Rupert Murdoch and the Systematic Sabotage of Democracy

How One Media Empire Normalized Deception Across the English-Speaking World

By Cliff Potts
Editor-in-Chief, WPS News

The Power to Shape Reality

Rupert Murdoch did not merely build a media empire. He built a political instrument.

Across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and beyond, Murdoch’s outlets have repeatedly demonstrated the same pattern: concentrate ownership, collapse the boundary between news and propaganda, and use narrative power to protect wealth, punish enemies, and destabilize democratic accountability. This was not an accident of personality or a side effect of market forces. It was a business model.

Murdoch understood something early and acted on it relentlessly: controlling how people understand the world is more powerful than controlling what they buy.

The Chicago Sun-Times: The Blueprint

Murdoch’s 1984 purchase of the Chicago Sun-Times offers an early case study. Prior to his acquisition, the paper had been a serious, competitive urban daily. Under Murdoch, its editorial tone shifted sharply. Sensationalism replaced reporting. Design and content increasingly mirrored Murdoch’s New York Post. Veteran journalists resigned. Pulitzer Prize–winning writers walked out.

The lesson was clear: journalism would bend to ownership, not the other way around.

Although Murdoch sold the Sun-Times two years later to focus on television, the template was set. Editorial independence was expendable. Influence was the objective.

Fox News and the American Experiment

Murdoch’s most consequential project was Fox News. Launched in 1996, it presented itself as a corrective to perceived liberal bias. In practice, it fused opinion, grievance, and misinformation into a highly profitable feedback loop.

Fox News consistently blurred the distinction between fact and narrative. During the Iraq War, it amplified false claims about weapons of mass destruction. During the Obama years, it normalized racialized conspiracy theories. After the 2020 election, it broadcast claims of election fraud that internal communications later revealed executives and hosts knew were false.

Courts ultimately forced accountability. Fox paid nearly $800 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. Judges ruled the claims aired by Fox were demonstrably untrue. Evidence showed Murdoch himself was aware of the falsity and permitted it to continue.

This was not journalism failing under pressure. It was deception maintained for profit.

The United Kingdom: Politics as Tabloid Sport

In Britain, Murdoch’s influence has been equally corrosive. His tabloids have long practiced political coercion by headline. Governments learned that crossing Murdoch meant punishment. Compliance meant support.

The phone-hacking scandal exposed the ethical rot at the center of this system. Reporters at Murdoch-owned papers illegally accessed voicemails of crime victims, celebrities, and even murdered children. The practice was not an isolated lapse. It was embedded in a culture that valued scoops over humanity.

Murdoch shut down News of the World only after public outrage made it unavoidable. Accountability came late and incompletely. Power remained intact.

Australia: Near-Monopoly as Ideology

In Australia, Murdoch’s home base, the damage is arguably greatest. News Corp controls the majority of the country’s newspaper circulation and exerts disproportionate influence over broadcast media.

Former prime ministers, including Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, have warned publicly that Murdoch’s outlets operate as a political machine rather than a news organization. Parliamentary inquiries have documented how this dominance distorts public debate, suppresses dissenting views, and amplifies misinformation—particularly on climate change.

When a single owner can set the national agenda, democracy becomes performative.

Ownership Without Accountability

Murdoch’s genius was not persuasion. It was insulation.

Corporate restructuring, cross-border ownership, and regulatory arbitrage allowed his companies to avoid sustained accountability. When scandals erupted, responsibility was deflected downward. Editors were fired. Papers were closed. Narratives shifted. Control remained.

The result is a system in which immense communicative power exists without corresponding ethical obligation.

Mike Royko Was Right

Chicago columnist Mike Royko understood Murdoch early. When Murdoch bought the Sun-Times, Royko openly referred to him as “the foreigner” and condemned the damage he would do to journalism. Royko later left Murdoch-owned outlets entirely, choosing professional integrity over platform reach.

History has vindicated that judgment.

The Record Is Now Clear

Across continents, across decades, across formats, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has demonstrated a consistent hostility to democratic norms. Truth is subordinate to power. Journalism is subordinate to ownership. Democracy is collateral damage.

This is not bias.
This is architecture.

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