I happened to be in London, England a few weeks ago when the Murdoch scandal was just getting under way. It was quite fun to pick up a couple of newspapers each day at the Tube watching this thing play out. I must say it was just fine to watch this immoral school yard bully get, as they say, “hoisted on his own petard,” the term being a Shakespearean innovation from Hamlet; a petard being a French reference to a small bomb going off in the hands of the perpetrator rather than the intended victim.
This could not happen to a nicer guy.
The sad discovery is the utter corruption of British civil society including the London police force, a wide swath of the media and members of both major political parties.
This thing is not new news. There was an inquiry years ago where it appears most everybody was lying, a couple of fall guys went to jail and everyone basically went back to work.
In case you don’t follow these matters, we are talking about Murdoch papers, the News of World in particular, phone-hacking thousands of people to get private information to write stories. It included politicians, celebrities, the Royal Family, families of soldiers killed in the Afghan war, and most grievously, a teenage girl who committed suicide. Sometimes they didn’t just listen in, they deleted messages if it suited them.
This stunning behaviour became the norm and both politicians and the police force at the highest levels decided it was easier to go along than make trouble for Murdoch. The Prime Minister hired a former editor of the News of the World to be his communications director who has now been arrested. The head of the police hired an ex-editor of the News of the World to be a PR flack for the cops and he has now been arrested. The lead investigator on the phone hacking case for the London police resigned and became a columnist with the News of the World. The newly arrested director of Murdoch’s UK operations was best buddies with the Prime Minister. The newly departed head of Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal), previously head of UK operations for Murdoch, testified just two years ago that phone hacking was limited to one reporter which is clearly absurd and untrue. The police sat on the evidence for five years and did nothing with it. While the investigation of the News of the World was going on, the head of the police dined out and socialized with senior Murdoch executives 18 times. The head of the London police has now resigned.
No doubt more heads will roll as this thing unravels.
It is incredible.
This corrupt incestuous relationship with government was about to pay off with the approval of Murdoch buying a regulated satellite broadcaster called BSkyB. What is interesting to note is that much of this round of revelations is coming from the work of the New York Times which is not part of the clubby establishment in England. It needs to be noted, Murdoch has declared war on the New York Times in America, one he may wish he might have passed on. No doubt Conrad Black, as he awaits his return to jail, is taking some small measure of satisfaction in this turn of events with his old nemesis.
The cause of this mess is not difficult to assess. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (a little more Shakespeare, Macbeth). The media has been allowed to concentrate to dangerous levels all over the world. In this country, three companies own all significant newspapers. Four Telecom companies own all the television stations (Rogers, Bell, Quebecor and Shaw cable). Who are these people? What are their interests? What is really going on? How does it impact regulation?
Quebecor owns 150 weeklies, 8 urban dailies, 7 commuter newspapers and nine local dailies (four of them in Northern Ontario). They just withdrew from the Ontario Press Council because they dislike “the politically correct mentality” they allege is incumbent. There is nothing else in the province to restrain the behaviour of media. Quebecor feels it is accountable to no one.
It is dangerous, foolhardy and shortsighted to allow this concentration to exist.
Nothing will be done about it.
You know why.
