Exclusive interview: Rupert Murdoch on politics, climate change and media

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Probably from my mother. [00:00:11] Rupert Murdoch: Tell the truth. Um, probably my father, but others. Be curious. Always. [00:00:30] Speaker 3: When you do the hard things, sometimes you fall short. The referendum has failed. And tonight, we acknowledge that we have. [00:00:42] Speaker 4: We have some very important news. Buckingham Palace has just announced that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has died. [00:00:52] Speaker 5: Christopher Michael Dawson, you did murder Lynette Dawson. I find you guilty. [00:00:58] Speaker 4: In a unanimous decision of the High Court, Cardinal Pell's convictions have been quashed. [00:01:04] Speaker 6: Love has had a landslide victory! Congratulations! [00:01:10] Speaker 5: I have written to the Governor-General asking her to commission Rudd as Prime Minister of Australia. [00:01:19] Speaker 4: Here's our building, the supply shed. Here's the only thing that matters. They're goddamn here. We survive! [00:01:26] Speaker 7: I do not believe that the department knew that AWB was involved in the payment of bribes. [00:01:31] Speaker 8: We believe that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Centre. [00:01:39] Speaker ?: Broubert wins down! Cathy's the winner! Australia the winner! [00:01:45] Speaker 9: Diana, Princess of Wales, has died. [00:01:49] Speaker ?: Peace! Peace! Peace! [00:01:51] Speaker 10: Now they've started throwing paint, as you can see. Such violence has never before been seen inside the Australian Parliament. [00:02:01] Rupert Murdoch: That's a shotgun. [00:02:02] Speaker 10: That's a shotgun. [00:02:04] Speaker 11: There's somebody going crazy, shooting people here. [00:02:07] Speaker 12: And it is very shame for a country like this to be able to treat indigenous people in this regard. There's Mr. Mandela, Mr. Nelson Mandela, a free man. [00:02:18] Speaker 13: The wall has suddenly become irrelevant. How do you measure such an astonishing moment in history? [00:02:27] Speaker 14: I tell you what, any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up, the day is a bump. [00:02:34] Speaker 5: Well, I just yelled out, has anyone got a torch? Dingo's got my baby. [00:02:39] Speaker 9: Her Majesty, the Queen, has asked me to form a new administration, and I have accepted. [00:02:46] Speaker 15: Well, may we say, God save the Queen, because nothing will save the Governor-General. Severe tropical cyclone, Tracy, was sent at 80 kilometres west-north-westerly of Darwin. [00:02:59] Speaker 11: Senator Kennedy had been shot. [00:03:02] Speaker 16: It is feared that the Prime Minister has drowned. There have been almost 19,000 editions of the Australian newspaper published, but none more important than this. It's number one, 1964 original. It's 24 pages long, and there's lots of national politics on the front page, along with a bold, ambitious editorial, a mission statement, if you like. Inside, there's plenty more national and international news. Beijing is still called peaking, and of course, it goes through to plenty of sport at the back. Oh, and it cost a sixpence. But for the man who made it happen, it was, to that time, the biggest gamble of his young life. [00:04:08] Speaker 17: Could you describe which of your newspapers you care about most? [00:04:13] Speaker 11: Well, the Australian, I think, certainly at the moment. It's been the greatest challenge, and the biggest, certainly the biggest task that I've had. The biggest challenge I've ever put before me, I think, in life yet, is to establish this paper, to overcome the obstacles that we have. We still have more to overcome yet. [00:04:35] Speaker 16: 60 years on, and The Australian is still going strong. [00:04:39] Speaker 1: Good to see you, Rupert. Come through, please. [00:04:41] Speaker 16: So, too, is its founder. In a series of rare interviews, Rupert Murdoch sat down with Sky News CEO and former editor-in-chief of the Aus, Paul Whittaker... A lot of cameras. ..to talk about his early passion project. [00:04:56] Rupert Murdoch: Thank you, gentlemen. [00:04:57] Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch, congratulations on 60 years of The Australian. How are you feeling about reaching such an incredible milestone? [00:05:06] Rupert Murdoch: Well, of course, I love it. I'm proud of it. It's taken a lot of sweat, of my effort, and money. But it was important to do. It had a great effect on Australia. I mean, in the early days, it changed the existing papers, which were so... ..parade kill. [00:05:32] Speaker 18: You know, when Rupert talks about how conservative the press was at the time, he's quite correct. You know, these were real establishment newspapers, especially, I think, The Herald and The Age. So they represented everything that was kind of sleepy, everything that was a bit like Bob Menzies' Australia at the time. [00:05:54] Speaker 16: The year was 1964. The Vietnam War was underway. Robert Menzies' time as Prime Minister was nearly up. And Australia was a far cry from what it is today. [00:06:08] Rupert Murdoch: More British than now. And Menzies was always flying the Union Jack. And as a young, I thought, patriotic Australian, I was very critical. I look back at him, and he did some pretty great things. University systems and so on. [00:06:29] Speaker 11: You have given us not only an enormous majority, [00:06:33] Speaker 19: but an enormous task. What Rupert wanted to do when he set up The Australian in 1964, he wanted to shake up the country. I mean, he was dissatisfied with the Menzian period. He was dissatisfied with the performance of the Coalition in the 1960s. He wanted to grab the place and shake it up. [00:06:55] Speaker 16: Canberra was the birthplace of The Australian. Sydney would later become its home. In the hours leading up to the newspaper's first edition, cameras were allowed in to document the historic moment. [00:07:09] Speaker 20: It's a new paper, but the problems are the old ones. Coffee flows in from throughout the world and from the Bureau in each state. It has to be received, read and digested before it can be turned into a newspaper. And in this case, there's a precedent to be created. Tomorrow morning's paper has a style to set and an image to create. [00:07:30] Rupert Murdoch: Well, I think it changed the press, for one thing. When we started The Australian, the local papers, Sydney Morning Herald, even Melbourne Herald, were very, very proud of the kill. The news pages in the Sydney Morning Herald were run out on page five. It would force a national approach. National news, Canberra news is now more important as it should be. But we were part of that process. Others came naturally. [00:08:06] Speaker 21: Rupert was very much a disruptor and he wanted to shake things up a bit. [00:08:12] Speaker 16: Michelle Gunn is the Australian's editor-in-chief. [00:08:20] Speaker 21: God, it's a beauty. [00:08:22] Speaker 16: She says the guiding principles laid down by Rupert Murdoch 60 years ago still hold true today. [00:08:29] Speaker 21: And there's our beautiful editorial. Good day. I love that. [00:08:34] Speaker 16: The audacity of Rupert Murdoch to shut down the Canberra, which was literally a bush capital in those days, and start up this national newspaper. I mean, it's quite astonishing, isn't it? [00:08:46] Speaker 21: Oh, it was extraordinary. I think people don't realise what a visionary thing it was to do. He wanted to push an Australia that was outward-looking, that was confident, that was sure of itself. And I think those things are as true today as when he founded the paper in 1964. [00:09:09] Speaker 20: One floor down is where the die is cast. It's here that the ideas and hopes behind the venture must find their outward form. The proof of the paper is in the printing. [00:09:22] Rupert Murdoch: I moved down to Canberra, and it was a big adventure. When recruiting an editorial staff, the Australian Financial Review was making a big mark. So I recruited all the key people to come. A brilliant editor, Maxwell Newton. [00:09:48] Speaker 17: Well, he has this great ability as a managing director to get into the detail of the organisation. He carries this to extraordinary lengths. In the first four or five months, probably, I think, up until the time I left the Australian, Rupert would quite often be seen down on the stone making up the paper. Now, this bloke's running an organisation of ex-papers and millions of pounds. There he is, bits of lead making up the papers. Very unnerving. [00:10:24] Speaker 1: Are you a frustrated editor, or are you just a natural journalist? Both, I think. [00:10:30] Speaker 12: As a boss, I admire him as a newspaper man. He has, uh... virtually a complete mastery of the newspaper business and all facets of it. Advertising, machinery, circulation, printing, editorial. [00:10:51] Speaker 16: Is there anyone else like him in terms of that inside-out knowledge of the whole newspaper caper? [00:10:57] Speaker 19: I don't think there's been anyone to match Rupert Murdoch in his... ..his comprehensive... ..not just knowledge of the industry, his feel for the industry. With Rupert, it's tangible. It's tangible. He knows the production process. He's a natural journalist. [00:11:17] Speaker 18: Like most good journalists, you know, Rupert is an inveterate gossip. And he loves talking at that level. [00:11:24] Speaker 16: It was Rupert Murdoch's father, Sir Keith, who first thought of creating a national newspaper. Twelve years after he died, the son fulfilled the father's dream. [00:11:36] Speaker 1: How do you think he would feel today about your achievement in terms of what the Australian has become? [00:11:43] Rupert Murdoch: Well, I hope he'd approve, particularly, of the Australian. He might have some questions about a couple of ourselves. sensational tabloids, but it's not the Australian. [00:11:59] Speaker 20: Do you find any difficulty in reconciling the proposed dignity of the Australian with the very different image of your tabloid newspapers? None of them are left. [00:12:09] Speaker 16: Tell me about the contrast between the Australian and the other News Corp mastheads around the country. It's a broad sheet still and it's a much more sober analysis and reporting of events around the country, isn't it? [00:12:24] Speaker 18: Yeah, and I think, you know, Chris, at some level, the tabloids have actually changed more than the Australian has. So, you know, you say to people they might forget that the Daily Telegraph was, in fact, a blue-collar Labor paper, you know. Whereas I think the Aussies tended to be much more like the Aussies has always been. [00:12:46] Speaker 16: The Australian was first published on July the 15th, 1964. It was the middle of a Canberra winter and Mother Nature wasn't being kind to the fledgling newspaper. [00:12:58] Speaker 1: Is it true that such was your determination to get the newspaper out on occasion when the fog set in in Canberra that you'd sometimes meet the pilots in your pyjamas? Yes. They were killers. [00:13:10] Rupert Murdoch: The planes hadn't taken off and get out of bed and get out of the airport and try and get them to go in the air. [00:13:21] Speaker 18: I think he would argue with the pilots that it was safe to go. Obviously, I had a fair bit invested in producing each day, yeah. [00:13:29] Speaker 16: The alternative was to drive them up the federal highway by car. A young printer who would one day become chief executive of News Limited was often behind the wheel. [00:13:41] Speaker 18: So, you know, the stories of, you know, Ken Cowley having to drive the forms down in the back of the Holden because the airport was fog-bound and they couldn't fly them down to Sydney. So, you know, can you imagine that today that the chief executive of the company in Australia puts all of the forms in the back of his station wagon and drives it all from, you know, Canberra to Chalora for printing. [00:14:05] Speaker 1: Unbelievable, really. So, as the publisher of the paper, how did you balance letting the editors in those early days have their head against giving constructive feedback and advice? No, it's only 24 hours of the day [00:14:17] Speaker ?: of the day [00:14:17] Rupert Murdoch: and you can't do every paper every day. I certainly can't now, but I'm around. Don't know what I think. [00:14:27] Speaker 16: And they certainly did back then. Early on, Rupert Murdoch would post a regular bulletin in the newsroom critiquing the previous day's edition. This is from February the 26th, 1965. [00:14:40] Speaker 22: I should have done a bulletin for yesterday's paper. It was very good. Today's is not. Page one of Thursday's paper was one of the best yet. Today is very poor by comparison. Why can't we do these straight, simple stories, at least as well as other newspapers? [00:14:59] Speaker 1: Pretty blunt feedback? [00:15:01] Rupert Murdoch: Yeah, well, of course. I learned that in Britain working at Fleet Street Papers. The editor would do that. That was good. [00:15:10] Speaker 1: I think the staff wrote it. She'd stick it up on the board. Then there's this, the same month. [00:15:15] Speaker 23: Please note, we are not a left-wing Labour paper, nor are we tied to any particular political party or philosophy. We are simply in the business of reporting, interpreting, and sometimes commenting on the facts in that order. [00:15:30] Speaker 1: That sounds like your mission statement for a newspaper then and a newspaper now. Is that the case? Absolutely. I am interested in what we... [00:15:39] Rupert Murdoch: we say and comment at the end. But first, you've got to get the facts right. Easy to say, but difficult to do. [00:15:48] Speaker 16: That's the thing with The Australian. It breaks stories and puts facts into the public debate that perhaps aren't highlighted elsewhere. Is the paper more important for its news or for its opinion and debate? [00:15:59] Speaker 24: Oh, look, I always think it's news, Chris. You know, it has to be news. I'm on the opinion page, but I'm using what's in our news pages or I'm finding my own news, but it's really about news and facts. [00:16:16] Speaker 16: Janet Olbrooksen is a lawyer who's now spent more than 20 years as a leading columnist at The Australian. She writes without fear or favour. [00:16:26] Speaker 24: I always get amazed at how often people on the left, one of the other things that I would routinely get accused of in the early days is, so, you know, like, Rupert tells you what to write. [00:16:36] Speaker 20: He doesn't, actually. [00:16:37] Speaker 24: I've never heard from Rupert Murdoch. Has he never given you a suggestion? I've never, not even an editor at The Australian has given me a suggestion. You know, it's crazy there. [00:16:49] Speaker 16: Rupert Murdoch's intentions for The Australian were made plain in the very first edition. [00:16:55] Speaker 25: I will, of necessity as well as by choice, be concentrating on issues which interest everybody in Australia. [00:17:03] Speaker 16: He wrote the front page editorial. It was headed Good Day. [00:17:08] Speaker 22: This paper is tied to no party, to no state and has no chains of any kind. Its guide is faith in Australia and the country's future. [00:17:20] Speaker 24: I think we live that every day. You know, we have been critical of every side of politics. I think John Howard would be the first to say that The Australian on everything from the AWB to middle class welfare was very critical of him at times and that's what makes The Australian trustworthy for readers because they know that we are not at all political. We're not tribal. We just have a set of values and we'll hold any politician regardless of their stripes to those values. [00:17:53] Speaker 16: How was it on the end of an Australian investigator for a series? I didn't like it [00:17:57] Speaker 26: but I tried to tell myself this is a free media. Whenever Rupert Murdoch I think his name should be mentioned in this came to Australia when I was Prime Minister he didn't spend the time pitching with me for this or that policy change. We would have a meal and if he just wanted to talk to me alone we'd have it at the lodge with Kirribilli just the two of us. He was interested in talking about issues and that was I think part of his that is part of his success. He's interested in issues. He wasn't there just to make a pitch. I mean he had other people making pitches on that day. He's got a business to run. You bet and he runs it well. [00:18:41] Speaker 21: We believe the people of Australia will welcome this new approach to national journalism. This morning we believe we shall make thousands of friends who as the thinking men and women of Australia will have a profound influence on the future. You are welcome to this company of progress. Oh I just it doesn't matter how many times I read it it's this purpose meaning and purpose right there. [00:19:10] Speaker 24: God it's so uplifting isn't it? It is such an uplifting and timeless spirit to wrap a newspaper in and I genuinely believe that what we have done on economics on immigration on indigenous affairs and most recently on this social movement called the Me Too has been progressive. We want a better Australia we want a fairer Australia we want a just Australia we want our institutions to be working at their very best. That's the company of progress that I think we've invited our readers to be part of. [00:19:43] Speaker 16: Since 1964 under a succession of editors the Australian has aimed to stay faithful to Rupert Murdoch's front page mission statement. Here's some more of that pledge. We shall not hesitate to speak fearlessly. We shall criticise. We will not be influenced when there is public need for us to be outspoken. And 60 years on it's hard to argue that's not exactly what the Oz has done. [00:20:16] Speaker 1: What are the stories in the 60 year history of the Australian that stand out for you? The controversy on Vietnam War. [00:20:25] Speaker 11: The Australian [00:20:40] Speaker 1: opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and I think it was your friend the country party leader John McEwen who informed you of the government's decision to send Australian troops to support America in Vietnam. We've been quite loud in the Australian [00:20:56] Rupert Murdoch: and John said we've just made a decision which you won't like and you can blame me for it in darling. [00:21:07] Speaker 27: It will be all the way without the Jane. [00:21:14] Speaker 1: Looking back do you think that was the right decision both in terms of the Australian opposing it and in terms of the government's decision? I don't know to stay close [00:21:25] Rupert Murdoch: to America to help? Yes. But do the Americans remember that today? No, I think they assume Australia's a good ally so probably probably was right. [00:21:38] Speaker 16: In 1972 the Labour Party ended 23 years of Conservative rule. [00:21:45] Speaker 12: Men and women of Australia it's time for a new government. [00:21:51] Speaker 16: The Australian agreed and endorsed a vote for Labour's Gough Whitlam. [00:21:56] Rupert Murdoch: Gough Whitlam had had the Conservatives in power for decades. Whitlam came along and changed it. He attempted big thing. [00:22:08] Speaker ?: Find the freedom three years [00:22:13] Speaker 16: Three years later the honeymoon was over. [00:22:17] Rupert Murdoch: We thought it was time but we quickly changed our mind. I think it was time but the government was totally disorganised. Whitlam had no idea how to run a cabinet. [00:22:33] Speaker 15: All those who want Mr Whitlam to get to hell out of Canberra. Well may we say God save the Queen. Because nothing will save the Governor General. [00:22:54] Speaker 19: 1975 I think was the most turbulent year of national politics in the history of the country. [00:23:06] Speaker 16: Paul Kelly is the Australian's editor-at-large. In 1975 he was the paper's chief political correspondent in Canberra. [00:23:17] Speaker 19: I was very close to both Whitlam and Fraser but the view that I had was I had a very deep-seated view that the blocking of supply and the dismissal of Whitlam by the Governor General were wrong and the paper basically were not prepared to wear that. They felt that what I was writing as the chief political correspondent was too incompatible with the position of the paper so they removed me as political correspondent. [00:23:47] Speaker 16: And then he left the paper and wrote for the Fairfax Press. Ten years later he returned. [00:23:55] Speaker 26: He seemed to me to be more naturally fit and because he went on to become the editor-in-chief. In fact, the night before I became Prime Minister, Paul, and he then came over for dinner and he had the latest news poll and in his very serious voice, he said, do you want to know the results of the latest news poll? I said, yes! And it was very good. It was 54, 46 or something. I said, you're not going to put that on the front page, are you? He said, we have to. It's our latest news poll. And I said, it might scare all those people into voting for the Labour Party again. That's how nervous I was. I kid you not. [00:24:32] Speaker 27: The government that I will lead will be a government not only for the people who voted for us, but also for the people who voted against us. [00:24:43] Speaker 1: You've had dealings with more than a dozen Australian Prime Ministers on both sides of politics. Which of our leaders has impressed you and why? [00:24:54] Rupert Murdoch: You've got to give three hard marks to John Howard. Make the biggest noise, and some change. Gough Whitlam was a big turning point, I think. You had Fraser who beat him. It was, I think, a disappointment. I've known him all his life since school days. And I think John Howard was a mature man who ran the country well and through a lot of this development. It's Australia. [00:25:30] Speaker 1: So he would be the Prime Minister you'd regard as having achieved real transformation? [00:25:34] Rupert Murdoch: I think so, [00:25:35] Speaker 1: yes. So in terms of the British ladies you've dealt with, who were those that stood out most for you? Only one, Margaret Thatcher. [00:25:44] Rupert Murdoch: She really changed the country. And she got rid of the class system. She was a meritocrat. She was not upper class. But really, she was no nonsense. [00:25:55] Speaker 9: The ladies not are turning. [00:25:58] Rupert Murdoch: And she knew more about the government, any member of the cabinet, which of course they hated. You know, she'd be up from three in the morning reading the brief on something. [00:26:09] Speaker 28: I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience. The greatest [00:26:18] Rupert Murdoch: force was a man totally underestimated was Ronald Reagan. He said, what's your foreign policy? He said, we win, they lose. That's exactly what happened. The Soviets fell apart. [00:26:36] Speaker 1: He launched the Australian when the West was pitted against a former Soviet Union. Are we entering a new Cold War with China the main threat? [00:26:46] Speaker 29: The resolution of the Taiwan issue is a Chinese matter for us Chinese people to decide. [00:26:55] Rupert Murdoch: Will they invade Taiwan? We're not [00:27:00] Speaker 1: going to defend Taiwan. It's clear. It's American policy. So you don't think America will defend Taiwan? [00:27:07] Rupert Murdoch: No. [00:27:08] Speaker 1: Even though President Biden has indicated that they might? No, they walked that back. They've got the greatest [00:27:15] Rupert Murdoch: fighting force in the world. You've got to move them thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean to go there. If you put aircraft carriers, the Chinese can sink those where one rocket. No, I don't think [00:27:31] Speaker 1: so. What do you think Australia needs to do to maintain its sovereignty in terms of defence and economic policy? No question you've got to stick close to [00:27:44] Rupert Murdoch: America. It's all moving pieces. You can't predict everything. But we've got to get America right. There's no alternative to having a strong, vibrant America. [00:28:02] Speaker 16: Politics is not the only subject close to the Australian's heart. Indigenous affairs have long been a focus. [00:28:11] Speaker 30: Journalists didn't venture out into remote communities. It was almost like you shut out the eyes, the prying eyes of the rest of Australia. [00:28:21] Speaker 16: Jacinta Nampajimpa-Price is Coalition Senator for the Northern Territory. She calls the Alice home. [00:28:29] Speaker 30: The only way you can solve some of our really tough issues is to expose them, is to be able to direct that attention to the rest of Australia. That's the importance of being able to report and that is what the Australian did. [00:28:43] Speaker 31: We are people prior to this country. Please make it right. [00:28:49] Speaker 18: When I was a young sort of night editor, there used to be this theory that if you put a photo of a black person on page one, you know, Rupert would attack you and say, our readers don't want to see black people on page one. And I just thought that was absolute rubbish, you know. So I started putting good stories like that on page one, never got any blowback. It begins, I think, with an act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. During Eddie Mabo's time, we followed that story closely and both Ken Cowley and Rupert thought it was a good idea, you know, on the basis that probably Mabo changed Australia more than any other high court decision before then had done so. And I think, you know, Rupert himself, as a young newspaper man in Adelaide, had had a great [00:29:40] Speaker 1: interest in this issue. When you're in your late twenties, you're the proprietor of the news in Adelaide, you risked everything at that time to campaign to save the life of an Aboriginal man called Max Stewart. He was facing murder charges over the death of a nine-year-old girl and the hangman's noose. So why did you take on what many people may regard at the time as an unfashionable cause? it was unfashionable all right. [00:30:07] Rupert Murdoch: I think we even lost a bit of circulation. But we just believed in it. I don't like the death penalty and there was serious doubt on this man's guilt. And finally a commission I think he was let off. [00:30:23] Speaker 1: The Australian was years ahead of its time in terms of giving prominence to Indigenous issues. How proud are you of that legacy? Oh, very. [00:30:33] Rupert Murdoch: Um, yeah, I mean, we're invaders in a sense. Um, they were nomadic people with a lot of history. I mean, there were some outrages, like in Tasmania. Um, you know, that's a cross we have to bear. [00:30:59] Speaker 16: Which brings us to the voice referendum. [00:31:02] Speaker 3: On behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Uluru statement from the Harkin Ford. [00:31:10] Speaker 16: The Australian had covered the issue for years and week after week it gave voice to both sides of the debate. You and I were sparring through the pages throughout that debate, I suppose. At times I think we were exchanging more information in columns rather than speaking to each other. [00:31:27] Speaker 30: Yes, yes, we did. We had, um, we had some moments there and I will admit, um, to the public that, yeah, I decided not to speak to you for some time. Even though, um, you know, I think we can absolutely say that we're both passionate about those issues. [00:31:43] Speaker 16: And they were still being published, in our own words, without any interference, in the same newspaper. [00:31:49] Speaker 30: Exactly. Exactly. And that is what real journalism, um, looks like. It provides, you know, those broad opinions, um, something for Australians to really consider, uh, right across the board, um, you know, which I'm very, um, grateful for. Um, and of course I forgive you. [00:32:07] Speaker 16: Come polling day, the Aus recommended a no vote. [00:32:16] Speaker 21: And that was a very careful, considered position for us to take, and it was based on our view that the model wasn't right. [00:32:29] Speaker 1: What do you think of the result in terms of the Australian population resoundingly rejecting that proposal? [00:32:38] Rupert Murdoch: Well, I'm a long way away. Um, I understand the motive, but it strikes me, struck me as something which would end up being divisive without really achieving anything with the originals. So, from what little I know about it, I certainly welcome the result. [00:32:57] Speaker 32: There was one issue, uh, where the Aus took a, um, a divergent line, and that was whether Australia should become a republic. [00:33:08] Speaker 12: Australia forever, but God save the Queen. God bless them. [00:33:12] Speaker 16: Another referendum and another no vote. But this time, the Australian failed to read the room. [00:33:18] Speaker 32: My view is that if you're like Australia, the way it is, you'll vote no. [00:33:23] Speaker 16: The paper was right behind the Republican push back in 1999, but the voters weren't. The Australian backed the republic, but the Australian people said no in no uncertain terms. [00:33:35] Speaker 21: Yeah, I remember that, uh, I remember that well. The Australian really did campaign very hard for a republic. And of course, the paper's editorial line to this day remains, um, one in favour of a republic when the time is right. [00:33:53] Speaker 7: Last night's, uh, count, uh, delivered a clear verdict in favour of the no case. [00:33:59] Speaker 26: Australia overwhelmingly rejected the republic on offer in yesterday's referendum. And, and of course, the Oz was strongly in favour of that, still is, fair enough. They're wrong. But anyway, leave that aside. [00:34:11] Speaker 1: As a staunch Republican yourself, I think you made a last-ditch plea for a republic on the front page of the newspaper. Really? My name? I've forgotten that. So, my question is, do you think Australia will become a republic by the time of the Australian's 70th birthday? I think without a doubt. It's going to evolve. [00:34:31] Rupert Murdoch: Um, John Howard, who's old-fashioned, um, and therefore monarchist, I guess, um, was very clever the way he designed the question that was put to people. Um, which is really what do you put in his place? What's going to happen? [00:34:53] Speaker 32: I hope, uh, that at some time in the future, uh, the, the Australian might decide that just as the High Court is no longer bound by its own precedents, that perhaps the paper is no longer bound by this particular precedent, should the issue ever come up again. It looked good. It sounded good. [00:35:15] Speaker 7: But it's all gone sour. [00:35:19] Speaker 16: But there are some endorsements the Australian would come to regret. A case in point, backing Kevin Rudd in 2007. [00:35:27] Speaker 18: John Howard had rung me to, to ask for endorsement and I had said I was still considering it. [00:35:33] Speaker 16: Chris Mitchell was editor in chief at the time. [00:35:37] Speaker 18: I had told him my views on, um, you know, uh, he versus Costello and, you know, Rudd as a, a new, a newcomer. I intend to make the case why [00:35:48] Speaker 33: Australia needs new leadership now. [00:35:51] Speaker 16: The Australian famously editorialised in favour of Kevin Rudd in 2007. Do you recall that? Is that one they got wrong? Well, of course they got it [00:36:02] Speaker 18: wrong. I talked it over with John about two years later at the rugby, um, and he said to me, he said, look, I understood completely why you did it. He said, because, you know, we'd been there a long time. He said, and I guess you thought that, um, Rudd would be a safe pair of hands. And he said, I must admit, I thought he would be too. He said, I was quite shocked that he ended up being the way he has. [00:36:25] Speaker 26: I expected there'd be a Labor government under him for a couple of terms. And, um, he turned out to be, uh, quite a dud. [00:36:35] Speaker 18: I, I have no problem. And I think in my book, I recognise that it was my biggest mistake advocating for, uh, for Rudd, yeah. [00:36:44] Speaker 16: It might please you to know that Chris Mitchell, the then editor-in-chief, admits that's one call he got wrong. [00:36:50] Speaker 26: Yeah, well, so he should. Give you my regards, nonetheless. [00:36:55] Speaker 33: My name's Kevin. I'm from Queensland. I'm here to help. [00:36:59] Speaker 16: Is it inevitable that, uh, with all the, uh, debates raging, a paper like The Australian will get some issues wrong in its editorial stance, at least? [00:37:07] Speaker 24: Of course. Yeah, of course. I mean, that's the nature of a, you know, a marketplace of ideas. You don't get it right all the time. And by, by, um, getting things wrong, it means that those ideas are being tested by others. And then we're saying, okay, we may not have got that right. But we only know that through testing it. [00:37:27] Speaker 16: When it comes to investigations and breaking stories, history shows the Australian is fearless. [00:37:34] Speaker 18: Didn't shy away from Dr. Hanif. And to tell you the truth, I mean, I was pretty proud that Hedley got the, um, Gold Walkley for Dr. Hanif. [00:37:43] Speaker 16: In 2007, Hedley Thomas won his first Gold Walkley award for his reporting on Muhammad Hanif. [00:37:51] Speaker 14: My wrongful arrest and detention in 2007 was a traumatic experience for me and for my family. [00:37:58] Speaker 16: The Gold Coast doctor had been charged as a suspected terrorist. [00:38:04] Speaker 29: He suddenly became public enemy number one. The country's media, including for a while, the Australian, was running a line, a story that had clearly been, uh, filtered and fed by the Howard government and by very senior police. [00:38:25] Speaker 16: Thomas smelled a rat and pursued the story vigorously. [00:38:29] Speaker 29: In the end, we were able to show by some, um, pretty, uh, bold journalism at the time where we were being threatened with, um, very significant, uh, offences under, you know, national security laws and so on for publishing material that we were told was, um, not allowed to be [00:38:49] Speaker ?: published. [00:38:49] Speaker 29: We were able to show that this was a complete stitch up. [00:38:53] Speaker 16: Dr. Hanif was eventually exonerated and later compensated by government. [00:38:59] Speaker 34: I'd like to thank the Australian people for their support. Is it good? What would you like to say? Thanks, everyone. Good on you. [00:39:08] Speaker 16: Now, we've talked a lot about the role of reporting in the Australian, but especially from your perspective as a former editor-in-chief, talk to us about the role of the artists, especially cartoonists in the paper's consumption and character. [00:39:25] Speaker 19: So much of the paper is visual. We live in a visual world. The really interesting thing about newspapers are that they are a reading product and they're a visual product. [00:39:39] Speaker 16: A reader favourite in the Australian since day one is the Daily Cartoon. Why don't you turn to page 10 and check out, um, the very first cartoon in the very first edition? [00:39:55] Speaker 35: Fantastic. [00:39:57] Speaker 16: Where does Bruce Petty fit into the ranking of Australian cartoonists, do you think? [00:40:02] Speaker 35: He'd be right up near the top, I'd say, for sure. That's fantastic. Yeah. He was a good friend of my dad's, actually. [00:40:11] Speaker 16: Dad is the legendary Aus cartoonist Bill Leek. [00:40:15] Speaker 18: Bill called me two days before he died. It was the day he was going to the big function with Barry Humphreys. [00:40:23] Speaker 33: I know that it's International Women's Day. So I think the first thing I should do is apologise for not being a woman. [00:40:31] Speaker 18: And he said, oh, Chris, I'm not feeling well at all. And I've told his son this story. So, um, he said, I'm not really cut out for all of this, um, you know, political argy-bargy. I just feel that, you know, the, um, the whole Human Rights Commission thing is something I don't want to be involved in. For your chronic PC sufferer, feeling offended is about as good as it gets. Anyway, a couple of days later, Michelle Gunn rang me and said, look, you'd better sit down. Bill's had a heart attack this morning and he's just died. And I sort of felt, in a way, he had been driven to his death. I really did. [00:41:08] Speaker 16: In 2016, he was called a racist because of this cartoon. Bill was focusing on the root causes of Indigenous juvenile delinquency. [00:41:19] Speaker 18: I thought that sort of mad attempt to say that Bill was a racist, you know, like, Bill would be the least racist person you could ever meet. [00:41:28] Speaker 16: Like father, like son, Johannes Leek now fills the same cartoon space on the editorial page. Readers are loving his work. And so is he. [00:41:39] Speaker 35: Very few people have the sort of licence that a cartoonist has to mock the powerful and the self-important and celebrities. And, I mean, it's just a unique job. [00:41:52] Speaker 16: Who are you really enjoying drawing just at the moment? [00:41:56] Speaker 35: Well, I've got to say, Albo is giving me a lot to work with, for sure. Can you ever see yourself drawing him without some spittle coming out? No, no, I can't. I can't. If I don't draw it, it doesn't look... If I don't put the spittle in, it doesn't look like him. [00:42:12] Speaker 16: Well, Jim Chalmers, a lovely illustration of him for the budget. Is it that big goma pile sort of thing? [00:42:18] Speaker 35: Yeah, yes, he does. He does, yeah. Yeah, he's got... He's got a head sort of shaped like an AFL football and great big ears and a big nose and great big teeth and he's always grinning. [00:42:30] Speaker 16: I'm never going to get tired of seeing Chris Bowen with that sort of little wind turbine on his head. [00:42:35] Speaker 35: Well, it's just so fitting, isn't it? He'd like to absolutely carpet the country in these turbines, so the least I can do is put one on his hat. It's just one of those modified little kids' hats with the propeller on it, so I thought that that would work, you know? And the No Nukes t-shirt. [00:42:54] Speaker 16: And the No Nukes. You're actually a professional insurrectionist. [00:42:59] Speaker 35: That's right, that's right, yeah. [00:43:01] Speaker 16: That's your job. [00:43:01] Speaker 35: Yeah, that's pretty much right, yeah. [00:43:24] Speaker 16: It began life in 1964 as a 24-page newspaper. The Australian Today is that and much, much more. It exists in an insatiable 24-7 news cycle and people expect to be able to read it anywhere, anytime. So, while this print edition could face a use-by date, the Aussies' digital future should be endless. [00:43:48] Speaker 1: How long do you believe it will be before we see the last printed newspaper? [00:43:58] Rupert Murdoch: 15 years? It was a lot of luck. You get in a train to public transport, you see them with a paper. See, no-one now. They're reading all the facts on their phones. So, if I wanted to read you and you've got a great label, you can charge for that access. [00:44:22] Speaker 18: Rupert, when he, I think, in 2009 said the company was no longer going to be giving its news away, that journalism was an expensive business and as advertisers left newspapers, the revenue was going to have to be made up by consumer revenue, by paying for cover prices. Now, it seems to me that that digital solution has, you know, sort of saved newspapers. [00:44:50] Speaker 27: The Australian, the Australian... [00:44:55] Speaker 16: Like all newspapers, the Aus was buffeted by the digital revolution. [00:45:00] Speaker 36: Very difficult in Australia and in Britain. That affects circulations and we're moving more and more to a subscription model. [00:45:10] Speaker 16: In 2011, the paper made a bold decision. Its online content would no longer be free. It would only be available to subscribers. [00:45:20] Speaker 9: The Australian, for the informed Australian. [00:45:23] Speaker 18: The Aus was lambasted at the time. Amazingly crikey, criticised us, even though they were a paid website themselves. They criticised us, Virginia. I think the view at the ABC was that it would fail and yet it worked really well. [00:45:42] Speaker 16: The Australian's digital evolution has grown dramatically. There's live news coverage. There's video. [00:45:52] Speaker 17: Thank you. [00:45:54] Speaker 16: You've just assaulted me. There's audio. [00:45:56] Speaker 17: We are a racist country. [00:45:58] Speaker 16: Let's face it. And, of course, the podcasts. [00:46:02] Speaker 37: Well, it just feels like a decision that's against the interest of the victim and the families and in favour of the alleged perpetrator. [00:46:08] Speaker 16: How important is that to the Australian, breaking stories first, reporting on stories that other news organisations have not yet touched? [00:46:16] Speaker 29: I think it's the most fundamental thing. And, you know, apart from the deep analysis that the Australian's commentators, including yourself, have always done, we always wanted to beat the opposition. [00:46:30] Speaker 34: Lynette Dawson was reported missing by her husband, former Newtown Jets rugby league star Chris Dawson. There have been two inquests into... [00:46:38] Speaker 16: For award-winning journalist Hedley Thomas, the Teacher's Pet Project began in 2017. He wanted to unravel the mystery of missing Sydney mum Lynette Dawson. Thomas went to his bosses with a bold proposal to report the investigation through a podcast. They said yes. [00:46:58] Speaker 29: And they did that knowing that I had no idea how to produce a podcast. I'd only listened to a few and I, you know, had to learn from scratch. You know, I wasn't really given any proper grounding in it. But I think that's part of the ethos of the Australian. You know, you just put your head down and figure it out. [00:47:20] Speaker 9: I've lost a dear friend and I've carried it for years. And I miss her every day. [00:47:26] Speaker 29: And then we ended up with a global hit. [00:47:29] Speaker 9: I just want justice. And I'd love her little girls to know she didn't leave them. [00:47:35] Speaker 29: Number one in the US, Canada, UK, New Zealand. And, you know, it was the most unexpected result that we could have had. And I think that the realization dawned that there was an enormous interest from the listenership, from people who would perhaps never read the Australian in print, but wanted to listen to our journalism in a podcast. [00:48:05] Speaker 5: Christopher Michael Dawson, you did murder Lynette Dawson, I find you guilty. [00:48:13] Rupert Murdoch: What Hedley Thomas did and his team did with the teacher's pet was world class. [00:48:19] Speaker 29: We went out on a limb in a way that I hadn't done before and I don't think would have been possible if I were working anywhere else. [00:48:28] Speaker 21: God, it's a beauty. [00:48:32] Speaker 16: 60 years on from that first edition, [00:48:35] Speaker 21: Do you know there aren't many around still? [00:48:37] Speaker 16: Editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn leads the Australians charge into the future. [00:48:42] Speaker 21: The world's waiting, fly out and sell. How prophetic was it because The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal. [00:48:50] Speaker 16: How many years later he ends up owning that? [00:48:52] Speaker 21: Exactly. [00:48:53] Rupert Murdoch: When I bought the David Jones Company, which includes the Wall Street Journal, everyone said, I don't pay too much. Oh, no, it's gold. But that's 15 years later. [00:49:10] Speaker 21: There's never been a better time to be a journalist and I say that not because our business model isn't challenged but because it's such a rich and exciting and rewarding job and I say that because it's so fast. Our young journalists are experts in video. They're experts in still photography. They still have to be good at the written word, of course, but it's multimedia, digital platforms 24-7. The skill set required of them is quite extraordinary. [00:49:43] Speaker 8: Mr. Weatherhead, I'm feeling after the judgment. It's the case that half of Australia has been watching and the other half is absolutely gripped by. Bruce Lerman has been found a rapist by Justice Michael Lee in the federal court. [00:49:56] Speaker 38: Lerman, though, is our top new audience driver overall across all of our coverage so a really strong result there. Ricey and Ellie Splash, the rapist and the dodgy project was the top performer overall. It did 57,000 clicks, followed by... [00:50:09] Speaker 16: Daily Editorial Conference now considers much more than a newspaper. My hope today is that we might let Fiona Brown over the line. It's a multi-platform publication, competing and updating in a never-ending news cycle. It's kind of interesting. How does an editor keep up with all this? When do you sleep? [00:50:31] Speaker 21: Well, there's kind of four or five hours there. It is relentless. It's full on. [00:50:46] Speaker 13: First ball. Bale is off. He's bowled him. Gatting, can't believe it. [00:50:52] Speaker 21: When Shane Warren dies and it's two or three in the morning, editors maybe 10 or 20 years ago may have got the call from the cricket reporters on the ground in that part of the world. The difference today is we have to spring. We've got digital platforms and we have to publish immediately. So it is very much more immediate and the demands are much, much greater. [00:51:18] Rupert Murdoch: There's a new threat we have to settle on, artificial intelligence. I am an advanced artificial intelligent digital identity of Rupert Murdoch. [00:51:31] Speaker 16: AI is a challenge not just to the Australian but to all media. Yet typically, the Aussie's founding father sees it as an opportunity. [00:51:41] Rupert Murdoch: We invest in the writing and that's our IP, our intellectual property. AI distributes it prudently. If they want access to it, we're going to have to be paid or they'll put us out of business. But they're taking it now. That's the hot issue. If they put newspapers, they're out of business because you can steal this out. [00:52:10] Speaker 1: They're no longer collected. Do you see AI as a force for good or a force for ill? A force for good. [00:52:18] Rupert Murdoch: And we've got to settle this but absolutely, it's a great technological breakthrough. It takes these vast quantum computers to give answers in seconds. Now, it can be made to do bad things but equally, you can make things which counter that. I don't think there's any doubt there's a big... It'll put people out of work. When it does that, it'll create wealth and that wealth will be devoted to a new industry, [00:52:49] Speaker 6: new employment. Our plan of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, our plan gets the balance right. [00:52:59] Speaker 1: Do you think the net zero targets are achievable and can Australia and other first world countries get the balance right between concerns for the environment and climate and maintaining a competitive economy and affordable energy? No, I think we're absolutely on the wrong track. [00:53:19] Rupert Murdoch: I'm not a climate denier. I may be a sceptic of some of the things that I've said but you're going to have blackouts, you're going to have... The cost of living will go up all over the world but there are things to do. Abolish coal and have natural gas which is cheap and clean. In Australia, we're throwing away gas. I just think we're damaging ourselves competitively and foolishly. [00:53:55] Speaker 16: Here on the editorial floor of the Australian newspaper, journalists understand the role and the values of the paper of the newspaper. But from the outside, of course, there's never been any shortage of critics, especially on the political left, some of whom characterised the paper and the man who founded it as a malign influence on public debate. [00:54:16] Speaker 1: You're a person who divides public opinion. There are those who admire you greatly. Others accuse you of damaging democracy. How does the criticism and the personal tax get to you or does it not bother you? [00:54:30] Rupert Murdoch: And I've got a pretty thick skin. [00:54:32] Speaker 18: Rupert doesn't really spend much time in the past. I'm not a big person on regret or, you know, thinking things might have been better if I'd done something different. You know, each day, like a newspaper, like a newspaper editor, like a journalist, each day is new and you're defined [00:54:48] Speaker 1: by your work that day. So when you announced your retirement, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said, there is no individual alive who has done more to divide America than Rupert Murdoch. Your reaction to that? I think Malcolm's nuts. [00:55:04] Rupert Murdoch: I mean, he's paranoid. He didn't like the fact that we supported Tony Abbott versus him. That's all. [00:55:14] Speaker 39: The reality is News Corp and Murdoch have done enormous damage to Western democracy and in particular to the United States and Australia. [00:55:24] Speaker 19: Very few people don't have a strong opinion of the Australian. They either are passionately for it or passionately against it. And that tells you what we are. How dare you start telling me what I should do in terms of my career and lecture me about what moral position I should take. We are a paper that puts up in light our vision for the country and what we stand for. [00:55:53] Speaker 32: It's a deeply thoughtful newspaper and you don't necessarily agree with everything that's published there. And I dare say people on the centre-left disagree more often than they agree. But I don't think anyone who's actually read the paper over time could deny that it is attempting to bring the best thinking to the toughest issues. [00:56:25] Speaker 16: 60 years young, the Australian's influence is strong and longevity depends on constant innovation. [00:56:32] Speaker 1: Do you expect the Australian to be around in another 60 years in some form? In some form, absolutely. Well, that's up to us. [00:56:41] Speaker 19: The Australian as a brand and as a product is here forever. When you think of the Australian, just think forever. That's the way to think about it. The enduring mission has no expiry on it. What do you hope your legacy will be? [00:57:05] Rupert Murdoch: That people will continue this work, keep fighting for freedom of the press, freedom of expression for everybody, not just us. And that this will contribute and be seen to contribute to a better society. [00:57:24] Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch, thank you for your time. [00:57:28] Speaker ?: Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch.