Quote of the Day (James Fallow, on Rupert Murdoch’s “Embattled” Career)

“Another constant in his [Rupert Murdoch’s] career is its embattled, roller-coaster quality. Murdoch is said to be popular and admired within his own organization, rather than resented, mocked, or gossiped about behind his back. But with business rivals he is always in feuds and showdowns, and not only high-profile ones like that with [Ted] Turner. He has taken big risks (one associate describes Murdoch's making, in a matter of minutes, the billion-dollar decision to back Fox News ‘the way you or I might order lunch’), and his business has suffered serious reverses. In 1990, in an episode vividly described by [William] Shawcross, Murdoch was nearly forced to liquidate News Corp after a bank in Pittsburgh refused to roll over a small but crucial portion of his corporate debt. Although admirers compare him to Bill Gates or John D. Rockefeller because of his appreciation of technology and his instinct for strategic advantage, Murdoch is perhaps best compared to Bill Clinton: his nature keeps getting him into predicaments from which his talent lets him escape. “—James Fallows, “The Age of Murdoch,” The Atlantic, September 2003

His appearance before Parliament, Rupert Murdoch said mournfully, was “the most humble day of my life.” Many might think he had misspoken, meaning to say it was “the first humble day of my life.”

But James Fallows’ profile in The Atlantic runs directly in the face of those ready to begin writing Murdoch’s business obituary. I had long recalled this piece because of an odd little anecdote about the publisher's relationship with Bill Clinton: “Each has lunched at the other's office in New York, and Murdoch came away impressed by Clinton's ability to discuss impromptu almost any issue arising almost anywhere on earth. Associates of both say that despite the political differences between the men, they clicked because of complementary personalities: Murdoch loves to listen, and Clinton loves to talk.”

But in re-reading the piece, I realize that Fallows had overlooked another possible reason why these two men, in a weird way, bonded: their Houdini-like ability to escape damn near everything. That same ability should increase skepticism, even among the many who loathe him, of any notion that Murdoch’s number is, at long last, finally up. Remember, above all, the line from the late novelist Josephine Hart: “Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”

(Full disclosure: two of my college friends were among the high-profile casualties after Murdoch began installing his own primarily British-based upper echelon after acquiring The Wall Street Journal. The carnage there was as immense as it was predictable.)

Take this latest scandal, for instance, about the Murdoch empire's all-too-cozy relationship with Scotland Yard, and in particular the phone hacking. It's not like he hasn't tried something sleazy like this before. For instance, not long after Murdoch’s buccaneering entrance on the American media scene, he had done something similarly loathsome: the infamous “SAM SLEEPS” photo, of “Son of Sam” serial killer David Berkowitz behind bars, was spread all over the front page of his recently acquired New York Post. Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever adequately explained how the Post photographer got back the prison guard for that shot, nor why a grand jury never returned an indictment in the case.

Even if Murdoch slinks away, mortally wounded, from the media wars, he has already left his imprint on the way Americans receive and process news. Fallows guessed correctly, nearly eight years ago, the reaction against the Post, Fox News, and the other elements of Citizen Murdoch’s empire: “papers, radio shows, TV programs, and Web sites for liberals, and conservative ones for conservatives.”

In a way, Fallows noted, Murdoch was engineering a reversion in time: “Our journalistic culture may soon enough resemble that of early nineteenth-century America, in which party-owned newspapers presented selective versions of the truth. News addressed to a particular niche—not simply in its content but also in its politics—may be the natural match to an era with hundreds of satellite and cable channels and limitless numbers of Internet sites.”

In other words: no more dream of journalistic objectivity. One side has Fox, the other MSNBC; one side has the Wall Street Journal, the other The New York Times. Neither is remotely interested in what the other has to say--or, indeed, any other non-ideological view. I have my news and you have yours, buddy, and never the twain shall meet.