Just as the Oprah-Meghan-Harry trinity offers the royal family the gift of seeing yourself as others see you, it offers a gift too for the tabloid-frighted worlds of London and Canberra: the realisation that the fear may be real, but it’s not natural.
When Harry said tabloids’ “control by fear” and Meghan said the palace ignored media racism because the family was scared “of the tabloids turning on them”, Oprah mugged a WTF cut-away to make sure no one missed the emphasis: “Turning on them for what? They’re the royal family.”
Maybe the Windsors have a better sense of their own precariousness — what with the genetic trauma of the first Charles losing his head and the eighth Edward losing his Crown to the outraged mob that’s now mediated through the attention-hungry tabloid media.
While News Corp (and the other copy-cat London red-tops) are busy tut-tutting about an uppity American bagging the royals, they’ll be quietly pleased at Harry’s off-hand recognition that the palace fear of their tabloid power remains intact in the social media age.
Similarly, when Kevin Rudd spoke out about Canberra’s Murdoch-driven “culture of fear”, the gas-lighting News Corp media underlined the point by releasing hostage video-style factoids of a prime minister Rudd sucking up to the Murdoch machine.
“Fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails,” wrote Niccolo Machiavelli. That principle powers the News Corp business model: fear of what they do, fear of what they may do, fear of how far they are prepared to go.
Hearing Prince Harry discuss it matter-of-factly in a peaceful California garden, almost shrugging at its obviousness, conjures up the shadow that the death of his mother in flight from the paparazzi has long cast over tabloid journalism.
The fear works practically in day-to-day journalism. It delivers access. (“These tabloids have holiday parties at the palace. They’re hosted by the palace,” Markle said.)
In Australia, the fear is rewarded with privileged drops to News Corp’s tabloids by federal and state governments, particularly with tidbits that flavour the culture wars (this week: Anzac Day!) It weaponises the company’s trademark outrage to encourage a populist, racialised authoritarianism. It rewards in turn its political allies who feed appropriate grabs into its maw.
It encourages Morrison to prioritise Sky after dark for interviews, where he’s offered soft-ball questions in recognition of fealty, just as Trump, when president, prioritised Fox and Friends over breakfast.
The fear shapes policy. No state or federal government settles on a course of action without pondering how the local tabloid will front-page it the next day. And then quietly adjusting course to minimise harm.
The fear delivers commercial gain, as Australia has seen this year with the news media bargaining code or last year’s government grants to Foxtel for women’s sport.
It’s why Rupert Murdoch raised eyebrows about five years ago when he asserted (admittedly in the UK context): “I’ve never asked any prime minister for anything.” Of course not. That’s not how the fear works. It’s left to be inferred — just as Harry tells us.
In Australia, there’s early signs that the fear is running out. In both Victoria and Queensland, state Labor governments have prospered despite increasingly hysterical critiques from the Herald Sun and The Courier-Mail.
And the power may not long outlast Rupert.
In Australia, we’ve had a dry run: for almost a century, the fear was shared between the Murdochs (Keith, then Rupert) and the Packers (Frank, then Kerry). Kerry usually did his own dirty work; the more worldly Rupert tends to let the work speak for itself.
Nine lost its power of fear with Kerry’s death as James abandoned media for what seemed (at the time) the safer harbour of gambling. On Lachlan, the power seems to settle uncomfortably, like an ill-fitting suit, as when last week he said the quiet part out loud and confirmed Fox News as the opposition to the Biden administration.
His father would have cautioned him against such a public threat. To exercise fear well: show, don’t tell.
Surely the important point is that the commercial television news stations have for years been adept at instilling fear in their legions of watchers. This happens in two basic ways. Firstly, is the intense focus placed on (often minor) crimes against the person, where the perpetrators are always called thugs and terrified bystanders are called up to declare that this has never happened in their suburb before. Secondly, in the plethora of “border protection” programmes and others where police are filmed catching people for very minor offences, where the offenders are often working class. Attention in these programmes is never focussed on white collar criminals.
The intention is to establish the suburbs as a potentially violent place where one has to keep on one’s toes all the time. It is also to place the law enforcers, border forces (and sometimes the military) on a pedestal as defenders of the realm.
There is no subtlety in such portrayals, only images and words designed to terrorise.
Yes, and a classic example of this is the inferred, if not the threat, of using the Australian military to administer vaccines to the public if the uptake does not increase to govt expectations.
Yes, and a classic example of this is the inferred, if not the threat, of using the Australian military to administer vaccines to the public if the uptake does not increase to govt expectations.
Memo to Cky: Moderation is quite acceptable when a valid reason exists. But in the absence of a valid reason it is shear censorship. No wonder your financial membership base is waning.
Did they let you in free?
It is unfortunate that many people do not value that which they obtain for free.
Little things too minor to mention such as clean air, water, food – nothing important like MAFS or footy.
As Yoni sang about that Big Yellow Taxidermist.
Domestic violence and terrorism works the same.
There may be few actual beatings/terrorist attacks. The control comes from the threat of a violent outburst. One only needs to do it a couple of times to ensure compliance.
That’s exactly as I saw it. Those familiar with the dynamics of domestic violence and the crippling fear instigated by the perpetrator over the victim, which always uses brainwashing techniques and not always physical violence, recognise the dynamics on a grander scale in society. Murdoch and his specially chosen minions, are perpetrators of fear and set out to destroy anyone of note who resists by the brainwashing technique of slander and besmirching a person’s or institution’s character. There is an awakening to this cancer in our world that is in dire need of treatment to eradicate it. Until it is it will continue to make those societies it invades very ill.
Fear is something of a two-edged sword when writing for public support. We need the general public, worldwide, to be sufficiently frightened of climate change that they accept the need for revolutionary decarbonisation. If our thrusts are inadequate we risk achieving no more than leaving our children fearful for their inheritance, injured. Then as we age, we would become more fearful of them than they of us. Or, to paraphrase Machiavelli – Love for our descendants is easily debased by the greed of their ancestors; it might have seemed wiser to injure your rivals so severely that they are incapable of revenge. Rupert appears to be playing the second sentiment.
Agree, completely, but the commercial electronic media ignores this completely.
The dictum “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” seems to be applying to the Packer dynasty, and could well apply to the Murdoch empire as well. Lachlan’s business history, with such triumphs as OneTel and Channel 10. augur well for the Murdoch edifice being flown into the ground at high speed with Lachlan at the helm.
Too big to fail.
The scions tend to demonstrate “too failing to be big“.
This article only partly describes how this strategy works, it is more important to discuss why it works and who benefits.
Any article that discusses Rupert and his empire requires a description of why and how he profits, not just parts of his strategy.
His business is providing a service that informs the public in a way that maximises profit for anyone who uses his network. Because of the reach of his media empire he can apply pressure to governments for favourable reporting such as re election prospects, in return for lets say, changes in legislation or removal of independent regulators.
This Neocon approach has made it easier to privatise public assets and obfuscate issues that will be damaging to the common good, all in the name of profit margins.