Murdoch, NoTW, and the media in General

SPEECH I MADE AT SP MEETING ON MONDAY 5TH SEPTEMBER 2011

Murdoch and the media:

Ask someone what the word “Media” conjures in their mind, and they’ll talk about newspapers, Television, and some might also reference the radio. Many old people would trust what Anne Doyle says on the 9 o’ Clock news as Gospel, and if she reads out a story that looks bad on Fine Gael or Fianna Fail – for example – their spin doctors would be leaping for their phones straight off and they would be going into over drive! Certain newspaper journalists also have a large following, and a lot can hinge on their word. For example, coming up to the UK Elections, there were certain prolific “commentators” who wrote for various newspapers, of whom - on twitter and so forth - people had strewn a lot of hot air pondering who they might plump for come polling day. Said commentator putting out a passionate argument in favour of voting for a particular party for example, could mean the difference between Labour narrowly holding onto a seat, or narrowly losing it. Then we have the famous words of Homer Simpson, when Marge questioned him over a news story he told her about “But the TV said so, so it MUST be true!”

But obviously the media is now spread about far wider than it would have been, say, 20 years ago. Some people such as Rupert Murdoch, and Kerry Packer made massive fortunes through newspapers, and were well placed to invest in newer forms of media in the 80’s when Newspaper sales began to noticeably decline. And as their tentacles seep further and further into the various formats, their reach extends to more and more people, and the power and influence they wielded grew stronger and stronger.

Kerry Packer ran the most successful Newspapers by far in Australia, and was also the owner of the very popular 9 Television Network. He had power and influence like no other in Australia. Through this, for years he was able to ensure that nothing was being done about the fact that he was paying feck all tax. He was simply avoiding pay what he was legally supposed to, and many millions in tax bills were outstanding. Then in the early-mid 90’s, newspapers owned by his major rival, Rupert Murdoch, began printing stories of his tax avoidance, coupled with lurid tales of his lavish lifestyle, kickbacks to politicians, and went to town on him. There was enormous anger in Australia over this. Back in his heyday in the 80’s, Kerry Packer would simply have to pick up the phone, name what minister he wanted to see, and when, and whatever the minister had previously in his diary for that time, would have been cancelled.

When the massive scandal broke out in the 90’s, current and former ministers rushed to distance themselves from the Packer organisation, but via various stories in the newspapers, people found out to an extent about the relationship between politicians and the Packer Group, and were having none of it. Kerry died in 2005, and his son James took over the Packer Corporation. Most of their newspaper business has been sold off, and the family now own less than 1% of channel 9 TV Company, after flogging that too. The son has decided now to spend money investing in massive casino projects worldwide. The Kerry Packer tax scandal still rankles with many in Australia to this day, and it’s like a bad smell that still lingers on.

Fast forward around 20 years since then, and the man who’s Australian arm, led the charge against the Packer Empire, is himself having to adopt the bunker mentality, with no end to the battle seemingly in sight. The insatiable desire to increase newspaper circulation, and with it profits knew no bounds in News International, the company spearheaded by Murdoch. The more people who bought his publications, the more sway he had over them, and the more coveted by the British Government, and others with their hands on the levers of power, he would become. Between 1995 & 1996, Tony Blair attended numerous meetings with News Corporation Executives, in a desperate effort to get their newspapers to endorse him, and his party in the run up to the 1997 General Election. A secret deal was brokered, which lead to The Sun, and The Times printing many articles that were scathing of the then government, and some of the columnists in the paper, wrote articles in support of Labour etc. No one has yet been able to find out what was actually discussed at these meetings, but they definitely took place. The close links between Murdoch and the political hierarchy has only made the public’s perception of politicians fall even lower, and the popular view that “they are all on take, and only in it for the money” has hardened. Many politicians who were closely associated with News Corp in the past, have rushed to try and distance themselves from the company and the scandal; But like in Australia, the public at large simply are not buy it.

As newspaper sales are declining, this in turn also means profits are falling in the newspaper industry, and massive job and wage cuts have done little to stem the tide overall. Thus the battle to increase sales, no matter what the cost, has become a key mantra from the boardrooms. Many people have a fixation with Celebrities, and what they get up to. A lot of celebrities are PR managed to within an inch of their lives, and “acceptable” public personas are carefully crafted by people paid large sums of money to do so. So when this persona cracks, and they are shown to be not so holier than thou, sadly a lot of people crave the whole ins and outs of what happened. Thus when Rebekah Brooks, then editor of the News of the World, was offered a simple easy way to be able to obtain information on celebrities that would be lapped up by the general public at large, she grabbed it with both hands. Generally news stories have to be glanced over by legal eagles upstairs before they can be printed. One wonders, what the highly paid legal team of News International were up to then. Surely some of them must have known what was going on? Why did they not shout stop? Then again money, and lots of it put their way, has been known to make the once most principled of people do 360* turns in an instant.

The News of The World, thus became the biggest selling Sunday Newspaper by far, and that’s all that mattered, full stop. So the lust for even more stories of “celeb’s gone bad” grew stronger and stronger, and Brooks and Co wanted the pages filled with as much of that stuff as they could get their hands on. Thus this required people like the Private investigator Glen Mulclaire to wade deeper and deeper into the cesspool NoTW had created, using even more underhand, and totally illegal methods to fulfil the orders from above. The Guardian printed a story about an unnamed celebrity, who had told them he did everything possible to try and keep an affair top secret, and literally told no one about it, and picked isolated discreet places to meet his mistress. He was thus in shock when the News of the World splashed his affair all over their front pages. How on earth did they find out, whilst neither his wife, or his very closest friends knew a thing? He now knows that his phone was tapped.

Murdoch’s reaction as the scandal unfolded spoke volumes as to his character, and attitude as a whole. He initially merely reacted as if it was akin to an annoying fly that could be easily swatted. He simply did not see the intensity and pace at which the story grew, and became quite overwhelmed by it in the end. His desperate attempts to keep Rebekah Brookes in Situ, just one example as to how out of touch he was as to the enormity of the scandal.

Thanks to the internet, the role of the media has changed dramatically. Politicians or other activist organisation no longer need to rely solely on the press to get their message across to a wide number of people. Could you imagine how different things might have been had the people of Guatemala in the 50’s, and El Salvador & Honduras in the 70’s had access to the Internet and Smart Phones back then?? Things which only came to light many years later, would have been made public knowledge there and then, and domestic actions by people in the US against their countries involvement could well have been huge.

Through this medium, more and more information to do with the phone hacking scandal, and other problematic events for newspapers, have come to light. In some cases, journalists, with significant information that they feel is not kosher enough (legally and so forth) to be printed in the paper, will discreetly pass it onto a trusted 3^rd party, who would then publish it online, and from there the story may or may not gain legs. Then referencing the internet posting the journalist will then print the story in the paper, ensuring to quote the internet piece and fairly good length to keep things A-ok on the legal side. This has ensured more stories of a seemingly anti establishment nature, have appeared in the press, than would have otherwise been the case. But we still have the usual “Balance” of about 6 Right wing Attack dog stories, for 1 even mildly left wing article and so forth in our papers.

The role and influence of the press is diminishing, though it still fairly strong, and should never be underestimated. A good example of this is the fact political parties now spend vast sums of money trying to get their message across via many formats on the internet, and the amount of money they now spend on press advertising would be sizeably smaller than it would have been in the past. The development of the internet, and the vast array reporting and commenting sources contained within it, has to be a welcome development. Left wing groups like the Socialist Party have now been able to get our message across in a broader, much more coherent way than in anytime previous. One only has to look at the amount of “likes” on the Youtube Clip of Joe Higgins giving Jose Manuel Barrosso a right dressing down, to appreciate this fact. We now hear stories, and see footage of events in Syria, and have a much clearer picture of what is going on there, in a way we simply could not have, say regarding the mass slaughter of people in Indonesia by the Suharto Regime, with a lot of covert support from the US in the late 60’s/ early 70’s.

Some say “Money is power, and power is money”, and regards politicians relationship with Big Business, and the NoTW scandal in general, this has never been more clear. Some also say “The Media is King”, but the “Established” Media may well have lost it’s crown, while the paupers that are you and I, with our smartphones, blogs, Twitter accounts and what not take our piece of it’s throne one by one...