Chapter 1: What new publication is Rupert Murdoch launching?
In just about a week, Rupert Murdoch is going to launch a new publication, the California Post. In digital and print, no less, it's been described as a New York Post for the left coast. If Mr. Murdoch seems unbothered by reports of the death of media, perhaps that's for a reason. Murdoch media isn't dying.
Former Fox News personalities are currently running the Departments of Defense and Transportation. One is the border czar. One is the director of national intelligence. And Donald Trump, you may recall, is in the White House. Rupert Murdoch knows what he's doing.
He has been one of the most important kind of media owners, not only for what he owns, but also for the way he's used it. He has had this fascinating, but for many people, poisonous impact on political discourse, on politics more generally.
Today on Today Explained, a rerun of a show we ran last fall. My co-host, Sean Ramos, for him on how Rupert Murdoch remade the world.
Do you remember...
Do you like the feeling of power you have as a newspaper proprietor, being able to sort of formulate policies for a large number of newspapers in every state of Australia? Well, there's only one honest answer to that, of course, and that's yes. Of course one enjoys the feeling of power.
I think Rupert is a very Is Rupert Murdoch a nepo baby? Murdoch is absolutely a Nepo baby. If the term Nepo baby was in existence in 1931, yes, he is a Nepo baby. My name is Des Friedman and I am a Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths University of London. My name is Matthew Rickardson and I'm a Professor of Communication at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.
One of our former prime ministers, Malcolm Turnbull, who tangled with Rupert Murdoch, has described him as Australia's deadliest export. His whole presentation is of this kind of scruffy, rebellious outsider figure shaking his fist at the establishment and the elites. The reality is that when he was born in 1931, his father was the managing director of a big newspaper group in Australia.
They lived in possibly the wealthiest suburb in Melbourne in Australia, went to Oxford University and then his father dies in 1952 and leaves him one afternoon newspaper in Adelaide, which is another city here in Australia. His father, Keith, really pioneered tabloid journalism in Australia. My name is Graham Murdoch. No relation.
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Chapter 2: How did Rupert Murdoch's family background influence his career?
They share a kind of neoliberal sort of philosophy of free markets and antagonism to public ownership. And I mean, Murdoch's papers were very much in support of that Thatcher agenda. He already owns two of the most popular newspapers and he wants to buy more. An opportunity comes up to buy the Times and the Sunday Times.
And under the law at the time, there's a requirement that this matter is referred off to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, she ensures that that doesn't happen so that he is able to buy the Times and the Sunday Times. The classic kind of paper of record in the UK because he wanted to have that entree into the elite.
He wants the prestige, he wants the power and he wants the audiences. If you look at Rupert's career, he's always had the popular newspaper that could address, you know, the masses. but you also have an elite newspaper, so you're speaking to the insiders, but you're also speaking to the mass of the people.
That's what gives him his influence, that he can pull the strings at both levels, if you like.
Mr Murdoch, we've called this programme Who's Afraid of Rupert Murdoch? And it seems that many people are afraid, principally because they can't believe that you won't interfere and alter the character of the newspapers you've bought, the Sunday Times and the Times. What do you say to that?
Well, I certainly didn't buy them to change them, and I certainly have the right to insist on excellence.
It was alleged that in the Australian election, when Fraser beat Whitlam, your papers actually distorted the news in favour of your candidate. In both occasions, you had industrial trouble.
We, in fact, had trouble with a number of left-wing journalists because we took their distortions out of their stories. We were not the only newspaper saying that the government should change.
The Falkland Islands and their dependencies remain British territory.
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Chapter 3: What strategies did Murdoch use to expand his media empire?
You know, what it means, how to think about it, etc., The number that really scares me, African-Americans on food stamps is up by 58 percent.
They need to rethink ludicrous. All of corporate America, in my opinion, needs to rethink their responsibility to their country.
And so you put those people on in the evening, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and they bloviate on demand. You know, they don't just have opinions. They have big opinions and theatrical opinions. Tonight, I can report the sky is absolutely falling. We are all doomed. The end is near. The apocalypse is imminent and you're going to all die, all of you.
At least that's what the media mob and the Democratic Extreme Radical Socialist Party would like you to think. Tabloidisation, that's what is applied to Fox News. It changes the media landscape in the sense that the predominant thing being, tell me what to think about the news, make me angry or upset or whatever about the news. It's an enormously profitable business.
You know, you've ceased being a news or journalism outfit at that point and you've become something quite different, which... bears a much closer relationship with propaganda. Murdoch has always run his media empire in different parts of it, work with different parts of an audience, the upmarket respected newspapers versus the downmarket ones.
The Wall Street Journal was on Rupert Murdoch's radar for a long time. This was a newspaper that was unbuyable for him, that the family who owned it said, not in a million years will we sell to a man like Rupert Murdoch. And yet, within a matter of months, they had sold to Rupert Murdoch.
And when you're Rupert Murdoch and you have both Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, again, it positions you in such a... You know, you have that powerful role. Who is...
really going to go against you do you think rupert murnock surpassed his own expectations oh undoubtedly undoubtedly look who knows i'm not in his head so i don't know but if he could have looked into the crystal ball and seen himself in you know from 1952 to 2025 i think it's very hard for him to would have been very hard for him to conceive of being where he is now
He certainly transformed the British media, the Australian media, and the US media. He has had this fascinating, but for many people, poisonous impact on political discourse, on politics more generally.
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