is free to argue that there is some similarity between News and Wikileaks. But that argument cannot stand scrutiny. The similarities are slight and vague. The differences are huge and obvious.
Godotcab - I think James Murdoch’s McTaggart Lecture contrasted competitive diversity and the empowerment of individuals with what he called a “creationist” approach to government commanding everything from the centre.
(( broadcastnow.co.uk/comment/james-murdochs-mactaggart-speech/5004990.article ))
To call that “only profit” is incomplete. In the case of NOTW, the combination of profit, the law, and a community sense of morals, has eventually done a pretty good job of turning what probably seemed like a sociopathically good idea at the time into a disastrously unprofitable outcome for those responsible and the extinction of the newspaper. That’s quite some market signal.
You could argue it’s hit-and-miss and it took too long, but the political process is hardly better. Look at how Australia tears itself and its moral standards to pieces in its inability to deal with a few thousand boat refugees a year. A saga of bipartisan political ineptitude that would be funny if it weren’t so blunt in its abuses of the innocent in order to deter others from doing something while insisting that what they’re doing is not a crime.
I mention that example of political failure not just because it does more damage than anything done by NOTW, but because Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian led the charge against these policies in 2001, while the political opposition led by Kim Beazley flatly refused to engage. Nothing’s perfect, not government, nor business.
I don’t understand why people are claiming Murdoch didn’t know, so isn’t responsible.
Regardless of the fact if Rebekah Brooks called him up and said “we’re hacking phones!!!” or not, he created the News Limited culture, and it’s that culture which has caused this outrage.
I don’t think he should go to prison, but ultimately he responsible for the running of his organisation, and he needs to accept responsibility for this.
I’m sorry to nag, MARGARET SIMONS, but “”In short, the performance of the Murdochs was little better than a holding statement.”” The performance of the Murdoch’s was pure theatre. Don’t you realise that? It had been rehearsed to the nth degree, and it showed.
Here’s another gem of yours: “”and his later emotional recount of how his father had given him a newspaper so that he could do good, were convincing. He looked like a man whose self image, whose….”” Keith Murdoch was one ruthless son-of-a-bitch, I feel sure he would have fallen off his perch with laughter to hear his son coming out with that doozy.
Now, here is the piece de resistance “”Apparently hard of hearing…”” Wonderful! You mean that one of the richest men on the planet can’t afford a hearing aid?
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I’m sorry to nag, MARGARET SIMONS, but “”In short, the performance of the Murdochs was little better than a holding statement.”” The performance of the Murdoch’s was pure theatre. Don’t you realise that? It had been rehearsed to the nth degree, and it showed.
Here’s another gem of yours: “”and his later emotional recount of how his father had given him a newspaper so that he could do good, were convincing. He looked like a man whose self image, whose….”” Keith Murdoch was one ruthless bustard, I feel sure he would have fallen off his perch with laughter to hear his son coming out with that doozy.
Now, here is the piece de resistance “”Apparently hard of hearing…”” Wonderful! You mean that one of the richest men on the planet can’t afford a hearing aid?
Did you catch John Clarke’s neat highlighting of Rupert’s “humblest day of his life”? Done with humour but it drew attention to the careful scripting of those words. He couldn’t say that he was humiliated obviously but why not “most humbling day”? I have my own analysis of the scripting considerations, but carefully scripted that part certainly was. However, here from the FT, for balance, is a rather different take on the committee session from what has been said elsewhere:
July 19, 2011 9:57 pm
Murdoch and a Tiger-mother masterclass
By Philip Delves Broughton
July 19, 2011 10:57 pm
Murdoch and a Tiger-mother masterclass
By Philip Delves Broughton
It was even more of a family affair than anyone anticipated. Rupert and James Murdoch were on the schedule for Tuesday’s House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Not so, Wendi Murdoch’s right fist. After sitting demurely behind her husband for two hours, Rupert’s Chinese-born wife gave new meaning to the phrase Tiger mother, by pummelling the intruder who had burst into the room to lather her husband with a foam pie.
For connoisseurs of management, and moguls in particular, though, the proceedings offered a master class in crisis management. James Murdoch was good, if a little reedy, wordy and over-drilled by his lawyers. He did all the necessary blocking and tackling to get through a tricky afternoon. His father, though, was magnificent, initially as terse as an outback farmer, but slowly unveiling the lethal charm even his rivals describe as mesmeric. He may have been spinning, but it didn’t sound that way. He made clear that he understood the gravity of the situation and the need to rectify it. But at times he showed all the interest of Caesar being grilled about some long-forgotten incident in the Londinium aqueduct authority. He responded to the MPs’ rambling questions with theatrical pauses, often followed by a simple “yes” or “no”. But when he needed to make a point, he banged the table, rattling his microphone, as if berating an insubordinate prime minister.
By taking over management of the scandal, Mr Murdoch is finally heeding the lessons of the most widely taught crisis management case in business: Johnson & Johnson’s response after seven people died from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in 1982. While police sought the psychopath responsible, the company pulled all 31 million bottles of Tylenol from shelves across the United States, at a cost of $100 million. James Burke, its CEO, appeared endlessly to apologise and reassure the public. Tylenol sales quickly rebounded.
Until Tuesday, Mr Murdoch had left it to Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, and his son James, to be the faces of the scandal. Given the sheer scale of News Corp, it doubtless seemed a local difficulty, pumped up by a hysterical British press. The revelation that News of the World reporters had hacked the phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler turned the scandal toxic and demanded his intervention.
The MPs did their best to challenge him, but they were up against a man who has built his company over 57 years, who employs 52,000 people around the world, who broke the British print unions, barged into US network television, and gave us Titanic and Avatar. Pressed on details of the hacking scandal, he said that the News of the World represented a tiny fraction of News Corp, less than 1 per cent of its $33bn revenues last year. At times the Murdochs addressed the MPs as if they were a slightly dim MBA class. In large businesses, they explained, it was customary to delegate authority to managers, and that these managers had a certain amount of discretion to make decisions and manage budgets. Such systems rely on measures of trust.
Defending his son’s handling of the scandal, Mr Murdoch said that in any given week James had to spend “a day in Munich, a day at Sky Italia where he had a particularly difficult situation, and a particularly tricky competitor, if I might say so”, a sly dig at Silvio Berlusconi. While the MPs pettifogged, he implied, the Murdochs ran the world.
Entering hour two, Murdoch Snr softened. He sympathised with the MPs for their dismal pay, and suggested a Singaporean model, where legislators are paid so well they have no need to fiddle their expenses. Intimidate first, then charm, advise the management texts on crisis and change management. Murdoch did just that.
By the end of the session, Mr Murdoch seemed avuncular, a chief executive in full, deeply sorry for the worst of the phone hacking, feeling betrayed by his managers and promising to make it right. He talked of his pride in his father, a journalist and small newspaper owner who had exposed the scandal of Gallipoli, and his belief in the role of newspapers in ensuring transparency in public life. The politicians, you sensed, were in his palm, awed by the plain fact of his being there, and embarrassed by the pie-thrower.
When asked at the end of the hearing why he hadn’t resigned, he answered: “Frankly, I’m the best person to clear this up.” It comes late, but given all that he has seen and done in his life, it is hard to disagree with him.
The writer is author of ‘What They Teach You at Harvard Business School: My Two Years in the Cauldron of Capitalism’
I was “amused” to hear Tony Abbott say, when asked about the proposed inquiry into the media, that the job of newspapers was to hold the government to account. Presumably that means there is no difference between the newspapers and the opposition as that is the same line he constantly uses about the job of the opposition. Are there any newspapers who believe it is their job to hold the opposition to account? If not, obviously an inquiry IS needed.
A.N.Onymous, when you say “inquiry” do you mean a parliamentary inquiry led by Bob Brown, or a public debate in which you and I can participate? The latter has already begun, you’re looking at it. The former is useless unless the government is going to consider regulating the freedom of political expression.
Of course holding the government to account is more important than holding the opposition to account, and you must have a short memory because I seem to recall them holding the Howard government to account all the time.
The biggest difference was that if Howard didn’t like what the newspapers were saying, he simply ignored it, and if a million people marched in the streets and he didn’t like what they were saying, he simply ignored that too. If he liked what they said, he gave them interviews. A very simple strategy that worked for ten years.
The Gillard government reacts far too much to bad publicity, unfavourable coverage, criticism by the opposition, and bad polling. If they developed thicker skins like Howard, they would not give such an appearance of being under siege all the time. Developing a bit of competence and kicking the Greens out of policy meetings would also help a great deal.
FREE C: “”The Gillard government reacts far too much to bad publicity, unfavourable coverage, criticism by the opposition, and bad polling. If they developed thicker skins like Howard, they would not give such an appearance of being under siege all the time.”” For once I totally concur with something you’ve said. And for once you’ve managed to say it without a tonne of verbiage.
I have some difficulty with, “”Developing a bit of competence”” On the grounds of lacking a decent Opposition. This has a lot more to do with having a good government than most people give a good government credit for. Where are the suggested policy moves, the input, the intelligent suggestions? Saddled as the Gillard government is with a fifth-rate, bog-Irish, failed priest who keeps screeching no, nah, neow, never, NO! drags a government down to the same basement as the gutter-level opposition.
The ….”” and kicking the Greens out of policy meetings would also help a great deal.”” part of your comment could be answered by:- Since when did the Liberal Party function in government in it’s own right without the feather-bedding of a lick-spittle bunch of cow-cocky rural socialists? How can you demand competence out of a newly-installed Labor government, when you don’t demand it out of a half-mad oppsition rabble?