Mailwatch(ed) Forum

News International, or whatever name it currently travels under, hasn't really adapted well to the new media landscape. Their papers never had much impact online, their social media ventures have been variously sized failures, and these days even the big bear of Fox News is gradually being cannibalized by various more extreme micro-channels. The smart move for Rupert would be appointing someone who has a proven track record in the new world.

So whilst I'm not exactly delighted to see a shitbird like Lachy allowed run anything more important than his bath, it's probably not wrong to say that it could definitely be worse.

No great argument from me there.

The thing is, it was, and possibly still is, deliciously lucrative to be in the second tier of Murdoch management. He was always ambivalent about all things digital, so it was always better to keep schtum and let him make his own mistakes.

$700m here, $500m there. Soon, it all adds up to a serious chunk of change. Let's not forget that Sky was also a me-too operation, and it might never have been the force it now is without the farcical competitor in BSB. Reasonably watchable content hobbled by management which couldn't craft an airtime rate card or sales strategy if their lives depended on it.

As the sun sets on the remnants of old-school media, people like Murdoch still can't work out whether they want to be kings of content or digital distributors. Do they deliver what people want or understand how they want to consume it? Can they work out a regulatory-compliant framework for achieving either? Murdoch is out of ideas and to his financial disadvantage, so it is probably well overdue that he now steps down.

His lad will have the best in the business on his side when he needs to address these less than comfortable dichotomies. I'd not write him off.

Maybe I’m having a senior moment but even the name of Murdoch’s less grubby rival to GBNews with Piers Morgan on it, escapes me at the moment.

I’m sure decent analyses about the state of the Murdoch business landscape are being written but at the moment journalists have their heads up their arses because ‘isn’t it just like Succession.’
The Murdoch’s aren’t very interesting individuals including Rupert if you’ve seen one of his interviews. Which is surprising for a monarchical megalomaniac.

With the decline in newspaper buying and watching live TV, one source of news that surely holds its own is radio news. Slick concise bulletins with no axe to grind are appreciated by millions. If a story is important to you then you can follow it up on the phone. And I’m pleasantly surprised to see the role of public service broadcasting is evidently becoming more not less relevant in this multimedia age.

Murdoch was eyeing up Ch4 but was thwarted by ‘the elites.’ In other words his last best hope to grab broadcasting market share in the UK was err Nadine Dorries.

His stabs at digital have always been a bit crude, while the bulk of digital consumers want something a bit slick. The "Sun Says" sledgehammer doesn't exactly work well online.

As ever, by elites, he means anyone smarter, funnier, dare I say classier than him. Like Cap'n Bob and Trump, some people can have all the money in the world, yet still look like a berk in a penguin suit invited to the society ball for everyone to laugh at.

Do you think he knows that, and that's at the bottom of his 'anti-elite' blatherings? The knowledge that however rich he becomes he'll never have class?

Yes. Nixon apparently had it too - the inferiority complex, and feeling laughed at by the likes of Rockerfeller and the Kennedys. Despite him being one of the biggest names in the GOP, he never felt accepted or taken seriously by the east coast (particularly New York/New England) political establishment.

See also, Mohamed al Fayed. Very aware that whilst he could buy everything, the old money would always view him as a glorified grocer.

This article’s centred around Russell Brand’s online success but pertinent to Murdoch. Not a fair generalisation of business people or academics but I get the point he’s making and who he’s talking about.

There are probably millions of people in Britain whose intellectual pretensions have been unrealised or thwarted by their social origins. For these people, a supercilious elitism - the notion that they have access to some ‘truth’ or nugget of information that the normies don’t have - may function as a sort of psychological palliative for internal feelings of inferiority.

Another ‘type’ that seems susceptible to conspiratorial content are those who have achieved modest success in business and wonder why the esteem generated by this success is not reflected back at them elsewhere. They have made a bit of money and, because that’s often quite difficult, they view themselves as experts in everything. (Society frequently promotes the idea that ascent in business represents the ultimate form of personal triumph, which is why we have Donald Trump and Elon Musk). Yet those who occupy the intellectual commanding heights in our society - academia and the media - look down their noses at this haughty merchant class. Indeed, there are few people the intelligentsia loathe more than those with a predilection for selling things. And so members of this merchant class begin to chafe at the ‘establishment’ and - downstream from that - a ‘legacy media’ which views them with distain. Consequently, everything they believe about the world is framed in stark opposition to the mainstream. Members of this group like to think of themselves as an alternative intellectual elite. https://www.jamesbloodworth.com/p/the-m ... sell-brand

Yeah, rings true in the main.

The issue with the 'alternative intelligentsia' is the implication the regular intelligentsia is fully-in-bed with the mainstream, which is a stretch, and, simultaneously, that intelligentsia is defined by opposition over substance.

There's nothing intellectual about the vast majority of these chumps.

Andy McDandy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 9:34 am As ever, by elites, he means anyone smarter, funnier, dare I say classier than him. Like Cap'n Bob and Trump, some people can have all the money in the world, yet still look like a berk in a penguin suit invited to the society ball for everyone to laugh at.

The entirely self-inflicted tragedy of the grasping social climber - they never feel like they have the respect of people they claim as peers, and loathe the people who actually (and near universally, quite wrongly) respect and venerate them. And they are usually quite correct, but not for the reason they think. It isn't because upper classes or 'old money' see them as fake. It's because they're almost always utterly loathsome people.

Murdoch may be different to Trump in that he is at least aware of what he is, though I hope that is its own unique form of punishment. He's a billionaire. He owns media across the globe. He's married supermodels. But he will always, always be the dirty digger and nothing more.

The late, great Roger Ebert had him absolutely nailed:
https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-dirty-digger

It was difficult for Murdoch to implant his tabloid model on the US press just as it with the UK broadcasting landscape. Rules about news impartiality helped to quell his onslaught but Reagan did away with them in America and there was an opening to spread his poison via Fox News.

According to Kelvin McKenzie, Lachlan Murdoch doesn’t give a fuck about the UK and suggested everyone at Talk TV should apply to be tea boys at GBNews. Not often I’m cheered up by anything McKenzie says.

I hate to share this, but I believe that many of these assumptions about Murdoch The Man are way off beam.

In fairness, I have never met the guy, let alone sat in day-long meetings with him, nor have we shared a dinner table à quatre. Any understanding I have is second-hand, (not third or fourth, second).

He is seemingly a charming, erudite, and quite graceful chap with impeccable manners, (table and social), and who uses that gin-trap mind of his to recall seemingly irrelevant detail which makes his inner sanctum feel blessed. "How's (child) getting on at (school) these days?"

Sure, anyone can fake that with a free sub to salesforce.com, but we are talking about taking it to a wholly different level and laced with fierce loyalty. He has always had the "be nice" gene. To a point.

There's a case to be made that it has been in his unique gift to do good. Trouble is, he sold a part of his soul to the devil.

No reason to gainsay your second-hand impression, other than to express mild scepticism.



https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xflqt ... i0EN35spnc

Abernathy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 9:59 pm No reason to gainsay your second-hand impression, other than to express mild scepticism.



https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xflqt ... i0EN35spnc

Similarly, she and I both had detailed dealings, quite independently, with luminaries such as Kelvin MacKenzie, Rebekah Brooks, Jack Irvine, and Dorothy Cumpsty.

None of them are as pleasant as their public personae might suggest.

I have seen some very pretty snakes. However pretty, they were still venomous.

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 4:49 pm

Andy McDandy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 9:34 am As ever, by elites, he means anyone smarter, funnier, dare I say classier than him. Like Cap'n Bob and Trump, some people can have all the money in the world, yet still look like a berk in a penguin suit invited to the society ball for everyone to laugh at.

The entirely self-inflicted tragedy of the grasping social climber - they never feel like they have the respect of people they claim as peers, and loathe the people who actually (and near universally, quite wrongly) respect and venerate them. And they are usually quite correct, but not for the reason they think. It isn't because upper classes or 'old money' see them as fake. It's because they're almost always utterly loathsome people.

And because they're terrified that they will end up back in the gutter.

kreuzberger wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 8:51 pm I hate to share this, but I believe that many of these assumptions about Murdoch The Man are way off beam.

He is seemingly a charming, erudite, and quite graceful chap with impeccable manners, (table and social), and who uses that gin-trap mind of his to recall seemingly irrelevant detail which makes his inner sanctum feel blessed. "How's (child) getting on at (school) these days?"

Sure, anyone can fake that with a free sub to salesforce.com, but we are talking about taking it to a wholly different level and laced with fierce loyalty. He has always had the "be nice" gene. To a point.

So the millionaire publisher’s son has the bourgeois manners and charm of the people he affects to despise?
It’s as if crude salt of the Earth populist politicians he courts are just useful idiots. To pursue his deregulation agenda to expand his elite sized empire.

As I’m on holiday, I’m a bit behind the times; my assumption on the hand-over is that he’s had his final prognosis and the curtains are slowly being drawn

kreuzberger wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 10:14 pm

Similarly, she and I both had detailed dealings, quite independently, with luminaries such as Kelvin MacKenzie, Rebekah Brooks, Jack Irvine, and Dorothy Cumpsty.

None of them are as pleasant as their public personae might suggest.

Double take moment. Kelvin MacKenzie is less pleasant than he appears to be ?????

W.T.F. ?