The Age of Murdoch

Many see him as a power-mad, rapacious right-wing vulgarian. Rupert Murdoch has indeed been relentless in building a one-of-a kind media network that spans the world. What really drives him, though, is not ideology but a cool concern for the bottom line—and the belief that the media should be treated like any other business, not as a semi-sacred public trust. The Bush Administration agrees. Rupert Murdoch has seen the future, and it is him

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o civics text has the stomach to describe Washington's "wait in line" industry. When a famous witness is to appear before a committee of Congress, or a famous case is to be argued at the Supreme Court, tourists imagine they can drop in to watch; but they discover that the line for admission formed well before dawn. Professionals in town—lawyers, lobbyists—can't afford to be left out, especially if clients' money is at stake. So they hire services to do the waiting for them. On the days of big events, lines resembling those outside soup kitchens or for-pay blood banks snake through marble corridors in House and Senate office buildings and spill out onto the sidewalk long before most staffers show up for work. At 9:45 or so, for the typical 10:00 A.M. committee hearing, taxis and town cars begin depositing passengers who have come from breakfast or early meetings at their firms. The paid placeholders hold up little signs with names on them, like limo drivers greeting arrivals at an airport, and the switch occurs. Someone with wild hair or wearing several sweatshirts leaves his place in line or his seat in the hearing room, and someone in a nice suit steps in. Economically the arrangement makes sense, but it's a little too crass a reminder of the different standing of citizens before their democratic government.

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Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California, pointed out that Murdoch's New York Post had introduced the label "Axis of Weasels" for France and Germany, and that his Fox News had enthusiastically repeated and amplified the message. Didn't this show that one man could become his own media echo chamber? She then asked, "Do you believe there should be any limits—at all—on how much media one individual or one company can control?" The result was a David Mamet-style dialogue.

MURDOCH: I don't know what the right limits are, but I'm certainly in favor of relaxing the existing limits, Senator.

BOXER: You're in favor of relaxing the limits! ... Well, what if you owned everything?

MURDOCH: If I owned everything?

BOXER: Do you think there ought to be limits on you?

MURDOCH: No, of course not. And we don't—

BOXER: You think there should be limits?

MURDOCH: I think there should be competition everywhere. My life has been built, and my business, starting competition and starting up against—

BOXER: So we've gotten this far.

MURDOCH: —other people and providing diversity.

BOXER: So we've gotten this far. So you agree there should be limits. And the—

MURDOCH: I think there should always be diversity.

BOXER: Good. Limits and diversity. We agree. So then the question is how much? And that's—you're saying you can't put a number on it.

MURDOCH: There should be no limit to diversity.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/09/fallows.htm

Long article hard to snip it cohesively.

thanks for posting this one. just noticed another interesting article:

BBC launches public attack on Murdoch 'imperialism'
By Vincent Graff, Media and Culture Editor
25 August 2003


The controller of BBC1 launched an unprecedented attack on Rupert Murdoch yesterday, calling the media billionaire a "capital imperialist" who wants to destabilise the corporation because he "is against everything the BBC stands for".

Lorraine Heggessey said Mr Murdoch's continued attacks on the BBC stemmed from a dislike of the public sector. But he did not understand that the British people "have a National Health Service, a public education system" and trust organisations that are there for the benefit of society and not driven by profit.

Her controversial comments, in an interview with The Independent, are believed to be the first time a senior BBC executive has publicly attacked the motives of the media tycoon. They follow an intensification of anti-BBC rhetoric from Mr Murdoch's side.

The BBC has been alarmed by the increasingly close relationship between the Government and Mr Murdoch's British newspapers, at a time when the BBC's relationship with New Labour is strained as never before. The frostiness of the relationship has raised speculation that the Government will consider abolishing the licence fee in its forthcoming review of the BBC's charter.

Ms Heggessey's remarks will cheer supporters of the corporation who fear the BBC has kept quiet for too long in the face of attack from Mr Murdoch and his most senior employees.

Her comments come in the wake of a speech to the country's senior broadcasting executives by Tony Ball, chief executive of British Sky Broadcasting, in which Mr Murdoch's News Corporation is the major shareholder.

Mr Ball told the Edinburgh International Television Festival last week that the BBC ought to be forced to sell its most successful programmes, such as EastEnders, Casualty and Have I Got News For You to its commercial rivals, who would screen all future episodes instead. The money raised by such sales should then be ploughed into experimental programming, he said.

Executives at the BBC and elsewhere see the plan as a Murdoch-inspired attempt to cripple the corporation by depriving it of its most popular shows - and the large audiences that go with them.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=436930