Dear Marjorie,
Read your letter when I got home last night. It kept me up late. “I tend to forget who owns you. …” Wow. Smoke rises from the screen. I haven’t read such a stinging opening paragraph since I last heard from the IRS.
In both cases, the words hurt because they were true. Yours, I admit, were slightly less painful because I don’t have to send you a check, but you are still basically right: I’m not going to attack Rupert Murdoch, or his wife, mostly because I work for him (or them, if we believe the Wall Street Journal’s account). I cop to a conflicted combination of loyalty and cowardice here. And, yes, I know I’m the same person who just gave that poor Jeopardy contestant such a hard time for being a wimp. So I also admit hypocrisy.
But let’s imagine just for fun that I was less loyal, not to mention braver. What would I say about Mr. and Mrs. Murdoch then? Knowing myself I’d probably make a few snippy and disapproving comments about their marriage. (I’ve never met either one of them, by the way.) I’d probably take a dig at her for being too transparently ambitious and upwardly mobile for my sensibilities. And then what would I say?
This is the part that stumps me. I know it’s fashionable to dislike Murdoch. I’m just not sure why. He’s supposed to be this big right-winger, but it’s not as if he’s disreputably right-wing. I believe I’m much more conservative on social issues than he is, for instance. (And judging from our respective domestic arrangements, I’m probably correct.) Yet I have lots of liberal friends. They don’t consider me embarrassing or my beliefs beyond the bounds of respectability. They don’t seem to anyway.
What’s the problem with Murdoch then? People used to say that he was bad for newspapers. That’s not an easy argument to make anymore. He’s kept the New York Post alive, and lively, at great expense for no obvious gain. Would Gannett have done that?
Or is the complaint that Murdoch is a particularly egregious sleaze merchant? Fox does put some pretty low-rent stuff on the air. But it’s nothing compared to what runs on BET, and I can’t remember the last time I read something unflattering about Robert Johnson. More to the point, when did liberals get so judgmental about the entertainment industry?
I don’t expect to get very far with my defense of Murdoch. I’m not a neutral voice in this debate, as we’ve established. On the other hand, I’m not sure I need or even want to defend him. I just want to know what’s wrong with him. This has turned into yet another lengthy digression by me from the vital News of the Day. Sorry. I didn’t plan it. I wanted to come back with something quick and amusing, like a challenge to you, a Talk writer, to defend recent comments by Tina Brown on something or other. Then I realized that I work for her, too.
Conflicted, I remain,
Yours,
Tucker
