King of the World

The fertilizer is now hitting the fan in what can be called the “Rupert Murdoch Empire.” Two weeks ago we started hearing of some of the mischief his troops have been up to in England. It involved hacking telephone lines and emails of people from the members of the Royal family to parents of a kidnap and murder victim, and of bribing police to help gather the kind of news expected of tabloids. 

The early news was of this nature and seemed small reward for the risk involved in such clearly criminal behavior. At the time I drew a parallel with Watergate for which so much was put at risk in a failed burglary attempt, for so little. Evidently Murdoch’s early career in print journalism led to a lifelong obsession with scooping the opposition and tabloid journalism is by nature a dirty game played without rules. But when the news broke about his having blackmailed British politicians on both sides of the political aisles the plot thickened. 

From what we now know, Murdoch worked in the U.K. in a manner similar to the way J. Edgar Hoover ran the F.B.I for half a century, but without the fig leaf of technically serving a government. The resignation of the Wall Street Journal’s CEO is a sign that the organization may have been working in this country in something less than legal manner, a suspicion that many of us have held for some time.

His TV medium, Fox “News” has been a source of “information” not only for true believers, but for folks whose beliefs are formed by these alleged facts. If we’re lucky many of the latter will at least begin to smell a rat.    

Comparing Murdoch’s power to that of Nixon or the Mafia is false equivalency. His is potentially stronger in large part because it is multi-national. But it is like the Mafia’s in that it no longer depends on one individual. His syndicate has evolved to the point that he is to it what Bin Laden was to al Qaeda. There are people the likes of Roger Ailes who will not have to look for a job if Murdoch predeceases them. We are looking at an organization that just might be more powerful than any nation on earth.

Rupert Murdoch has told reporters that he is merely “annoyed” by this whole business. I think it likely that he’s bluffing and doubt that he’s irrational. But if he is privy to information that justifies his feeling nothing more than annoyance, a strong case can be made for fearing something other than fear itself