Rupert Murdoch hits back at opponents of
News Corp bid for BSkyB
Chairman and chief executive of News Corporation Rupert Murdoch delivering the inaugural Baroness Thatcher lecture. Photograph: Arthur Edwards/ReutersRupert Murdoch has hit back at rival UK media organisations opposed to News Corporation’s bid to take full control of BSkyB, branding them “small thinkers” trying to place “restrictions on growth”.Delivering the inaugural Baroness Thatcher lecture last night, Murdoch, the News Corp chairman and chief executive, said this was an “issue for my company”.
Murdoch did not talk directly about his company’s bid to take full control of BSkyB, the satellite TV company in which it already holds a 39.1% stake. An alliance of media owners, including the Daily Mail & General Trust, Telegraph Media Group, BBC and Guardian Media Group, which publishes the Guardian, has called on business secretary Vince Cable to block the deal on public interest grounds.
However, it was clear what he was aiming at in the following passage of the speech: “We must celebrate a culture of success. The rise to prominence is too often accompanied by a surge in cynicism by the traditional elites.
“I am something of a parvenu, but we should welcome the iconoclastic and the unconventional. And we shouldn’t curb their enthusiasm or energy. That is what competition is all about. Yet when the upstart is too successful, somehow the old interests surface, and restrictions on growth are proposed or imposed. That’s an issue for my company. More important, it’s an issue for our broader society.
“These are the small thinkers who believe their job is to cut the cake up rather than make it bigger.”
Murdoch also said that one of the factors that would help make Britain successful in the 21st century would be “corporate and technological sectors that thrive on change, and use the freedom of the market to innovate and grow”.
The media mogul made a veiled reference to the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed his Sunday tabloid, the News of the World.
“Our new world is one of modern mass communication, phone and text, without limit. Democracy will be from the bottom up, not from the top down. Even so, a free society requires an independent press: turbulent … enquiring … bustling … and free,” Murdoch said.
“That’s why our journalism is hard-driving and questioning of authority. And so are our journalists. Often, I have cause to celebrate editorial endeavour. Occasionally, I have had cause for regret. Let me be clear: We will vigorously pursue the truth – and we will not tolerate wrongdoing.”
Murdoch and other News Corp executives have maintained there is no evidence of widespread phone hacking at the News of the World.
He insisted earlier this month that it was limited to the paper’s former royal editor, Clive Goodman, who was arrested for intercepting voicemails left on mobile phones belonging to members of the royal household in 2006. Andy Coulson, who is now David Cameron’s communications director, resigned as News of the World editor when Goodman was jailed in January 2007.
Murdoch also made the case for the continuing importance of traditional journalism, while admitting that bloggers have a role to play.
“It would certainly serve the interests of the powerful if professional journalists were muted – or replaced as navigators in our society by bloggers and bloviators,” he said.
“Bloggers can have a social role – but that role is very different to that of the professional seeking to uncover facts, however uncomfortable.”
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