The media would surely be something else than what they are without the invaluable influence, for some and for others, exercised over many decades by the omnipresent and incombustible magnate Rupert Murdoch, especially, although not only, in the Anglo-Saxon media world. .
His empire is more powerful and extensive than the ailing Commonwealth; raise or sink leaders; makes or breaks governments; and he always manages to get out of the thousand and one troubles he has gotten himself into, because as he well knows, everything comes down to a matter of money, as also happens with his marriages and divorces. What matters least to him is the truth, that in the end he is nothing more than a hindrance on his path to glory.
He recently admitted in an affidavit in Delaware state court that Fox, the most popular cable television channel in the United States, fueled Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the wake of the last presidential election. , knowing that they were completely false. Only to add, without any embarrassment, that he did it out of fear of losing an audience, and because not doing so would have been “stupid.”
According to the Irish journalist and British press magnate of his time, Lord Nortcliffe (1865-1922), journalism is the art of explaining to others what one does not understand oneself. In view of the current panorama, it would seem that nothing has changed in the century that has elapsed since his death. With one caveat: the digital revolution has not only given wings to the most radicalized minority voices, which was about time, at least in some cases, but it has clung to lies like a shipwrecked man to a burning nail. The boring truth does not interest, it does not sell, while the hoax devastates.
At the end of the 1980s, Pierre Bourdieu, professor of Sociology at the Collège de France, maintained that, despite the television success of Parisian intellectuals such as Bernard-Henri Lévy, television does not serve as a stage for a minimally sophisticated discussion to take place. Bourdieu, who died in 2002, could hardly imagine the deafening hollow noise that arises from the endless gatherings that in Spain cloud radio and television at all hours, much less the insane shouting of social networks, not to mention the insane proposals of influencers, or that parliaments have become sets of Big Brother-type programs.
Television is, to a large extent, the antithesis of good journalism, since instead of going after the news, it creates and spreads it as it pleases, as any paper reporter who tries to interview people without being asked knows well. accompanied by audiovisual equipment. The image prevails over the word. In other words, a piece of news is not news until it has appeared on television and the networks.
They rule the audiences, the ratings, the publicity. If you have to invent a piece of news, you invent it; if you have to slander, slander yourself. And it’s not just a matter of the fact that anything goes in this business, but also that everyone, starting with bloggers, believes they are a journalist at their own risk, but above all from cowardly anonymity. So it is increasingly difficult to separate the journalistic wheat from the media chaff. And no one is spared from this trend, not even the most prestigious newspapers and channels.
The execrable journalism promoted by Murdoch and his ilk, which is based on misinformation and deception, triumphs everywhere. And in those, deepfakes and AI have come to lend a hand.
Bertrand Russell said that economics deals with how people make decisions, while sociology deals with how they don’t have decisions to make. And journalism? Ask Murdoch, he’s the boss and has more lives than a cat. It’s all for the audience. And the pasta.
