DISSERTATION ON MURDOCH'S MELODRAMA

                        
                              DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH
     
      Pardon me if I sound a little cynical here, but having spent most of my working life in the newspaper business,  I have to say that I suspect Rupert Murdoch and his "journalistic" empire will emerge from their current troubles without suffering much long-term damage.

      So, okay, the News of The World is gone. But as Murdoch himself suggested, that was virtually peanuts, less than one per cent of his holdings. Everything else, it appears, is intact within his empire, and no doubt the byword in his organization worldwide is something like, "Onward and upward, the sky's the limit," and so on.

      The time element in the probing of the Murdoch empire's shenanigans, both in the UK and the U.S., is such that he and his minions will be able to keep on doing for months and months, perhaps even years and years, what they have been doing, before any serious or deep  changes and reforms are imposed, if any can be.

      What I'm saying is that the whole thing shows every sign of being such a long and drawn out affair that people will have lost track of it before a lot gets done.

      Sure, some stock market dip in the Murdoch companies' shares did occur, but that's unlikely to be serious or lasting. The thing is, Rupert, already worth about $7 billion, has a keen knack for making money (although there's a question mark over certain iffy ventures he's attempting in China). But, let's face it, anyone who controls $7 billion isn't likely to suffer anything approaching heavy-duty financial penalty. For someone like Rupert, suffering a little embarrassment -- "the most humble day of my life" -- can't hurt much within the context of his entertainment empire.

      The situation is the following:  An extensive UK police investigation has been ordered into a particularly goulish and gruesome example of Murdoch press cellphone hacking. That's good, except that the best estimate of the inquiry's duration is one year, which probably means it will take longer, especially since some highly questionable links between the Murdoch people and cops in the UK are involved.

      And only then, we are told, can the promised judicial inquiry begin.  How long that will take, only Murdoch's maker knows. And of course there's talk of a probe by the U.S. Congress concerning allegations involving his large U.S. operations, but what might happen there is uncertain, given the conservative-dominated, Murdoch-ideology-leaning House of Representatives.

                              AFTER THE PROBES, WHAT THEN?
      What might then happen? Perhaps some criminal and/or civil charges against any lawbreakers. There might be quite a few of those, in light of reports that as many as 12,000 people were victimized by telephone tapping and other "blagging" incidents allegedly perpetrated by a UK branch of Murdochs' News Corp.

      Fortunately for the Murdochs and the News Corp., the mysterious death of the chief whistle-blower in the Murdoch  phone hacking scandal, Sean Hoare, evidence-gathering is severely compromised -- unless, that is, Hoare left behind well-protected notes and documents in support of his allegations.

     Hoare was a totally key figure in the whole story, having worked for the Murdoch scandal sheet, News of The World, where he gained first-hand knowledge of phone hacking.

      Rupert Murdoch and his son were the very picture of sincerity and contriteness before the UK parliamentary hearing yesterday, protesting complete innocence of these nefarious practices in their empire -- and they still refused to take responsibility for the misdeeds of their trusted executives.

     This to me was sheer evasion, to put it mildly.  It made me think of the U.S. president, Harry Truman, a gutsy guy who had a sign in his office that said: "The buck stops here." I guess the Murdochs don't know about such things.

      No -- my impression of the Murdochs is that they have a sort of understanding with their empire's executives that they, the executives, operate on "principles" perhaps expressed this way: "Get audience, get readers, expand market-share, do whatever you need to do to improve the bottom line. But don't do anything illegal in your news and information-gathering. And keep me out of it, I don't have time for all the details of every operation. If you do anything illegal, it will not be with my approval, I will deny all knowledge and disown you." Just speculating, that's all.


                              A BIG POINT IN MURDOCH'S FAVOR
      I watched a great deal of the five-plus-hours testimony before the UK parliamentary committee inquiry on July 19, and there was one matter that I never heard mentioned, even in passing, but it is something that must be discussed.

      It is the question of freedom of the press. All democratic societies, to my knowledge, advocate and support freedom of expression, whether by oral or printed or broadcast means. Without the embracing of that principle there can be no democracy.

      I wish to point out that freedom of speech and the press does not mean it can only be freedom of a "responsible" or "ethical" or "principled" press or speech. No, it is simply freedom of speech. You say and write what you like, and you take your chances as to whether you are guilty of libel or slander. There are laws against those, and it can cost you and hurt you a lot if you break them.

      Information-gathering takes many different forms, most of them legal, but not all of them perhaps "ethical" by puritanistic standards. During my career, I had my own moments in that regard, but my lips are sealed. In the news business, you get your news where you find it, we always used to say.

       Just to clarify, though: I never was involved in or ever heard of any other reporters being involved in telephone tapping. But I can't say that I never did gain possession of purportedly "confidential" documents or make them public in an "unauthorized" way; and I can't say I never eavesdropped on what were supposed to be confidential meetings. The results of such actions usually turned up good news stories, all of them in the public interest (to the chagrin of many a politician), and I apologize in no way for any of those activities.

     If the News of The World or other Murdoch news outlet violated some other law than laws against the admitted cellphone-hacking -- such as laws against libel and defamation, or of theft or blackmail, and so on -- then the perpetrators ought to be charged and tried on the evidence. Those laws exist and are sufficient, I say, to deal with any of the problems covered by the heading, "journalistic misdeeds."

      Other than that, though, it's fair game. If the Murdoch press wishes to produce mostly sleazy news of scandal and crime, or political and economic propaganda (as many of the Murdoch interests have been characterized as doing) then that is its choice, and it is perfectly free to do so.


                              THE MORE COMPETITION, THE BETTER
      People will either purchase its publications, or listen to or watch its broadcasts, as they please. It is the people  -- in the marketplace of ideas and information -- who will decide the success or failure of that news endeavor.

      My own view of the matter is that the more competition in the news marketplace there is, the better for society. So, yes, I do have criticism of the Murdoch empire for its clear efforts to build monopoly-like holdings that can overwhelm the print and broadcast world with one particular point of view -- in the Murdoch case predominantly conservative and right wing ideas and interests. Its critics are strong in their  claims that Rupert's empire uses political influence through its media to improve its profitability.

       Concentration of ownership in any industry, in my view, is bad for society. It is especially bad in the information media. (Canada, unfortunately, has seen examples of that that.) And I hope Murdoch is not given the necessary government permission to further concentrate his UK empire in broadcasting.

      Much as a lot of British politicians might wish to bring down the hammer on Murdoch, I'm not sure the UK parliament can do much -- other than prosecute actual breaches of the law, and prevent concentration of ownership -- to otherwise "curb" the Murdoch press there, without infringing on freedom of speech generally.

      And, after all's said and done, I believe it's a good thing that they can't.