Editorial

Keith Rupert Murdoch is a media giant who uses his strength to push more than simply conservative politics; he pushes a right-wing agenda. He knows how to manipulate money, print media, photos, radio, movies and talk shows to gain his goals.

But he has not mastered – yet – how to work in an Internet world.

Murdoch, perhaps thankfully for those who believe in constitutional democracy, is currently having the same problem as all other publishers and media barons; he needs to find out how to make his media “products” generate more money within an increasingly electronic, internet world. Nobody has that formula down pat, yet.

Murdoch’s critics as well as his allies – it’s uncertain he actually has friends – say he knows too little about the Internet world. Perhaps: but Murdoch became a leading money maker and opinion twister precisely by taking on big issues, vanquishing problem areas and melding the remainder to fit his world view. He wants to make the world over in his narrow, hateful image; therefore he needs to change the Internet if he is to succeed.

If past history is a guide, he will learn the Internet.

Founder, chairman and chief executive officer of a conglomerate ironically, even Orwellianly known as the News Corporation, or News Corp, Murdoch built a media empire starting in Australia on the foundation of an inheritance from his father – Sir Keith Rupert Murdoch – that included a substantial sum as well as a newspaper and related holdings. Murdoch now has his own son, James, and other family members involved in News Corp.

It was Murdoch, it’s important to recall, who beat all other rivals in a race to the bottom of tabloid news. That was how he built his Australian inheritance up to the point where he could infiltrate Great Britain, bringing about the no-holds barred tabloid ugliness that British newspapers are now infamous for, but then he came to America with the same intent; that is, to lower journalistic standards past the lowest common denominator, as though he personally bears a hatred worse than contempt for all things western, especially liberal democracies.

News Corp is still headquartered in Australia, yet now the media empire has a base at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in the city of New York, from which Murdoch and his minions control such papers as the New York Post and News Corp’s crown jewel, The Wall Street Journal. He also owns a wide variety of weekly and daily papers in this nation through his wholly owned or controlled corporations, such as Dow Jones and Ottaway Newspapers. In Massachusetts, as a small example, Murdoch owns the New Bedford Standard Times and the Cape Cod Times, both dailies.

He also owns 20^th Century Fox, one of America’s six major film studios, and he has controlling interest in Fox News. Recently he acquired My Space, perhaps as a start toward penetrating and then manipulating the internet. The list of Murdoch’s media holdings is too huge to include here, but it can be summed up by saying he is now the dominant media baron in the western world.

The problem is that rather than trying to merely unearth and publish news for the American, British, Australian and other world markets as a means to enhance his wealth, Murdoch is trying to paint the world red, now the unabashed right-wing color, although ironically it used to be what the right-wing tried to use to paint others. But perhaps it was always just the conservative trick of calling others what they are in fact themselves.

Murdoch claims his news is fair; yet it is inclined so far right as to be hardly ‘news’ at all. He admits his television commentary shows are right of center, but that is what those shows are supposed to be, he says: entertainment. He conveniently overlooks how viewers can easily misinterpret his employee’s commentaries as more than ‘entertainment,’ since they so often exclusively deal with politics and events of the day; his current star, the not so quiet Mormon, Glenn Beck, is just one example. Now he also employs Sarah Palin, and his Fox TV offers 24/7 coverage and support of the ‘Tea Party.’

In terms of his other media, he declares that editors make the opinion calls; but candidly observes that he – Murdoch – selects the editors. He made those remarks during a ‘friendly’ interview with David Speers, host of a popular television show, The Interview, on Sky Australia, which of course is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family. He also explained he would like to still have his Australian citizenship, but he changed to American citizenship because he needed it to buy American television stations. To seek dual citizenship, Murdoch would risk being questioned by America’s Congress; he doesn’t want to have that happen since it might unearth all sorts of unsavory issues he wants to keep buried.

The Fox News slogan of ‘Fair and Balanced’ TV news is a classic example of saying one thing and doing another, a type of ‘doublethink.’ Murdoch also touts the value of his newspaper and media professionals, but given that the quality of journalism at every one of his newspapers and TV stations has plummeted seems to give the lie to that posturing. His ‘professionals’ strive at every opportunity to find the lowest and coarsest story to relate while ignoring or giving short shrift to virtually all else. They also take every opportunity to make Americans suspicious of their government, as though it’s some sort of foreign invader.

Murdoch often hides behind the word ‘entertainment,’ but history shows what kind of greased slope that is; think of the fabulous Roman Empire that devolved into garish ‘entertainments’ in the Coliseum where slaughter was passed off as acceptable tribute to Rome’s power and necessary to placate the masses. Murdoch’s influence in today’s world is palpable; virtually everyone in the big leagues of American, British and Australian media is now facing news with entertainment ratings!

Entertainment makes money. It draws people’s attention. But entertainment is not News! Now Americans increasingly seem to be losing their focus on the blessings stemming from the most unique system of government in world history; they increasingly seem bent on tearing the American system down through mistrust. This discontent, it is very fair to say, is a direct result of the efforts of Rupert Murdoch and his media empire.

It is even fair to suggest that without Rupert Murdoch the United States would not currently have a hard right-wing majority on the Supreme Court, which a decade ago facilitated the election of George W. Bush, and now has ruled that any corporation, even those with foreign investors, can donate however much money it wants to whatever candidate it likes through the blind of political advertising, never having to reveal itself.

American elections can now be bought legally and Murdoch has the means to powerfully support those who would narrow or obliterate Constitutional freedoms in order to facilitate their own wealth and power!

Time Magazine, never a harbinger of liberal thought or politics, declared one year ago, in October 1999, that “Rupert Murdoch is the first press baron to be a monster of the entire world. That’s globalization for you.”

The Time article also observed that Murdoch is the “only media mogul to have created and to control a truly global empire.” These comments are particularly striking, and vitally important when it is remembered that Rupert Murdoch proudly admitted manipulating the news to support the Bush agenda, including the War in Iraq.

Now Murdoch has his sights set on the Internet.

It is more than high time to watch Murdoch, the Dark Lord of conspiratorial thought! It is time to reject him and all his propagandist media before American democracy is lost through suspicion and hatred.

With MB
October, 2010