From day one Rupert Murdoch engaged down market tactics. Appeal to every man’s prejudices not in a loud way but enough to keep his audience. He knew that the masses wanted red meat and a cause to Pursue He trashed the dignity of politics and chased scandals that could keep revenue high for years at a time. On TV he gave the audience sensationalism and often misrepresented facts cheating his viewers by selling them distortion and outright lies. In 2023 much of the media and the public have realized FOX is poison to a responsible society. Perhaps in 2024 we will see the last gasp of Trump and FOX and Murdoch? Maybe.
Great article Lucian you bring such detail and illuminate the past brilliantly. Thank you,
Too bad Murdock hasn’t been held accountable for his malfeasance. This is an investigation waiting to happen. Who has the stomach and the financial backing to take him down??
Sounds good, but difficult to apply as a precedent. Refresh your recollection of the dissent packed within Justice Brandeis's concurrence in this landmark First Amendment case.
"Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927), was a United States Supreme Court decision upholding the conviction of an individual who had engaged in speech that raised a threat to society. Whitney was explicitly overruled by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969.
Background
Charlotte Anita Whitney, a member of a distinguished California family,* was convicted under the 1919 California Criminal Syndicalism Act for allegedly helping to establish the Communist Labor Party of America, a group charged by the state with teaching the violent overthrow of government.
Whitney denied that it had been the intention of her or other organizers for the party to become an instrument of violence.
{ *"Radical-chic, not so much! I think she was probably descended from Whitneys who arrived in Massachusetts Bay Colony as early as the 1620s-1640s, but that's just a semi-educated guess)
Decision
The question before the court was whether the 1919 Criminal Syndicalism Act of California violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. The Court unanimously upheld Whitney's conviction. Justice Sanford wrote for the seven-justice majority opinion and invoked the Holmes test of "clear and present danger" but also went further.
The Court held that the state, in exercise of its police power, has the power to punish those who abuse their rights to freedom of speech "by utterances inimical to the public welfare, tending to incite crime, disturb the public peace, or endanger the foundations of organized government and threaten its overthrow." In other words, words with a "bad tendency" can be punished.
Brandeis's concurrence
The case is most noted for Justice Louis Brandeis's concurrence, which many scholars have lauded as perhaps the greatest defense of freedom of speech ever written by a member of the high court.[1][failed verification] Justices Brandeis and Holmes concurred because of the Fourteenth Amendment questions, but there is no question the sentiments are a distinct dissent from the views of the prevailing majority and supported the First Amendment.
Holmes, in Abrams, had been willing to defend speech on abstract grounds: that unpopular ideas should have their opportunity to compete in the "marketplace of ideas." Brandeis, however, had a much more specific reason for defending speech, and the power of his opinion derives from the connection he made between free speech and the democratic process.
He held citizens have an obligation to take part in the governing process, and they cannot do so unless they can discuss and criticize governmental policy fully and without fear. If the government can punish unpopular views, it cramps freedom, and in the long run, that will strangle democratic processes. Thus, free speech is not only an abstract virtue but also a key element at the heart of a democratic society.
Implicitly, Brandeis here moves far beyond the "clear and present danger" test, and insists on what some have called a "time to answer" test: no danger flowing from speech can be considered "clear and present" if there is full opportunity for discussion. While upholding full and free speech, Brandeis tells legislatures, while they have a right to curb truly dangerous
expression, they must define clearly the nature of that danger. Mere fear of unpopular ideas will not do:[2] More here:
This set of First Amendment arguments and counter-arguments is as contentious as ever, what a shocker. Ever since the Athenian Assembly sentenced Socrates to death for "corrupting the youth," casting doubt on the City's gods, and at least implicitly, for embarrassing the complacent high muckey-mucks in the agora, by showing they were consistently unable to offer cogent, lucid reasons to show why their views should be accepted, this political throw down has been on the agenda, within any even semi-functional democracy, and it looks like ours is semi-functional as can be!
In the early 1980s I was interviewing John Travolta in the restaurant at the UN Plaza hotel. At one point, Travolta sees Felker (didn't he own New York magazine when it published "Saturday Night Fever"?) and says, "watch this." Travolta got down on all fours, snuck up to Felker's table like an affable big pup, just to surprise him. Then Travolta came back and we continued our chat.
I remember writing that sentence and chortling to myself. I was 29 years old. I did the reporting and interviews for the story in 5 days, from Monday through Friday. I wrote the entire story, a 68 page first draft, on Saturday and Sunday with my editor sitting at the kitchen table in my loft editing each page as I wrote it. The story had to go to the printer's on Monday morning. We made it by 6 hours.
Sounds like the way I got through college. I required tons of pressure, or nothing got done. Sadly, I had no editor. Enjoying what you do is really everything.
Spit-fire prose burnished by anecdotal reports. Reminds me to stay on your good side.
Reminds me of the Madison Avenue exec l did a temporary stint caring for his two kids in his country house complete with his mother but no wife. I arrived after a wild party attended by a bunch of hi-lifers, one of whom was featured on the cover of a glossy magazine as the Pimp of the Year, a rabbi’s son, no less.
Those days, gone and nearly forgotten! And for a good reason!! But for a choice bit of Murdock on the spit, l would be willing to offer a shilling!
Good fun. Interesting that Murdoch was a player in major media in two countries (here and the UK) and managed to get a lousy reputation in both of them.
I wandered into a discussion yesterday after too much coffee and not enough sleep, inversion table, yoga, etc.. and was reminded that Murdoch, as mentioned by Lucian in this very slightly updated piece on Clay Von Felkinstein* and Murdoch's steamrolling takeovers, owned a chain of newspapers in Australia, and they, or at least many astute observers, despised his insidious propaganda model, too!
He did give some notable backing to feminist writing a year before The Feminine Mystique, in a piece written by Gloria Steinem in 1962, so clearly it wasn't all an ego trip 24/7/365, but wow, the picture Lucian draws is pretty appalling,
Reading this excellent piece (thank you!) it struck me that Felker and Trump are of a piece. The bombast, the yelling, the concern for image above all... If only someone like Murdoch had forced Trump into obscurity. Trump asks "where is my Roy Cohn", while the rest of us ask "where is your Rupert Murdoch".
One of these days USians will collectively realize that without better checks on economic power, the Bill of Rights isn't worth much more than the paper it's printed on. (Is it even printed on paper these days?)
I'm not sure "one of these days" will ever come. A huge chunk of our population has drunk the Kool aid. They consistently act and vote against their best interests, just for spite .
I'm not sure either, but I'm pretty sure that (since I'm 71 going on 72) I won't be around to see it if it does. Heather Cox Richardson and other historians have documented how U.S. economic interests have, for going on two centuries now, equated any talk of economic equity with socialism! communism! anarchy! And the liberal party (for the last several decades this has been hands-down the Democrats) has pretty consistently shied away from anything that smacks too much of economic equity -- some of them seem uneasy even defending the New Deal, and in the 1960s economic equity was inextricably linked to race, which freaked out a fair number of USians who weren't freaked out by socialism! communism! anarchy!
Living in the UK in the mid-70s made me aware of how the U.S., unlike most European democracies, didn't (and doesn't) have a Labor Party, and why the U.S. labor movement mostly ties itself in knots to avoid any breath of socialism! communism! anarchy!
News of the Kenyan religious starvation cult made me think of the U.S. right-wing mental starvation cult, killing their brains and bodies in worshipful devotion to diabolical leaders.
A fascinating account. Looking forward to the continuation. You mentioned Metromedia, purchased by Murdoch. I met the owner several times, John Kluge as he was a good friend of my old boss, Ross Barrett, who was head of Foster Kleiser outdoor advertising. Mr. Barrett later became an executive with Metromedia. More from Wikipedia "On May 4, 1985, Kluge announced the sale of Metromedia's television stations, and Metromedia Producers Corp., to News Corporation (owned by Australian newspaper publisher Rupert Murdoch) and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation (owned jointly by Murdoch and Marvin Davis) for $3.5 billion. With the exception of WCVB-TV (which was subsequently sold to the Hearst Corporation), all of the former Metromedia stations formed the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company (which began operations on October 9, 1986), while MPC was folded into 20th Century Fox Television. The transactions became official on March 6, 1986.[34][35] Because of these transactions, and the fact that Metromedia was originally spun off from the DuMont Television Network, radio personality Clarke Ingram has suggested that the Fox network is a revival or at least a linear descendant of DuMont.[36]
Kluge also sold Metromedia's outdoor advertising firm, the Harlem Globetrotters, and the Ice Capades in 1985, its cellular phone and yellow pages divisions to the Southwestern Bell Corporation (now known as the second incarnation of AT&T, due to SBC's acquisition of AT&T Corporation in 2005) and spun off the radio stations into a separate company (which took on the Metropolitan Broadcasting name)[37][38][39][40] before they were sold to various other owners by the early 1990s.[citation needed][41]," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metromedia
I withdraw my oblique reference to a trial by fire. Hopefully we have progressed and with the guidance of Wikipedia, and A.I. will be delivered from our own evil inclination.
BTW - Anyone care to define evil without Wikipedia or AI assist?
From day one Rupert Murdoch engaged down market tactics. Appeal to every man’s prejudices not in a loud way but enough to keep his audience. He knew that the masses wanted red meat and a cause to Pursue He trashed the dignity of politics and chased scandals that could keep revenue high for years at a time. On TV he gave the audience sensationalism and often misrepresented facts cheating his viewers by selling them distortion and outright lies. In 2023 much of the media and the public have realized FOX is poison to a responsible society. Perhaps in 2024 we will see the last gasp of Trump and FOX and Murdoch? Maybe.
Great article Lucian you bring such detail and illuminate the past brilliantly. Thank you,
Too bad Murdock hasn’t been held accountable for his malfeasance. This is an investigation waiting to happen. Who has the stomach and the financial backing to take him down??
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_v._California
Sounds good, but difficult to apply as a precedent. Refresh your recollection of the dissent packed within Justice Brandeis's concurrence in this landmark First Amendment case.
"Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927), was a United States Supreme Court decision upholding the conviction of an individual who had engaged in speech that raised a threat to society. Whitney was explicitly overruled by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969.
Background
Charlotte Anita Whitney, a member of a distinguished California family,* was convicted under the 1919 California Criminal Syndicalism Act for allegedly helping to establish the Communist Labor Party of America, a group charged by the state with teaching the violent overthrow of government.
Whitney denied that it had been the intention of her or other organizers for the party to become an instrument of violence.
{ *"Radical-chic, not so much! I think she was probably descended from Whitneys who arrived in Massachusetts Bay Colony as early as the 1620s-1640s, but that's just a semi-educated guess)
Decision
The question before the court was whether the 1919 Criminal Syndicalism Act of California violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. The Court unanimously upheld Whitney's conviction. Justice Sanford wrote for the seven-justice majority opinion and invoked the Holmes test of "clear and present danger" but also went further.
The Court held that the state, in exercise of its police power, has the power to punish those who abuse their rights to freedom of speech "by utterances inimical to the public welfare, tending to incite crime, disturb the public peace, or endanger the foundations of organized government and threaten its overthrow." In other words, words with a "bad tendency" can be punished.
Brandeis's concurrence
The case is most noted for Justice Louis Brandeis's concurrence, which many scholars have lauded as perhaps the greatest defense of freedom of speech ever written by a member of the high court.[1][failed verification] Justices Brandeis and Holmes concurred because of the Fourteenth Amendment questions, but there is no question the sentiments are a distinct dissent from the views of the prevailing majority and supported the First Amendment.
Holmes, in Abrams, had been willing to defend speech on abstract grounds: that unpopular ideas should have their opportunity to compete in the "marketplace of ideas." Brandeis, however, had a much more specific reason for defending speech, and the power of his opinion derives from the connection he made between free speech and the democratic process.
He held citizens have an obligation to take part in the governing process, and they cannot do so unless they can discuss and criticize governmental policy fully and without fear. If the government can punish unpopular views, it cramps freedom, and in the long run, that will strangle democratic processes. Thus, free speech is not only an abstract virtue but also a key element at the heart of a democratic society.
Implicitly, Brandeis here moves far beyond the "clear and present danger" test, and insists on what some have called a "time to answer" test: no danger flowing from speech can be considered "clear and present" if there is full opportunity for discussion. While upholding full and free speech, Brandeis tells legislatures, while they have a right to curb truly dangerous
expression, they must define clearly the nature of that danger. Mere fear of unpopular ideas will not do:[2] More here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_v._California
This set of First Amendment arguments and counter-arguments is as contentious as ever, what a shocker. Ever since the Athenian Assembly sentenced Socrates to death for "corrupting the youth," casting doubt on the City's gods, and at least implicitly, for embarrassing the complacent high muckey-mucks in the agora, by showing they were consistently unable to offer cogent, lucid reasons to show why their views should be accepted, this political throw down has been on the agenda, within any even semi-functional democracy, and it looks like ours is semi-functional as can be!
In the early 1980s I was interviewing John Travolta in the restaurant at the UN Plaza hotel. At one point, Travolta sees Felker (didn't he own New York magazine when it published "Saturday Night Fever"?) and says, "watch this." Travolta got down on all fours, snuck up to Felker's table like an affable big pup, just to surprise him. Then Travolta came back and we continued our chat.
Yes Felker published the story Sat Nite Fever was based on.
Thanks for clarifying.
Excuse the fawning, but this is a truly brilliant sentence:
“Felker floated his image the way a city in debt floats a bond issue: with hustle, hype, and other people’s money.”
I remember writing that sentence and chortling to myself. I was 29 years old. I did the reporting and interviews for the story in 5 days, from Monday through Friday. I wrote the entire story, a 68 page first draft, on Saturday and Sunday with my editor sitting at the kitchen table in my loft editing each page as I wrote it. The story had to go to the printer's on Monday morning. We made it by 6 hours.
Sounds like the way I got through college. I required tons of pressure, or nothing got done. Sadly, I had no editor. Enjoying what you do is really everything.
And, just think of it, there was no Adderal in those days!
No, but there was the power of being 29 and eager.
Yeah...but there were other ways...caffeine and tobacco worked!
An energy that puts nuclear devices to shame...
It really is brilliant!
Spit-fire prose burnished by anecdotal reports. Reminds me to stay on your good side.
Reminds me of the Madison Avenue exec l did a temporary stint caring for his two kids in his country house complete with his mother but no wife. I arrived after a wild party attended by a bunch of hi-lifers, one of whom was featured on the cover of a glossy magazine as the Pimp of the Year, a rabbi’s son, no less.
Those days, gone and nearly forgotten! And for a good reason!! But for a choice bit of Murdock on the spit, l would be willing to offer a shilling!
Poems are free and worth twice the price!
Fascinating story.
Good fun. Interesting that Murdoch was a player in major media in two countries (here and the UK) and managed to get a lousy reputation in both of them.
I wandered into a discussion yesterday after too much coffee and not enough sleep, inversion table, yoga, etc.. and was reminded that Murdoch, as mentioned by Lucian in this very slightly updated piece on Clay Von Felkinstein* and Murdoch's steamrolling takeovers, owned a chain of newspapers in Australia, and they, or at least many astute observers, despised his insidious propaganda model, too!
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Felker
He did give some notable backing to feminist writing a year before The Feminine Mystique, in a piece written by Gloria Steinem in 1962, so clearly it wasn't all an ego trip 24/7/365, but wow, the picture Lucian draws is pretty appalling,
Reading this excellent piece (thank you!) it struck me that Felker and Trump are of a piece. The bombast, the yelling, the concern for image above all... If only someone like Murdoch had forced Trump into obscurity. Trump asks "where is my Roy Cohn", while the rest of us ask "where is your Rupert Murdoch".
I lived in the west village in the lates sixties and the Village Voice was, well, almost my bible.
What do you mean “almost?”
I'm looking forward to reading why Murdick is not a success. I want to know why he will fail, how he has failed already.
Extraordinary then, extraordinary now. What a perceptive piece of journalism.
One of these days USians will collectively realize that without better checks on economic power, the Bill of Rights isn't worth much more than the paper it's printed on. (Is it even printed on paper these days?)
I'm not sure "one of these days" will ever come. A huge chunk of our population has drunk the Kool aid. They consistently act and vote against their best interests, just for spite .
I'm not sure either, but I'm pretty sure that (since I'm 71 going on 72) I won't be around to see it if it does. Heather Cox Richardson and other historians have documented how U.S. economic interests have, for going on two centuries now, equated any talk of economic equity with socialism! communism! anarchy! And the liberal party (for the last several decades this has been hands-down the Democrats) has pretty consistently shied away from anything that smacks too much of economic equity -- some of them seem uneasy even defending the New Deal, and in the 1960s economic equity was inextricably linked to race, which freaked out a fair number of USians who weren't freaked out by socialism! communism! anarchy!
Living in the UK in the mid-70s made me aware of how the U.S., unlike most European democracies, didn't (and doesn't) have a Labor Party, and why the U.S. labor movement mostly ties itself in knots to avoid any breath of socialism! communism! anarchy!
News of the Kenyan religious starvation cult made me think of the U.S. right-wing mental starvation cult, killing their brains and bodies in worshipful devotion to diabolical leaders.
Great scribbling. Look forward to the continuing saga.
Rupert, started his trajectories to create his version of the
"Greatest Show on Earth"
as he knew there were millions of "suckers" waiting to be fed bullshit.
Time to revoke his citizenship.
Things i dont do.
Watch TV
Facehook
Twatter
Snapchat
Tik tok or is it toke
Well that was a fun read!
A fascinating account. Looking forward to the continuation. You mentioned Metromedia, purchased by Murdoch. I met the owner several times, John Kluge as he was a good friend of my old boss, Ross Barrett, who was head of Foster Kleiser outdoor advertising. Mr. Barrett later became an executive with Metromedia. More from Wikipedia "On May 4, 1985, Kluge announced the sale of Metromedia's television stations, and Metromedia Producers Corp., to News Corporation (owned by Australian newspaper publisher Rupert Murdoch) and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation (owned jointly by Murdoch and Marvin Davis) for $3.5 billion. With the exception of WCVB-TV (which was subsequently sold to the Hearst Corporation), all of the former Metromedia stations formed the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company (which began operations on October 9, 1986), while MPC was folded into 20th Century Fox Television. The transactions became official on March 6, 1986.[34][35] Because of these transactions, and the fact that Metromedia was originally spun off from the DuMont Television Network, radio personality Clarke Ingram has suggested that the Fox network is a revival or at least a linear descendant of DuMont.[36]
Kluge also sold Metromedia's outdoor advertising firm, the Harlem Globetrotters, and the Ice Capades in 1985, its cellular phone and yellow pages divisions to the Southwestern Bell Corporation (now known as the second incarnation of AT&T, due to SBC's acquisition of AT&T Corporation in 2005) and spun off the radio stations into a separate company (which took on the Metropolitan Broadcasting name)[37][38][39][40] before they were sold to various other owners by the early 1990s.[citation needed][41]," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metromedia
Thanks for the cogent response.
I withdraw my oblique reference to a trial by fire. Hopefully we have progressed and with the guidance of Wikipedia, and A.I. will be delivered from our own evil inclination.
BTW - Anyone care to define evil without Wikipedia or AI assist?