Fox news: Rupert steps down

MOGUL EMERITUS

Lachlan Murdoch looks set to be the chair of News Corp after his father, Rupert Murdoch, announced he’d be stepping down as chairman of both Fox Corporation and News Corp. Rupert claims “elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class” and that the media is in “cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth”, as the ABC reports. I want to believe that’s a moment of reflection but Rupert, who Forbes estimates has a $19 billion net worth, has never considered himself an elite — in this New York Times story from 2007, he rejects the term in favour of “outsider”. Anyway, the 92-year-old says he and the company are in “robust health” and affirms he’d be involved “every day” with the empire’s operations as chairman emeritus, while “principled leader” Lachlan takes the reins. Remember when Lachy sued Crikey over an article that didn’t name him personally, then dropped the case purportedly because he thought we were getting too much subscriber support from it? Rupert told staff the company has every reason to be excited about the “opportunities” of coming years. Great…

So why did Rupert think of himself as an outsider? The AFR ($) says it started in the ’50s in Oxford University, where snooty Poms dubbed him “cataclysmic chauffeur from the outback” in the student newspaper. A column on his first day at The Sun read that he’d never “bow to … privileged enclaves” of the establishment, becoming what the Fin called the establishment’s ringmaster instead. “His Mayfair penthouse became a compulsory pit stop for any politician who was racing up the Westminster ladder,” it says, and even now, Rupert’s yearly London bash, as the Independent reports, bursts with keen politicians, including the PM, and celebrities, journalists and business tycoons. Outsider indeed. Murdoch was in the news this week for purportedly wishing former president and former Fox darling Donald Trump would die, according to Michael Wolff’s latest book, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty, as Guardian Australia reports.

BEYOND WORDS

No campaign director Gary Johns says Indigenous people are an organised lobby group “crawling all over Canberra”, Guardian Australia reports, and proposes a “very, very heavy cultural intervention” for Indigenous kids. As many as one in three Indigenous children were removed during the 60 years between 1910 and 1970, a chapter that has come to be known as the Stolen Generations. Sack him from No campaign’s Australians for Unity and Recognise A Better Way, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said. Nyunggai Warren Mundine insinuated to the ABC’s Insiders that Johns, a former Labor minister, wouldn’t be speaking publicly any more — these comments are from June. Meanwhile, the ABC has a cracking explainer that lays out exactly how the constitution would change if the Voice referendum passed.

Compare that with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s latest op-ed in the Herald Sun, which is riddled with misleading statements and scaremongering. He continues to claim we do not have the detail about the Voice — we do — and that the High Court could give the Voice to Parliament undue power — it can’t. He says the constitution has been a source of stability for 122 years — in fact, Australians have voted to change it eight times. Dutton called the Voice “the most consequential change to our system in history”. In 1967 we quite literally voted to give the Commonwealth the power to make special laws for Indigenous people, and to count Indigenous people as people in the census (they were never covered under a flora and fauna act, however, as the ABC debunked) — rather more significant changes than an advisory body, one might think.

BARNABY’S BUMBLE

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has compared incarcerated WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, Sky News Australia reports. Joyce, who is in Washington, was trying to make the point that the US would never have allowed us to extradite them after Heard brought two dogs into the country (who can forget Heard calling Australia a “wonderful island” even though our country is about the same size as the continental US). Joyce did make two good points, however — freed whistleblower Chelsea Manning was the one who stole the docs, and Cryptome.org founder John Young says he was the first to publish them online, as he told the Observer.

To other matters of transparency now and teal independents Monique Ryan, Helen Haines and Sophie Scamps say our COVID inquiry is lousy for not looking at state leaders, The Australian ($) reports. Detail released yesterday revealed it’ll be led by three hand-picked independent panellists who don’t have power to compel witnesses to appear, the paper says, and are not required to hold public hearings. Forcing state leaders — who at the time were half Labor, half Liberal, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said — to appear would be “contrary to the spirit”. Finally, Woolworths says shoppers are stealing $25 million in produce a week, The Daily Telegraph reports, about the same as the pre-pandemic era. Sydney’s inner south-west is stealing 36% more, while the eastern suburbs are pinching things 34% more. Presented without comment: Woolworths posted a $1.62 billion profit last month, Guardian Australia reports, while many a rising number of Australians can’t afford to eat.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Two villages in Germany are gripped by a mystery so intriguing, so perplexing, so sick and twisted that baffled locals can scarcely discuss anything else. In hushed tones over black coffees, in passing with a hot loaf of bread in arm, and while hairdressers set curls for chatty mothers, the question remains urgent, the answer unknown. Who is tossing sandwiches out the window on highway B184 near Königsborn and Heyrothsberge? With “unnerving regularity”, as euronews puts it, the butterbrots lie discarded on the hot asphalt wrapped in a neat blanket of alfoil. Sometimes they’re filled with cheese. Other times it’s salami or sausages. Try as they might, these clues reveal little to amateur sleuths on the case.

Locals are certain, however, that it’s a singular culprit, perhaps en route to work because the sandwiches always appear on weekdays before 6am. Psychologist Anke Precht was frankly flummoxed by the tasty whodunnit. It’s possible, she mused, the culprit received the sandwich from another person, but was not a sandwich fan. What kind of sick freak… Precht continues the culprit may have missed the opportunity to tell the person they do not care for the sandwich, and now “they have to live with the consequences of that misunderstanding”. Such is life, I suppose. If the mystery teaches us anything, it’s to seize the moment, be our authentic selves to loved ones, and to use a garbage bin, because the local footballers keep having to collect the sandwiches from the pitch.

Wishing you a little intrigue in your Friday, and a restful weekend.

SAY WHAT?

I’m not rich. If I was rich, I wouldn’t have to rent my properties out. I’m just a single mum working hard to build a future for my kids through property and additional revenue streams.

Leanne Taylor

Taylor, a sales executive, told the AFR she owns three properties in Victoria that she lists on Airbnb, including a holiday house in Torquay that her family shares with other holidaymakers, and she’s really worried about the 7.5% tax designed to help ease the housing crisis.

CRIKEY RECAP

Shareholder money tossed like confetti in Qantas board’s remuneration fiesta

MICHAEL SAINSBURY

“Those are the words. Here are the actions: [Qantas chairman Richard] Goyder’s annual pay in cash and kind from the cashed-up Red Rat is now a cool $750,000 — that’s up 14% from the previous year. This is for the part-time job at Qantas he juggles with other major, time-consuming roles heading the Australian Football League, fossil-fuel giant Woodside, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and the Channel 7 Telethon Trust.

“Indeed, the Qantas board collectively banked a pay rise of 8.3%. But this was distorted by departing director Michael L’Estrange getting a rise of less than 1%. If you take out him and Doug Parker, appointed in May, the remaining six long-serving directors averaged a 20% pay rise, with Maxine Brenner the biggest winner with a jump of 70% from $280,000 to $404,000.”

Sordid, mendacious, riven with division — No camp is a cesspit. But it works

BERNARD KEANE

“There’s now emerging a neo-assimilationist view, which non-Indigenous figures have been given cover to express by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who has dismissed the possibility of intergenerational trauma, described colonisation as positive, and argued there’s no need for separate Indigenous policies. There’s a minority in the non-progressive No camp who at least appear thoughtfully engaged with Indigenous issues. Nyunggai Warren Mundine, for example, opposes the Voice but supports local-level treaties, and even backs moving the date of Invasion Day from January 26.

There are also senior figures such as former Liberal PM Tony Abbott and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton who claim to support Indigenous recognition in the constitution, but only a white man’s recognition, one devoid of any engagement with the people being recognised, sort of “we’ll recognise who our First Peoples are, and the circumstances in which they’re recognised”.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

What’s next for Fox as Rupert Murdoch hands reins to Lachlan (Reuters)

Evacuation centre set up in Queenstown after flooding, slips (Stuff)

Trudeau dodges questions on whether he’ll match India’s move to suspend visa processing (CBC)

Two of Norway’s top female politicians hit by scandal over husbands’ secret shares
(The Guardian)

DR Congo President Tshisekedi seeks withdrawal of UN peacekeepers this year (Al Jazeera)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Time for some ‘truth-telling’ on racism narrative — Anthony Dillon (The Australian) ($): “In addition to reports and news stories, people are constantly exposed to anti-racism messages like ‘End racism now!’, ‘I oppose racism” and similar. Such messages, although not explicitly stating the prevalence of racism, can influence the mind to think we must have a racism problem on our hands. Repetition of an idea, message, image or concept can be powerful in instilling beliefs in people’s minds; something advertisers know and take advantage of. Believing something from hearing it repeatedly, is what psychologists call ‘illusory of truth’. Another reason people are so quick to believe that Australia is racist towards Indigenous Australians is that tenuous evidence is ­offered in support of claims of racism. Although tenuous, again, repetition is all that is needed to be convincing. For example, the erroneous assumption that inequalities between the well-being of In­digenous and non-Indigenous Australians is often offered as evidence of racism.

“Focusing on excessive claims of racism against Indigenous Australians diverts attention away from the serious problems that disproportionately affect them: unsafe living environments, poor health, violence, child neglect, etc. These are problems many Indigenous activists prefer not to ­address, let alone acknowledge. Their voices are notably absent, unless of course they claim racism is the cause of these problems. Excessive claims also divert attention away from effective ­solutions to these problems. Maybe it’s time to change the narrative from Australia being racist towards Indigenous Australians, to Australians caring for their Indigenous brothers and sisters. Maybe it’s time to stop telling attention-grabbing lies and start telling the truth about racism and Australians. I believe this can only better prepare Australians for the upcoming referendum. Isn’t it time for some truth-telling?”

Improve the world we live in, the departing Rupert Murdoch urged staff today. So why didn’t he? — Jane Martinson (The Guardian): “But that could make the AM era an uneasy one for anyone who hoped the Murdoch transition would bring a liberal shift, or at least a move from illiberalism. Lachlan’s own politics are considered more libertarian and right wing than even his father’s, and definitely his siblings. Rupert’s note made it clear he shared the contempt for those he described as ‘self-serving bureaucracies’. Witness the delusion of a multibillionaire who bragged of ‘going in through the back door’ of No. 10 and a man courted by every political leader railing against the ‘elite’. Lachlan may be less able to continue his father’s chosen narrative. Rupert is a multibillionaire and a member of the most elite super rich, but has always considered and portrayed himself as a man of the people; not one of the ‘elites’ who, as he put it in his letter, have ‘open contempt for those who are not members of the rarefied class’.

“He is not completely going away of course, and did warn his staff that he would be watching with a critical eye, reading newspapers and websites. But it will be different. When he calls in the early hours of the morning, the lieutenants may not care quite so much about his diatribes. Murdoch largely leaves behind a media and political age that he himself has shaped: an age in which norms are shredded, and the powerful have money and access sufficient to dictate the wants and desires of people’s lives. He ends his letter by urging his thousands of staff to ‘make the most of this great opportunity to improve the world we live in’. That, over the decades, was his opportunity. Who can honestly say he took it?”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment Andrew Leigh will speak about start-ups, upstarts and competition at the International Small Business Summit.

Larrakia Country (also known as Darwin)

• NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles will give a State of the Territory address at the Darwin Convention Centre.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Writer Hannah Diviney will talk about her new book, I’ll Let Myself In, at Glee Books.