Rupert The Humble

New Year’s Resolutions showed up on Twitter in Rupert Murdoch’s name. At the same time a Twitter stream attributed to his wife Wendi turned out to be a fake. A News Corp spokesperson has confirmed that Rupert –we’d guess with the help of one or more of his minions- is actually tweeting. Not surprisingly it took less than a week for him to pick up more than a hundred thousand followers. That is pretty impressive, until you compare it –as at least one pundit did- to the vast media array at his disposal that regularly spews his views.

Associated Press reports he tweeted resolutions to “try to maintain humility, diet and to stay curious.” Humble is not a term most would apply to the media mogul. Rupert falls more into the overbearing arrogant camp. After the first few days his tweets began to fall into promotional efforts for his stable, especially The Wall Street Journal.

Then he jumped into the Republican primary race, posting, “I can’t resist” and “Good to see Santorum surging in Iowa.” While it’s no surprise that Murdoch is supporting someone on the extreme right, most media executives tend to keep their political views to themselves. While Murdoch had to become an American citizen to own US broadcast properties he still thinks like a Brit, where the media tend to be more involved.

It will be interesting to see if the Murdoch Twitter stream is just a passing fancy, or if they plan to use it as part of a strategy to deal with the very challenging year ahead. The major looming threat to the Murdoch clan comes in the form of the ongoing Leveson Inquiry in London. A number of major players from Murdoch’s Fleet Street organization have been arrested. So far they have been tight lipped and deny any wrongdoing. Worse, Rupert’s son, James, the titular head of much of the empire, seems to be caught up in the phone hacking scandal; an ethical disaster and perhaps a criminal disaster as well.

It will be interesting to see if the tweets from Rupert the Humble take a turn as all this plays out.

British Tabloid Culture

British Tabloid Culture

There’s a celebrity “A” list from Hugh Grant to JK Rowling parading before Lord Justice Leveson in London. The ongoing Leveson Inquiry is investigating media ethics in Britain centered on the Murdoch phone hacking mess. The celebs, along with lesser known folk, are laying out the damages the phone hacking, celebrity stalking, tabloid press has inflicted on them. Yes, it’s not just the Murdoch papers that employ these pond scum techniques. Nor is the damage limited to the crimp that it puts in the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Much sadder are the tales of everyday folk, most notably the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. 

In an effort to keep the headlines coming Murdoch’s minions repeatedly emptied the voicemails from Milly’s mobile phone, leading her parents (and the police) to believe that she was alive and picking up the messages. Actually the 13-year-old had been lured into the hands of "predatory" nightclub bouncer Levi Bellfield on her way home from school and lay dead in a field at the end of that day. Bellfield was subsequently charged with the murder of two more young women. Witnesses are laying out stories of inconvenience, embarrassment, and tragedy before Lord Justice Leveson, all brought on by the telephone hacking, police bribing, peeping Tom, high speed chase stalking style of journalism favored by the British tabloids.

The lurid stories gained by these methods dim in shock value to the testimony of one former Murdoch editor, Paul McMullan, once a deputy features editor at The News Of The World. According to published reports, McMullan admitted that all these "worthy tools'” as he called them, were not only routinely used at the paper, they were aggressively urged upon him and his colleagues by their bosses.

McMullan even called out two former Murdoch executives, Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. Coulson was the chief spokesperson for Prime Minister David Cameron by the time the firestorm hit, while Ms. Brooks headed all the Murdock newspaper holdings in Britain. McMullan said they could have been the “heroes” of journalism; instead they became the “scum,” apparently for their failure to take responsibility for the use of the worthy tools at The News Of The World.  He also calls Ms. Brooks an “arch-criminal.”

McMullan’s testimony was particularly hard to swallow when he described a culture that not only used these “tools” but believes they are “worthy tools.” He hotly defended a wide range of behaviors that we find ethically repulsive. When asked to define public interest, McMullan replied, “If the public is interested,” adding that if they don’t approve they could stop reading these stories. This culture seems pervasive among British tabloids and within the Murdoch Empire. Unlike McMullan we do not see these “tools” as “worthy,” we see them as disgustingly shameful.