Media Manipulated

If the need to know how media moguls influence journalists working for them ever arises, read Bruce Dover’s book “Rupert's Adventures in China” (Mainstream Publishing).

Dover’s account of Rupert Murdoch’s forays to conquer China offers a sobering insider view of how the boss of News Corp tried, but failed, to put China’s media market under his mantle, just as he did in Europe and the US with so much ease.

Bruce Dover* describes how Murdoch unsuccessfully labored to convince the Chinese Authorities that his bid to enter China’s media market had no hostile intent. It seems Murdoch went out of his way to prove to his interlocutors how he could use his magic wand to have his editorial staff toe the line, without having to issue edicts or anything of the sort that’s prevalent in China and many third-world countries. His is as simple a formula as throwing a piece of meet to a hungry dog ready to attack. Dover has coined a phrase for it: “anticipatory compliance.” He writes: “one didn’t need to be instructed about what to do, one simply knew what was in one’s long-term interests.”

Bygone are the times when journalists used to sit around the editorial desk and discuss the dangers of “self censorship.”

*Dover was Murdoch’s point man in China in the 1990s