On Rupert Murdoch

Recently I read the news that Rupert Murdoch have resigned from all his remaining positions in News Corp.

The Article

He even admitted that media is in cahoots with elites.

There is a lot of truthful words in his resignation memo. Though it is of course written in a misleading way as to create wrong impression.

Here a quote for example:

Elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class. Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth.

It is not like this passage is untrue per se, it is just in context it gives the impression that what he means is that: media, other than News Corp, is in cahoots with elites and News Corp is pushing the truth. 

Words per se do not state that, however. You can even interpret them as this: since all media is in cahoots with the elites, do not feel bad that we are as well. That can almost sound like an admission to his critics.

The rest of what he said is equally wonderful words, that do require clever interpretation to get most of them.

However, yes, Murdoch media is in cahoots with business elites and its pushes messages that directly benefit the business elites, even if such messages are clearly untrue. 

Murdoch as Oligarch

In that regard you can even consider Rupert Murdoch the closest thing Western World has to a post-soviet Oligarch.

Just like oligarchs, Murdoch uses media to pursue his and his associates' agenda, rather than reports on events truthfully like a proper journalist would.

However, unlike oligarchs Murdoch does not need a supplementary income from another business to payroll his media empire. On paper at least.

Another difference is that there is no other oligarch like figures who push for a different agenda and push their own untruth in a similar way to Murdoch.

Harm Murdoch Causes

What he does is indeed damaging to society. Especially to the one that get used to the idea that journalism supposed to be fair and impartial. 

In post-soviet space people get used to government media telling them blatant lies out of political considerations. Thus, transition to oligarch-controlled media was actually beneficial to a freedom of speech. Monopoly of untrue message was replaced with a pluralism of untrue messages that come from different sources and pursue different interests. Oligarchs also had to be cautious about their lies, as they can be sure that rival oligarchs will not echo their message and will instead poke holes in their narratives to discredit their rival's media credibility.

The fact that what Murdoch does in the West is unprecedented and not matched by any rival media makes effects of his deceit even more grieve.

Because of that I would like to be cautiously optimistic that with Rupert Murdoch resignation, this era of blatantly biased propaganda.

However, I have one other reason to be optimistic about end of Murdoch and I will cover it in a separate article.