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Jonathan Power 2007
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Beware of Murdoch buying
the Wall Street Journal

 

By

Jonathan Power
TFF Associate since 1991

Comments directly to JonatPower@aol.com

January 23, 2007

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair’s widely reported bitter attack on the “feral” nature of the British press, the “Beast”, drew plenty of condemnation. British journalists don’t like being berated for not distinguishing between news and opinion, for being celebrity obsessed, for refusing to see shades of an argument, for sensation, for failing to do their research.

Yet a little more frank self criticism might not be amiss, even though a degree of retaliation against a man who outrageously misled, via the press, public opinion on the reasons for going to war against Saddam Hussein, is quite understandable.

Blair could have stirred the pot even more if instead of a critical aside about The Independent, a paper that has been against Iraq policy all along, if he had made a passing reference to Rupert Murdoch. Many serious journalists who privately agree with much of the Blair critique believe that one can date the decline into mediocrity of the British press from Murdoch’s first purchases thirty years ago. Today if he doesn’t own a particular concern he certainly paces it, threatening more careful papers with losing circulation to the front-runners in his stable if they don’t follow him downhill

With Murdoch poised to buy The Wall Street Journal, Americans should cast an eye over the pond, and even further afield, before taking more of his Sheckles.

Nine years ago I got caught up as a bit player in a Murdoch drama. I was just about to sign a contract with his publishing house, HarperCollins, to write a history of Amnesty International when a storm broke about my head. Murdoch, it was learnt by the brave resignation of one of his editors, Stuart Proffitt, had stopped HarperCollins going ahead with the publication of “East and West”, a book authored by Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a highly respected British Conservative politician. “Kill the book”, an angry Murdoch banged the table as he shouted at Anthea Disney, chief executive of Murdoch’s News Corportation empire in New York.

Murdoch’s underlings should not have been surprised. Indeed the only question was why they had signed Patten up since their boss had a long record of cosying up to Beijing and Patten had an equally long record of fighting Beijing tooth and nail over his admirable if belated effort to introduce a degree of democracy into Britain’s last colony before Hong Kong was returned to China.

Murdoch’s interests were transparent: to secure carriage of his Asian Star satellite TV channel on a pan-Chinese cable system, a proposition that could only go ahead if the hierarchy of the Communist Party approved it. To this end four years before he had cancelled his contract with the BBC to relay it on Star when it broadcast a documentary critical of Mao Tse-tung and the ruling elite. Likewise he sold his stake in the outspokenly liberal- and exceedingly profitable- Hong Kong newspaper, The South China Morning Post, to avoid offending the Chinese government in the run up to the end of British rule.

Murdoch also published a hagiography of Deng Xiaoping by his daughter in an overt attempt to ingratiate himself further with the powers that be in China.

With Patten Murdoch took a step too far. Axing that book met with outrage, a boycott by HarperCollins authors, the threat of a major court case and, most important, a tangible sense that the tables on the deck, at least momentarily, had shifted. As Andrew Neil, one of his former and very successful newspaper editors, observed, “I cannot help feeling that the Patten episode is a turning point against him. The scandal has devalued the status of everything he publishes.”


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I had my moment of glory when my statement on withdrawing my own book was the lead front page story of “The Independent”; even Murdoch’s own “Times” published it prominently. There was more than a groundswell of revolt and who knows where it may have ended up if Murdoch a couple of days later did what he had never done before, publicly apologised. He also promised to reach a generous financial settlement with both Patten and Proffitt. But the damage was done - the Politburo in Beijing were convinced that Murdoch was too Machiavellian by half and Murdoch has never reaped the rewards that he once hoped for in China.

Freedom of the press is a phrase that Murdoch only uses to fight off privacy laws. Long ago Murdoch became a danger to both democracy and good taste. Why, they must ask themselves should the family owners of the Wall Street Journal want to be remembered for selling out to him?


Copyright © 2007 Jonathan Power

 

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Jonathan Power can be reached by phone +44 7785 351172
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com


Jonathan Power 2007 Book
Conundrums of Humanity
The Quest for Global Justice


“Conundrums of Humanity” poses eleven questions for our future progress, ranging from “Can we diminish War?” to “How far and fast can we push forward the frontiers of Human Rights?” to “Will China dominate the century?”
The answers to these questions, the author believes, growing out of his long experience as a foreign correspondent and columnist for the International Herald Tribune, are largely positive ones, despite the hurdles yet to be overcome. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, London, 2007.

 

Jonathan Power's 2001 book

Like Water on Stone
The Story of Amnesty International

Follow this link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book written for the 40th Anniversary of Amnesty International

 

 

 

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