News Corp global boss discussed Glasgow climate summit with Morrison

News Corp’s global chief executive Robert Thomson says he did not know about his Australian newspapers’ climate campaign ahead of time, but he did discuss the upcoming UN Glasgow climate talks with Prime Minister Scott Morrison when they met in New York last month.

Mr Thomson said News Corp Australia’s “Mission Zero” campaign was the brainchild of local editors and he first learned about it when The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed in September the company’s papers would shift their long-held stance on climate change.

News Corp Australia’s Robert Thomson appears via videolink for the Senate hearing on media diversity.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I first heard when I read a story – somewhat accurate, somewhat inaccurate – in the Channel Nine press about the plan. So it was very much generated by editors,” he told a Senate inquiry into media diversity on Friday.

Mr Thomson told the inquiry neither he nor the company’s other global executives in New York were involved in the “Mission Zero” campaign, which has coincided with a standoff between the Liberals and Nationals over locking in a target of net zero emissions by 2050 ahead of the Glasgow summit.

The two-week campaign, which began with a 16-page wrap around every News Corp-owned tabloid newspaper last Monday, marked a departure from the company’s long-held editorial hostility towards carbon reduction policies and its repeated attacks on various federal governments’ efforts to reduce emissions.

Mr Thomson said he and Mr Morrison discussed the Glasgow summit as part of a longer discussion on international issues over after-dinner drinks, when the Prime Minister travelled to the US to meet with US President Joe Biden and other foreign leaders last month.

“We discussed briefly Glasgow in general terms, not our coverage,” Mr Thomson, the top lieutenant in Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire said, adding: “it was one of the shortest parts of a fairly long conversation.”

He said the pair did not speak about the forthcoming federal election, saying their discussions were centred on international affairs including Afghanistan, Australia’s relationship with France following the fallout over the submarine deal, and China. “The Prime Minister and I don’t necessarily agree on China,” Mr Thomson added.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, the chairwoman of the inquiry, queried how the company could claim its papers had editorial independence when metro tabloids – including The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, The Herald Sun in Melbourne and the Courier Mail in Brisbane – all carried the same 16-page campaign.

“There was a meeting of the local editors. They have collectively agreed that ahead of Glasgow, they wanted to make an editorial statement,” Mr Thomson said, saying he hadn’t seen the coverage but assumed it was tailored to a local audience in each paper.

Committee chairwoman Senator Sarah Hanson-Young questioned Mr Thomson queried how the company could claim its papers had editorial independence when they carried the same campaign.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Pressed on whether News Corp had a top-down editorial line that ensured a consistent message across its newsroom, Mr Thomson said there was a “large amount of local autonomy” in the News Corp stable but he accepted the company did have a clear philosophy.

“As a company, clearly we have a philosophy about individual freedom, about the role of the market, about the size of government. And in terms of opinion, whether it’s the New York Post, or any of our papers, we feel free to express it,” he said.

Mr Thomson also weighed into the growing political debate about whether digital giants like Facebook should be treated as publishers and be held legally responsible for content on their platforms.

“They are a publisher. They publish information,” Mr Thomson said.

“There are so many routes by which we [media companies] can be held accountable. We clearly make mistakes and we should be accountable for mistakes,” he said, adding “unfortunately, that’s not yet the case for the big digital platforms”.

The role and impact of the Murdoch empire on Australia’s media landscape have been key focuses of the inquiry, which was established last year by the Labor and Greens-dominated committee off the back of an online petition by former prime minister Kevin Rudd calling a royal commission into Murdoch’s influence.

Mr Thomson is the fourth and most senior executive from the News Corp stable to give evidence at the inquiry. Australian executives Michael Miller and Campbell Reid, and Sky News Australia boss Paul Whittaker have defended the company at previous hearings.