‘It’s just business’: the political economy of the hacking scandal

Collecting an award at the 2009 Edinburgh Television Festival actor Dominic West used the opportunity to make a telling point:

I heard two things here yesterday – David Simon said The Wire is essentially about what happens to a country when it embraces unchecked free market economics. The next thing I heard was Mr Murdoch saying that the only guarantee of quality and independence is profit. So I accept this on behalf of everyone at The Wire with gratitude and in contempt of the Murdoch doctrine. ¹

West was responding to the MacTaggart Memorial Lecture given by Rupert’s son and heir apparent James that had attacked the ‘chilling’ impact of the BBC on the UK media market. The term he deployed is a more fitting description of the Murdoch influence on British politics and the reasons for this will be explored. Ultimately this is a story of complicity that was only confronted following revelations that a dead child’s phone had been hacked by agents supplying what had long been the UK’s best-selling newspaper, the News of the World.

The Coalition’s decision to launch the Leveson Inquiry follows decades of government reluctance to act in a domain where there has been mounting evidence of press abuses. There are several reasons for this and most are directly or indirectly linked to the pervasive force of the Murdochs’ News Corporation. However it is not the case that British politicians have been slow to criticize the press and broadcasters in the recent past. When Tony Blair chose to speak up against what he denounced as ‘feral media’ during the final days of his premiership he was uniquely placed to offer a candid assessment of news journalism and its failings. Yet it was difficult to take seriously the views of a Prime Minister whose valedictory address on the subject floated the idea of a statutory regulatory framework to cover newspapers just as he was about to retire from an office in which he had had a decade and considerable political capital to do something about this. Similarly unconvincing was his chosen target for criticism, The Independent, the daily with the lowest circulation of any national newspaper. Blair was himself part of the problem rather than the solution.

Blair’s professed opinions on the media closely resembled those of journalist John Lloyd, one of his leading supporters in the press. In the run-up to the most controversial decision of the former premier’s career, the invasion of Iraq, Lloyd was among those commentators who provided the strongest public support for taking military action. During this time the journalist was also preparing What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics (2004), his influential study that took issue with some of those who had questioned Blair over his motives in supporting the American-led campaign. Lloyd criticized media observers who:

claimed the right to judge and to condemn; more, they have decided – without being clear about the decision – that politics is a dirty game, played by devious people who tell an essentially false narrative about the world and thus deceive the British people. (2004: 20)

An example of this was Andrew Gilligan, defence correspondent for Radio 4’s Today programme, who famously reported the Blair government had ‘sexed up’ the case for invading Iraq. Both Gilligan and the BBC management that defended him featured as prominent targets of a wide-ranging critique which suggested that ‘the threat the media now pose to democratic institutions … is ironically at its greatest when the media are apparently at their most fearless’ (Lloyd, 2004: 13–17).

Lloyd focused on the perceived shortcomings of British news and current affairs in a book informed by comments from interviewees including key Blair advisers Alastair Campbell and Philip Gould. Unsurprisingly, this account hardly dwelt on the workings of a Downing Street operation that had become synonymous with ‘spin’. And, like Blair in his valedictory speech, Lloyd did not give due prominence to the print titles produced by News Corporation, the most powerful media group in the country and arguably the organization with greatest responsibility for the degradation of journalistic standards. Fundamentally, these critiques failed to engage with deeper structural questions relating to the political economy of the British media. Had they done so they would have had to prioritize and identify the pivotal role and influence of News Corporation’s founder Rupert Murdoch (for an insightful account of this see Page, 2003). Given recent events surrounding so-called ‘hackgate’, this omission is telling in that it suggests a reluctance to confront a proprietor who had by then acquired unique political influence courtesy of his firm’s market share. This access had, of course, begun much earlier and intensified during the Thatcher governments. Decisions made under that Prime Minister enabled Murdoch’s media company to become the largest in the UK and he repaid the favour, with the slavish adherence to her of his most popular and populist Sun and News of the World newspapers. As with so much that had happened during the 1980s, Blair and his government tacitly accepted this outcome following the advice of his strategist Gould to ‘concede and move on’.

The mid 1990s witnessed a period of growing partisan promiscuity within the British press arising from the mounting difficulties faced by the Major government as well as the incarnation of a more right-wing Labour leadership. Consequently Blair seized the opportunity to cultivate Murdoch by travelling across the globe to visit him at his Hayman Island retreat. Suitably impressed the proprietor eventually ordered the Sun to endorse the Labour leader a couple of years later during the weeks before polling day in 1997. Thereafter this partisan support was given in a conditional way that had never been the case for Thatcher. Thus in Blair’s final election the News of the World stated: ‘If, as we expect, Labour form the next government we put them on notice this newspaper will be watching them closely.’ For its part the Sun was initially agnostic during the campaign before eventually declaring: ‘Tony Blair – warts and all – will be the only real choice for Britain.’ In reality these papers had more of an ideological affinity with the Conservatives in their shared attitudes towards so-called ‘scroungers’, asylum seekers and unions, be they of the trade or European varieties. But Michael Howard was not about to become Prime Minister in 2005; and nor did Murdoch approve of opposition accusations that Blair had lied over Iraq.

Rupert Murdoch spoke privately with Blair several times during the Iraq controversy, a crisis during which the former’s newspapers offered staunch support for the Prime Minister’s policy. The familiarity between the two men was publicly highlighted in September 2005 when, shortly after Hurricane Katrina, Murdoch said:

Tony Blair – perhaps I shouldn’t repeat this conversation – told me yesterday that he was in Delhi last week and he turned on the BBC World Service to see what was happening in New Orleans. And he said it was full of hate for America and gloating about our troubles. (Gibson and White, 2005)

Besides seeming to confirm Blair’s antipathy and Murdoch’s own, very real enmity towards the BBC – an odd preoccupation given the scale of the unfolding tragedy – this apparent indiscretion underlined the proprietor’s access. The incident also highlighted his cavalier attitude towards a politician he now risked embarrassing. This indulgence of Murdoch had been similarly evident following the proclaiming of Blair by the Sun as the ‘Most Dangerous Man in Europe’ because of his supposedly emollient approach to his counterparts in the European Union. Arguably even more controversial – and telling – was another incident in which the newspaper opted to publish a near 1000-word handwritten letter from the premier to its editor following criticism of his government. Such grovelling demeaned the office of Prime Minister. Yet no discernible rebuke from Downing Street was forthcoming following publication of what had presumably been private correspondence.

Blair’s successor Gordon Brown enjoyed a brief political honeymoon on becoming Prime Minister. But Brown’s subsequent experiences provided his opponent David Cameron with ample opportunities to cultivate proprietors in order to secure their newspapers’ support. Consequently, prior to the 2010 election there was speculation that a future Conservative government would not stand in the way of News Corporation acquiring full ownership of the highly lucrative BSkyB operation it already controlled. Similarly, there was a suggestion that long-standing impartiality laws covering UK broadcasting might even be relaxed in a move that would allow Sky News to emulate its US sister channel Fox through the transmitting of highly partial reports and features. Such a move had the potential to diversify News Corporation’s electoral influence, given that its newspapers’ circulations were in decline, and with this the proprietor’s influence. Evidence of this came during the transition between the Blair and Brown governments, with BSkyB’s purchase of a 17.9 percent stake – then worth £940 million – in its rival ITV. This transaction was subjected to official review following a fierce rebuke from Sir Richard Branson, who had championed a competing bid for the stock: ‘The government are scared stiff of Murdoch. Perhaps his empire should be looked at. If you add ITV to his papers and Sky, you may as well as let Murdoch decide who becomes PM.’ When the Competition Commission subsequently ruled that News Corporation should divest itself of some of this share acquisition, the proprietor expressed dismay that due process had got in the way of his ability to bargain given how ‘politicians chickened out and punt these things to quangos’.

Further evidence of unease with the political influence of News Corporation within the UK was starkly underlined in the 2010 general election. The previous autumn Murdoch had switched his support from Brown to David Cameron, thereby once again highlighting his titles’ partisan promiscuity. Many commentators interpreted this move as a demonstration of strength but in fact it can be seen as the opposite. Senior company executives were evidently distressed about the uncertain electoral outcome. Consequently when The Independent ran an advert extolling its impartiality, declaring ‘Rupert Murdoch won’t decide this election, you will’, this provoked an unexpectedly direct response from Murdoch’s son James and colleague Rebekah Brooks, who made an impromptu visit to forcefully remonstrate with that newspaper’s editor Simon Kellner in the latter’s own office. For former Sun editor David Yelland the incident was revealing because, in his view, it underlined the then growing anxieties within News Corporation over the rise of the Liberal Democrats, a party the company had previously ignored but whose rapid rise to prominence during the campaign meant the firm might be ‘locked out’ of the highest echelons of a future government involving Nick Clegg. In the event, David Cameron became Prime Minister as head of the Coalition and the Murdochs resumed their position of privileged influence within Downing Street. There was no better example of this than the presence of Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor who had become Cameron’s director of communications in opposition and now followed him into Number Ten.

Cameron’s hiring of Andy Coulson as his chief spin-doctor marked the culmination of a rapprochement between the Conservatives and News Corporation. Initially Murdoch senior had been disparaging about a politician who ‘seems to be all about image’ and this view was dutifully reflected in unflattering Sun stories about ‘Dave the Dope’, ‘Cam a Cropper’ and ‘green with a little g’. For his part, the new Conservative leader cultivated the newspaper’s editor Rebekah Brooks, accompanying her to a charity function organised by David and Victoria Beckham just prior to the 2006 World Cup. Cameron also hired Sun veteran Chris Roycroft-Davis to work on his team as a speechwriter. But it was Coulson’s appointment that came as the greatest surprise, given that his background was largely in celebrity journalism. More importantly, he had previously resigned from the News of the World following the imprisonment of the paper’s royal editor Clive Goodman in 2007. It was the supposedly sole ‘rogue reporter’ Goodman who had paid Glenn Mulcaire for information obtained through the illegal phone tapping of aides to Windsor family members.

Andy Coulson was the consummate News Corporation insider and this made him valuable to Cameron both as an adviser on media strategy and as a key link to help win over his former employer. The spin-doctor brought with him an intimate understanding of a robust newsroom culture he himself had been part of and had helped to reinforce. How confrontational this could be was demonstrated when Coulson was named in a court case brought by Matt Driscoll, a former employee. Driscoll’s central claim of endemic bullying at the News of the World was accepted and the complainant was awarded the considerable sum of £800,000. Giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry the paper’s former news editor Ian Edmondson corroborated this account. And it is arguably this matter that brings to light another fundamental reason as to why ‘hackgate’ and the conspiracy to conceal it happened: the absence of the National Union of Journalists and other independent worker representation within News Corporation. In their place a ‘company union’, the News International Staff Association, operated, but it offered no credible support for those working in a firm where dissent was self-evidently not tolerated. The resulting fear and conformity produced the ideal environment for the bending and breaking of laws that led to a monumental invasion of privacy that has become known as ‘hackgate’.

Murdoch’s antipathy towards trade unionism is well known and his newspapers have been at the forefront of campaigns of misrepresentation aimed at the Fire Brigades Union, the National Union of Mineworkers and others that are well documented. News International had, of course, engaged in its own direct confrontation with the print workers’ unions during the Wapping dispute in the 1980s. Newspaper attacks on the strikers extended to those who expressed sympathy for them, including lorry driver Terry McCabe whose refusal to cross the picket line led to malicious stories about him in the Sun. When the Press Council agreed with McCabe that he had been misrepresented the newspaper’s reaction was to dismiss the verdict and reprint a slightly modified version of the earlier offending headline ‘You are still a lying trucker’. Such contempt for so-called press self-regulation was one of the motivating factors behind successive attempts by MPs such as Tony Worthington and Clive Soley to give a statutory right of reply in order to protect ordinary people. Despite their efforts – and further scandals, including the vicious lies published by The Sun about the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy – it has taken an extraordinary series of events to put this deserving measure back on the public agenda.

The decision to swiftly close the News of the World was designed to protect the Murdochs’ remaining UK business interests rather than as an act of public atonement. The myth of this newspaper communing with its ‘family’ of readers was laid bare by the ruthless casting aside of what was in a reality an expendable commercial brand, not to mention the criminal acts that led up to this. As the comedian Steve Coogan told the Leveson Inquiry, his treatment by the paper revealed the self-justifying pathology of News Corporation that, to use his words, is ‘like the mafia. It’s just business.’ Underlying and sustaining this activity has been a power base long cultivated and maintained since the acquisition of the Sun in the late 1960s. At its zenith, Lance Price (2006) pithily observed of this relationship between proprietor and government:

Rupert Murdoch doesn’t leave a paper trail that could ever prove his influence over policy, but the trail of politicians beating their way to him and his papers tells a different story … like the 24th member of Cabinet … his presence is always felt.

The ‘hackgate’ scandal has enabled a serious reappraisal of News Corporation and others’ media operations in the UK. Leveson has helped renew interest in a terrain that was long the preserve of a minority, including those belonging to the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. The crisis should finally put an end to the fanciful idea that the Murdoch family were somehow apart from what constitutes the UK power elite. As Thomas Frank (2012) argues, plutocrats and their proxies have long justified regressive ideological agendas by couching their arguments in populist rhetoric. There is perhaps no better example of this than James Murdoch’s 2009 attack on the BBC. Fortunately the words he misused then now provide the most fitting description for a company – his own – that has threatened genuine freedom of speech because it is an ‘authoritarian’, ‘elitist’ ‘establishment’ institution created by a founder (for Reith read Rupert) with ‘a pretty firm view of the need to keep the lower classes in their place’.