Murdoch's World (48 page)
Authors: David Folkenflik
Page 16
beachside community of Albert Park:
Author, visit to Albert Park; Kate MacFadyen, interview by author.
Page 17
Between six and seven of every ten copies:
Figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation and Roy Morgan Research for 2011 as cited in Wendy Bacon,
Sceptical Climate: Media Coverage of Climate Change in Australia
, Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, 2011, p. 23.
Page 17
“he's the bloke they have to please”:
Paul Barry, interview by author. (Subsequent Barry quotations taken from this interview.)
Page 17
“It's a pretty clear stranglehold”:
Monica Attard, interview by author.
Page 18
Rupert Murdoch addressed the nature of media ownership:
Murdoch, BBC interview, 1968,
http://youtu.be/wtcq8RDDPFU?t=2m
.
Page 19
“Most [Australian] Labor politicians hated Rupert”:
Former senior News Corp executive, interview by author; Tony Wright, “Politicians of All Stripes Beat a Path to Murdoch's Door,”
The Age
, July 16, 2011.
Page 19
“by far the most detailed paper”:
Robert Manne, interview by author.
Page 19
“Here is Australia's first truly national newspaper”:
Copy of full July 1964 mission statement provided to author by News Ltd, as reproduced, with permission:
www.npr.org/assets/news/2012/04/05/australian.pdf
.
Page 21
Murdoch believed that the avid backing:
Philip Dorling, “Whitlam Radical, Fraser Arrogant, Hawke Moderate: Secret Cables Reveal Murdoch Insights,”
Sydney Morning Herald
, May 20, 2013.
Page 21
the
Australian
sets the tone:
Numerous Australian journalists, both for Murdoch and non-Murdoch titles, interviews by author.
Page 21
“someone's probably not going to edit”:
James Chessell, interview by author, for this and subsequent Chessell quotations.
Page 22
he took direct aim at the
Australian: Manne,
Bad News
.
Page 23
The paper commissioned a full book review:
Matthew Ricketson, “Forensic Critique of a Paper of Influence,”
Australian
, September 24, 2011.
Page 23
the newspaper fired back:
Headlines in the
Australian
included “Conspiracy Theories May Be Less Laughable If Manne Got Out More”; “Bad News: The Diary of a Murdoch Hater”; “Manne Allows Ideology to Cloud His Judgments”; “A Critic Untroubled by Facts Who Seeks to Silence Dissent”; and “Manne Throws Truth Overboard.”
Chapter 3
The discussion of newspapers at the beginning of this chapter is influenced by my interviews in recent years with many editors who previously worked for or competed with Murdoch's News International, including former
Sun
editor Kelvin MacKenzie, former
Sunday Times
(UK) editor Andrew Neil, former
Times of London
editor Simon Jenkins, former
Independent
editor Simon Kelner, former
News of the World
deputy features editor Paul McMullan, former
Sunday Herald
editor (and senior editor at the
Times of London
) Andrew Jaspan,
Times of London/Sunday Times
head of digital Tom Whitwell,
Sunday Times
executive editor Tristan Davies, former assistant
Sun
editor Roy Greenslade, former chief executive of the
Economist
and ITN David Gordon,
Guardian
editor in chief Alan Rusbridger, and former
Guardian
director of digital content Emily Bell, among others. In addition, my thinking was shaped
by less formal conversations with a dozen other British journalists, by my interviews with eight members of Parliament, by my reading of various British papers, and by the testimony of the editors of various British newspaper titles before the Leveson judicial inquiry.
Page 24
“xenophobic, bloody-minded, ruthless”:
Roy Greenslade, “A New Britain, a New Kind of Newspaper,”
Guardian
, February 25, 2004.
Page 24
“Stick it Up Your Junta!”:
As cited in Chippindale and Horrie,
Stick It Up Your Punter!
, p. 136.
Page 25
stands in the Hillsborough soccer stadium in Sheffield collapsed:
Chippindale and Horrie,
Stick It Up Your Punter!
, pp. 345â348.
Page 25
The reporter on the story, Harry Arnold:
“
Sun
Reporter Harry Arnold's Hillsborough Headline Regret,”
BBC.co.uk
, September 7, 2012,
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-19507065
.
Page 25
comedian had eaten a woman's hamster:
Max Clifford, witness statement to Leveson Inquiry, February 9, 2012.
Page 26
“always been in the gutter”:
Kelvin MacKenzie on BBC Two's
Daily Politics
show, December 8, 2011.
Page 26
MacKenzie boasted:
Kelvin MacKenzie, interview by author.
Page 26
“If any politician wanted my opinion”:
Rupert Murdoch, testimony before Leveson Inquiry, April 25, 2012, morning session.
Page 27
in a previous generation:
See, for example, Tifft and Jones,
The Patriarch;
and
The Trust
.
Page 27
“I find American newspapers boringâand biblical”:
Simon Jenkins, interview by author.
Page 28
Murdoch sketched out his philosophy:
Rupert Murdoch, MacTaggart Lecture, Edinburgh International Television Festival, August 25, 1989, p. 4,
www.geitf.co.uk/sites/default/files/geitf/GEITF_MacTaggart_1989_Rupert_Murdoch.pdf
.
Page 28
Prince Charles, by then married . . . telephoned his girlfriend:
Michelle Green, “Bugged and Bedeviled,”
People
, February 1, 1993.
Page 29
the prince's sexual banter:
Paul McMullan, interview by author.
Page 29
the British press faces tight regulations:
British media lawyers David Hooper and Mark Stephens, interview by author;
Guardian
editor Alan Rusbridger, interviews by author.
Page 29
could obtain so-called super-injunctions:
Roy Greenslade, “Law Is Badly in Need of Reform as Celebrities Hide Secrets,”
London Evening Standard
, April 20, 2011.
Page 29
McMullan snorted at the idea:
Paul McMullan, interview by author.
Page 29
“anything that the public is interested in is in the public interest”:
Paul McMullan, testimony to Leveson Inquiry, November 29, 2011, pp. 39â40.
Page 29
“Privacy is for paedos”:
McMullan, testimony to Leveson Inquiry, November 29, 2011, p. 91.
Page 30
One of McMullan's infamous scoops:
McMullan, interview by author.
Page 30
McMullan showed undue modesty:
McMullan gave a fuller account to the Leveson Inquiry, p. 93.
Page 31
“Do you just stick your fingers in your ears”:
McMullan, interview by author.
Page 31
Johnson later claimed that he had “blackmailed”:
Joshua Haddow, “Confessions of a Tabloid Terrorist,”
Vice
(UK),
www.vice.com/en_uk/read/confessions-of-a-tabloid-terrorist-hack-graham-johnson-q-and-a
.
Page 31
“the editors start shouting”:
McMullan, interview by author.
Page 31
“The tone was buccaneering”:
David Gordon, interview by author.
Page 31
Murdoch's cadre of Australians imported . . . “mateship”:
This section is based on David Folkenflik's interviews with Andrew Jaspan, who worked for and against Murdoch in the UK and competed against Murdoch in Australia; a former News Corp executive; former
New York Post
editor and publisher Ken Chandler; and Australian historian and novelist Thomas Keneally.
Page 32
traces the origins of mateship:
Keneally, email exchange and conversation with author.
Page 32
the carnage of Gallipoli:
Keneally, email exchange with author.
Page 32
Associated R & R Films Pty Ltd:
As cited in Wolff,
Man Who Owns the News
, p. 63.
Page 32
Mateship can take the form of a favor:
Andrew Jaspan, interview by author.
Page 33
invited to spend a boozy night:
Freya Petersen, email interview by author.
Page 34
tapped his mate Dunleavy:
Shawcross,
Murdoch
, pp. 196â197.
Page 34
In her entry in
Who's Who: Geoffrey Levy, “Rebekah Brooks, the Schmoozer Hated by Murdoch's Wife and Daughter,”
Daily Mail
, July 17, 2011.
Page 34
Brooks had prepared particularly well:
Piers Morgan,
Insider
, pp. 39, 50.
Page 35
“name and shame” approach:
“Police Criticize Paedophile âName And Shame,'” BBC News, July 30, 2000; “Innocent Man Branded Child Abuser,” BBC News, August 3, 2000.
Page 35
eighty-three convicted sex offenders:
Matt Born, “Paper Drops Paedophile Campaign,”
Telegraph
, August 5, 2000.
Page 35
handing over a mobile phone from the paper:
Mark Stephens, lawyer for Sara Payne, interview by author.
Page 35
Dr. Yvette Cloete returned to her home:
Brendan O'Neill, “Whispering Game,” BBC News, February 16, 2006.
Page 35
A mob chased a family:
“Mob Violence at Home of âPaedophile,'”
Telegraph
, August 4, 2000; “Police Condemn âPaedophile' Attacks,” BBC News, August 7, 2000; “Families Flee Paedophile Protests,” BBC News, August 9, 2000; Dave Hill, “After the Purge,”
Guardian
, February 5, 2001.
Page 36
Bryant clad only in briefs:
Simon Walters, “Posing in His Y-Fronts for a Website Called Gaydar, the MP Who Helped Scrap Ban on Gay Sex in Public,”
Mail on Sunday
, November 30, 2003; Richard Littlejohn, “No, I'm the Only Gay in the Valleys,”
Sun
, December 2, 2003; “Blair's Attack Poodle Says Pants to the Lot of You,”
Sunday Times
, December 7, 2003.
Page 36
“Shouldn't you be on Clapham Common?”
Chris Bryant MP, interview by author.
Page 37
Some of the older reporters hired private investigators:
As cited by Graham Johnson in
Hack
, Kindle edition, location 2905 of 5126.
Chapter 4
Page 38
On a subfreezing morning:
Author's attendance during tour, as reflected in David Folkenflik, “With Headline Bus Tour, âNew York Post' Takes Manhattan,”
All Things Considered
, March 19, 2013. Various
Post
headlines as indicated in text of chapter.
Page 39
Murdoch had broken into the American market:
Julie Domel, “Rupert Murdoch's 1973 Purchase of E-N,”
San Antonio Express-News
, July 29, 2011.