In search of a DMZ (DeMurdochized Zone)
British history took a turn for the even worse in January 1969.
Programming note: I’m thinking of doing two things: A t-shirt (coming soon) and an end-of-year roundup print newspaper (coming December). Would you buy either or both? Hit the button below to let me know if I should do it…
Previously: Rupert Murdoch Death Party
In January 1969, Rupert Murdoch made his first British acquisition, the News of the World. It’s a forking point for British history; it changes the intensity and horror of the British media and it begins a situation where the ownership of UK newspapers and companies in general is totally up for grabs. Without Murdoch, there would be no Lebedev ‘Independent’, Mohamed Al-Fayed era at Harrods, or Gulf state ownership of British football clubs.
Keith Rupert Murdoch is old now and, like Kissinger, many people are waiting for his end. But Murdoch’s mother lived until 103. If he matches that, Murdoch will be with us for a further 11 years, and his enormous wealth guarantees him the best healthcare imaginable. While his money machine, Fox News, was making its viewers ‘sceptical’ about the Covid vaccine, Murdoch flew into the UK to jump the queue and get his.
Murdoch is a US citizen — he became one to acquire more TV holdings there — and was born in Australia. He has no right to define how the UK works, to apply pressure to its politicians, to pursue his blatant and brutal corruption in plain and celebrated sight, but he is treated like an emperor because he took control of a slate of papers and acquired TV spectrum with the complicity of Prime Ministers that wanted his patronage. Murdoch is special only because he is one of history’s most ruthless and amoral media men. He cares about money and winning. All other things are inconvenient details to be changed or ignored.
There will be a time when the patriarch Murdoch is gone and we’re left with his successors — his children (Lachlan and the rest) and his chosen children (Rebekah Brooks and the rest of those demons) — who are not nearly as capable or gifted with Palantir-like foresight (which hasn’t always worked for him; remember MySpace?).
That will be the time to push for a DMZ — DeMurdochised Zone — a UK that is no longer bullied and browbeaten by Murdoch or his marionettes. A better world is possible and it will only be better if we wrench the Murdoch crime family’s hands from around our neck. Start thinking about it now; it will be a fight.
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I'd love the end of the year thing (& possibly a t-shirt but I already have too many t-shirts!).
Good piece. Just one disagreement; in theory rich people get the best health care imaginable, but in practice they are at great risk of over-treatment. Michael Jackson getting a general anaesthetic drug intravenously every night till it killed him is just one of the best known examples.