More than a corporation

by digby

I’ve been reading a lot about the News Corp scandal trying to figure out why people haven’t been able to put their fingers on the essential truth about this media conglomerate. I think Jay Rosen finally did it:

Here’s my little theory: News Corp is not a news company at all, but a global media empire that employs its newspapers – and in the US, Fox News – as a lobbying arm. The logic of holding these “press” properties is to wield influence on behalf of the rest of the (much bigger and more profitable) media business and also to satisfy Murdoch’s own power urges.

However, this fact, fairly obvious to outside observers, is actually concealed from the company by its own culture. So here we find the source for the river of denial that runs through News Corp.

Fox News and the newspapers Murdoch owns are described by News Corp, and understood by most who work there as “normal” news organisations. But they aren’t, really. What makes them different is not that they have a more conservative take on the world – that’s the fiction in which opponents and supporters join – but rather: news is not their first business. Wielding influence is.

Scaring politicians into going along with News Corp’s plans. Building up an atmosphere of fear and paranoia, which then admits Rupert into the back door of 10 Downing Street.

But none of these facts can be admitted into company psychology, because the flag that its news-related properties fly, the legend on the licence, doesn’t say “lobbying arm of the Murdoch empire.” No. It says “First Amendment” or “Journalism” or “Public Service” or “news and information.”

This really is the point. It’s true that hacking into crime victims voice mail and harrassing celebrities to the point of near terrorism for prurient tabloid fodder is awful. But that’s not the real problem. It’s the influence these people have over law enforcement and politicians, largely it appears, through the use of bribes and blackmail.

Read the whole piece. It discusses this in much more depth and I think it’s important.