The Camera Obscura

Jaron Lanier — the author of the book “Digital Maoism” — in referring to Fox News, the main diamond in the crown of a media ruler Rupert Murdoch, once noticed: “We have created an amazing technology that possesses gigantic potential but, to a tremendous degree, it increases our ability to lie to ourselves and forget that it’s a lie.”*

Mr. Murdoch, who turned 80 years old on Feb. 11 this year, uses technology ravished by him of the digital era to the fullest. He doesn’t lie to himself, indeed. He does tell lies urbi et orbi, to the city of Rome and to the world. Or, he rather sells a vision of the city and the world that is favorable to us but plays up to him. Where Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons and Barack Obama is a usurper, for he was born beyond the bounds of the U.S. — not in Hawaii, but Kenya. In short, the Murdoch media empire is a camera obscura.

The title of press lord does not suit him, although he owns an endless number of newspapers and magazines in English-speaking countries and beyond. Such thoroughbred trotters like London newspapers including The Times and The Sun, and New York editions like The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, are straw fed in his press stable. As for Canadian, Australian and New Zealand’s “small fry,” they are not even worth mentioning. Nevertheless, Murdoch is not the press lord. He began building his career from being a lord. His father, Sir Keith Murdoch, had already owned heaps of Australian newspapers when Murdoch Junior rushed into the U.S. television business. He expatriated his Australian citizenship straightaway and became an American citizen (the U.S. laws prohibit foreigners from owning TV stations).

Murdoch, an immortal scrag of traditional media despite his biblical age, soon realized and grasped the significance and might of new information technologies. He bought Intermix Media Inc., which owned MySpace.com and other popular sites of social networking. He also bought Hong Kong’s Star TV, the biggest company in Asia. Along with this satellite company, he exported his third wife Wendi Deng, who is young enough to be his granddaughter.

According to the Forbes list, Murdoch is number 13 among hundreds of the most influential people in the world. His personal wealth is estimated to be $6-7 billon, which places him at number 117 on the world wealth scale. So far.

Media does not exist outside politics. But Murdoch’s multimedia does not just broadcast politics — it forms it. They create and overthrow the high and mighty of this world. In his dearest Australia, Murdoch supported the Labourites; in England, it was the Conservatives led by Margaret Thatcher. Having sensed the end of the Thatcherism, he switched to the Labourites and Tony Blair. Their secret suppers together used to cause political scandals. “Who really governs 10 Downing Street, Blair or Murdoch?” newspaper headlines shouted. When Mr. Blair and the Labourites started to wobble, he staked on the Conservatives. “Who plays the master at 10 Downing Street, Cameron or Murdoch?” The London political kitchen cabinet is curious.

In the U.S., Murdoch’s behavior is more consistent: he supports the Republicans’ right wing. His Fox News, in essence, has catapulted Sarah Palin and the tea party movement into big politics. Rupert’s main “watchdogs” are radio talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who intimidate Americans into believing that a threat of socialism exists — that “Marxist and Stalinist” Obama is spreading in the U.S.

A well-known television journalist writes: “We have created a new universe [of information technologies.] Planets in this universe are clashing with each other every now and then but we stay unaware which ones are adapted to life and which once are destined to burn.” In this cosmic atmosphere, the Rupert Murdoch planet is still surviving and sending others to hell.

*Editor’s Note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.