The Murdoch Archipelago

by Bruce Page

  Many people suppose Stuart died in jail. He survived, and fell again into trouble for boozing and brawling. Eventually he sobered up and joined his tribe’s land-claim in Central Australia, becoming a steady member of the community. He never accepted the verdict against him, but long ago abandoned hope of changing it. ‘Some people think Elvis is alive and I can’t change that either.’ Much knowledge of violent paedophiles has accumulated since the 1960s, telling us that without special supervision they nearly always reoffend. So the passage of years – added to the flimsiness of the initial evidence – suggests that Stuart was never any such thing.

  At Alice Springs on 30 March 2000 Queen Elizabeth II – still Australia’s head of state – stepped for the first time on to Aboriginal land – that is, on to land which the Arrernte (Aranda) hold by a title now admitted to be older than her own. The chairman of the Central Land Council, Max Stuart, thanked her for coming so far to visit the Arrernte, and gave her a painting by one of the clan elders. Nobody told his story – an interesting project, perhaps, for the Adelaide News – but it would have involved revisiting the career of the paper’s most distinguished editor.

  No possessions matter more to a media business than a place in the history that starts (though not from zero) with Zenger. Delane’s exposing of the railway-share swindlers in the 1840s, the BBC’s 1956 reporting of Suez, the Washington Post in Watergate 1975 or the Daily Mail’s 1998 challenge to the Lawrence murder gang in London: these and many others can be recognised (and not necessarily ranked). Of Ron Boland, who served for many years in Rivett’s place, his Newscorp obituary states that his proudest campaign defeated a prohibition against topless swimsuits – for men. ‘Man’s first faculty is that of forgetfulness,’ said Albert Camus, ‘but it is only fair to say that he even forgets the good that he has done.’

  Before examining Murdoch’s enthusiasm for the Mirror, we should step back and pick up the story of his broadcasting operations. These began in 1957 with a stake in the Adelaide radio station 5DN. Towards the end of that year applications were invited for television licences in Brisbane and in Adelaide. Sydney already had two commercial channels – Fairfax’s Channel 7 and Packer’s Channel 9 – plus the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). Similarly in Britain, commercial television (ITV) competed with the publicly funded BBC. But in Australia, as in the US, competition between commercial channels was a regulatory aspiration.

  In Melbourne, the Herald owned Channel 7, and the Age a part of Channel 9. The two Channel 9s were network-sharing their output, as were the Channel 7s, but the regulators at the Australian Broadcasting Control Board (ABCB, distinct from the ABC) saw networking as an evasion of the competitive diversity they desired. At the same time, they were unsure that the lesser capitals (Adelaide was one-fourth Sydney’s size) could support multiple franchises. Sympathy grew in the ABCB for licensing single operators ready to forswear networking. News busily encouraged this view, rebuffing interstate offers to assist in applying for Adelaide.

  Three groups applied for Brisbane: one led by the Herald, one by Packer, and one by Fairfax (with Mirror Newspapers limping along in aid). Bidders for Adelaide were the Advertiser (that is, the Herald), Packer and Southern Television Corporation, 60 per cent held by News. Competitive hearings began at Brisbane, where Murdoch pleaded to make a preliminary statement.

  His plea was that if Brisbane got two licences, it must set no precedent for Adelaide – where monopoly was essential. It was put to him that such a monopoly would have great financial value, and he agreed. But it would be valuable also to the public – for competition might undermine quality, and he cited evening papers as proof. In Adelaide, News ran a monopoly evening paper; it was infinitely better than Sydney’s two competing evenings. This had some resonance: the Sun and Mirror – dealers in mayhem, synthetic or real – famously represented urban journalism’s underbelly. But did anyone anticipate Rupert’s advent two years later as the Mirror’s eager boss?

  When the caravan reached Adelaide, News Ltd conjured up financial gloom. Even as a monopoly, Southern Television would take three years to reach a profit. In competition, it would lose more than half a million pounds over the same period (though Murdoch emphasised that he would not for that reason decline a licence). The ABCB’s recommendation in July 1958 was for Brisbane and Adelaide to have one licence apiece, for an operator without interstate links or networking deals. Murdoch had campaigned shrewdly. His was the only application fitting the specification. But the specification did not fit the desires of the federal government, which waited until October 1958, and announced two licences per city. In Adelaide the Advertiser got Channel 7; News got Channel 9. This synchronised with federal elections, and was attributed generally to Menzies’ decision to accommodate the East Coast moguls after all. Murdoch seems to have shared this view – and concluded that he must, by any available door, enter their club. The Daily Mirror was the best entrance ticket he could find.

  Mirror Group Newspapers lost A£97,901 to 30 June 1961, making Rivett’s scepticism of the previous year understandable. But his letters show that Rivett saw newspapers as enterprises profitable or otherwise in themselves. He did not conceive them as a means to government largesse.

  Sadly competitive as the NSW-9 licence might be, Southern Television Corporation was already returning 40 per cent on its paid capital (after a small first-year loss). Frank Packer’s purchase of the majority holding in Channel 9 Melbourne was the new industry’s financial benchmark. He had paid A£6 for each A£1 share: the 500 per cent gain had taken four years, chiefly reflecting, in George Munster’s words, ‘the value of the licence issued by the government’.

  Thus the role of the News and NSW-9 was to absorb the Sydney losses until Murdoch could gain more television revenue. When hearings opened in 1962 for a third Sydney licence, News Ltd came in as local publishers, with a new set-up and a rebuilt philosophy. The opposition was United Telecasters – several banks and industrial companies in alliance. Channel Ten Sydney, led by Murdoch, was also a syndicate, including two churches, two trade unions and the pastoralists Elder Smith Goldsborough. Along with religion, the proletariat and rural industry (not yet carrying the unfriendly agribusiness label) came Paramount Pictures, to guarantee content. News had the largest holding, but only 27.9 per cent.

  Both syndicates celebrated locally made television, children’s television, education and religion. (The Board’s counsel said ‘intangible qualities of character’ should be remembered in evaluating these enthusiasms.) To Murdoch, on the stand for three days, the overarching issue was competition: its healthfulness, and his ability to supply it. Inconsistencies were raised but they never fazed him. What of the blood-and-guts Mirror journalism he had deplored, as competition’s outcome? His combat record against the Fairfax and Packer newspapers was just what qualified him to tackle their television operations. In the public interest, such monopolists must be challenged. And Ten, not United, were the team to do it.

  It was put to him that he had bought the Sydney papers with television profits in mind – and Murdoch could hardly deny that Channel Ten promised just then to be more lucrative than Truth and the Mirror. But he applied his own gloss: he wanted the licence to be financial backing for his activities as a dedicated newspaperman. To argue that television revenues should be disposed so as to assist a paper which Murdoch himself had cited as a model of excess was the work of a rhetorical Houdini. Rivett, if still a director, could only have dissented.

  Nor was the ABCB convinced. In April 1963 the Sydney licence went to United Telecasters, and Melbourne’s third channel to the airline operator Ansett. Perhaps, as Murdoch believed, there was animosity on Menzies’ part (for he had disliked the Mirror since Ezra Norton’s time). The general effect was to intensify Murdoch’s desire for a political alliance. The immediate response was a new tactical alignment.

  Wollongong, fifty miles south of Sydney, claims now to be the world’s greenest steeltown. In the 1960s it was highly ungreen, bu
t one of its features was the lofty tower of Television Wollongong Transmissions Ltd (WIN-4), from which signals reached to southern Sydney. Few aerials received it: WIN-4 could not afford original production, and had little US material because the Sydney stations had corralled the distributors. In Newcastle, another industrial townscape to the north, NBN-6 suffered likewise.

  In 1963 News Ltd bought 320,000 Television Wollongong shares and Murdoch took the ailing station in hand. In New York he bought 2,500 hours of programming from the network boss Donald Coyle for a million pounds; local and religious character it lacked, but it had Phil Silvers, Ben Casey and From Here to Eternity the serial. In June 1963 Murdoch told the Australian TV Times: ‘There are two million Sydney viewers within WIN’s range and we intend to go after them.’ Sir Frank Packer did not wait for aerials to turn: he offered News a million shares (25 per cent) in Television Corporation (Channel 9) and two slots on the board. Murdoch and Packer together then took control of NBN-6 Newcastle. Murdoch’s Southern Television issued 150,000 shares to Packer’s Consolidated Press, and News split its Wollongong holding with Consolidated.

  What had become of Murdoch’s competitive promises? They had been fulfilled, but not quite as a listener to the hearings might have expected. Murdoch had fought the supposed monopolists – but it turned out to be a preliminary to joining them. Feelings about monopoly commonly vary according to whether people stand inside or outside the system. Expression, however, may be inhibited

  – in engineering, ‘hysteresis’ describes the tendency for materials to a resist change of form, and most people display a psychic analogy. Murdoch from the beginning alternated between competitor and public monopolist – among other rhetorical configurations – with zero hysteresis.

  All the same, the Channel Ten defeat left a distressing aftermath. Adelaide was still sustaining marginal operations in Sydney. More wheeling and dealing with Frank Packer was required to make News Ltd’s share of television bounty provide real corporate comfort. Packer resolved to concentrate his print and television interests, by selling Consolidated Press to Television Corporation in exchange for 6.1 million units of new Television stock. Packer, already in command of Consolidated, thereby brought 62 per cent of Television into his control. Under the Packer-Murdoch deal Sir Frank, once he exceeded 42 per cent of Television, could not acquire more shares without offering an equivalent number to Murdoch. But this entitled News to only 1.2 million of the fresh issue. Murdoch would still have 25 per cent in the enlarged Television Corporation, but Packer would dominate it.

  Murdoch instead exercised a right to return his shares to Packer at the market price, which brought in A$3.3 million; Murdoch bought the outstanding stock in Southern Television, which was holding A$2 million cash.* From the perspective of today’s billionaire deals the sums seem trivial, but at the time they were enough to make News’ corporate position very secure. Murdoch began expounding to News executives his theories of global media investment and the coming primacy of entertainment over news. But, for this to be realised, the breakthrough into political influence had to be made.

  Murdoch’s difficulty for several years had been that of starting a liaison in a roomful of devoted couples. The Liberal leaders had all the editorial fulfilment they needed. Murdoch experimented with support for the Labor leader Arthur Calwell, but in its existing state the ALP had no prospect of power. Inspiration came when the Mirror political editor Eric Walsh identified Jack McEwen’s potential. As leader of the minority Country Party in coalition with Menzies’ Liberals, McEwen was Deputy Prime Minister useful power, if not supreme. And Walsh knew there were no existing editorial attachments. It was a political connection which quickly became much more. ‘Young Rupert’, as Black jack called him, found – in the words of McEwen’s aide Bill Carew – ‘something of a surrogate father’, and a relationship very like that between Keith Murdoch and Billy Hughes.

  McEwen, born in 1900, had long held major office via his minor party, and was a horse-trader of tireless skill – a match, perhaps, for Jake Arvey of the great Chicago machine, quoted at the head of this chapter. He and his followers were once called ‘a faction in search of a party’, accurately suggesting a minimal burden of philosophy. Resemblances to agrarian-socialists and to the farmerlabour parties of the US-Canada border never went much past Tom Playford’s periodic gestures to Labor voters. Rural workers interested McEwen far less than urban manufacturers – to whom he offered protectionist insurance against the risk of liberal economics infecting the Liberals.

  If the Country Party had ideological kin it was in European corporatism, where the state both controls the economic playing-field and participates among the teams. Corporatism of course was unlike the state-socialist model – where the state owned all the teams – but it was remote too from liberal-democratic ideals of an even-handed referee state empowered by the votes of an individual citizenry. In Australia as elsewhere the working democratic spectrum tends to mix such primaries as corporatism and liberal democracy. But there is a recognisable band, in which McEwen practised, where government is the business partner of deserving industries and firms.

  Only in fascist versions is corporatism purely evil – free and competitive markets, after all, display some famous flaws. But its expression is remarkably like cronyism. The corporate tendency likes ‘getting things done’, with slight regard to constitutional niceties and libertarian issues. Politics centres upon fixing, and McEwen was a fixer who left no item to chance. He embodied both meanings of the word ‘pragmatic’. Its modern sense fitted the undogmatic nature of his policies. But in his rigid public persona there was ‘pragmatism’ of the sort John Bunyan feared – censorious, and intolerant of dissent. In this he resembled (indeed admired) Billy Hughes, though few men could look less alike than the Little Digger and the massive ex-farmer.

  Even with Labor divided, the Liberals needed McEwen, and ‘Black Jack’ was Menzies’ name for him – supposedly after the leader of a Highland clan noted for ruthless cohesion and hard bargaining. And, like a Highland chieftain, McEwen held close to loyal followers. ‘Young Rupert’ was sufficiently one of those to think McEwen could become Prime Minister. Jack, a grim realist, probably knew otherwise.

  It was a restless, impressionable time for Murdoch – not only because other newspaper bosses seemed to enjoy political rights thus far denied to him. His marriage to Patricia Booker in Adelaide in 1956 had not succeeded, and he had not met his second wife Anna. He wanted a substantial home accessible from both Sydney and Canberra. When he found Cavan, in the Murrumbidgee River catchment, McEwen assumed the delicate task of judging the worth of a sizeable rural property and arranging its anonymous, economical purchase. News Ltd’s papers gave enthusiastic coverage to McEwen in the 1963 federal elections, but did so without visible effect. Obedient as the News and Mirror were, they carried no punch. For progress to occur, something quite different was required.

  Though a national journal today, the Australian grew from other intentions. News Ltd accepted in the 1960s the conventional wisdom that Australia’s geography, like America’s, forbade the existence of a nationwide press. What Murdoch wanted was a political audience centred in Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the enclave where Canberra sits to prove that the federation is above the states – a habitat created for power-brokerage alone. He meant to proceed by ambush, but the selected victim ambushed him.

  The main ACT title was Arthur Shakespeare’s Canberra Times. It coped adequately with competition from Sydney, closest of the state capitals. Local assault by News would be different, though, and there was a vehicle to hand: the Territorean, a free sheet run by Ken Cowley, once a Canberra Times printer. Early in 1964 News Ltd bought the Territorean, and Murdoch told Shakespeare he was ready to buy the Canberra Times – or ‘run you out of business’.

  But the tactic once used against the Bonythons of Adelaide had been foreseen. Secretly in 1963 Shakespeare had sold an option to Fairfax, for exercise in just such circumstances. The p
aper’s skilful young editor was Rohan Rivett’s former lieutenant David Bowman. In May 1964 Fairfax made the experienced John Douglas Pringle (Times, Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald) overall boss, and provided new resources which Bowman energetically deployed.

  News was denied swift local victory. The only alternative to retreat was for the Territorean – renamed the Australian – to add Sydney and Melbourne sales to its reduced Canberra potential, and achieve viable scale as an impromptu national. Technical impediments were many, as News lacked even the crude facsimile systems then available: interstate editions relied on flying stereotype ‘mats’ to Sydney and Melbourne, from an airport then often socked in at night. And editorial muddle marked the Australian’s birth and early life. Its first issue on 15 July 1964 would have carried the wrong date had not Eric Walsh dropped in and exercised a sharp pair of eyes.

  Murdoch’s editor was Maxwell Newton, then part-way along his trajectory from virtuoso economic analyst to fruitcake libertarian and pornographer. Having shone as a young editor of the Australian Financial Review, he might have shone again with a paper on the scale first intended. He was what the British call a ‘journalist of opinion’ – that is, organising broad news-cover was remote from his metier. And the Age and SMH, even if they remained dull, knew that business very well.

  Though Murdoch appreciated Newton’s limitations, he had little to suggest beyond misplaced borrowings from the old Express (star-gazing, an old-style gossip column). And his busy shirt-sleeved presence, far from damping editorial eccentricities, intensified them. Public curiosity about the notion of a national paper absorbed the initial print of 250,000. But by the end of the launch-month sales were at 74,782, and at 51,834 by November.