Murdoch Abuses Power of Media

by Randolph T. Holhut

Neither publication has any reason to exist in a business sense. Both are huge money losers. But they serve an important purpose for Murdoch.

The conservatives in Congress who make the telecommunications laws have the power to keep Murdoch's media empire going, so the money he spends on the Post and the Weekly Standard (or on conservative politicians, such as the $4.5 million book advance he offered to House Speaker Newt Gingrich or the millions spent on lobbying) is a wise investment.

In return for benefiting so handsomely for legislation that benefits his goals of worldwide media domination, Murdoch delivers the anti-Clinton, anti-liberal agit-prop the conservatives love in his two remaining publications -- especially in the Post.

For those of you reading this who live outside the Northeast Corridor, you might not realize how bad the Post really is or how much of a mouthpiece it is for the causes and business properties of its owner. In the words of Eric Alterman, media critic for The Nation, Murdoch pushes "a journalist agenda that marries sleaze, suck-ups and a fealty to the nuttiest elements of right-wing ideology."

Alterman adds that Murdoch is willing to lose close to $15 million a year to keep the Post going to "not only to give jobs to the otherwise unemployable children of neoconservative intellectuals but also to pressure public employees to force companies like Time Warner Cable to carry Murdoch's Fox News Channel so that all New Yorkers can enjoy the journalistic exploits of Matt Drudge."

The Fox News Channel, which bills itself as fair and unbiased while being home to a multitude of conservative journalists and pundits, recently hired Drudge -- the king of cybergossip -- to host a weekly show on Fox News. I seriously doubt that Murdoch would've hired Drudge had not virtually all of his "scoops" benefited the anti-Clinton crowd. Then again, Fox News has also taken on the ultimate political mercenary, Dick Morris, as a news analyst.

The older readers in the audience may remember what the New York Post was like before Murdoch bought it in 1977. It was the most consistently liberal newspaper in the city, but it also was a listless and unimaginative afternoon paper being published at a time when afternoon papers were dying fast.

Murdoch came in and introduced the media capital of the world to the worst excesses of his Australian and British tabloids. You can rightfully argue that he has been one of the key figures in the downward spiral of journalism -- between the Post and the pioneering tabloid TV "news" show "A Current Affair," he blazed the trail that the rest of the media followed in the race to the bottom.

Over the past few months of "Sexgate," Clinton has taken a horrendous pounding from the Post. From the front page headline the first day, "The Big Creep Told Me To Lie" (something Lewinsky has yet to be proven as having said), there has been no let-up.

Sean Delonas' cartoons on the Page 6 gossip page and Paul Rigby's on the editorial page have been consistently tasteless and usually portray President Clinton as a fat, slobbering sex-crazed fiend. The Post's editorial page -- run by John Podheretz, son of Norman -- carries the full pantheon of conservatives: Pat Buchanan, Arianna Huffington, Maggie Gallagher, Thomas Sowell, William Buckley, Dick Morris, Robert Novak and George Will, to name a few. The closest thing to a moderate on that page is the occasional appearance of Gary Wills.

Add the Post's own columnists to the mix -- Steve Dunleavy, Andrea Peyser and Deborah Orin (with liberal turned Clinton-hater Jack Newfield thrown in for good measure) -- and what you get is a daily drumbeat of how Bill Clinton is evil incarnate, along with other favorite songs such as the evils of liberals, the federal government, environmentalists, consumer advocates, feminists, illegal immigrants and homosexuals and the joys of unfettered capitalism and traditional family values.

• Fred Friendly, the former president of CBS News and one of the people who shaped broadcast journalism, got lengthy obituaries and tributes in most newspapers when he died in February. He got a couple of lines at the end of a notes column in the TV section in the Post.

• When the Irish Peace Accord was signed on April 10, most newspapers had stories about the large role that President Clinton played in helping to push the negotiations along. Clinton's work was scarcely mentioned in the Post's coverage.

• When the Paula Jones lawsuit was dismissed, the Post ran a "person in the street" feature where all seven of the people they quoted agreed with the decision. The headline above it: "The Prez Is Still A Pig" which went with yet another "Clinton is scum" column, this time, by Peyser.

• A landmark survey linking violence on television with youth violence got front page play by the Post's rival, the Daily News. It was buried in the TV section of the Post and ridiculed a day later by Dunleavy in one of his columns.

On the other hand, here's a quiz for you. What do these events have in common?

• Sharon Stone's wedding.

• Seinfeld's last episode.

• Pop singer George Michael getting busted for performing a "lewd act" in a Hollywood men's toilet.

• Chastity Bono proclaiming that the now-canceled "Ellen" sitcom was, in the words of the Post's headline writers, "Too Gay For TV."

• The Spice Girls selling out its Madison Square Garden concert in a matter of minutes.

• Jerry Springer's TV show being accused of staging its now infamous on-screen brawls.

• Anything having to do with Viagra.

The answer? They were all Page 1 stories that got what known in the trade as "the wood," the big, screaming headline on the front page of tabloids. When days when nothing much was happening in "Sexgate," the Post reverted to its other specialty of drooling over celebrity culture.

For someone who's worth $3.2 billion, losing $15 million a year is a small price to pay to wield a club like the Post to keep your friends in line and to beat on your enemies. That's the power of the press, Murdoch style.