Liberal Vision

BBC on drugs?

I don’t know quite what the BBC was on yesterday – but the excitement of the past 48 hours clearly got to them.

Whilst covering the emergency debate in Parliament – the BBC also felt it necessary to show images of a jet taxi-ing at Luton… with the dramatic headline “RUPERT MURDOCH IS EXPECTED TO LEAVE COUNTRY” ….

Is that really news? Still it wasn’t quite as mad as the earlier incident – when BBC News channel cut off an interviewee in mid-sentence to “cut to (equally un-)dramatic pictures of ……..David Cameron getting into a car ! – on his way to Parliament…..

Let’s hope the summer recess will allow all those BBC journalists to go and lie down in a quiet dark place for a while. And let’s hope that BSKYB don’t pull the plug on Sky News anytime soon if this is the best the BBC can do.

Tags: BBC, Hackgate, Rupert Murdoch

NOTW closing – right or wrong?

It is both amusing and inevitable that the closing of the News of the World has provked outrage from so many quarters. To hear some of the comments being made on TV and radio in the last 36 hours you would have thought that this was the pinnacle of British Journalism being shut down – not a gossip-filled rag, piled high with accusation, salacious tidbits and blurry photos of pop stars knickers as they scramble from car to club. Personally I can’t see the problem with shutting it down.

I took part in a discussion on this topic yesterday afternoon on BBC World Service. I was thoroughly amused to here old tired hacks and media luvvies berating Murdoch for the closing of the paper. As far as they were concerned, looking down  from their whiter than white ivory towers, all those working at the NOTW today were not involved in the original crimes so why should they be punished? The NOTW was a fine upstanding newspaper with a proud tradition that had been cast aside by the evil media baron. 200 jobs had been sacrificed to save the jobs of a few. One poor NOTW journalist we were told had only just had a baby and had a mortgage to pay – it was all soooo unfair.

What utter rot. The truth is that following the recent revelations regarding the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone and the phones of 7/7 victims and families etc there was a huge outcry from all quarters. The media went on an anti NOTW spree – they could not write enough, or talk about more, or dedicate sufficient phone-in time to the multiple despicable outrages of the NOTW. Politicians were typically and universally appalled and outraged at the whole affair, demanding public inquiries that could not come soon enough or as far as they were concerned. Advertisers were falling over themselves to be the next one to say – we are out – to disassociate themselves from such a toxic brand. And most importantly came the “public outcry”. Caller after caller and tweet after tweet cried out for a boycott  of the paper, demanded that it be shut, pleaded with the nation to “send Murdoch a message”. Well Rupert Murdoch got the message.

No matter what the intentions of those on social media and elsewhere – their actions made NOTW brand toxic. To hear some of the very same tweeters then pop up on radio this morning saying the closure was not what they wanted was utterly priceless. Beware of unintended consequences my friends.

So was the closing of NOTW right or wrong? Right. Of course. Had Rupert Murdoch taken no action he risked the toxicity extending to other parts of his business. It still might.  He may very well have been facing future job cuts and closures of 2000 jobs not just the current 200, had this been allowed to fester and grow. He still might. I have heard his actions described as cynical. But those cries are from luvvies in their towers who have never run an organisation of any scale. This was an act of necessity. Murdoch’s genius was to do it so quickly and so effectively. Too many leaders would have left it a while, to “see what happened”. That is simply ceding control of the situation- to become the victim of unfolding circumstances. That is no way for a leader (be it of a business or a political party for that matter) to behave. What we have seen is a masterclass in Management Crisis – pure and simple.

It is also with amusement I see that those same politicos and tired old hacks – having criticised Murdoch so profoundly about the closure of the NOTW – are now rounding on him for the expected extension of  the Sun newspaper to 7 days a week. And what I ask is wrong with that? A business man may have found a way of  softening the blows of a deeply damaging crisis with some minor positive outcomes. Give that man another gold star.  

Of course , if some of the NOTW staff are subsequently employed by “The Sun on Sunday” we will hear further outcry. If they aren’t employed – and others are – that too will provoke outcry. The luvvies actually want the NOTW staff to be martyrs to the luvvies cause of Murdoch destruction and to hell with anyone caught up in the middle.

It is clear to me that Murdoch was not only right to shut the NOTW, in truth he had no option but to close it. Given the choice he would obviously much rather none of this had happened (the idea that he somehow orchestrated the inquiry in order to find an excuse to close the paper is up there with the Royal family murdering Diana). He will still find the whole affair permanently damaging. Bskyb shares dropped again today.  His friend and allay Rebekah Brooks will almost certainly have to be cut loose one way or another, his son may well face criminal charges, News International prized relationship with UK politicians has been checked if not permanently halted and his quest to take over BSKYB has taken a considerable step backwards if not been totally scuppered.

What is clear, and of interest to the freemarketers, is that Market mechanisms did in just a few days what no Government or inquiry could have achieved in months or years, if ever. It shut down an immoral and illegal miserable newspaper. Murdoch may have wielded the knife, but NOTW was already dead.

Tags: News of the World, Rupert Murdoch

Clegg smears backfire on newspapers

How jaded and irrelevant the newspapers have looked through this general election. The TV debates well and truly destroyed the traditional newspaper role as the “gate-keeper” to the politicians. Why read what the editors and columnists of the papers think about the leaders of the main parties – when we can watch and listen to them directly ourselves and form our own views?

We no longer wait for their daily analysis of the previous days events, when news channels, tweeters and you-tubers bring us opinion, digest and so much more in a matter of minutes.

How pompous, arrogant, and disconnected from reality they sounded as they variously announced which political horse they were backing.  In a year where anti-politics reigns – why brand themselves with being part of “that set” of the political ruling elite? Talk about not getting with the times..

So at a time when they are under pressure from increasingly more in-tune, relevant and informative media options, how totally ridiculous for a number of them to engage an ill-disguised smear campaign on rivals to Cameron – and Clegg in particular . Just how daft is that?

Of them all the Murdoch papers are the most odious/inept. Anti Murdoch feeling has been building for months (if not years now) – did no one have the balls to tell him that? Presumably not….. as he has been widely reported as up to his old tricks ranting down the phone at his political editors that its their job to get “his man” (Cameron) into power. What favours does he expect to curry? What influence is he seeking to wield? What legislation changes are on his greedy little mind this time? Maybe he just likes to bask in the knowledge, and maybe brag to his mates, that he somehow “owns” this country. This country is up to its armpits in arrogance..we just don’t need anymore here thanks.

I personally have no objection to newspapers taking a view, having an opinion, seeking to affect peoples views. I much rather they do it openly and forthrightly then make a pretence of being unbiased. I just dont like incompetence. And what I see is gross incompetence.

Not only have their actions started to alienate their readers, and lost them what little respect they had, but they ahve set themselves against the will of the people on whom they rely. At best they face further loss of influence – at worst they face annihilation.

Witness for example one group –  38 Degrees   which is inviting voters to sign a petition against Rupert Murdoch and the tabloid press.  The petition text reads :

“Rupert Murdoch and the tabloid press:
Stop trying to spread scare stories and fear to bully people to change how they vote. We cast our votes for democracy, for a responsible and reforming parliament and a better politics.
The outcome of our elections should be decided by us, the voters of the UK, not by you.

And I can’t see it ending there. Murdoch’s “share of news voice” (combining his TV interests with his newspaper ones) is already considered by many to be a scandal – when other groups ability to expand their media interests are seriously limited by legislation.

So it’s not impossible to envisage  Murdoch’s power being dismantled by an incoming government -emboldened by such petitions as this one. And  I can’t see many people flocking to Mr Murdoch’s defence if/when that happens. They’ll just say – he got what he deserves. And the papers will say “IT WAS THE PEOPLE WHAT DONE IT”  – that’s if anyone is still reading papers of course.

Tags: 38 degrees, general election, newspaper smears, Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch: I liked it so much that I bought your country’s legal system

Today’s Guardian’s sensational expose of the Murdoch empire’s subversion of the rule of law raises a shedload of issues. The paper suggests that this poses “difficult questions” for:

David Cameron and his comms director Andy Coulson (who was line manager for many of the journos behaving in this illegal fashion)…

…Various arms of the British state from the Press Complaints Commission to the CPS, who have clearly been supine, incompetent or both…

…and “Murdoch executives who, albeit in good faith, have misled a parliamentary select committee, the Press Complaints Commission and the public .”

Murdoch himself doesn’t seem to be in The Guardian’s firing line. He now appears to be some form of weird Kaiser Soze mythical beast rather than a human being who is legally responsible for his – and his company’s – actions.

Fortunately, Rupert Murdoch is an American citizen and our government has entered into an extradition arrangement with the United States whereby we speed up the judicial process. Any British citizen wanted  by the States can be handed over to the US authorities without the need for a prima facie case being established on this side of the pond. And because we have a “special relationship” with the USA, I would have thought this applies the other way round.

 Oh, it doesn’t? 

Ooops.

Tags: Rupert Murdoch