News International Treads Water

A new week, and yet more developments in the scandal that threatens to grip the whole of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

The past weeks exposures about the hacking of the private messages of murder victims and deceased serviceman, alongside the revelations about widespread collusion with the police and political establishment, were considered so 'toxic' that the News of the World brand was permanently shelved. As this week began, a series of further disclosures have implicated other News International outlets (namely The Sun and The Times), and thus threatened to engulf the whole of Murdoch's vast empire. The speculation that this scandal could spread across the Atlantic seems to have been confirmed, and the allegation that the phones of 9/11 victims were hacked could, if true, embroil News Int. (and its parent company, News Corporation) in a wave of public revulsion and criminal proceedings way beyond anything we are likely to see in Britain. What began life as the actions of 'one rotten apple', have been shown to be the sine qua non of an entire organisation; and moreover, may well result in its eventual and total downfall.

This could turn out to be wishful thinking on the part of some, wistful on that of others, and the Murdoch dynasty will likely survive long enough to allow for the succession of the heir presumptive (James Murdoch) to the throne. However as it trundles on, News Corp. will be a battered rump, a bitter miniature of its former self. After years of ruling class collusion with and deference towards Murdoch, this crisis has fractured the systems of patronage and institutionalised blackmail on which his power was built. Whereas just a month ago politicians of all stripes did their best to curry Murdoch and his cronies favour, they now (in public at least) do their best to distance themselves. As if they've just stuck their toe in a bath that is too hot, they leap, squeal and pontificate about impropriety. To quote a Mr. Sean Cordell (“Letter to the Editor”, The Independent, 13.07.2011): 'surely Macbeth's words sum up this kind of pathetic PR move by politicians now eager to wag the finger or pretend they were never in the Digger's pocket: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.'

Even our rather obsequious Prime Minister has been forced to attempt to put clear waters between himself and Murdoch. Stepping out from under his servile shell, Cameron has said that if he were in Murdoch's position he would have accepted Rebekah Brooks resignation, and more significantly, and in reference to the B Sky B deal, he has called on News Corp. to clean out its stables before it thinks about further mergers. This was the result of the seriousness of the latest allegations against News Int., particularly those related to national security concerns – they paid a royal security agent for information, and also intruded upon the private records of the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown – and has driven further fault lines between News Int. and the political class. The 'state within a state' now appears under attack from all quarters.

A number of Labour backbenchers have been very prominent and critical throughout this affair; and while Tony Blair remains a solid ally, other New Labour leadership figures have publicly broken with Murdoch – most notably Brown, but also John Prescott and some others – and this could mark an important shift in the Labour Party's attitudes. The Party's leader, Ed Miliband, continues to mount a strong and vocal offensive against News Int. However at the same time Miliband seems to fit Macbeth's comments better than most: his arguments appear to be all bluster with little point, and his former News Int. press assistant (Tom Baldwin) is a weakness that the Conservative Party has already begun to exploit. And thus an opportunity for root and branch change could be quickly lost if the focus turns towards damage limitation, which is highly likely given the very uncomfortable truths this scandal and the coming inquiries will no doubt reveal about the previous Labour governments' (and present Labour leader's) stance on Murdoch.

In contrast to Labour, the Liberal Democrats do not have much of a history with Murdoch, and can therefore be quite critical without risking the charge of hypocrisy. (Although their leader, Nick Clegg, appears somewhat embattled when interviewed, despite there having been no developments that have troubled either him or his party, which suggests he may be privy to some of his coalition partners secrets – no doubt those related to the PM's relationship with Coulson – and that he feels uncomfortable about knowing them.) Vince Cable, who lost his role overseeing the B Sky B takeover after making disparaging remarks about Murdoch, has commented that Murdoch's fall from grace 'is a little bit like the end of a dictatorship when everybody suddenly discovers they were against the dictator'. The previously silent have now found their voice. Indeed the (and in equal measure) healthy acrimony and debate this has generated in the Commons has, at least to some extent, been enough restore some faith in the ability of that House to function in a democratic manner. The sound and fury has, on this occasion, signified something.

Outside of the political class, this crisis has also placed much stress on the other natural alliances of ruling power. One imagines that behind the scenes the Royal family are doing their best to hasten Murdoch's demise, and we should not forget that the relationship between these two power centres has been at the centre of this whole affair from its earliest stages. Leading police officers on the previous investigations into phone hacking have talked publicly about deliberate obstruction on the part of News Int. And as sponsors continue to act cautiously, alongside other concerns about revenue streams and commercial viability, some News Corp. shareholders have begun to consider deposing the king. Indeed even the Church of England has threatened to sever its financial links, and whispers suggest that Murdoch's papal knighthood (awarded in 1998) is also under review. The B Sky B deal has been stalled, and there is a faint suspicion that after years of cooperation other members of the ruling class are now looking to throw Murdoch overboard – or perhaps, in time, into prison. The baying hounds can smell blood, and few can muster any sympathy for the now naked emperor. After all, if you live by the sword then...

Richard Seymour, who runs the popular Lenin's Tomb blog, suggests that we should 'Let it [the NotW] bleed'; and that 'the deeper significance of this moment [is that it] constitutes the beginnings of a comprehensive crisis in the class power of the capitalist media, with News of the World comprising the weak link in the chain.' Seymour is writing in response to what he describes as an 'extremely vulgar sort of reductionism' which puts all focus on the jobs lost by the closure, and not the wider socio-cultural significance of the event. And, in the main, his points are fair and insightful. His conclusion, however, is key:

What we have thus far seen is perhaps no more than the realities of Murdoch style rationalisation: he has cut off one of the hydras many heads in order to try and save the body. Murdoch is instigating events as much as he is reacting to them, and with a typically callous disregard for his employees. Indeed Murdoch may well decide to dispense with the entire News Int. stable, which is an unprofitable enterprise that has now brought the wider corporation into disrepute. Moreover it should be said that not only is Murdoch carefully and strategically planning each and every move, but also that both the political elite and the anti-Murdoch press are doing their utmost to manage and manipulate this crisis into a public furore that can serve as a distraction to more significant problems. (It has certainly allowed the developments of the Chilcot inquiry to pass under the radar, which has spared the Labour Party and their 'unguided missile' Alastair Campbell from some very serious criticisms.)

As Dan Hodges argues in his rather contrarian yet nevertheless superb piece "Phone hacking is not the magic bullet": 'What we’re witnessing isn’t a new beginning. It’s a classic, gold plated, jewel encrusted moral panic.' Hodges overstates his argument, no doubt for the purposes of aiding his powerful invective. However in light of both the wider socio-economic problems facing working people, and also in view of the tactics employed by the internet campaigns against the NotW, his verdict deserves some consideration: 'The excesses currently being exposed are indeed sickening. But the answer is a proper public enquiry, a proper police investigation and a robust regulatory regime. Not a cyber lynch mob. … [Moreover] let’s not lose sight of the issues that really confront us, and the British people. And let’s not make the mistake of spending the next six to twelve months helping Cameron produce a smoke-screen to the real problems facing the country.'

There is still a lot that remains hidden from public view in this drama, and the way it has unfolded has created two parallel reactions. On the one hand, there is the rather staged performance that has seen News Int. spoon feed developments to friendly figures, most obviously the BBC's Robert Peston; and where Murdoch's rivals in the ruling class have tactically picked the most opportune moments to attack. And on the other, the mixture of public backlash, hysteria and revulsion that has fuelled the aforementioned 'cyber lynch mobs'. Neither, however, appear to possess the potential to radically challenge or change the social character of the media. At the most, they may succeed in breaking up a monopoly that has already come towards the end of its period of dominance, with new media forms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter bound to set the tone over the coming century. No longer will it be The Sun 'wot won it', but rather, it appears, the internet campaign. And thus, in short, it is important that this affair spreads beyond News Int., and beyond even the print press, and instead calls into question the nature of the mass media in all its guises.

For this crisis to mark a significant watershed moment, it is crucial that the 'toxicity' of the News Int. brand is spread. Not just to other media organisations, but also the police and political elite who continue to be tainted by both fact and association. If Murdoch's empire bleeds alone, then this will do little to change the social character of the media industry. And it must be this character that changes: the basic relations between employer and employee, journalist and editor, state and industry. The call to break up the Murdoch monopoly without additional reforms represents a perfectly acceptable (from the ruling class pov) resolution to this crisis. It will, as Hodges points out, also act as a smokescreen behind which more serious socio-economic problems can hide. (We have, after all, seen very little about the unfolding Eurozone debt crisis this week in the national press, nor much about the continuing stagnation of the British economy; or for that matter the huge rises – almost twenty per cent – in gas and electric that are expected sometime in the autumn.) As a few commentators have noted, if this scandal is to be the most difficult moment of David Cameron's premiership, then he will be laughing all the way to the next general election.

Moreover, it really says something when the wave of barely thinking liberal hysteria and condemnation is so loud amongst those on the left that we have solicit the opinion of a conservative for a sense of perspective. To turn here to the final point made in a blog post by Tim Montgomerie:

And if we take a look at an article Montgomerie wrote for The Telegraph, which as an aside is rather amusing for the way in which earlier in the piece he has decided to recycle the overbearing chancellor narrative of the Blair-Brown years:

At times there is a bit too much melancholy to take Montgomerie all that seriously, and his insight is borne less from his analytical powers, and more to his unswerving loyalty to the Murdoch line – his article on the BBC's monopoly share is simply a repetition of a long-standing Murdoch interest: the wholesale reform of the BBC to bring it into line with its private rivals. However even if he has understated the extent of this issue, as in fact does Hodges as well, it is quite right to say that there are more important concerns. If 'the deeper significance of this moment' that Seymour talks about is to be exposed – i.e. 'the beginnings of a comprehensive crisis in the class power of the capitalist media' – then the critique must extend beyond the problems in the Murdoch press. It must also engulf the 'respectable' press, the political establishment and other institutions of the state – namely the police. And most of all, it must be able to relate the misbehaviour of the tabloid press to the wider socio-economics concerns of general public. In other words, it must be able to show that the reason why journalism like this exists and prospers, is so as to conceal the kind of grubby, self-interested and corrupt relationships that this whole scandal has brought to the fore. The 'free press' carries a very high social cost. It puts profit before quality, and thus reports nonsense instead of news. It is high time this changed.