I guess I really don't like being lectured to by rich kids about the genius of the free market

Here in what the locals like to call “Little Britain”, a nasty spat among the media elite has messily intruded on the public consciousness. The occasion giving rise to the current palaver was a recent speech darkly titled “The Absence of Trust” by none other than James Murdoch at the MacTaggart Series of lectures in Edinburgh on 28^th August. The speech was delivered on the twentieth anniversary of a memorable shot-across-the bow delivered by James’ dad, Rupert, at the same venue in which Murdoch-the-elder portrayed (probably accurately) a calcified British television media slumbering, contented and oblivious, on state subsidies as the digital media age beckoned - with Rupert Murdoch chomping at the bit in its vanguard. It was obvious that a speech on such an occasion by Rupert’s son-and-heir called for something special.

And Murdoch-the-younger delivered. In one sense, his was a tired reprise about the size and scope of the ‘beeb, whom competitors love to loathe as a state-sponsored behemoth stifling competition and distorting markets. But, by invoking Orwell, Mr. Murdoch cranked the debate up a notch. “As Orwell foretold,” he reminded us grimly, “to let the state enjoy a near-monopoly of information is to guarantee manipulation and distortion.” This certainly got people’s attention in a nation that takes its Orwell seriously indeed, as was no doubt intended.

It is important to keep in mind that the framework for this discussion – when stripped of all the accompanying sound and fury -- has been utterly upended since dear-old-Dad’s speech of twenty years ago: the debate now must be conducted against a backdrop which recognises the ascendancy of new formats, new media and the “New Media”. The last of these is dominated coincidentally by the Murdoch empire, which today wields enormous power in its own right, seizing market share in Britain, the U.S. and elsewhere, and dominating certain markets (such as television sports). It is for this reason that James Murdoch’s plaintive exhortations to throttle the BBC in order to save democracy ring a wee bit hollow.

Meanwhile, we Americans living in the UK can only shake our heads in admiration or disbelief at the chutzpah of the son of Rupert Murdoch lambasting the BBC as a “state-sponsored” Orwellian threat to the “plurality and independence of news provision, which is so important for our democracy”.

In calling for “genuine independence” in the news media, Mr. Murdoch is to be applauded, but his prescription for ensuring such noble aims errs in one crucial respect: it fails to take account a little thing called irony. When the premise of one’s thesis also happens to be utterly self-serving, irony may have an unfortunate cancelling effect. We can only take Mr. Murdoch’s earnestness at face value, which make the passages from Mr. Murdoch’s speech priceless examples of apparent complete lack of self-awareness, among them: “. . . people value honest, fearless, and above all independent news coverage that challenges the consensus,” which is an “inescapable conclusion that we must reach if we are to have a better society.”

“A better society”? Is this what the Fox Networks aspire to?

Even strident detractors grudgingly admire the discipline with which Fox News eradicates the very plurality and independence that James Murdoch now claims to champion. The reason Fox does this inevitably results from the very profit motive Mr. Murdoch claims ensures the opposite for example, there was money to be made in beating the drums of the Iraq war. When considering the alternative - providing thoughtful reporting and nuanced analysis – it was no contest. War sells, nuance doesn’t – especially in an America where attention spans grow ever more diminished. Slick graphics consisting of gauzy American flags ceaselessly waiving and jet fighters zooming across the screen between segments always help.

Can any serious observer say Fox News has elevated the level of debate over the past fifteen years? Fox News and the rest of the right-wing scream-machine have all but ensured the impossibility of any meaningful or productive debate in the United States about anything important. Fox’s fingerprints have been all over the “astro-turfed” “Tea-Baggers” masquerading as genuine “grass roots” citizen uprisings and the farcical town hall meetings that were supposed to be about health care reform, but which instead will be remembered for raising the prospect of having a president in the White House who is a Nazi.

If only we in the U.S. during the lead-up to the Iraq war had the equivalent of a BBC, which, of course, did not transcribe for public consumption White House or Downing Street diktat quite as dutifully as Fox News did. In fact, as Alistair Campbell memorably discovered, and amply demonstrated, the BBC turned out to be quite a thorn in the side of the British government. One can only wonder if Murdochs’ SkyNews in the UK has thus far stopped short of the outrageous excesses of Fox News in the U.S. as a result of being held in check by a rival state-sponsored news organization less motivated by profit. This contrasts alarmingly with the situation in the United States, where rival privately-owned news organizations fell quickly into line for fear of losing more market-share and even PBS, the once-independently minded Public Broadcast System, ran scared as Republicans cut off meaningful public funding. One can only wonder if changing this dynamic is what James Murdoch really wants to achieve. After all, as he so bombastically concluded at the end of his speech in Edinburgh (“[t]he only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit”), its all about profit.

James Murdoch’s earnest invocation of Orwell is ironic on levels too many to count: one might say it’s Orwellian.