Murdoch and his influence on Australian political life
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has always wanted to influence political outcomes but not always for commercial reasons argues David McKnight in a post that first appeared on The Conversation
In 2007, journalist Ken Auletta spent a great deal of time with Rupert Murdoch while writing a magazine profile of him. Auletta observed that Murdoch was frequently on the phone to his editors and this prompted him to ask: “of all the things in your business empire, what gives you the most pleasure?” Murdoch instantly replied: “being involved with the editor of a paper in a day-to-day campaign… trying to influence people”.
Over the course of the 2013 federal election, Australia will experience a real time experiment which will demonstrate the degree of influence exerted by Rupert Murdoch and his newspapers on Australian political life.
That Murdoch has had an influence on elections previously, especially in the UK, is no secret. In the 1992 UK election, The Sun, his biggest selling tabloid in the UK and editorially a kissing cousin of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, claimed victory on behalf of the Conservative party. As the headline famously bellowed: “It Was The Sun Wot Won It”
So the financial standards he expects from the government don’t always hold for his own business silos.
@ Anonymous – Of Course!
Similarly with politicians and business community whingeing about ‘unsustainable debt levels’. You only need to look at the ratio of Private Debt to GDP vs. Government Debt to GDP to see where the real debt crisis is. Many companies and ‘successful’ businessmen are leveraged up to their eyeballs in debt. And none of these people or companies can re-finance their debt at anywhere near the low levels the Aus Government can.