Rupert Murdoch and the ‘most precious asset’ of his media empire

Fifteen years ago, Rupert Murdoch gave the Boyer lectures on Australia’s national broadcaster. The lectures, which have been delivered every year since 1959, invite a prominent Australian to stimulate thought, discussion and debate across the nation by examining key issues and values.

Murdoch talked about the values important in his role as the world’s most powerful media tycoon, a man whose newspapers and television organisations span the globe from mastheads such as The Australian, Wall Street Journal and The Times to his right-wing, cable-news network Fox News.

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has been entangled in scandal again, and paid a heavy price.Credit: AP

“For all of my working life, I have believed that there is a social and commercial value in delivering accurate news and information in a cheap and timely way,” he said.

He spoke about the growing demand for “accurate news”. He spoke of having strong moral principles. “Integrity is not just a characteristic of our company, it is a selling point.”

In those lectures, Murdoch also talked about the “most precious asset” any media organisation has: the bond with its audience. “When I was growing up, this was the key lesson my father impressed on me. If you were an owner, the best thing you could do was to hire editors who looked out for your readers’ interests — and give these readers good, honest reporting on issues that mattered most to them. In return, you would be rewarded with trust and loyalty you could take to the bank.”

Even with the advent of the internet and the rise of blogs, social media and so many new competitors, some spreading disinformation, Murdoch wasn’t going to wilt. “Amid these many diverse and competing voices, readers want what they’ve always wanted: a source they can trust.”

‘Integrity is not just a characteristic of our company, it is a selling point.’

Rupert Murdoch

Listening to and reading the transcripts of his Boyer lectures, which also dealt with issues of Australia beyond the media, Murdoch’s argument is clear: honesty, integrity and accuracy are values central to journalism and news organisations. Deliver them, and newspapers and television organisations are rewarded with the loyalty and trust of readers and viewers. That loyalty creates a precious bond that is central to commercial success.

But what happens when honesty, integrity and accuracy actually threaten that bond, and all the commercial success it brings, especially to Fox News, Murdoch’s most valuable remaining asset?

Fifteen years since Murdoch expounded his ideals on the airwaves of the ABC, that conflict played out in an American courtroom last week.

Dominion Voting Systems, a company that makes voting machines, had sued Fox News for defamation, accusing the network of knowingly spreading a lie that its machines somehow helped Joe Biden win, stealing the US presidential election from the incumbent Donald Trump.

Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s chosen successor.Credit: Getty Images

The case was supposed to go to trial, with Murdoch, his eldest son Lachlan and a handful of powerful and popular Fox personalities expected to give evidence. It promised to be a drama that would rival the last season of Succession – a television series about a media dynasty that many believe is modelled on the Murdochs – for eyeballs. Defamation cases are hard to win in America, and victory for Dominion was not guaranteed.

But at the 11th hour, Murdoch agreed to pay $US787.5 million ($1.2 billion), by far the biggest defamation settlement in history, to keep himself, son and chosen successor Lachlan and – perhaps most importantly – personalities such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity out of the courtroom.

Like so many other decisions over his seven decades in the media, for Murdoch this was a case where his commercial interest – Fox’s bond with its viewers – was put first. The risk of weeks of snippets bouncing around television news and the internet exposing Fox’s biggest stars as hypocrites was just too great.

That threat was very real. In the Dominion lawsuit, thousands of pages of emails, texts, WhatsApp messages and depositions were released.

They included an email from Rupert Murdoch to Lachlan, who conceded that Fox’s bond with its audience was on shaky ground as it tried to move on from Trump following an election many aggrieved viewers thought Trump had actually won.

“We have to lead our viewers, which is not as easy as it might seem,” wrote Rupert.

Fox did initially report the fact – the truth – that Biden had won legitimately. Indeed, Fox was the first news outlet to accurately call the swing state of Arizona for Biden.

Trump, who had ignited the conspiracy theory of a stolen election, encouraged Fox viewers to tune out and go elsewhere, to Fox competitors such as Newsmax. Never mind that it was Fox that shaped the beliefs of its audience by helping bring Trump to power. Some aggrieved viewers no longer trusted Fox to give them what they wanted to believe.

News of The World editor Colin Myler holds up a copy of the last edition of the newspaper.Credit: PAUL HACKETT

And so, parts of Fox’s powerful and lucrative audience started to tune out, and in the weeks after the US presidential elections, its ratings slumped dramatically.

Fox viewers wanted a reality that network wasn’t presenting, until it did. The bond with the audience, was as Murdoch had said in his Boyer lecture, a news organisation’s “most precious asset”.

Trump’s presidency was an assault on reality. He said many things that were untrue were true, and vice versa.

He paid the price at the ballot box. Fox paid the price in the courtroom. And may do so again, as it faces another lawsuit by election technology company Smartmatic, which is also suing the television network over claims it was involved in election fraud.

It’s not the first time the Murdoch empire has been entangled in scandal. Three years after his Boyer lectures, the depravity of the News of the World hacking scandal was laid bare.

The British newspaper, owned by Murdoch’s company, was exposed for paying people to hack the phones of the royals, celebrities and also a 13-year-old girl who was murdered while a police hunt was under way to find her body and her killer – all done to generate news articles and keep it as one of the country’s best-selling mastheads.

The scandal was at odds with Murdoch’s claim in his Boyer lecture: “Integrity is not just a characteristic of our company, it is a selling point.”

Remember, Murdoch also said in the Boyer lectures: “For all of my working life, I have believed that there is a social and commercial value in delivering accurate news and information.”

The News of the World was shuttered after the scandal. There was questionable commercial value and definitely no social value in what was done. The same can be said of the lies spread by Trump allies on Fox, and elsewhere, of a stolen election. America’s democracy paid a huge price.

Fox is still operating. For now, it appears to have retained its bond with its audience. But its audience is shaping the news, however accurate or inaccurate that may be.

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