Years before Rupert Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal, writer John Lanchester suggested that his main motive, more than ideology or even money, was "a love of crises, of the moment when all seems lost."
More than two decades later, is it the crisis in American media, one in which everything seems to be on the verge of collapse, that motivates Murdoch to confront the most powerful man in the world? It is as good a reason as many others that analysts have cited in the past week to explain the fact that the billionaire, whose Fox News channel was Donald Trump's mouthpiece for years, is now, alone among American media moguls, preparing to take on him in court.
Trump's assault on the American media, withdrawing federal funds, banning journalists from accessing the media, and launching multi-billion dollar lawsuits, has led former defenders of press freedom like The Washington Post, ABC News, and CBS to back down, changing editorial policies or agreeing to seemingly pointless settlements. However, furious calls to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, Amy Tucker, and his old (un)friend Murdoch did not prevent the publication of a story suggesting that Trump had sent a hand-drawn nude of a woman to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein with the message: "Happy birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret." Last week, Trump launched a $10 billion lawsuit over this "lie." After the Wall Street Journal further amplified the story by claiming that Trump was informed that he was mentioned in Epstein's files, sources close to Murdoch say that at 94 years old, he refuses to be "intimidated."
At the same time, he is further cementing his reputation as the most unpredictable media mogul. Media veteran Tina Brown wondered how the world came to depend on the “Darth Vader of the media” to defend press freedom, while a thoughtful friend asked: “Suppose Murdoch had a genuine conversion and was trying to atone for his many sins, would we accept him as an ally?” Could a man whose companies paid more than a billion pounds for knowingly spreading lies or wiretapping end his life as the media world’s Severus Snape, the last defender of press freedom?
Two years ago, when Murdoch announced his (somewhat) retirement, he told his staff to "seize this great opportunity to improve the world we live in," a line that seemed completely pointless to me at the time. Is his battle with this madman in the White House really his last chance to leave the world better than he found it?
Before observers of Murdoch's career start to exalt him, it should be said that there are a number of rational and personal reasons why he decided not to submit to Trump.
Throughout his long career at the intersection of media and power, one thing has been constant - Murdoch's desire to be on the winning side. Trump's friendship with Epstein is currently almost the only issue that could alienate him from the MAGA power base, which also forms the core of Fox News' audience.
Murdoch, on the other hand, has never been truly enamored with the former real estate mogul. After the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he sent an email to the former CEO in which he wrote: "We want Trump to become a non-existent person (nobody)." Despite this, his Fox News support helped bring to power a man he has little respect for.
In addition to trying to insure himself regarding the Epstein case, Murdoch is also "sitting on two chairs": allowing his respected financial outlet to defend its own reporting, while Fox continues to downplay the Trump card story.
A journalist at heart, Murdoch knows just as well how to give the paper a story as he does how to demand it be taken down. But he has also been known to maintain a particularly distant relationship with its editorial staff since he bought the Wall Street Journal in 2007—one of whom called Trump’s tariff plans “the stupidest trade war in history.” And defending his own journalism is good for business, too—in a media landscape where CBS owners cancel a hit show because it’s critical of Trump and days later pay millions of dollars to his presidential library, just before they get the government’s green light for a massive business deal.
As always with Murdoch, there is the psychodrama of an old man whose life is more like a Shakespearean hero than most people. Michael Wolff, the author of several books on Murdoch and Trump, tells me that Murdoch’s support for journalists is “an old man’s revenge” after the Fox affair split his family and sparked an inheritance battle that is still being fought in the courts. Moreover, Wolff adds, Murdoch wants revenge on Trump simply because Trump won despite Murdoch “doing everything to prevent it.”
Trump's behavior in his second term, using his power to fulfill his every whim or vendetta, and his growing rapprochement with absolutism, may have revealed to Murdoch the ultimate outcome of a truly free market. What, for example, would prevent "Czar Trump" from stripping Murdoch's media empire of any rule of law protections after his death?
Murdoch is, no doubt, an imperfect hero. And there's a chance the cartoon is a hoax, as Trump claims, despite the Wall Street Journal's strong defense. It wouldn't be the first time Murdoch's media has been fooled.
For now, however, he is the closest thing journalism has to a "Trojan horse," summoned to the very sanctuary of power, yet seemingly ready for battle.
Text taken from "The Guardian"
Translation: NB
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