Rupert Murdoch and the culture of sleeze

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of analyzing the cultural impact of News Corp’s phone-hacking scandal is its constant evolving nature. Conclusions we draw today might very well be rendered irrelevant by the admissions, revelations, resignations and indictments sure to come tomorrow.

Indeed, the smart money pegged this as old news, and a non-story, back in 2005. That was when Buckingham Palace asserted that elements of a News of the World story about Prince William could have only have been gleaned by the newspaper illegally accessing a royal aide’s voicemail.

That’s exactly what had happened, but the fallout was less than spectacular. Blame was pinned on a single private investigator, who was said to have acted entirely on his own. NotW editor Andy Coulson, while denying all knowledge of the affair, resigned in 2007, which effectively ended the investigation. Amazingly, Coulson was almost immediately appointed Communications Director for the Conservative Party, and in 2010 became Director of Communications for Prime Minister David Cameron.

All of which seemed sure evidence that the “scandal,” such as it was, had blown over. Thus it would have remained, but for one intrepid reporter: Nick Davies of the Guardian.

Davies was just asking the obvious questions – how is it possible that management of NotW, and its parent companies, News International and News Corporation, were unaware of the illegal news-gathering methods? And why were the authorities so quick to believe them?

We now know that News of the World was routinely bribing U.K. police officers and other government officials for tips and leads, which probably explains the perfunctory nature of their investigations. And although the entirety of News Corp’s executive structure is still claiming ignorance, heads have begun to roll. Andy Coulson was arrested last week, and this week has seen the resignation of two Murdoch proteges: Rebekah Brooks in the U.K., and Les Hinton in the U.S.

This is all vindication for Davies, who for years was branded a crank and a liar, even within the Houses of Parliament. As is now well known, it was Davies’ reporting that News of the World had hacked into the voicemail of 13-year old murder victim Milly Dowler, that finally spurred official action (and public revulsion) against NotW, Rupert Murdoch and his corporate media empire.

But what does all of this mean?

In the short term, it means a setback of indeterminate scale for News Corp. The company has been forced to abandon its plan to gain controlling interest in BSkyB, the largest private satellite broadcaster in the United Kingdom. An advertisers’ boycott, primarily targeting NotW, included General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Virgin Holidays and undoubtedly cost the company millions. Finally, on July 10th, 2011, News of the World ceased operations, after 168 years in print.

News Corp was never just a media company, though, and Rupert Murdoch was never just a publisher. The company enjoys enormous political clout on three continents. With amazing candor, David Cameron admitted last week that every British government, including his own, had shamelessly courted the favor of News Corp. Could it be that this unprecedented clout has been crippled, if not destroyed, by a self-inflicted wound?

That remains to be seen. Murdoch and his son and heir James, have reluctantly agreed to answer questions before Parliament. In the U.S. the FBI has reportedly begun investigating the company, possibly for hacking into the voicemail accounts of 9/11 terror victims.

Not surprising, Fox News (the primary voice of News Corp in the U.S.) is calling this a tempest in a teapot, and is complaining that other media is “piling on.” Last Friday, on the morning show “Fox&Friends,” host Steve Doocy weaved a bizarre comparison, somehow equating News Corps’ perpetration of illegal hacking, with the banking industry’s history of being victims of hacking. That clumsiness aside (after all, Doocy never has made much sense), it’s not terribly surprising that Fox would take the lead in any damage control efforts. One has to wonder, though, what the commentary of Doocy, O’Reilly, Hannity, et al, would look like, if the illegalities of NotW could be connected to any other media empire.

To my mind, the biggest questions that remain are what this all implies for the culture that Rupert Murdoch has built in and through his News Corp outlets. Is immorality and illegality simply part of the way they do business? If so – why? Why were the reporters, investigators and editors of NotW willing to not only break laws, but to do so in a way guaranteed to provoke backlash? And why did their corporate masters foster an environment that made that possible?

News Corp, as I’ve said, is not just a media outfit. It is a political player. So is the company’s willingness to break laws related to its fervor to gather news, or to its desire to expand its political influence?

Answer that, and you’ve got insight to just how frightening and shattering this scandal might become.