[Peace-discuss] Signs of more serious media corruption

[C. G. Estabrook]

*Amid the Murdoch scandal, there's an acrid smell of business as usual
*John Pilger
Published 21 July 2011

The Fleet Street hacks and men from Westminster are now scrabbling to rewrite 
the history of the phone-hacking fiasco. The pact between press and parliament 
remains the same.

In Scoop, Evelyn Waugh's brilliant satire on the press, there is the moment when 
Lord Copper, owner of the Daily Beast, meets his new special war correspondent, 
William Boot, in truth an authority on wild flowers and birdsong. A confused 
Boot is ushered into his lordship's presence by Mr Salter, the Beast's foreign 
editor.

"Is Mr Boot all set for his trip?"

"Up to a point, Lord Copper."

Copper briefs Boot as follows: "A few sharp victories, some conspicuous acts of 
personal bravery on the Patriot side and a colourful entry into the capital. 
That is the Beast policy for the war . . . We shall expect the first victory 
about the middle of July."

Rupert Murdoch is a 21st-century Lord Copper. The amusing gentility is missing; 
the absur­dity of his power is the same. The Daily Beast wanted victories; it 
got them. The Sun wanted dead Argies; gotcha! Of the bloodbath in Iraq, Murdoch 
said: "There is going to be collateral damage, and if you really want to be 
brutal about it, better we get it done now . . ." The Times, the Sunday Times, 
Fox got it done.

*Corporate monoculture
*Long before it was possible to hack phones, Murdoch was waging a war on 
journalism, truth, humanity, and succeeded because he knew how to exploit a 
system that welcomed his devotion to the "free market". He may be more extreme 
in his methods, but he is no different in kind from many of those now lining up 
to condemn him who have been his beneficiaries, mimics, collaborators, apologists.

As Gordon Brown turns on his former master, accusing him of running a 
"criminal-media nexus", watch the palpable discomfort in the new 
parliamentary-media consensus. "We must not be backward-looking," said a Labour 
MP. Those parliamentarians caught two years ago with both hands in the 
Westminster till, who did nothing to stop the killing of hundreds of thousands 
of people in Iraq, and stood and cheered the war criminal responsible, are now 
"united" behind the "calm" figure of Ed Miliband. There is an acrid smell of 
business as usual.

Certainly, there is no "revolution", as reported in the Guardian, which compared 
the fall of Murdoch with that of the tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania in 
1989. The overexcitement is understandable; Nick Davies's scoop is a great one. 
Yet the truth is, Britain's system of elite monopoly control of the media rests 
not on News International alone, but on the Mail and the Guardian and the BBC, 
perhaps the most influential of all. All share a corporate monoculture that sets 
the agenda of the "news", defines acceptable politics by maintaining the fiction 
of distinctive parties, normalises unpopular wars and guards the limits of "free 
speech". This will be strengthened by the illusion that a "bad apple" has been 
"rooted out".

When the Financial Times complained last September that the BSkyB takeover would 
give Murdoch dominance in Britain, the media commentator Roy Greenslade came to 
his rescue. "Surely," he wrote, "Britain's leading business newspaper should be 
applauding an entrepreneur who has achieved so much from unpromising 
beginnings?" Murdoch's political control was a myth spread by "naive 
commentators". Noting his own "idealism" about journalism, Greenslade made no 
mention of his history on the Sun, or as Robert Maxwell's Daily Mirror editor 
responsible for the shameful smear that the miners' leader Arthur Scargill was 
corrupt. (To his credit, he apologised in 2002.)

Greenslade is now a professor of journalism at City University, London. In his 
Guardian blog of 17 July, he caught the breeze and proposed that Murdoch explain 
"the climate you created". How many of the political and media chorus now 
calling for Murdoch's head remained silent over the years as his papers 
repeatedly attacked the most vulnerable in society? Impoverished single mothers 
have been a favourite target of tax-avoiding News International. Who in the 
so-called media village demanded the sacking of Kelvin MacKenzie as Sun editor 
following his attacks on the dead and dying in the Hillsborough stadium tragedy 
of 1989?
*
The kowtowing class*
This was an episode as debased as the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone, yet 
MacKenzie is frequently feted on the BBC and in the liberal press as a "witty" 
tabloid genius who "understands the ordinary punter". Such vicarious 
middle-class flirtation with Wapping-life is matched by admiration for the 
successful Murdoch "marketing model".

In Andrew Neil's 470-page book Full Disclosure, the former editor of Murdoch's 
Sunday Times devotes fewer than 30 words to the scurrilous and destructive smear 
campaign that he and his Wapping colleagues conducted against the broadcasters 
who made the 1988 Thames Television programme Death on the Rock. This landmark, 
fully vindicated investigation lifted the veil on the British secret state and 
exposed its ruthlessness under Margaret Thatcher, a confidante of Murdoch's. 
Thereafter, Thames Television was doomed. Yet Neil has his own BBC programme and 
his views are sought after across the liberal media.

The Guardian of 13 July editorialised about "the kowtowing of the political 
class to the Murdochs". This is all too true. Kowtowing is an ancient ritual, 
often performed by those whose pacts with power may not be immediately obvious, 
but are no less sulphuric. Tony Blair, soaked in the blood of an entire society, 
was once regarded almost mystically at the Guardian and Observer as the prime 
minister who, wrote Hugo Young, "wants to create a world none of us have known 
[where] the mind might range in search of a better Britain . . ." He was in 
perfect harmony with the chorus over at Wapping. "Mr Blair," said the Sun, "has 
vision, he has purpose and he speaks our language on morality and family life." 
Plus ça change.

On 7/21/11 8:48 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> [Murdoch is a symptom, not the disease - which is chronic, as Louis Proyect 
> notes here.]
>
> * Why Cenk Uygur left MSNBC after refusing to "tone it down"
> *
> I was partial to Cenk not just because he is a Turk. He was also
> one of the sharpest critics of the DP on MSNBC despite being--in
> the final analysis--just another DP spokesperson.
>
> For the last week or so, Al Sharpton has been hosting his 6pm
> show. At first I thought Cenk was on vacation but it turns out
> that he was too critical of Obama and the other rightwing assholes
> in the DP. All he wanted was the DP to be more liberal. Fat chance
> of that.
>
> For those not familiar with American politics, Sharpton is an
> African-American one-time FBI informant and "radical" street
> demonstration organizer in NYC. He has "matured" into a total DP
> hack who can be called upon to spin Obama's latest rightwing
> offensive against workers and the Black community.
>
> Here's Cenk's take on what happened:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrKKkGl3TnY&feature=player_embedded
>
>
>
> This body part will be downloaded on demand.
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