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‘Nasty, brutish, and banal’

The ploys of media moguls and politicians
by
July 2023, no. 455

Media Monsters: The transformation of Australia’s newspaper empires by Sally Young

UNSW Press, $49.99 pb, 576 pp

‘Nasty, brutish, and banal’

The ploys of media moguls and politicians
by
July 2023, no. 455

In 1968, Rupert Murdoch was one step from acquiring his first international media holding, in the British tabloid The News of the World. That Murdoch was so close was a personal coup, given that his press ownership had begun sixteen years earlier with a much-diminished inheritance, largely based in Adelaide. To pull off the News of the World acquisition, however, Murdoch needed government approval to transfer $10 million Australian offshore. Speed, secrecy, and surety were pivotal, and in search of all three Murdoch went to John McEwen, the deputy prime minister and leader of the Country Party. The two had an enduring bond: McEwen had helped Murdoch buy his grazing station and family bolthole, Cavan, and when McEwen was appointed acting prime minister after the death of Harold Holt in 1967, Murdoch had argued in The Australian that McEwen should be prime minister in his own right. Now, in 1968, McEwen took Murdoch to the prime minister, John Gorton, who was also familiar with the young press baron. Gorton had briefly been lined up to work for Murdoch’s father in the 1930s and owed something of his present job now to the influence Murdoch had wielded when it became clear that McEwen could not remain prime minister.

McEwen and Gorton brought the matter to Cabinet a few days later. Treasurer Billy McMahon raised objections. An unequivocal departmental brief was McMahon’s main prompt, but another was his close relationship with Murdoch’s rival Sir Frank Packer, who had once promised to send Murdoch back to South Australia ‘with his fookin’ tail between his fookin’ legs’. Not this time. Murdoch’s path, with Gorton and McEwen behind him, was cleared. Politely ignoring a comment from Paul Hasluck that Murdoch was a ‘brigand’, Cabinet approved the transfer and Murdoch duly took his money offshore and got The News of the World – and then the world.

Media Monsters: The transformation of Australia’s newspaper empires

Media Monsters: The transformation of Australia’s newspaper empires

by Sally Young

UNSW Press, $49.99 pb, 576 pp

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Comment (1)

  • Millions of Australians (by some measures as many as 1:2) lack sufficient reading and comprehension skills to read and understand a newspaper article featuring two contrasting ideas. Similar numbers would have difficulty naming the federal opposition leader or the treasurer (state government figures are even worse). These same people have less than rudimentary understandings of the origin of global conflicts or indeed the basis of civilisation. Too often we default to notions of wickedness to explain the state of the world, when in fact it is lack of knowledge that is the origin of many problems.
    Posted by Patrick Hockey
    30 June 2023

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