I don’t remember it ever being so hot in London. Neither do many of my friends and colleagues who, unlike New Yorkers, are notbitching about it but, rather, basking in it, given how cold and unwelcoming the weather in these British isles often is. At the Unity Media office on the Thames, some of the architects of an exciting new TV venture wear bathing suits to work…

No matter where you go in this media obsessed town, one name rarely is missing in any conversation. I am referring to the mogul everyone here loves to hate, the man they call the “Dirty Digger,” Rupert “MediaGod” Murdoch.

On the day I left New York, nearly a fortnight ago (‘fortnight’ — now, that ‘s a good Britishism) Murdoch’s Fox News Channel and its head honcho, the long time Republican Operative with a capital O, Roger Ailes, was on the front cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine with a flattering profile that he could could have easily written himself. (But he didn’t have to because the New York Times, which should be investigating FOX rather than adoring it, did his promotion for him.)

The article was so over the top in its uncritical tone, that the release of a FOX bashing study by Fairness And Accuracy in Media (FAIR.org) on the specific, politically loaded right wing content on the channel was picked up by media columnists nationwide with equal enthusiasm. Jeff Cohen, FAIR’s always insightful founder and now, ironically, a commentator on Fox, also happened to be in London and told me about all the mainstream media pick up their work achieved. Because he works for Roger A on the only network that will give him a regular slot (CNN’s Crossfire was too chicken to do so) Jeff says he reclused himself from the study. But that didn’t stop him from enthusing about its impact, when we shared a pint together at a small July 4th doo co-sponsored by a chapter of the National Union of Journalists and the Campaign for Broadcasting and Press Freedom alongside the canal at King’s Cross. Go FAIR! And special thanks to Mediachannel News Editor Bruce Whitehead for inviting me along.

Some good insight into how Murdoch’s business interests influence his newspaper’s editorial comment was commented upon in Private Eye, the indispensable investigative outlet to which media mavens regularly leak their suppressed stories and most revealing insights. The Eye’s “Street of Shame Column” explains that recent editorial support for a controversial Irish referendum by Rupert’ s press holdings, was a blatant way of embracing Irish Tax laws that benefit his News Corporation’s financial interests.

It seems that the tax breaks in Ireland are so juicy that the company will soon be printing newspapers for England and Scotland there and fly them across the water as a cheaper alternative to upgrading facilities in England. It also allows a little corporate scheme called “Transfer Pricing” that is one reason that Murdoch’s company pays no corporate taxes anywhere in the world. Explains the Eye: “The Irish operation will be able to bill its UK parent company for services rendered, thus transferring profits generated in London, Cardiff or Edinburgh to the lower tax regime in Dublin.” One likely result : “Continuing praise of Ireland’s tax breaks in all News Corp titles can safely be predicted.”

Meanwhile, one of Murdoch’s frequent offenders of everything most journalists say they respect, The SUN, was cleared by a press complaints commission of charges that it contravened an editors code by paying money to 71 year old Ronnie Biggs, an escaped “Great Train Robber” and then chartered a private jet and flew him back to England as a circulation boosting publicity stunt. Apparently paying convicted criminals is a breach of an editor’s code of conduct unless the newspaper proves it was serving the public interest. And that is what Murdoch’s paper did by arguing that they did what the coppers were unable to do. The Press Council agreed that the public interest was served, and that the criminal was not glorified. Of course, it was the SUN which received the glory and plenty of payback. When I first read the story, I thought — ‘gee a national press complaints board and an editors code of conduct. What a good idea~! Why don’t we have that in the USA?’ But then, when I thought more deeply about this slimy decision vindicating an even sleazier stunt, I am glad that we don’t.

Finally on the Murdoch Watch, we have Vanity Fair, the magazine that leaves no celebrity stone unturned, to thank for an interview with Mathew Freud, great grandson of THE Freud, who the Guardian calls a “public relations guru” because he runs Britain’s largest independent PR firm. Freud is engaged to Elizabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert, who I first met as a college student a decade ago. She is now being turned into a bit of a glamour girl by her husband despite the disapproval, Freud reveals, of his father in law to be. Mathew says Murdoch the elder is peeved because he encouraged the very blondeworthy Elizabeth to appear in picture spreads in glossy magazines. (Elizabeth’s brother Lachlan, heir apparent to the media empire was just voted “sexiest man in Australia” but Rupert allegedy wasn’t bothered by that distinction.) Freud complains — get this — that Rupert Murdoch has the “weird” habit of believing what he reads in the press.” He also calls his wife “more of a party animal than I am.”

If you are asking “do we really need to know all this,” the answer is probably no,” BUT Murdoch usually remains in the shadows, so it’s now considered newsworthy when we get a peek into the hypocrisies and contradictions in this first family of media moguldom.London July 5, 2001