It’s the Culture, Stupid!

The Murdock media feeding frenzy continues unabated. And it may be just beginning. One defining aspect helps explain much. The nature of the media across the pond is different from that in the United States. Great Britain –and most of what’s referred to as the British Commonwealth– are subject to some form of the “Official Secrets Act.”

For all intents and purposes, these laws put all government activity and government folks (those elected, the bureaucracy, etc.) –so far as what they are doing on the job– pretty much out of bounds, safe from pesky reporters. There could have been no Watergate, no Pentagon papers had we suffered under these laws in the United States.

Media subject to these restrictions are reduced to a frantic effort to be the first to reveal any trace of scandal or other bit on the personal level that they can dig up –by hook or by crook as it now turns out. The kind of stuff we largely leave to the supermarket tabloids such as the National Star, one of Murdock’s first purchases in the United States.

The scion of an Australian publisher, Rupert Murdock was still in his early twenties when he landed in the dog-eat-dog culture of Fleet Street where London’s newspapers reside. The young Murdock inhaled it, savored it, embraced it, and made it his own; embarking on a lifetime culture of journalism as a competitive calling.

As he expanded his Empire across the globe Murdock acquired a wide range of US media: motion pictures, television, newspapers and news services. He was forced to become a US citizen –a prerequisite to the ownership of broadcast entities here– but his heart, his soul, the culture of his News Corp remains on Fleet Street.

No one has suggested that Murdock personally hacked into (among thousands of others) the mobile telephone of a missing youngster, or bribed police and other public officials. However, the culture he has projected since founding his organization may have driven dozens of his employees to engage in these repulsive practices over many years. “Get it first” morphed into “Get it anyway you can”. There are now suggestions that News Corp hacking efforts extended to the mobile phones of families of 9/11 victims in America.

These disclosures couldn’t have come at a worse time for Murdock. First his crown jewel, The News of the World, the leading tabloid in Great Britain, went under the bus in an attempt to save his bid for the 61% of British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) that his company does not already own. The enormously popular and profitable satellite service dominates television in Great Britain and Ireland. Until the scandals surfaced, it looked like British government approval of the deal was a slam-dunk. Now Murdock has been forced to drop that effort and his current 39% ownership may be in jeopardy.

Faced with government investigations and legislative hearings in Great Britain and the United States, Murdock’s Media Empire –the second largest on the planet– may suffer more losses. None could be more welcome than an end to a culture that has soured and revealed an evil side.