• Rishi Sunak met media mogul Rupert Murdoch more than five times in a 12-month period
• The UK government had 534 meetings with the press over a 12-month period, raising dire questions about democracy
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has had five meetings with Rupert Murdoch between September 2022 and October 2023 over a 12-month period. This is on top of another seven personal meetings between Murdoch and UK government representatives. So why does the UK government feel the need to satisfy Murdoch by hosting meetings with him multiple times a year? Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has not even sat with Joe Biden, the man leading the UK’s closest ally, as many times as he has sat with Rupert Murdoch in one specific year. So what is it that makes this man so important in the eyes of politicians and representatives alike? The answer to that question puts a big question mark on the whole of British democracy.
The power of Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch is 92 years old and was born in 1931 in Melbourne, Australia. His father, Keith Murdoch, was the owner of News Corp Australia, and after he passed away in 1952, Rupert Murdoch inherited News Corp Australia. This was the first news company Rupert had attained, which was the parent company of other outlets in Australia. It was this inheritance that Murdoch had attained that marked the beginning of the largest growth in any single-man portfolio in history. Murdoch then went and acquired News Limited in 1952, and then the Daily Mirror in Sydney in 1969. He then went on to launch his own national newspaper, The Australian, and then went on to purchase new newspapers such as the infamous The Sun and The News of the World in the UK. According to The Guardian’s analysis, the majority of the Australian media market share is owned by Murdochs NewsCorp, with a shocking 52% between 2019 and 2020. It’s unlikely for that to have shifted too much since then. From 2008 to 2011, Australia ranked third in the world for the most concentrated media in the world after China and Egypt. Concentrated meaning media owned by a small number of owners.
Taken from the Guardian
The power that this Murdoch influence has shown in Australia has not gone without notice. Murdoch is seen as the main individual who was responsible for removing former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnball after a dispute over an energy policy. It was through his media empire that he was able to give more coverage to MPs who opposed the policy and opposed Turnball. Later, the media network supported another candidate for Prime Minister all together until there was a vote of no confidence that led to Prime Minister Turnball resigning. In fact, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was in power before Turnbull and one of the few Australian politicians to have spoken out against News Corp, said, “Time and time again in cabinet, I would raise the need to fully take on News Ltd as a political force in our country; the entire cabinet, including [Julia] Gillard, would say:
‘You can’t do that. They will just destroy us.’ That’s where we have got to – when an entire government thinks it’s so powerless in dealing with a force like that.’
Malcolm Turnball was removed from the Prime Minister’s office through an anti-policy campaign driven by the Murdoch media outlets situated within Australia
The Murdoch empire in the UK
Murdoch’s empire does not stop in Australia. Rather, it stretches across the English-speaking world. Within the UK, he owns The Times, The Sun, The Sunday Times, Talk TV (which hosts Piers Morgan Uncensored), and until recently, he owned the whole of Sky News. Both The Times and The Sun are some of the most popular newspapers and news websites in the UK, with Sky News being one of the most watched cable news channels in the UK. During the 2017 UK general election, Labour, for the first time in decades, had a significant left-wing candidate who went by the name Jeremy Corbyn. During the election, all of Murdoch’s outlets in the UK tried to heavily disorient Corbyn’s image, yet even amongst all the problems and issues facing the Labour leader, he managed to secure 30 seats in parliament and was able to force the government into a coalition with the DUP. However, the glory was short-lived, as the 2019 election between Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson was a big loss for the left in the UK, with Jeremy Corbyn losing 60 seats. It was Murdoch’s outlets that played the nationalist-fueledresentment of Brexit that had been a main factor in Corbyn losing, with him being forced to resign as Labour leader not too long after.
Murdoch with Boris Johnson during the opening of News Corp’s new London headquarters
Murdoch Empire within the US
Murdoch with Donald Trump, who, it was said, spoke ‘almost every day’ during his presidency
Even within America, Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp empire own The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, and more than two dozen television stations, including none other than the infamous Fox News. According to a report in July 2022, The Wall Street Journal was the most popular newspaper in the entirety of the US, while The New York Post came in 6th. Meanwhile, Fox News took the crown to become the most watched news channel in the United States in 2023. The news outlets that the Murdochs own in the States give them immense political power, so much so that Murdoch said that he even called Trump multiple times per week during his presidency and even visited the White House more than once to discuss matters. Unfortunately, none of these matters are known to the public.
The reality of a media mogul with such power
From removing politicians from power or positions outright, to supporting some of the most radical politicians to get into power, to encouraging Brexit and islamophobia in mass, to whitewashing wars during the war on terror, it makes one question how a non-democratic individual who is not a leader of a nation can wield such power. It becomes apparent that the concept of a free and open democracy is just a facade through which powerful people like the Murdochs are able to manipulate and alter elections and decisions made by governments through the manipulation of entire populations.
The dictator of the west and the farce of freedom of speech
Even amongst the mass censorship on social media and the ban on statements and opinions held by protestors and activists across the country, the majority are of the belief that freedom of speech within western civilization is still far better than that in the Middle East and autocratic nations such as China and Russia. However, the recent barring and accusations of antisemitism to cancel criticism of Israel have made many ponder the reality. Nevertheless, it should not take a genocide in Gaza for western civilization to question whether a system is rigged or crafted in a certain way. The Murdoch empire, which stretches from Australia to the United Kingdom, continues to involve itself in decisions to do with the masses on a frequent basis through its news outlets and political power. Rupert Murdoch is just one of the many dictators who dictate what information is fed to the minds of the masses. Just like a monarch at the age of 92, his son is now the chairmen of NewsCorp and continues in this game of crafted manipulation. Unless western civilization stands up to these hidden dictators, it’s unlikely that the era of technocracy that has widened the social divide between the rich and poor will ever come to an end.
