Murdoch, le grand manipulateur des médias

Never mind watching any other TV mini-series out there, this three-part BBC exploration and examination of the inexorable rise of Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch made for fascinating and compulsive viewing.

A heady mix of Lear-esque dynastic feuding amongst his three children, media manipulation involving future British Prime Ministers and U.S. Presidents (guess which ones!), unimaginable wealth, power politics, sleazy journalism and yes, even sex as he twice remarries, both times to much younger women and most recently to Jerry Hall of all people, you just couldn't print this stuff.

With no active participation of any of the main Murdoch family members, the programmes were relatively free to dig deep and leave no stone unturned in bringing to light the often murky inside track on the many controversial episodes with which Murdoch has been involved. Interviews with past employees, such as previous editors of his papers, old enemies such as F1 boss Max Mosely and actor Hugh Grant and ex-staffers of the Trump administration, this lurid tale follows Murdoch all the way from his humble beginnings starting with one Australian newspaper to owning literally dozens of media-based companies in Britain, America and across Asia.

A recognised power-broker through the major influence carried by the likes of the Sun newspaper in Britain and Fox News in the States, it was both eye-opening and stomach-churning to see the likes of Blair, Cameron and Trump fawning at the feet of king-maker Rupert. The closest he came to crashing to Earth was over the shameful and heinous phone-hacking scandal which was exposed in his U.K scandal-sheet the "News Of The World", a practice which saw the paper give free-reign to its journalists tapping into the mobile phone accounts of celebrities, politicians and worst of all even murder victims such as young Millie Dowling. In front of a U.K. government committee we get to see Murdoch and his son James squirm and turn but unsurprisingly a scapegoat was fed to the wolves and went to jail, the newspaper was summarily cancelled, making hundreds of staff redundant in the process, while the major players like the Murdochs and favoured employees like Rebekah Brooks lived to return another day.

In recent years, Murdoch hitched his wagons to those two major opportunists in Britain and America, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, in effect helping influence two of the most epochal political decisions in both these countries, the 2016 Brexit vote and the Trump victory over Hillary Clinton in that year's U.S. election, the consequences of which we are and will be living with for years to come. All this, by an opportunist, ambitious Australian-born press-baron who probably didn't even qualify to vote in either process.

The series ends with Murdoch high in the saddle again with his new celebrity-model wife, company succession to one of his anointed children resolved by default and the sale of most of his media interests to of all companies, the Disney Corporation for billions of dollars.

Lord Sugar in the programme waxes lyrical over Murdoch's achievements but in this it's he who is the sorcerer's apprentice. Other supporters of Murdoch might carp, but I found the programmes to be as balanced as they could be without the Murdochs' own involvement outside of archive footage.

Media monster or media master? In the final analysis I would say he was both.

Rupert Murdoch has been so powerful for so long that this series can tell the story of his later career, starting in the mid-1990s, and barely touch upon his remarkable life before then. This is a good documentary, with access to the right people and critically, a willingness to call a spade a spade. The one thing we don't really get is proof of his supposed business genius, which is taken mostly for granted; we get plenty of proof of his mostly baleful influence on the world. If nothing else his life is a demonstration of what society gets when it leaves everything open for the biggest bastard in the market. Almost the oldest material in this series is Dennis Potter's famous deathbed denunciation, which sadly still seems accurate 25 years later.

Another show that made the Guardian's top TV of 2020 was "The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty", a three part documentary about the Australian media mogul, his influence on worldwide politics and the internal dynamics within this family, as the debate over who may follow him begins to come to the fore.

Cheated out of what he considered his birth right, Australian Businessman Rupert Murdoch begins with a single newspaper and eventually creates a media empire of Newspapers and Television stations that spans the globe. With his acquisitions comes increasing influence, so much so that potential Prime Ministers are making sure that he is on side, as the right headline can make all the difference. This comes to a scratching halt when journalists at his News International company are caught up in a phone hacking scandal. But his influence re-exerts itself with the populist political movements of the 2010's on both sides of the Atlantic.

I don't particularly want to spend any time on the subject of the documentary, but I do feel that the amount of unelected political clout that Murdoch has been able to wield, is unsuitable to be in anyone's hands. Though if I'm honest, I'm disappointed more that the various politicians involved were so greedy and self-serving to allow themselves to be influenced, more than with the particular influencer.

The documentary I thought was pretty good. The family and some of the key characters refused to get involved but I thought that the range and passion of the contributors was reasonably fair and balanced. The three-part structure works really well for the growth, ruin and re-emergence overarching story, as does the "family" tree showing the incestuous links that a country like Great Britain has run on for decades. I had no problem following the various strands of the story and the explanations were thorough and detailed.

It's not the documentaries fault that generally it's a disappointing story of how the world has been made, perhaps irreparably, worse (forget what I said earlier, I can't stay impartial) by it's subject. And I honestly felt that this was as balanced as any documentary is going to be capable of being.

This excellent BBC documentary shows the worrying influence of the Murdoch empire. Told in a reasoned and unsensational way, these three illuminating episodes are not (as one angry reviewer claims) "unwatchable" or "laughable" but in fact essential TV, highlighting the sinister forces at work in our society today.

A truly well produced and Informative docuseries. Absolutely a must watch!!