Former News Corp chief executive Kim Williams says Malcolm Turnbull overstates the ability of the Murdoch press to influence elections because News Corp is “old media” with dwindling power.
Print was a “terminating technology” and newspapers would disappear in a matter of years, the former Foxtel and Fox Studios chief executive said, noting that the Economist had gone fully digital during the pandemic.
The media executive, who resigned from News Corp in 2013 after two years at the helm, said the results of some recent elections showed the public didn’t listen to the company’s advocacy, and had effectively told Murdoch to “root your boot”.
“I am surprised at the severity of Malcolm Turnbull’s comments because it attributes a level of power to old media that I don’t think they have any longer,” Williams told an Australia Institute webinar on the media in crisis.
In his memoir, A Bigger Picture, Turnbull argued that News Corp operates like a political party to influence policy and elections but Williams says the former prime minister’s Liberal party room colleagues were more likely to blame for his downfall than Murdoch.
“We’ve seen that in the last couple of elections when very, very heavy advocacy was advanced one way the public behaved in quite the opposite way,” Williams said.
Kim Williams opens up with the observation that the media industry is facing the most challenging set of circumstances since the Second World War. #auspol pic.twitter.com/jgG2D2B25O
— Australia Institute (@TheAusInstitute) April 22, 2020
“Seen most particularly in NSW with the advocacy of the Daily Telegraph, and the public basically said ‘root your boot’.
“And in Queensland where you saw those astonishing outcomes several years ago.”
Despite the tabloid’s aggressive campaigning in 2016, the Coalition lost three seats in the Daily Telegraph’s heartland of western Sydney.
Williams said at the time he was forced out of News after he launched a book by a Labor politician before the federal election at which News was backing the Coalition, and Murdoch told him it was an act of “corporate treachery”.
“I am personally pretty irritated by the term the Canberra bubble but I think Malcolm Turnbull is certainly living absolutely at the centre of the Canberra bubble in describing his departure from politics as being all about the Murdoch press,” William said.
“It may be a minor contributing factor but I think he needs to look around him at his political colleagues.”
However, Williams did acknowledge the Murdoch press’ tendency to run campaigns on behalf of its owner and to speak with one voice. He said sections of the media had reverted to its 18th-century origins when it was designed to “advance personal views by proprietors”. “It’s a flight to predictable polarities,” he said.
Fellow panellist and Australia Institute economist Richard Denniss said Murdoch had influence on the ABC and on the political class but no influence on the public. It was the ABC which had “accumulated enormous cultural power” from its coverage of the bushfires and the pandemic who had real influence on the public.
An Australia Institute survey released on Wednesday found the ABC and SBS remain significantly more trusted than the commercial media, and the ABC remains the most trusted news source in Australia.
Trust in the ABC has increased dramatically since the question was first asked in 2013 – from 41% to 58% in 2019 – and 75% of Australians support increased funding for the ABC to reflect its emergency broadcaster role.
The Australia Institute panel, which included former ABC journalist Quentin Dempster, backed a move by the government to force Facebook and Google to share advertising revenue with Australian media companies but disagreed on whether revenue should be shared with the ABC.
On Monday the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, instructed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to develop a mandatory code of conduct for the digital giants amid a steep decline in advertising brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Williams said while he was “hopeful” the mandatory code would work he was also “sceptical”.
