In Defense of Rupert Murdoch

OK, I’m not totally impartial. After all, Murdoch hired me (four times!) when nobody else wanted to. Besides my stellar yet litigious work for TV Guide (see another post below), I worked on the launch of the cable FX Network (creating a USA Today parody celebrating its debut) and wrote the DVD catalogues for 20^th Century Fox’s films for three years. (He also fired me when he realized why I wasn’t able to get any employment — I’m a cheap and lousy reporter.) And so maybe I should hold some kind of grudge but, hey, I don’t hold grudges. That’s the advantage of ADHD.

The thing about Murdoch is that he knows what people want. Pure and simple. Remember when he debuted Cops on Fox? Up until that point, there were no network outlets that showed the hard white underbelly (covered partially by a wife-beater tee) of America. No, until Murdoch’s folks decided to glorify our country’s various police forces, cops were pretty sanitized on television and the criminals always looked groomed. Murdoch and his crew understood how to create popular, unconventional television. These are also the folks who also green-lit the hilariously subversive The Simpsons and Married With Children.

Murdoch has a down-to-earth impression of America, probably because he didn’t grow up here and has no stake in our false façade and our “exceptionalism” mythology. And because he has held up this mirror, he has changed the way we look at ourselves.

Take his latest smash success, Fox News. Combining opinion-journalism, similar to the Fleet Street model, with blitzkrieg graphics, overly amped soundtrack and bright primary colors, Murdoch has brought to the news-a-tainment industry his peculiarly Australian-outback rebel instincts. Which jibes quite nicely with what I call the American Aboriginal outlook. Call it right-wing crazy, call it whatever you want, Fox News is sure as hell entertaining. Start watching it and you can’t stop. It tells a story 24 hours a day: Democrats are evil, Republicans are heroes, and white Christian Americans are under attack. Compare that with the other cable news networks: MSNBC can’t decide from morning to night where it stands politically and CNN still thinks people want to be informed and told both sides of a story: Its approach is, hey, moonbats and wingnuts, we’ll hold your coats while you two fight it out. How quaint.

Murdoch telegraphs his punches. He isn’t sneaky, give him that. Did Dorothy Schiff really think that when she sold The New York Post to Rupee, that that paper would continue along its Murray Kemptonesque path, maintaining the turgid, politically correct newspaper she birthed? He made no secret of his disdain for the aloof approach of that paper.

And as far as the Wall Street Journal being corrupted by Murdoch? That’s a real hoot. Reading the reviews of the arts and entertainment in the Journal has always been an exercise in watching one writer after another look down disapprovingly on the starry-eyed dreamers and liberals in Hollywood and New York. The Journal always had the approach of Brit-Hume, the basset hound-like guy whose blasé attitude toward Washington mutters, “I’ve seen it all.” Don't be surprised when one day The Journal becomes the full-color paper, THE DOW!

The media used to be where we reflected what we wanted ourselves to be: Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, John Chance-e-LOR’s stentorianism, Walter Cronkite’s wiping away tears, Mike Wallace’s going after the crooks. Murdoch has sure made a mockery of the phony impression we used to have of ourselves. He understands American human nature: We’re a bunch of resentful, prejudiced, greedy slobs who want something for nothing. And we’re proud of it. Murdoch knows us, warts and all. And so does anyone watching his television networks and newspapers.

Not that he’s a dictator. Rupert knows when to leave well enough alone when he buys media companies. After all, he’s left 20^th Century Fox to its own Holly-lib devices, ruling only on budgetary matters. (Who can forget the devastating portrait of our former vice president in The Day After Tomorrow?) The movies have enough magic in them already to repel even the Murdoch touch.

But his influence is everywhere else. Look at FX now, which couldn’t be further from the original vision its execs had when working on the launch. It’s become the home of such great, gritty and no-nonsense shows as The Shield, Rescue Me and the new who-can-look-away? series Damages and Justified. Imagine series like those on ABC-Disney...

And how about a round of applause for Fox Sports. Hard to believe, but before Murdoch started broadcasting football games, you had to wait until the commercial to get a score. It was Fox’s NFL coverage that put the stats on the screen during the entire game along with the other data we Americans love when it comes to sports. None of the geniuses at the “respectable” networks thought to do that.

And don’t count out his new business network, either. Poor CNBC. Those folks won’t be able to say one bad thing about the stock market or anything else associated with capitalism, lest they be accused of being “anti-business, socialist, Nazi-Commies.” I can see the campaign now: Fox Business: Unlike those other lame-stream outlets, we love business.

Of course that means, just like with Fox News’ fair and balanced coverage of politics, we poor viewers won’t know the truth about bribes, corruption, fraud and slimy practices until it’s too late.

Hooray for Rupert!