Murdoch's World (4 page)

In the
beachside community of Albert Park, feelings toward him were equally complicated. At a bookstore I ducked into, a prominent display featured the best-selling memoir of former prime minister John Howard, a favorite Murdoch politician. I bought a popular children's book for my daughter Viola, called
Josephine Wants to Dance
. Josephine is a young kangaroo who aspires to be a ballerina. The Murdoch imprint HarperCollins Australia published both books.

There is admiration for the global success of a local boy, but cynicism too. “In Australia, there are a lot of cities that only have Murdoch press as their newspaper,” said bookseller Kate MacFadyen, “so it just feels like his organization dominates the media in this country.”

Until Dame Elisabeth's death in late 2012, Murdoch typically visited her once a year at the estate. Graeme Samuel said Dame Elisabeth's
philanthropy bound the city of Melbourne to the family. “For Rupert, I think it's a combination of goodwill,” Samuel said, with “fear that's being created by the sheer omnipresence of the Murdoch family and the Murdoch press.”

News Corp owns the dominant papers in nearly all the country's major cities. The
Australian
, the only national general interest paper, has a modest circulation of approximately 130,000 but shapes elite opinion; it's the paper that gets chewed over by talk radio, television programs, and blogs. In addition, News Ltd owns popular news websites and the controlling stake in FoxTel, the nation's largest cable TV provider, in Fox Sports, and the cable Sky News Australia service. Murdoch's older son, Lachlan Murdoch, makes his home in Sydney and is a key investor and chairman of the ostensibly rival broadcast Network Ten while remaining a corporate director of News Corp in New York.

Between six and seven of every ten copies of national and metro papers sold in Australia are owned by News Ltd, according to government and trade figures. The papers are not monolithic in approach. But they tend to champion a strong military stance, a smaller government with fewer regulatory powers, and restrictive policies toward immigrants. Murdoch's tabloids exude a more populist sheen than the
Australian
.

Paul Barry, who has written periodically for Murdoch's
Daily Telegraph
in Sydney, pointed out that the livelihoods of an overwhelming number of Australian journalists depend on the whim of a single media conglomerate and the sensibility of a single mogul.
“Ultimately, he's the bloke they have to please,” Barry said. “And so, while they may not actually get an order coming down saying, ‘You will run
this
headline, you will do
this
story, you will take
this
point of view,' they know what sort of things are going to play well.”

The fact of that concentration is a notable element of two separate recent government reviews of the media in Australia.
“It's a pretty clear stranglehold on the flow of information, which in itself might not
be such a bad thing if you weren't open to claims that certain media organizations represent certain political interests,” said Monica Attard, former foreign correspondent and media critic for the ABC. “I think it's very, very difficult to overcome those barriers.”

Rupert Murdoch addressed the nature of media ownership decades ago as he sought his first foothold in the UK by taking over the tabloid
News of the World
. “I think the important thing is that there be plenty of newspapers, with plenty of different people controlling them, so that there are a variety of viewpoints, so there is a choice for the public,” he reassured the British public in 1968. “This is the freedom of the press that is needed.”

Murdoch's Australian editors insist that the country does enjoy a diversity of views. They point to the nation's public broadcaster, the ABC, and the rival Fairfax Media's holdings, including worldly daily papers in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as the national business daily
Australian Financial Review
.

The former media and antitrust regulator Graeme Samuel perceives real danger in the state trying to interfere with ownership: “News Ltd is powerful, but is it vulnerable? Yes, I think it is,” Samuel said. “Like any traditional media organization, they're vulnerable to the whims and fancies of the reader.” Samuel noted that paid newspaper circulation is declining in Australia, as it is elsewhere in the industrialized world. People read blogs and foreign newspapers online, or tune in to talk radio. Ahead, Samuel sees the promise of Internet TV. He dismisses the idea that a single media company can control anything in Australia, even if its myriad publications generally share an outlook.

Still, Australia is unlike other western countries in the extent to which one private company holds such a dominant position. “It's bad for a democracy when 70 percent of the newspapers in this country are pushing one line and pushing it so hard, whether it is right or whether it's wrong, frankly,” the media critic Paul Barry said.

The gravitational pull is inescapable. Leaders of both major Australian political parties, whether favored by News Ltd newspapers or punished by them, routinely pay their respects at News Corp's global headquarters in midtown Manhattan when they visit the United Nations or have other official functions there.

“Most [Australian] Labor politicians hated Rupert,” said one former senior executive who witnessed the parade of supplicants. “But they all came to New York City to kiss the ring. Prime Minister [Julia] Gillard among them.”

AUSTRALIA IS perhaps the most fully formed demonstration of the media strategy Murdoch has pursued in other markets. A look at the nature of Murdoch's Australian stable of papers proves revealing about his intentions elsewhere. The
Australian
is
“by far the most detailed paper in regard to national politics,” said Robert Manne, one of the country's leading public intellectuals. “And it's also at a higher level of analysis, in general, than the other papers.”

The paper is “smarter, sharper” than the others, he said, with more resources and fewer profit demands to boot. “The
Australian
has the personal support of Rupert Murdoch. Everyone knows it. He created the paper. He's incredibly proud of it as one of his creations.”

Indeed, Murdoch launched the paper in July 1964, with this mission statement printed prominently on the front page:

              
Here is Australia's first truly national newspaper. It is produced today because you want it; because the nation needs it. In these pages you will find the impartial information and the independent thinking that are essential to the further advance of our country. This paper is tied to no party,
to no state, and has no chains of any kind. Its guide is faith in Australia and the country's future.

                    
It will be our duty to inform Australians everywhere of what is really happening in their country; of what is really happening in the rest of the world; and how this affects our prosperity, our prospects, our national conscience and our public image.

                    
We shall not hesitate to speak fearlessly. We shall criticise.

                    
We will not be influenced when there is need to be outspoken.

                    
We shall praise. We shall encourage those feelings and movement in public and private life which elevate the individual and advance the nation's welfare.

                    
The world news service which appears in the
Australian
surpasses any yet assembled in the pages of one newspaper anywhere in the world.

                    
The authoritative writers who will contribute regularly on topics ranging from the arts to aviation are acknowledged leaders in the subjects they will discuss. The business and financial section is organised and written by the shrewdest and best informed financial journalists in the nation.

                    
Vigor, truth and information without dullness will be found day by day in these columns. We believe the people of Australia will welcome the new approach to national journalism.

                    
This morning, we believe, we shall make thousands of friends, who as the thinking men and women of Australia will have a profound influence on the future. You are welcome to this company of progress.

But another component emerged from the pages of the paper, unstated but no less important: the
Australian
is not only a chronicler but also a player in national politics. It has no peer. The
Australian
, known as the
Oz
, did not always adopt a conservative course. In 1972, it had supported the candidacy of the centrist Labor Party leader Gough Whitlam.
Murdoch believed that the avid backing of his papers had played “a substantial role” in Whitlam's win that year, as he later told the US ambassador to Australia. But along with many Australian business leaders, Murdoch grew disillusioned with Whitlam, and his papers, including the
Oz
, followed suit. The government's standing seemed shaky. The Queen's emissary to Australia, the governor general, dismissed Whitlam as prime minister, sparking a political crisis. In 1975, a group of journalists staged a strike to protest how openly the
Australian
's coverage favored opposition leader Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal Party, who became prime minister.

Under Chris Mitchell, the paper's current editor for more than a decade, the
Australian
has favored smaller government with fewer regulations on business, vigorously supported the invasion of Iraq, treated increased immigration skeptically, and displayed active concern about issues affecting Australia's Aboriginal peoples. The paper's positions actively drive news coverage, not just editorials. And
the
Australian
sets the tone not only for News Ltd's other papers but also for the debate on talk radio, blogs, and TV, including Sky News Australia.

James Chessell, a former business and media reporter for the
Australian
, is now deputy editor at Fairfax's
Australian Financial Review
. He expressed admiration for the clarity of the
Australian
's stance under Mitchell and said critics are wrong to attribute its editorial choices to meddling by Murdoch. But, he said, it's accurate to say
“someone's probably not going to edit the
Australian
or the
Daily Telegraph
in Sydney if they haven't risen up through News and aren't
sort of enmeshed in the culture and probably don't have similar views to other people at News.” (“News” is how many Australians refer to News Ltd.)

The papers do not always act in perfect lockstep. But that said, the Murdoch papers hammered away at then-Labor prime minister Gillard and her Green Party allies, and the
Australian
has taken the lead. Jaspan, the former editor in chief of the Melbourne
Age
, said aggrieved politicians never like tough coverage, but this time may have a point. “There is constant scrutiny of the Labor party by the
Australian
, which at times is not just forensic—it actually becomes quite caustic,” Jaspan said. “It's quite corrosive.”

The governing Labor Party has suffered over the past few years from infighting and policy reversals, and its popularity has dropped sharply in the polls. But Jaspan noted that Australia has fared better under its stewardship than just about any industrialized society during the global financial crisis. You'd never know that, he said, from the
Australian
or its sister papers.

The
Australian
is not strictly partisan. It supported the rise to power of Kevin Rudd, a centrist, before a falling out with Rudd and especially his successor, Gillard. The schism was taken as a renewed warning to other politicians: stay on the right side of the company. Previously, John Howard of the Liberal Party earned the strong support of News Ltd papers, especially on fiscal matters and the Australian involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In an earlier era the Labor Party's Paul Keating won support from the Murdochs. He had been integral to the Sydney Showground deal for Fox Studios.

The switches back and forth between parties made Murdoch an unpredictable and incomparable force in Australian journalism and politics.

Robert Manne was once a favorite of the political right, and hence the Murdoch press, as an anticommunist magazine editor. No more. In fall 2011,
he took direct aim at the
Australian
with a lengthy critique
in the periodical
Monthly
. He said the paper was intellectually dishonest and run by political bullies and climate change “denialists.”