House Murdoch

Ministry of Truth

(The Murdochs: Empire of Influence, CNN, 2022)

Rupert Murdoch (1931):
[There’s] a real challenge to confront: a wave of censorship that seeks:

• to silence conversation,
• to stifle debate,
• to ultimately stop individuals and societies from realizing their potential.

This rigidly enforced conformity, aided and abetted by so-called social media, is a straitjacket on sensibility.
To many people have fought too hard, in too many places, for freedom of speech to be suppressed by this awful woke orthodoxy. …
There are many goals still to come and challenges to overcome.
Well, I'm far from done.
(Acceptance Speech, Lifetime Achievement Award by the Australia Day Foundation UK, Australia House, 23 January 2021)

(Jamie Roberts, BBC The Rise Of The Murdoch Dynasty, 2020)

James Murdoch (1972):
There's an inescapable conclusion that we must reach if we are to have a better society:
The only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence, is profit.
(MacTaggart Lecture, MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, August 2009)

Elisabeth Murdoch (1968):
[Profit] without purpose is a recipe for disaster.
(MacTaggart Lecture, MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, August 2012)

Rupert Murdoch (1931):
We should approach climate change with great scepticism. …
[How] much are we doing with emissions and so on?
Well, as far as Australia goes, nothing in the overall picture. …
The most alarmist things have said maybe … 3°C in 100 years.
At the very most, one [degree] would … be man-made. …
Now, what that means is that, if the sea level rises 6 inches [the] Maldives might disappear or something …
We can't mitigate that.
We can't stop it.
We've just got to stop building vast houses of sea shores and go back a little bit.
[The world has] been changing for thousands and thousands of years. …
Climate change has been going on as long as the planet is here.
(2014)

Wendy Bacon (1946) [Professorial Fellow, Australian Centre for Independent Journalism]:
One third of articles in Australia’s major newspapers do not accept the consensus position of climate science …
That’s a very high level of scepticism when you consider that these stories are rejecting findings that over 97% of the world’s climate scientists support. …
While the News Corp tabloids tend to outright reject the consensus, the national newspaper The Australian is more likely to suggest that climate science is a matter of debate. …
In the Herald Sun 97% of comment articles were sceptical.
This is largely due to … Andrew Bolt, who wrote over half of all the words on climate science in the paper. …
News Corp’s coverage seems to be more about production of ignorance than informing people so they can participate in debates about solutions. …
The public is paying a heavy price for having News Corp as the dominant player in the most concentrated press in the developed world.
(Big Australian media reject climate science, The Conversation, 1 November 2013)

The newspaper that most actively promotes climate scepticism is also the biggest selling newspaper in Australia, the Herald Sun. …
The next most sceptical publication is The Daily Telegraph …
(A Sceptical Climate: Media coverage of climate change in Australia, 2011 & 2013)

Market Share by Readership (Adapted from Figure 1, p 23)
Ownership	Readership
News Limited	3,707,000	65%
Fairfax	1,439,000	25%
Seven West Media	547,000	10%
Total	5,963,000	100%

James Painter [Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University]:
Australia had the most articles, and the highest percentage of articles with sceptics in them, ahead of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Norway and India.
This finding tallied with a previous report we had published which strongly suggested that climate scepticism was common in the English-speaking media in countries like the UK, USA and Australia.
It is nothing like as common in the media in developing countries, such as Brazil, India and China, and in France.
(Climate Change in the Media: Reporting Risk and Uncertainty, I B Taurus, Oxford)

Philip Chubb [Associate Professor of Journalism, Monash University]:
… I'm accusing The Australian of ideological bias.
All the evidence is there.
It's absolutely clear.
It has ceased to function as a news outlet according to the ordinary meaning of that term.
(George Munster Award Forum, University of Technology Sydney, ABC Big Ideas, 2 December 2010)

Would you like to know more?

• Royal Commission Into Media Diversity
• Media coverage of climate change in Australia
• Murdoch's Australian and the Shaping of the Nation

Loyalty is Good

[Our] first responsibility [as journalists, is to earn] the trust and loyalty of our readers.

The newspaper … can throw light on injustices, just as it can do the opposite.
It can hide things and be a great power for evil.

— Rupert Murdoch (1931)

Bill O'Reilly (1949):
If any woman ever breathed a word, I'll make her pay so dearly that she'll wish she'd never been born.
I'll rake her through the mud, bring up things in her life, and make her so miserable that she'll be destroyed. …
If you cross FOX NEWS CHANNEL, it's not just me, it's Roger Ailes who will go after you …
Ailes operates behind the scenes … and makes things happen, so that one day BAM! — the person gets what's coming to them, but never sees it coming. …

So here's the deal: if someone is paying you a wage, you owe that person, or company, allegiance.
You don't like what's happening in the workplace?
Go to human resources or leave, but don't run down the concern that supports you by trying to undermine it.
[O'Reilly] Factor tip of the day — loyalty is good.

Donald Trump (1946):
[Roger Ailes] is a very good person.
I can tell you that, some of the women that are complaining … I know how much he's helped them.

Joe Muto [Former Associate Producer, The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News]:
It was imparted to me, right from the very beginning, that it wasn't about journalism, it was about drawing the biggest audience possible. …
We used to call it: "Riling up the Crazies".
That's what we were there to do.
We were there to stir up outrage.
Because that's what kept them watching.

Glenn Beck (1964):
It's hard when you actually believe in something, and you don't want to do harm but, somehow or another, you just keep doing harm. …
And I remember, praying and hearing: "you're standing in the wrong place."
How am I now, in the position, where I am the most polarizing, divisive figure in the country?
And it was the beginning of: "give it all up, get out … get out, get out, get out."
So I went into Roger's office and said: "I'm leaving" …
(Fox News: Divide And Conquer, 2018)

Nick Broomfield (1948):
[Rupert Murdoch] paid Sarah [Palin:]

• a $3 million salary [as a news analyst for Fox News;] and
• a $7 million [book] advance for Going Rogue.

[The] Koch brothers are massive contributors to [both] Sarah and the Tea Party.
(Sarah Palin: You Betcha!, Gravity Films, 2011)

Roger Ailes (1940 – 2017):
[At Fox News, we'd] like to restore objectivity, where we find it lacking.

Sarah Ferguson (1965):
[Gretchn Carlson] would eventually settle [her sexual harassment claim] with Fox News for $20 million US dollars. …
[Susan] Estrich negotiated a departure package for [Roger] Ailes — worth more than $70 million US dollars — directly with Rupert Murdoch.
(Fox and the Big Lie, ABC Four Corners, 23 August 2021)

An Unnecessary War

Live Long and Prosper: Ministry of Peace

As we act, let us not become the evil who we deplore.

— Nathan Baxter (1948), Eulogy for the Victims of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, 14 September 2001.


Preventative war is a crime not easily committed by a country that retains any traces of democracy.

— George Orwell (1903 – 50), 1947.


And yet I doubt, if there be a more reprehensible human act than to lead a nation into an unnecessary war …

— Richard Cobden (1804 – 65), 8 August 1855.


The advantages of successful war are doubtful, but the disadvantages of unsuccessful war are certain.

— Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970), Power, 1938.


The policy of my government … is regime change. …

A liberated Iraq could show the power of freedom to transform the Middle East, by bringing hope and progress to the lives of millions. …

The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

— George W Bush (1946)


If we have to use force, it is because we are America.
We are the indispensable nation.
We stand tall and … see further than other countries …

— Madeleine Albright (1937), US Secretary of State, 1998.

(Alex Gibney, Taxi to the Dark Side, 2007)

Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001:
[The] President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those … he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 … in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States …
(107th United States Congress, 18 September 2001)

Barbara Lee (1946) [Member of the US House of Representatives from California]:
[The AUMF has] been used 41 times in about 19 countries not related at all to 9/11. …
That is unconstitutional.
It sets the stage for perpetual war. …
It's also been used for domestic spying in the United States.
(Graveyard of Empires, Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror, Episode 5, 2021)

Colin_Powell (1937 – 2021) [US Secretary of State, 2001–5]:
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources.
These are not assertions.
What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
(Remarks to the United Nations Security Council, 5 February 2003)

War on Terror: Direct* Civilian War Deaths (2019) (Neta Crawford & Catherine Lutz)
Iraq	184,382-207,156
Syria/ISIS	49,591
Afghanistan	43,074
Pakistan	23,924
Yemen	12,000
Total	312,971-335,745
*Several times as many have been killed indirectly as a result of … water loss, sewage and other infrastructural issues, and war-related disease.

Kevin Power [Iraq War Veteran]:
The thing that is … most troubling to me [is that, the invasion of Iraq] doesn't seem to have been necessary. …
If I had to go through all that.
The people I was with, had to experience, what they experienced.
All the lives that were lost.
All the damage that was done:

• to the country,
• to the local people

I wish that it had been necessary.
And I just can't find a way to accept the fact that it was.
I just don't think it was necessary.
It doesn't seem like we needed to be there.
(The Yellow Birds, ABC Big Ideas, 6 June 2013)

Francis Fukuyama (1952):
It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W Bush.
It was bad enough that he launched an unnecessary war and undermined the standing of the United States throughout the world in his first term.
But in the waning days of his administration, he is presiding over a collapse of the American financial system and broader economy that will have consequences for years to come.
(The Right Choice?, The American Conservative, 3 November 2008)

(National Insecurity, While the Rest of Us Die: Secrets of America's Shadow Government, Episode 4, Season 1, Vice, 2020)

(Greg Wilesmith, ABC Beyond The Towers, 2021)

Ron Suskind (1959) [Journalist]:
Afghanistan's not big enough.
It’s not proportional.
It needs to be bigger.
The towers are burning, the Pentagon’s burning.
They attacked the United States, the response has to be proportional to what occurred to us. …

Cheney says [that] if there’s a 1 percent chance that terrorists have gotten their hands on weapons of mass destruction, we need to treat it as a certainty.

Richard Cheney (1941):
My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.
The read we get on the people of Iraq is [that] they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.
(Barak Goodman, George W Bush, PBS American Experience, WGBH, 2020)