The end of the world as we know it: Time for Rupert Murdoch to stand down

Never mind the News of the World for a moment, what the Murdochs are doing is thrashing the reputation of journalists everywhere. It wasn't the likes of Clive Goodman or Glenn Mulcaire who gave false hope to the parents of Milly Dowler by deleting a dead girl’s phone messages, not was it Rebekah Brooks or Andy Coulson, this one goes right to the top:Rupert and James Murdoch. It was the Murdochs too who invaded the personal space of 4,000 others in the name of getting the story. Most blatantly was the Murdochs who then washed their hands of it by sacking 200 innocent staff and thrashing a 168-year-old brand to rid them themselves of the problem and give them a perfect start to setting up a Sun on Sunday with low overheads. It is the actions of people with no regard for anyone except themselves.

The Australian-born US-citizen Chinese-wifed Rupert Murdoch encouraged a culture of getting the news at all costs so assiduously pursued by Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. The people at the bottom of the food chain did it because they know the company would turn a blind eye. “Get the story, no matter what,” is the amoral mantra actively pursued by Murdoch publications throughout the world.

But apart from screwing up the lives of all the people they hacked, they also stuffed up the reputation of every other journalist who will be tarred with the same shitty brush. I'm fairly new to to the game, but I value my reputation, which Murdoch has just besmirched. In my paper last week, I took a very heavy editorial line against the local council. Now people are well within their right to ask, why should they treat me seriously, this bugger is probably hacking people’s messages.

This is what I have to say about the matter in my editorial this coming Tuesday: “logging on to phones to hack people’s messages is criminal and wrong. If there is information I want, I’d expect to find that through legal channels. I care about my actions because I want to be trusted. People will judge me for my behaviour just as councillors are judged for theirs."

The media is full of shonks but this affair confirms News Corporation are rotten to the core despite John Hartigan's pious bullshit as anyone with a passing exposure to Fox News or the Sydney Telegraph would know.

Or maybe they wouldn’t. 70 percent of Australia’s media is controlled by Murdoch and it is unlikely anyone reading them would get a full flavour of the problem now dominating world headlines. Even some of the most powerful international media commentators of the world cannot be totally honest about what is going on in the industry locally.

NYU Professor Jay Rosen tweeted “If the story of criminal intimidation tactics at News Ltd. in Australia ever came out, today's events in the UK would look different,:”
However he refused to elaborate on what he meant when asked by Woolly Days and others.
“Can't help you, sorry,” Rosen said to me.
“The events of which I spoke are not public knowledge. That is why I said, "if the story was known..."
I then accused him of being a tease. Rosen responded, “Best I can do. The other option was silence.”
Narked, I wrote back quickly saying “I think you can do better”.
On advice and reflection, I later apologised to Rosen for being abrupt.
Rosen replied saying he was not offended.
“It's your media culture, not mine,” he said.
“Australians have to learn how to stand up to the Murdoch forces.
“I was simply trying to reach the people who can do that.”

And there it rests: Lessons from Twitdef

On Tuesday, News Limited attempted to draw a line under its latest battle with new media which went under the tag of #twitdef. In a terse and tired sounding article by media writer Caroline Overington, The Australian admitted Canberra journalism academic Julie Posseti probably didn't commit a crime when she live-tweeted the words of a speaker at a conference. The broadsheet made the admission after it heard the audio evidence about what Asa Wahlquist said at the recent Journalism Education Association Australia conference in Sydney. Posetti, said Overington, had produced a “fair summary”.

Mitchell had earlier threatened to "unremarkably" sue Posetti for defamation (though given his well documented climate change agnosticism it was never clear what Mitchell thought he was defending his reputation FOR). Few people would have have been surprised to hear Wahlquist, who recently quit News after many years as a journalist, faced intense editorial pressures to conform to a party line when reporting on climate change and other political matters. It also corresponds to what I have personally heard (off the record) from other News Ltd journalists when they file copy.

Defamation was always an idle threat in this exercise. Mitchell’s real intention was to project power by creating a chilling effect in Twitter. It didn't work because Mitchell has no idea how the medium works. His non-apology apology via Caroline Overington claimed Wahlquist told Mitchell her comments were taken out of context and Posetti “should have contacted him to get his side of the story.”

Apart from the blundering suggestion Twitter must follow the conventions of “he said, she said” journalism, Mitchell also refused to accede to the truth of the matter. He still maintained Posetti had defamed him though the ambiguous sounding “And there it rests” suggested he was not going to take the matter further. After the Twitterati picked this ambiguity up, Overington issued a coda saying it simply meant “she had no more” to offer. It allowed Mitchell to maintain the pretense of keeping his legal avenues open.

Mitchell couldn’t apologise properly to Julie Posetti because it was not in his nature. Stephen Mayne sussed him seven years ago when Mitchell was first appointed editorial boss of The Oz.
“[He] is known for his hardline political views and aggressive style - The key to understanding Chris Mitchell is to know that he is a right-wing social engineer who happens to be a journalist," Mayne wrote perceptively.

New York University's Professor of Journalism Jay Rosen probably hadn't heard of Mitchell in 2003 but he certainly knows about him now. He believes Mitchell’s social engineering is a major problem.
“I think The Australian is fast becoming a malevolent force and for some reason that I do not fully understand it is not met with the sort of public opposition it deserves,” Rosen told me by email yesterday.

I contacted Rosen because I was curious to know why he injected himself into recent News Ltd stoushes against new media such as the outing of Grog’s Gamut and now the hounding of Posetti.

Rosen told me he saw it as a critical part of a larger battle.
“As the Murdoch empire faces the loss of the emperor--his lost grip or his eventual passing--it starts behaving erratically and in that state it becomes rather dangerous: to itself, but also to other people and to cultural treasures like freedom of the press,” he said.

But the Empire has an Achilles heel, according to Rosen: “Murdoch cannot master digital.”

“He tried, but the thing has eluded him. That is unacceptable for a mogul. But it is also a fact. Put those two things together--an unacceptable fact that is also true--and you have a dangerous situation for a news empire. Rupert is trying to impose an order on the digital world that it does not have. This creates problems for his editorial employees. They have to believe in an analysis that is 'shitty' but also saintly because it comes from the top. They get into trouble when they try to prove the emperor right, and behave like little emperors themselves.”

Rosen said the dynamic is being forced down through the hierarchy so that it reaches the reporters at The Oz, “who think they can impose order, knock heads and,for example, demonstrate to the blogosphere which rules it has to obey."

“Notice how often people from The Australian say there's ‘nothing special’ about Twitter, or that it doesn't get a pass, that it isn't an exception. That's the echo, way down the line, of the unacceptable fact that is also true. ‘There's nothing different going on here. We got this under control.’ When they are criticised for taking what is, in effect, a party line, people from The Australian have a strange habit of hearing criticism as a charge of conspiracy. Then they laugh at the overheated image of a conspiracy which in turn protects them against the criticism.

Rosen agreed with my suggestion that Australia’s dangerously concentrated media landscape was a reason the Twitterati have been so feisty in opposition but said there was an important second factor.

“The above ground opposition is weak. Online, there is a lot of juvenile sneering at News Ltd. which reflects how rarely the respectable people criticize and investigate what's rotten in the empire. How many journalists who were there when Asa Wahlquist made her remarks spoke up about what they heard?" he asked.

"For the professional culture of journalism in Australia, which extends to the academic centres where journalism is studied, that is a significant number," Rosen concluded.

While the Oz attempts to thrash Posetti's reputation as much as their own via #twitdef, the climate change that started it all continues to be ignored. As another journalism educator Marcus O'Donnell pointed out today "even a threat of US walkout at Cancun is relegated to p15 of SMH".

Chris Mitchell, it would appear, is not the only social engineer running mainstream Australian media.

And there it rests.
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(The full text of my question and answer session with Rosen is attached below)
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DB: Firstly, given your geographical position in the intensely creative hub that is New York why would what is going on in the boondocks of Australian media be of interest to you enough to take part in the debate?

JR: Within the Australian press culture, blogging and journalism academic worlds, there's a decent number of people who are interested in my work, so I have taken an interest in what's going on there, especially after my latest visit. Twitter allows them to follow me and me to follow them, which is also a big factor. At a certain point you acquire enough background knowledge that you can monitor events in another country without feeling lost; after my last visit to Australia, during the elections in August of this year, I felt I had reached that point. I know what Telstra is. I know about the marginal seats in western Sydney. I've watched Tony Jones on Q&A.

Finally, I think The Australian is fast becoming an malevolent force and for some reason that I do not fully understand it is not met with the sort of public opposition it deserves.

DB: Is there lessons from the Australian experience in the current old/new media "war" for the American mediascape?

JR: As the Murdoch empire faces the loss of the emperor--his lost grip, his inability to master digital, or his eventual passing--it starts behaving erratically and in that state it becomes rather dangerous: to itself, but also to other people and to cultural treasures like freedom of the press.

DB: Are the likes of Chris Mitchell just being Canutes trying to stop the tide or can the Murdoch Empire really stamp its authority over the old/new media landscape worldwide?

JR: Here's one hypothesis: Murdoch cannot master digital. He tried, but the thing has eluded him. That is unacceptable for a mogul. But it is also a fact. Put those two things together--an unacceptable fact that is also true--and you have a dangerous situation for a news empire. Rupert is trying to impose an order on the digital world that it does not have. This creates problems for his editorial employees. They have to believe in an analysis that is "shitty," but also saintly because it comes from the top. They get into trouble when they try to prove the emperor right, and behave like little emperors themselves.

This then draws ridicule in the new media environments they disdain but also have to participate in. Which enrages them, causing them to say and do stupid things, as Chris Mitchell did. The dynamic is being forced down through the hierarchy so that it reaches even the reporters at The Oz, who think they can impose order, knock heads and, for example, demonstrate to the blogosphere which rules it has to obey.

Notice how often people from The Australian say there's "nothing special" about Twitter, or that it doesn't get a pass, that it isn't an exception. That's the echo, way down the line, of the unacceptable fact that is also true. "There's nothing different going on here. We got this under control." When they are criticized for taking what is, in effect, a party line, people from The Australian have a strange habit of hearing criticism as a charge of conspiracy. Then they laugh at the overheated image of a conspiracy, which in turn protects them against the criticism. Sally Jackson did this just the other day:

http://twitter.com/Sally_Jackson/statuses/9104914064084992

In the case of Matthew Franklin, I documented the pattern here:

http://jayrosen.tumblr.com/post/102744512/massively-multi-player-denial-when-do-we-grok-the#comment-84775968

Even after I showed it to him, he had no idea what I was talking about.

http://twitter.com/#!/franklinmatthew/status/26621708341


DB: Is it perhaps because the mainstream Australian media scene is so dominated by one publisher, that the underground movement as represented by Australia's Twitterati is so lively?

JR: Also the fact that the above ground opposition is so weak. Online, there is a lot of juvenile sneering at News Ltd. which reflects how rarely the respectable people criticise and investigate what's rotten in the empire. How many journalists who were there when Asa Wahlquist made her remarks spoke up about what they heard? For the professional culture of journalism in Australia, which extends to the academic centres where journalism is studied, that is a significant number.

Media140: Jay Rosen’s Ten Commandments

The keynote speaker on Friday’s session of Sydney’s Media140 was New York University’s Internet doyen Jay Rosen. The 53-year-old journalism professor appeared to his Sydney audience via a Skype hook-up from New York and his speech was a direct challenge from the Big Apple to Big Media. It took the form of an Internet Ten Commandments (all 140 characters or less) both from his own published views and the views of fellow travellers. Rosen is not Moses come down from the mountain but his points were a useful and digestable template for approaching the new media landscape. (photo by Neerav Bhatt)

#1 “Audience atomisation has been overcome”.
Rosen's first point is that media power is now widely dispersed. Rosen wrote about atomisation at his own Press Think blog in January this year drawing on work by Daniel Hallin. Journalists used to be able to define who and what was in the news conversation by virtue of their privileged place in the system. Audiences were atomised as they only talked to the media not to each other. But now there are many alternative networks and voices questioning the media’s right to define agendas. The sphere of legitimate controversy is expanding in both directions at the expense of consensus on one side and what was defined as deviance on the other. People are going around journalists for the news they want, overcoming the atomisation in the process.

#2 “Open systems don’t work like closed systems”.
Here Rosen is asking journalists and bloggers to accept each other's strengths. Again he wrote about this at Press Think in September 2008. Closed systems like the corporate press don’t operate the same way as open ones like free blogs. Closed systems bring editorial oversight and the authority of a respected brand while open ones crowdsource information and are easy to use. What both systems should have is trust and ethics.

#3 “The sources go direct”.
This point is from Dave Winer in May. Sources are a crucial part of the news, says Winer. They will continue to have things to say, even if there is no longer a big media there to listen. Sources already act as quasi-journalists so it is not too great a leap of logic to suggest they will either tell the news themselves or go tell a blogger. Nature abhors a vacuum, Winer is saying, and journalists will not be missed if they disappear.

#4 “When the people formerly known as the audience use the press tools they have to inform one another— that’s citizen journalism”.
This was Rosen in July 2008. It follows on from #3. Citizen, or open source, journalism occurs organically whenever anyone publishes news or information.

#5 “There’s no such thing as information overload, there’s only filter failure”.
This is a quote from fellow NYU professor Clay Shirky from December last year. Shirky is saying the problem is not with the vast amount of information available to us all. This superabundance is beyond the capability of any one person to fathom and we are all regularly confronted with too much information. What we do is filter the flow to make sense of the world. That means a patient process of continuous learning and unlearning. “If the twenty-year-olds aren’t complaining about information overload, it probably isn’t the problem we think it is,” says Shirky.

#6 “Do what you do best and link to the rest.”
This is the famous February 2007 dictum of Google economy advocate Jeff Jarvis. Jarvis’s message is a plea for specialisation: stop trying to become the media of record, and instead concentrate on what you are good at. You can still point to everything else thanks to the remarkable power of the hyperlink.

#7 "Half my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half."
Unlike the first six recent quotes, this one is almost a century old. Rosen attributes it to Philadelphia businessman John Wanamaker (1838-1922). Wanamaker was talking about the eternal business quandary about whether to market products or brands. The problem has not gone away a hundred years later but perhaps it would be solved with a more integrated view of return on investment.

#8 “‘Here’s where we’re coming from’ is more likely to be trusted than ‘the View from Nowhere’”.
Not exactly a quote but wisdom distilled from an ironically anonymous July blog post at hyperorg.com. The post is summarised in the title “transparency is the new objectivity”. The claim of objectivity always hides biases. There may be nothing wrong with those biases but the audience should know about them in order to make an informed decision. The net benefit is twofold: trust, and a more nuanced understanding of the issue as presented by the author.

#9 “The hybrid forms will be the strongest forms”.
Rosen’s post from June 2008 is evolutionary praise for mongrel media. Adaptability is required to flourish in an era of two-way and many-to-many communication. New forms will emerge using the best of closed and open systems (see #2). They will most likely be pro-am using a distributed reporting model.

#10 “My readers know more than I do.”
This is a well-known 2003 quote from blogger and journalist Dan Gillmor. In many respects, this is a statement of the obvious. Yet it is one often forgotten - particularly by knowledgeable journalists who may know more about their issue than any other single person. It is in the journalists' interest to co-opt this knowledge otherwise they will be sidelined (see #3 and #4). Gillmor sees it an opportunity not a threat and a necessary adaptation for survival (see #9).

Rosen signed off with the instruction “you gotta grok it before you can rock it”. Sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein coined the word grok to describe the collective influence the observer and the observed have on each other. In this case it means intuitively establishing a rapport with the tools and the times in order to master them. “Be the media” appeared to be Rosen’s parting advice to the people formerly known as his Sydney audience.