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Friday 11 August 2023

Media influence and editorial interference

I don't think we consider enough how much the media influence our views. I watched a British-made documentary a year or so ago about media mogul Rupert Murdoch (Roberts, 2020), then did some of my own reading to flesh out what the documentary had explored. Rupert Murdoch, despite saying he did not interfere in editorial matters, repeatedly appeared to do so (Roberts, 2020). 

In the documentary, I was surprised to find that the Murdoch empire had owned both of our major print media companies here in Aotearoa: the Herald/Listener, and Stuff/Fairfax. I had known about the ownership of Fairfax Media - aka Stuff - but not the Herald group (Herald ownership is buried about three holding companies down). So almost all our reportage in Aotearoa was along Rupert Murdoch's own thinking: and that will definitely have influenced our thinking about labour, about employers, and about employment relations in Aotearoa since the 1980s (Derby, 2010; Rasmussen, 2009). 

So when both stripes of politics in Aotearoa - the right-of-centre National party, and the left-of-centre Labour party - adopted neo-liberal policies in the 1980s and 1990s (Rasmussen, 2009), I wonder how much of that shift can be attributed to the Murdoch empire's reportage from the time? We had high unemployment through the last two decades of the 20th century, empowering employers, and driving policy shifts (Rasmussen et al., 2019). New Zealand union membership reduced by an estimated 40% (Rasmussen et al., 2019).

In my fairly jaundiced view, I fell out of love with the reportage in New Zealand. I found it "pale, male, and stale" (Lawler, 1996. p. 800): proselytising a right-wing, ethno-centric, colonialist, profit-oriented, and meritocratic stance. However, since its sale to a New Zealand consortium, I feel that Stuff has become much more empathetic and culturally diverse; and reporting on climate change has suddenly reached global norms. We have caught up in three or so years.

Perhaps Rupert Murdoch tried to shape New Zealand in his own right-wing image, and despite having the means, was unable to completely do so. I like that. But he has probably fed the conspiracy theorists amongst us. 

Sigh.


Sam

References:

Derby, M. (2010). Strikes and labour disputes: Legislation from the 1990’s. Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/strikes-and-labour-disputes/page-10#:~:text=The%20Employment%20Contracts%20Act%201991&text=Employees%20could%20choose%20to%20work,and%20disputes%20was%20entirely%20voluntary

Lawler, A. (1996). Goldin puts NASA on new trajectory. Science, 272(5263), 800-803. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.272.5263.800

Rasmussen, E. (2009). Chapter 1: The Study of Employment Relations. In Employment Relations in New Zealand (2 ed., pp. 2-40). Pearson Education.

Rasmussen, E., Bray, M., & Stewart, A. (2019). What is distinctive about New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act 2000?. Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 29(1), 52–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/10301763.2018.1556233

Roberts, J. (2020). The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty [Documentary]. https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/the-rise-of-the-murdoch-dynasty/episodes/s1-e3

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