The Crawling King Snake
James Whitmore, MD of POSTAR, on the big issue for the future – who should own how much of the news media?
Well, if nothing else, it’s been a good couple of weeks for William Shakespeare. He is invoked and quoted ad nauseam as the Wapping drama continues to thrill and appal.
Who gets the gong for “Best Use of Bard”? It just might be the Guardian reader quoting Macbeth: “We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it”.
If you set aside all the nasty legal stuff, the alleged hacking, the suspected payments and so on, you are left to concentrate on the big issue for the future – who should own how much of the news media?
Taking the fallout from the banking crisis as a guide, the Murdochs must be hoping that for all the fulminating and vented spleen, the political establishment will come up with nothing much in particular.
In their dream scenario, the Sun on Sunday (SOS – how apt!) will pick up where the News of the World left off and the BSkyB deal will be smuggled through after a period of penance.
Many moons ago, 1978/9 to be precise, for the best part of a year, the pre-Murdoch Times and Sunday Times failed to publish as the staff went on strike. Miraculously, when sales resumed, they were at the same level as before. During the hiatus, competitors had gained much, but not all, of the circulation. When the papers came back, these gains did not disappear immediately, but melted away over a period of time. The net effect was a short-term arrest in the fall of total newspaper circulations. It should not be beyond the wit of News International to achieve a similar result with a re-modelled Sunday paper.
A BSkyB deal might seem implausible today but then who would have thought that the financial community would be swimming in excess just two years on from instigating a global calamity. Power, not credo, is the watchword of the modern politician. Look carefully beyond the noise and you can already see signs that the inveigling has begun.
What should happen, and happen quickly, is the creation of a fresh legal framework for the ownership of news media. Stronger, clearer rules are needed to protect our political and social life. They are as important to control the untrammelled influence of media barons, as they are to guard the citizenry from the vacuity and promiscuity of its political elite.
Finally, talking of loopy news media, why on earth are there no ads in many of the Channel 4 News breaks? A huge story breaks with hourly revelations, attention is intensely focused on every development and yet it seems that half the commercial slots contain nothing more than puffs for programmes about cooking. Just when people might be paying special heed to current affairs, the buyers and sellers choose not to take advantage. I demand an enquiry.