Britain has controlled its subjects, and colonials, over centuries by force, but also through a caste system that puts everyone in his or her “place” and is based on social station, accent, and shame. How one speaks, uses a fork, dresses, and behaves as well as where one lives and attends school opens or closes doors. This is a shame-based system that has spawned a vicious media that began ages ago on Fleet Street. Today it’s known as the “Street of Shame”, a moniker that is well-deserved because it dishes out derision, nonsense, and humiliation daily. And this culture has spread to America, thanks to a 90-year-old billionaire named Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch parlayed an Australian newspaper empire into a British one then an American monolith. He still owns The Times but also gutter tabloids such as the Sun, the country’s biggest circulation newspaper, and, until 2011, the dreadful News of the World. That year, he shut down the News following revelations that its “journalists” had hired sketchy investigators, bribed police, trespassed, paid photographers fortunes to intrude privacy for shots, and commissioned illegal phone hacks over the years to garner scoops on the rich and famous. This culminated in its biggest scoop that year, and its final one — the hacking of the phone of a missing schoolgirl and publication of details. She was later found murdered.
Another example of Fleet Street venality was its contribution to the death of Lady Di in 1997 when her car crashed as she was being pursued by a pack of paparazzi. More recently, it has driven out of Britain Prince Harry, her son, and his American wife Meghan Markle.
In 1976, Murdoch crossed the ocean and converted The New York Post into a Fleet Street rag, with ultra-right-wing views, scurrilous gossip, sensationalist headlines, and healthy doses of shame, ridicule, and scorn. Years later, in 2012 -- just one year after his News of the World was closed for its transgressions -- Murdoch’s Post put on its front page the photo of a man who had been pushed onto the subway tracks and was about to die with a headline “DOOMED”. It was a shameless example of Fleet Street amorality. When asked why he didn't help the man, the photographer claimed he was not strong enough and had been attempting to use the flash on his camera to alert the driver of the oncoming train.
By 2012, Murdoch was untouchable and had American Presidents and tycoons on speed dial. Back in 1980, The Post helped Ronald Reagan win New York in the U.S. Presidential election, and Reagan repaid Murdoch by removing the prohibition against owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market. Murdoch quickly became a U.S. citizen, to overcome another hurdle, and in 1985 took over movie studio 20th Century Fox. One year later, he launched the Fox Broadcasting Company — a media entity that has singlehandedly deformed America’s political conversation and opened up a Pandora’s Box of British-style malpractice, spite, and falsehood.
In 1987, Reagan vetoed the Federal Communication Commission’s post-war Fairness Doctrine -- which modulated broadcast coverage and required balanced views. This led to an explosion of one-sided talk radio shows, led by the angry and intolerant conservative Rush Limbaugh. Suddenly, America’s political discourse swerved to the right, and then the British tabloid mentality fully invaded American broadcasting through Fox News. Under the guise of being mainstream and not fringe, Fox downgraded politics and helped put Donald Trump into the White House by becoming his infomercial.
America already had trashy publications like The National Enquirer, but they were confined to grocery store checkouts and were pre-occupied mostly with gangland murders, UFO sightings, and freaky crime coverage. But by 1999, The Enquirer was run by David Pecker, a friend of Trump’s, and was recruited to smear his political rivals and cover up his scandals. But by 2018, Pecker pled guilty to serious charges (and obtained immunity) by testifying about a scheme he concocted with Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to pay women, who had slept with Trump, to keep them quiet during the election.
Meanwhile, Fox cloaked itself in legitimacy but tapped regularly into the gutter and growing universe of ultra-rightwing or fascist radio and website content. This included Steve Bannon’s Breitbart and Alex Jones's InfoWars. Fox’s failure to fact-check or screen guests, was because its biased celebrity hosts like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, and others were not journalists. Hannity became Trump’s confidante and, in return for exclusive access, returned the favor with slavish devotion to The Donald along with gobs of free air time. This was not journalism. Fox had become a public relations company with a broadcast license.
For instance, Hannity vigorously supported the “birtherism” blather of Trump until it was debunked. He promoted the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and Democrats had a staffer called Seth Rich murdered -- until the man’s parents won a lawsuit for millions against Fox. He mocked social distancing, masks, and advocated the QAnon conspiracy theory that satanic pedophiles in Hollywood and the Democratic Party are out to assassinate Donald Trump.
Trump’s defeat reduced the size of Hannity’s audience, but a loonier tune, Tucker Carlson, rose in ratings. A provocateur, he promoted Trump’s “stop the steal” lies and propagated statements on race, immigration, and women that have resulted in unprecedented advertiser boycotts. But outrageous content gets eyeballs.
However, as in Britain, it has gone too far. The cocky boys’ club that built the brash broadcaster has lorded over a toxic workplace that victimized women. Accusations about predatory practices have brought down the careers of high-profile anchors and its late founder Roger Ailes. Untold tens or hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid out in court settlements.
Likewise, Fox’s fast and loose treatment of facts has damaged and defamed. Two lawsuits have been recently filed — a $1.6-billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems and a $2.7-billion by software company Smartmatic. The plaintiffs argue that the cable news company, to boost falling ratings, falsely claimed their companies rigged the 2020 election for Joe Biden. These cases have executives worried because even Trump’s former Attorney General William Barr confirmed there was no widespread voter fraud.
The cases also threaten all of America’s nasty right-wing media universe from Fox to Newsmax and One America News, or OAN. Worse, their superstar Donald Trump was impeached for inciting the January 6 insurrection, bruising everyone’s brand and frightening off advertisers. This is why Trump, also booted from Facebook and Twitter, has announced he will launch his own media enterprise. He has to.
Of course, all of this was predictable, as was the demise of News of the World, because the rounders always go too far. Tucker Carlson and others have been trying to walk back their misdeeds but few are fooled. “I can’t even read this with a straight face,” Tweeted former Fox star Gretchen Carlson who obtained a $20-million settlement over sexual harassment at Fox. “Brit Hume is now calling out Trump for lying to the American people about the election on a show like Tucker Carlson where all that crap was spewed for months? This is like covering our asses now?”
Trump is gone, Limbaugh is dead, and Fox’s future is unknown. In October, Rupert’s younger son, James Murdoch, quit the board of News Corp. because of the toxicity of Fox News. “A contest of ideas shouldn’t be used to legitimize disinformation. And I think it’s often taken advantage of.”
This week, his older brother Lachlan, CEO of Fox Corporation, moved back to Australia with his family. And Rupert is tucked away in a stately home in England with his fourth wife. Fox’s most obnoxious hosts have been removed or chastened, its NFL rights are likely to be snatched by Amazon, and traditional television fades.
As a journalist and broadcaster myself for decades, I consider Fox’s looming decline as welcome news. It imported Britain’s back-biting, deceptive, spiteful, racist, divisive, and salacious media culture to America, dividing the country more effectively than before. And that was its intent and its DNA, which is why for that reason alone, it deserves to disappear.
the guillotine is a good line, I agree!
Much as i appreciate your analysis of the Murdoch effect on US media, i would be significantly more "nuanced" on your analysis of the UK scene. Firstly, i had offices just off Fleet Street in the middle 80s and the only think that stank was the diesil fumes of the taxis...no sign of a newspaper in the Street. But that's an aside.
The UK media in part didn't wait for Murdoch to often fulfill what could otherwise be considered fantasies of gutter press. However there are exceptions and some belong to the "monster" ..Sky News Uk is not rabid and neither is the Times. Both probably tend towards the centre right but are never "monolithic" in their positioning. Others such as the Guardian are as guilty as the Times may be and follows somewhat slavishly sometimes the local Socialist Party but contributes to the intelligent diversity oy opinion championed.