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Leadership Discourse, Culture, and Corporate Ethics: CEO-speakat News Corporation

Joel Amernic • Russell Craig

Received: 21 June 2012 / Accepted: 18 September 2012 / Published online: 19 December 2012

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012

Abstract We explore the language of leadership of glo-

bal media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 2010, the year before

the phone-hacking scandal in the UK came to public

attention. Subsequent public enquiries in the UK exposed

unethical conduct by staff of News Corporation, a global

corporation whose Chairman and CEO was Rupert Mur-

doch. We focus on the ethical climate fashioned by ‘A

Letter from Rupert Murdoch’ that appeared in the opening

pages of the annual report of News Corporation for the year

ended 30 June 2010. Plausibly, Murdoch’s discourse in that

letter helped condition the inapt, unethical conduct of

News Corporation staff. We highlight the cultural and

ethical signs that were embedded in Murdoch’s letter and

which reflected the company’s tone at the top and ethical

values. We identify signs of a perverse leadership thinking

that possibly help explain the inappropriate cultural values

and ethical behaviours that were revealed subsequently in

evidence presented to public inquiries.

Keywords Culture � Discourse � Ethics � Leadership �Rupert Murdoch � News Corporation

Aims and Scope

This article builds upon prior research which has called for

greater attention to be accorded to the written and oral

discourse of powerful leaders, such as the Chief Executive

Officers [CEOs] of major global corporations (Amernic

and Craig 2006; Craig and Amernic 2011). Indeed, since it

seems plausible that ‘Leaders’ Words Sculpt Reality’

(Vignone 2012, p. 35), and since CEOs occupy central and

powerful roles,1 analysis of CEO discourse offers many

potential benefits and insights. Such analysis seems par-

ticularly important in the context of CEOs of global media

conglomerates because of the strong role they play in

helping ‘to shape the social world by exerting control over

issue-framing and information gatekeeping’ (Arsenault and

Castells 2008, p. 488).

On Tuesday, 19 July 2011, a day that he described as

‘the most humble day of my life’,2 Rupert Murdoch,

Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, appeared before

the U.K. Parliament’s House of Commons’ Culture, Media

and Sport Committee. This committee was investigating

serious allegations of phone-hacking involving journalists

and management of News Corporation’s London-based

J. Amernic

Joseph L. Rotman School of Management,

University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3E6, Canada

e-mail: [email protected]

R. Craig (&)

School of Accounting and Finance, Victoria University,

Melbourne, Australia

e-mail: [email protected]

1 Montgomery (2008, p. 5), writing in the Harvard Business Review,

asserts:

The CEO is the one who chooses a company’s identity, who

has responsibility for declining certain opportunities and pur-

suing others. In this sense he or she serves as the guardian of

organizational purpose, watching over the entity, guiding its

course … the vigil the CEO keeps must be a constant one.2 In response to an earlier statement by Murdoch that he was

‘humbled’ to give an apology to one of the victim families of the

phone hacking, Lane (2011) observed that ‘Of all the words one never

thought to find in the vicinity of Murdoch, ‘‘humble[d]’’, especially in

the passive voice, would top the list’.

123

J Bus Ethics (2013) 118:379–394

DOI 10.1007/s10551-012-1506-0

News of the World newspaper. By many accounts (such as

by Mallick 2011) Murdoch’s appearance achieved an effect

similar to that of four bank CEOs when they appeared

several years earlier before the UK Parliament’s Banking

Crisis Inquiry: that is, Murdoch engaged in a language

exercise by attributing blame and avoiding responsibility

(Hargie et al. 2010).

In 2011, News Corporation was a prominent diversified

global media company, controlled by the Murdoch family,

headquartered in New York, and incorporated under the

Delaware General Corporation Law. The company’s shares

were listed primarily on the NASDAQ exchange, with a

secondary listing on the Australian Securities Exchange. In

2010 annual revenues were approximately US$ 33 billion

and assets approximately US$ 54 billion (http://www.

corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=357, accessed 28 August 2012).

Lane (2011) described News Corporation as ‘… the owner of

Twentieth Century Fox, Fox News, and The Wall Street

Journal; the proprietor, in Britain, of The Times, The Sunday

Times, and The Sun, and the holder of a 39.1 % stake in

BSkyB, the country’s leading satellite broadcaster’.

In high-profile criminal cases involving CEOs, the

exercise of language mentioned above has been referred to

as the ‘Ken Lay defence’, the ‘aw shucks’ defence, or the

‘deliberate ignorance’ defence—it is characterized as a

situation where the CEO ‘sticks his head in the sand’

(Smith 2007).3 Such corporate leadership-through-lan-

guage by CEOs raises important issues regarding the tone

at the top of a company, the corporate culture thus fash-

ioned, and matters of corporate ethics. We reflect upon

Murdoch’s leadership of News Corporation to the time of

writing this article (September 2012), particularly in the

context of the behaviour and attitudes revealed in the

phone-hacking brouhaha. In doing so, we explore crucial

links between the tone at the top, corporate culture, and

ethical behaviour at News Corporation.

In its report released on 30 April 2012, the U.K. Par-

liamentary committee concluded that

… if at all relevant times Rupert Murdoch did not

take steps to become fully informed about phone-

hacking, he turned a blind eye and exhibited willful

blindness to what was going on in his companies and

publications. This culture, we consider, permeated

from the top throughout the organisation and speaks

volumes about the lack of effective corporate gov-

ernance at News Corporation and News International.

We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a

fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major

international company (House of Commons Culture,

Media and Sport Committee 2012, p. 70: original in

bold, italics applied here).

This strong conclusion bears gravitas for three important

reasons. First, at a political level, it links inapt corporate

culture to the tone at the top as set by a corporation’s

leaders. Second, it enunciates a standard of stewardship for

‘a major international company’. Third, it is blunt, with no

rhetorical softening of its conclusions (‘not a fit person’).

Thus, the tone at the top, as a shaper of corporate culture is

emphasized as an important matter for broader attention.

This is the perspective we adopt. Our purpose is to

emphasize that the language deployed by a corporate leader

is a means of corporate culture-shaping. Our particular

interest is in the leadership language deployed by Rupert

Murdoch before the phone-hacking scandal reached full

pitch in the [northern] summer of 2011: specifically, we

forensically examine Murdoch’s annual report letter he

signed as Chairman and CEO for the year ended 30 June

2010.4 Our intent is to expose pertinent embedded cultural

and ethical linguistic signs it contains.

An important contextual feature of our case study is that

Murdoch carried the dual roles of chairman and CEO. This

suggests (as a reviewer of this article aptly noted) ‘extreme

power in one dominant individual’. Although evidence indi-

cates that such duality is inconsistent with effective moni-

toring of a board of directors (Vo 2010), quite a few major

companies, in addition to News Corporation, such as JP

Morgan Chase, Disney, and Facebook, have resisted installing

a separate Chair (Egan 2012). Murdoch’s holding of these two

roles makes his discourse even more significant, and thus

further emphasizes the importance of its critical analysis.5

This article is organized as follows. The next section

explains how analysis of CEO discourse can provide

insights to the tone at the top of a corporation, and to the

thinking (including the ethical conduct) of a CEO. Because

our empirical analysis is of one form of CEO discourse (an

annual report CEO letter to stockholders), we then discuss

the importance of the CEO letter as an annual account-

ability narrative that provides strong insight to CEOs

3 We raise the issue of ‘deliberate ignorance’ or ‘willful blindness’ to

support our contention that the words of corporate leaders matter

rhetorically and therefore require close scrutiny. Our interest is not in

the legal status of such a rhetorical move because, as Heffernan

(2011) observes, this does not constitute a legal defence.

4 For economy of exposition, we also refer to his letter hereafter

simply as a CEO letter.5 In companies in which the CEO and board Chair roles are vested in

a single individual, especially a long-serving one, the possibility of

insidious dysfunctions such as groupthink and its handmaiden, willful

blindness, are ominously present (see Heffernan 2011). This seems

likely to be ever more so given that Murdoch was the founder of the

present News Corporation as a major global company. Centralizing

power in the hands of one person is problematic enough, but (as a

reviewer of this article observed) Murdoch is elderly. Thus issues of

cognitive impairment and succession become especially salient for

the company. This is where a strongly independent board would be

ever more crucial.

380 J. Amernic, R. Craig

123

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=357

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=357

themselves. The section after this discussion is devoted to

our two-part analysis: first, we examine instances of Mur-

doch’s singular first-person self-attributions in his 2010

CEO letter; and second, we conduct a ‘close reading’

analysis of that letter. In the concluding section, we argue

that the language (including metaphor) used by Murdoch

displays signs of a perverse tone at the top. We contend

that alertness to such language might have helped predict

the types of inapt unethical behaviours that were high-

lighted by the investigations into phone-hacking by staff at

several UK-based News Corporation papers.

Tone at the Top, Corporate Culture, and CEO-speak:

Monitoring CEO Public Utterances as the Voice

of the Corporation

CEO public discourse in whatever form (CEO letters to

stockholders in a company’s annual report, press releases,

interviews, and speeches) should be monitored with a view to

encourage the construction of a more functional and ethical

tone at the top. Our argument that such monitoring is desirable

is based on the presumption that the public utterances of

corporate leaders potentially can reveal important insights.

For example, Seidler (1974) uses content analysis to explore

American big business ideology; Craig and Amernic (2004)

analyse the leadership language of Enron’s two most senior

executives; and Amernic et al. (2010) use qualitative and

quantitative methods to understand the tone at the top of

several major US and UK corporations.

The rise of large multinational corporations over the past

century has often resulted in substantial human progress.

But sustaining capitalism’s enduring potential requires

commitment to persistent corporate critique. Such close

scrutiny and critique is not necessarily or endemically

hostile to capitalism, but rather serves as its close ally,

since unfettered capitalism (sometimes described pejora-

tively as ‘cowboy capitalism’) is a common precursor to

capitalism’s periodic severe crises.

The important need for permanent corporate critique is

made more vivid in the wake of what Boddy (2011) refers

to as the ‘Global Financial Crisis’ of 2008–2009. Boddy

argues that this crisis was caused, in part, by business

leaders who were ‘corporate psychopaths’ (p. 255). Such

dysfunctional corporate leaders ‘ruthlessly manipulate

others, without conscience, to further their own aims and

objectives’ (Boddy 2011, p. 256; see also Babiak and Hare

2006). If corporate psychopaths are typical of psychopaths

generally, ‘they have a narcissistic and grossly inflated

view of their own self-worth and importance, a truly

astounding egocentricity and sense of entitlement, and see

themselves as the centre of the Universe’ (Amernic and

Craig 2010, drawing on Hare 1994, p. 58).

Closer scrutiny of leaders of major corporations is required

by stakeholders (directors, other managers in the top man-

agement team down to front-line managers, non-management

employees, stockholders, and external stakeholders). A cor-

poration’s top leadership team should be monitored for signs

of perverse leadership behaviour, including troubling lan-

guage signs. Although we do not suggest or imply that all

corporate CEOs are corporate psychopaths, we contend that

some most likely are, and that others suffer from other dys-

functions, including destructive narcissism (Amernic and

Craig 2010), Machiavellianism (Jakobwitz and Egan 2006;

Paulhus and Williams 2002), and hubris (Owen and Davidson

2009; Brennan and Conroy 2012).

We proffer no claim to competency in diagnosing actual

clinical cases of psychopathy (or destructive narcissism,

Machiavellianism, or hubris) among corporate leaders of

large companies. However, we contend that the words

attributed to CEOs have the capacity to suggest a dys-

functional leadership-through-language that is allied with

such dysfunctions. Thus, we contend that monitoring the

language of CEOs is an ongoing responsibility of those

interested in helping to make capitalism work.

One means of monitoring CEO leadership is via the lan-

guage CEOs use in the various discourse situations in which

they find themselves. In particular, we contend that the formal

speeches and written documents produced with the impri-

matur of CEOs, and delivered by them, or in their name,

deserve close scrutiny. One such discourse medium of special

significance is the annual report CEO letter to stockholders.

The Importance of CEO Letters in Corporate Annual

Reports

CEOs engage in many different types of public utter-

ances—all with the potential to reveal important aspects of

CEO leadership-through-language. For example, Rupert

Murdoch’s testimony before a U.K. Parliamentary Com-

mittee on 19 July 2011 and before the Leveson Inquiry on

25 and 26 April 2012, involved two types of public utter-

ances: his prepared testimony (presumably crafted with the

assistance of public relations, legal, and management

assistants); and his unscripted responses to questions posed

by interrogators (although presumably he was coached in

these responses). Plausibly, Murdoch’s prepared testimony

was reviewed carefully by him in advance and was less

impromptu that his (probably rehearsed) responses to

questions. Although neither of these two types of CEO

public utterances seems likely to have been unconsidered

or off-the-cuff, both have the potential to reveal important

aspects of Murdoch’s intended corporate leadership-

through-language. Since our interest is in the tone at the top

before the phone-hacking crisis arose in mid-2011, we

Leadership Discourse, Culture, and Corporate Ethics 381

123

selected an example of one of Murdoch’s major public

pronouncements, from the period before the crisis, to

explore his leadership-through-language.

We chose Murdoch’s signed annual report letter to ‘fellow

stockholders’ that was published in the opening pages of News

Corporation’s annual report for 2010. Although CEO letters to

stockholders in annual reports are seemingly mundane dis-

courses, they have an important institutionalized, periodic, and

calendared role in the functioning of our socio-economy

(Amernic and Craig 2006, pp. 5–6). As such, and because of

their revelatory potential, CEO letters are important documents

to scrutinize. Although CEO letters have been used widely as a

source of data for quantitative analyses in the management and

related literature (for example, Bettman and Weitz 1983; Sal-

ancik and Meindl 1984; Jones and Shoemaker 1994; Abra-

hamson and Amir 1996), we adopt a micro-analytical focus

here in which a single sample of discourse is examined foren-

sically within its context (see also Craig and Amernic 2011).

Such an approach is consistent with Scheff’s (1997, p. 54)

contention that, in the study of human discourse, ‘any part

implies a larger whole, which is in turn part of a still larger

whole, and so on, up the ladder … this idea suggests a move-

ment back and forth between small concrete parts, and even

larger abstract wholes’. Thus, far from existing as an atom of

disconnected discourse, a CEO letter is embedded within a

complex social context and potentially reflects (and helps

constitute) the overarching grand discourse of which it is a part.

The specific letter we analyse was undated, but was

included in News Corporation’s annual report for the year

ended 30 June 2010. It was titled ‘A Letter from Rupert

Murdoch’ and was signed by Murdoch as Chairman and CEO.

The letter was almost certainly prepared before 6 August 2010

(the date of that year’s audit report), well before the phone-

hacking scandal came to public prominence. In effect, letters

such as this are an annual accountability narrative by the CEO.

Importantly, they are also signed by the CEO. Although we

have no way of knowing how much of this letter Murdoch

crafted personally, we accept the statement on lines 62 and 63

of this letter [reproduced in the Appendix] that Murdoch ‘sits

down’ each summer to write the CEO letter and ‘reflect upon

our [News Corporation’s] performance’.6

We regard CEO letters generally as important sources for

revealing crucial aspects of top management leadership.

Where there is sound evidence that the CEO was involved

intimately in the letter’s construction, some plausible con-

clusions about the CEO can be made. An example is Amernic

et al.’s (2007) examination of the transformational leadership

of General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch over his 20-year ten-

ure. Welch’s personal involvement in the writing of his letters

is well-chronicled (for example, by Welch with Byrne 2001).

In other cases where such direct evidence of CEO involve-

ment is not available, two possibilities arise. First, that there is

strong indirect evidence of the CEO’s involvement (see, for

example, Amernic and Craig 2006, chap. 8). Second, that

although no such evidence exists, the fact the CEO signed the

letter, and the letter is included as an integral part of the

company’s annual report, at the very least, ascribes a strong

intended leadership role for the language therein (see, for

example, Craig and Amernic 2011).

Analysis of Murdoch’s 2010 Annual Report Letter

to Stockholders

We begin our analysis of Murdoch’s CEO letter by

focusing on Murdoch’s use of the personal pronoun ‘I’, and

the context in which such use occurs. The close reading

analytical technique we employ is described as one in

which selected samples of CEO text are subject

… to multiple (usually three) close readings, con-

ducted from different (but mutually reinforcing)

perspectives. Each close reading constitutes an

intensive, almost forensic, scrutiny of the explicit and

implicit composition of the text … typically … one

close reading for ideology, one for rhetoric, and

another for metaphor (Amernic and Craig 2006, p. 6).

Thus, close reading involves multiple readings of text in

which the reading process is slowed down. The reader–

analyst searches for implicit assumptions, ideology,

silences, techniques of argumentation, and for metaphor.

The latter device is particularly pertinent here because it is

claimed to reflect culture (see, for example, Nunning et al.

2009; Su 2002; Wu 2009).7

CEO Murdoch’s 2010 letter to stockholders is reproduced

in the Appendix, with line numbering applied for ease of

analytical exposition. We undertake a three-step process.

First, each author reviewed written material pertaining to

News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch, including company

publications such as annual reports, academic publications,

6 The issue of who actually crafted of the letter was raised by a

reviewer of this article, who offered the following argument to

support Murdoch’s authorship:

I think it is highly relevant to this particular case that Mr

Murdoch commenced his career as a journalist … and is spo-

ken of as having been a good journalist…. Because of his

background as a journalist, he (more than most chairmen/

CEOs) is more likely to write his CEO letter himself. Judging

by his arrogance…in the CEO letter, and elsewhere, would he

consider anyone else more competent to write the letter? I

suspect not. …In this particular case, I wouldn’t presume he

crafted the letter with public relations, legal, and management

assistants.

7 Although close readings are rarely exhaustive or objective, they are

intended to serve as a springboard for much-needed countervailing

perspectives on corporate power and accountability.


123

and the popular business press. This facilitated understanding

of the context of Murdoch’s 2010 CEO letter, as a person’s

public life ‘forms a long prelude’ to a particular discourse

instance (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958). Second, each

author separately read Murdoch’s 2010 CEO letter several

times, making notes guided by the approaches mentioned

above (Amernic and Craig 2006). Third, the authors exchan-

ged their notes, reviewed each other’s work, and developed a

consensus analysis.

What emerges is a portrait of a CEO who set a tone at the top

in his company that is less than savoury, and that might be

regarded as less than ethically ideal. CEO Murdoch’s text is

characterized by traces of many of the worst linguistic attributes

of the tabloid press and ‘gutter journalism’ that attracted the ire

of the UK Parliament and the British people. Murdoch, as the

following analysis contends, appears contemptuous of many, to

be boastful and gloating, arrogant, hubristic, patronizing, and

(even if fleetingly) capable of seeming a vacuous purveyor of

nonsense.8

Self-Attributions in Murdoch’s 2010 CEO Letter: Use

of the Pronoun ‘I’

Focusing on Murdoch’s 15 uses of the first-person pronoun ‘I’

in his 2010 letter provides some elucidation to the claims, ideas,

and values he makes directly and personally.9 Such a focus also

provides insight to the corporate culture that Murdoch intended

to build. For example, in another CEO-context, Lord John

Browne, former CEO of the global petroleum company BP,

claimed in his memoir ‘I went on to transform BP into Britain’s

leading business and a global giant’ (Browne, with Anderson

2010, p. 5). An observer might, at the very least, raise questions

regarding Lord Browne’s inapt conceptions of leadership and

followership: after all, large, complex multinationals are not

‘transformed’ by one person. Such a view suggests a top-down

culture, with attendant rigidities (Amernic et al. 2010).

The importance of assessing a leader’s use of ‘I’ is sup-

ported by management and organization research on leaders’

self-serving attributions (see Bettman and Weitz 1983;

Salancik and Meindl 1984). The importance is also suggested

by research in psychology. For example, Raskin and Shaw

(1988, p. 393) found that ‘individuals who scored higher on

narcissism tended to use more first person singular pronouns

and fewer first person plural pronouns’. Although we hesitate

to claim that a CEO’s over-use of the word ‘I’ signifies a

‘transcendental ego’ (Shoemaker 1968, p. 555), we contend

that in an important annual communication document such as

the signed CEO letter, the use of ‘I’ has potential to reveal

important aspects of what the claimant (CEO) feels, intends,

and values—or at the least, what the CEO wishes to portray as

what he/she feels, intends, and values.

Indeed, Murdoch’s use of ‘I’ seems excessive in comparison

to his industry peers. For example, Disney’s CEO used ‘I’ four

times in his 2010 letter of 1,946 words (a rate of 0.21 %), and

Time Warner’s 2010 CEO letter used ‘I’ once in a letter of

1,257 words (0.08 %). A broader comparison using the ‘self-

reference’ measure in the text analysis software DICTION

(Hart 2000) indicated that Murdoch’s self-references in his

2010 CEO letter were highly significantly greater than the norm

using a corpus of corporate financial reports. Such apparent

overuse of ‘I’ seems inconsistent with the literature revealing

that company leaders who merge professional will with per-

sonal humility have a better chance of becoming ‘great’ than

companies led by celebrities (Collins 2001; see also Morris

et al. 2005).

The context of each of these 15 appearances of ‘I’ is

shown in Table 1, along with our close reading observa-

tions and analysis.

When a CEO uses the word ‘I’, he or she is claiming

(rhetorically at least) personal, intimate attribution. Thus, he

or she is announcing an opinion or affective state that he or she

holds as CEO, or at least intends the text’s audience to regard

as being held. Based upon our analysis, we suggest that CEO

Murdoch’s self-assertions represent linguistic signs of the

following underlying or extended root metaphor schema

(Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993; Werth 1994):

THE CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT IS BRUTAL

AND OF RAW NATURE (HOSTILE, DISRUP-

TIVE, UNPREDICTABLE, AND DEADLY)

ONLY A LOGICAL, DISCIPLINED, AND

STRONG ENTITY CAN SURVIVE AND FLOUR-

ISH IN AN ENVIRONMENT THAT IS BRUTAL

AND OF RAW NATURE

NEWS CORPORATION IS A LOGICAL, DISCI-

PLINED, AND STRONG ENTITY

RUPERT MURDOCH IS NEWS CORPORATION

CEO Murdoch also lays claim to being ‘reflective’.

However, this is somewhat confounding in view of the

absence of equivocality in this metaphor schema.

8 Murdoch’s CEO letter is stylistically different from CEO letters

published by most corporate leaders, and is somewhat akin to items

usually published in the tabloid press. There is an excessive use of

pronouns, contractions, and repetitions, including in the form of ‘call-

outs’ or sidebars. Timucin (2010) analyses the differences between

tabloids and broadsheets, concluding that tabloids use more biased

and involved/emotive language. A reviewer of this article noted that

the letter’s ‘tabloidism’ is unsurprising, given the journalistic

background of Murdoch and his probable authorship of the letter,

and that the tabloid style seems inconsistent with the purpose of a

CEO letter in a corporate accountability context.9 Instance #14 of the use of ‘I’ is replicated in a ‘call-out’, sidebar

text that is shown in BLOCK CAPITALS in the Appendix. We do not

count this use twice.


123

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um

aniz

esM

urd

och

,rh

eto

rica

lly

;h

eis

wri

tin

gto

‘yo

u’,

his

fell

ow

stock

ho

lder

s.

Wri

ting

ism

ore

inti

mat

eth

anem

aili

ng

or

(mo

reg

ener

ally

)m

any

oth

erfo

rms

of

com

mu

nic

atin

g.

He

rem

ind

su

sth

at

he

wri

tes

yea

rly

,ap

par

entl

yco

mfo

rtab

lew

ith

such

ari

tual

.

Mu

rdoch

’su

seo

ftw

oin

stan

ces

of

‘we’

isam

big

uo

us.

Do

esth

is‘w

e’re

fer

tost

ock

ho

lder

san

dM

urd

och

?O

rp

erh

aps

it

refe

rsto

sto

ckh

old

ers,

Mu

rdoch

,an

dal

lth

eem

plo

yee

sat

New

sC

orp

ora

tio

n?

Or

do

esit

just

refe

rto

the

sen

ior

man

agem

ent

gro

up?

Inte

rpre

tati

on

isle

ftfo

rth

ere

ader

.D

iffe

rent

audie

nce

sm

ayas

crib

edif

fere

nt

inte

rpre

tati

ons

of

‘we’

.T

he

ambig

uit

yo

fth

ep

ron

ou

n‘w

e’h

asb

een

iden

tifi

edas

arh

eto

rica

lm

echan

ism

wh

ich

Pet

erso

o(2

00

7,

p.

41

9)

call

sth

e‘w

ander

ing

‘we’

’,w

ith

a‘s

hif

ting

refe

rence

poin

t’.

#2

lin

e

6

Iw

rote

toy

ou

atth

isti

me

last

yea

r

We

ente

red

this

yea

rfa

cin

gst

rong

eco

no

mic

hea

dw

ind

san

dg

reat

un

cert

ain

tyab

ou

tth

eh

ealt

ho

fo

ur

mar

ket

s.W

efo

cuse

do

urs

elv

eso

n

stre

ngth

enin

goper

atio

ns

this

pas

tyea

ran

dem

erged

wit

hour

bu

sin

esse

sim

pro

vin

gm

ore

than

the

mar

ket

sth

emse

lves

#3

lin

e2

1

Bu

t,le

tm

eb

ecl

ear:

Id

on

ot

bel

iev

ew

ear

eo

ut

of

the

turm

oil

yet

.

So

ver

eig

nd

ebt

pre

ssu

res,

soar

ing

defi

cits

and

un

acce

pta

ble

U.S

.

un

emp

loy

men

tle

vel

sar

ek

eyo

bst

acle

sto

the

glo

bal

eco

no

mic

reco

ver

y.

Oth

ers

may

see

more

po

siti

ve

sig

ns,

bu

tI

bel

iev

eu

nti

l

thes

eis

sues

are

add

ress

ed,

mar

ket

s,g

ov

ernm

ents

,cu

rren

cies

and

con

sum

erb

ehav

ior

wil

lb

eu

np

redic

tab

le.

Inst

ance

#3

isfr

amed

by

Mu

rdoch

’sst

ron

gas

sert

ion

‘Bu

t,le

tm

eb

ecl

ear’

.C

lari

tyis

hig

hly

pri

zed

,n

orm

ativ

ely

,in

mo

st

Wes

tern

cult

ure

s.M

urd

och

isse

ttin

gth

erh

etori

cal

stag

efo

ran

appar

entl

ycr

uci

alre

vel

atio

nth

athe

does

not

bel

ieve

‘we

are

ou

to

fth

etu

rmo

ily

et’.

His

use

of

‘Id

on

ot

bel

iev

e’is

rhet

ori

call

yp

ote

nt;

ther

eis

no

equ

ivo

cati

on

(he

do

esn

ot

use

hed

ges

such

as‘I

do

not

thin

k’)

.M

urd

och

’suse

of

‘we’

seem

sto

be

anin

clusi

ve,

astu

terh

etori

cal

mov

eth

at

sig

nal

sh

isap

par

ent

inte

nt

top

ort

ray

sto

ckh

old

ers,

emplo

yee

s,p

erh

aps

cust

om

ers,

and

ever

yo

ne

else

(in

the

wo

rld,

incl

udin

ghim

self

)as

bei

ng

inth

esa

me

terr

ible

situ

atio

n,

caught

up

in‘t

he

turm

oil

’.D

espit

esu

chtu

rmoil

New

s

Co

rpo

rati

on

’sal

leg

edfe

ato

fb

ein

gre

new

edan

db

ein

gst

rong

er,

asas

sert

edb

yM

urd

och

,ar

ein

esca

pab

lyre

mar

kab

le

acco

mpli

shm

ents

.

InIn

stan

ce#

4,

Mu

rdoch

agai

nas

sert

sb

elie

f.H

eis

ap

edag

og

ue,

pre

sen

tin

ga

min

i-tu

tori

alin

mac

roec

on

om

ics.

He

list

s

thre

e‘k

eyo

bst

acle

s’o

rm

etap

hori

cal

imp

edim

ents

to‘t

he

glo

bal

eco

no

mic

reco

ver

y’:

sov

erei

gn

deb

tp

ress

ure

s;

soar

ing

defi

cits

;an

du

nac

cep

table

U.S

.u

nem

plo

ym

ent

lev

els.

To

get

her

thes

efa

cto

rsco

nst

itu

teth

e‘t

urm

oil

’an

dth

e

cau

se(a

cco

rdin

gto

Mu

rdoch

)o

fth

eu

np

red

icta

bil

ity

.

His

tuto

rial

seem

ssi

mp

list

ican

dv

erg

ing

on

arro

gan

tn

arci

ssis

m.

Cau

sean

def

fect

seem

mu

dd

led

.T

he

bro

adab

stra

ct

sett

ing

den

ote

db

yth

eap

par

ent

tech

nic

alte

rms

he

dep

loy

sis

sov

agu

eas

toco

nv

eyli

ttle

info

rmat

ion

abo

ut

New

s

Co

rpo

rati

on

.H

ow

ever

,th

isp

arag

rap

h,

incl

ud

ing

his

stro

ng

use

of

‘I’

toas

sert

no

n-b

elie

fan

db

elie

f,su

gg

ests

ast

rong

hu

bri

stic

per

son

alit

y(O

wen

and

Dav

idso

n2

00

9).

Murd

och

the

CE

Ow

ants

his

audie

nce

tose

ecl

earl

yhis

pre

scri

pti

on

for

eco

no

mic

reco

ver

y.

Th

us,

we

hav

eth

efo

llo

win

gm

etap

hors

:M

UR

DO

CH

AS

PH

YS

ICIA

Nan

dM

UR

DO

CH

AS

PE

DA

GO

GU

E.

Both

met

aphors

are

consi

sten

tw

ith

touch

esof

hubri

san

dper

ver

setr

ansf

orm

atio

nal

lead

ersh

ip-

a

sort

of

‘Fat

her

kn

ow

sb

est’

dis

cou

rse

(Lak

off

19

96).

#4

lin

e2

3

#5

lin

e3

0

Ev

enm

ore

un

pre

dic

tab

leis

the

fun

dam

enta

ltr

ansf

orm

atio

nth

atis

dis

rup

tin

gth

em

edia

ind

ust

ry.E

ach

day

new

pla

tfo

rms

and

new

way

s

of

com

mu

nic

atin

gan

dsh

arin

gco

nte

nt

chal

len

ge

us

toev

olv

eo

ur

busi

nes

ses.

But

itis

just

this

dis

rupti

on

that

pro

vid

esu

slo

ng-t

erm

op

po

rtu

nit

ies,

up

on

wh

ich

Iw

ill

refl

ect

more

late

r.

Mu

rdoch

’su

seo

f‘r

eflec

t’in

the

asse

rtio

n‘…

up

on

wh

ich

Iw

ill

refl

ect

mo

rela

ter’

seem

sp

rofe

sso

rial

(MU

RD

OC

HA

S

AP

ED

AG

OG

UE

).T

he

enta

ilm

ents

are

that

ther

eh

asb

een

sob

erco

nsi

der

atio

no

fis

sues

and

thei

rco

nte

xt

(‘th

elo

ng

-

term

op

po

rtu

nit

ies’

resu

ltin

gfr

om

‘th

isd

isru

pti

on

’).

Bu

tsu

chso

ber

con

sid

erat

ion

seem

sin

con

sist

ent

wit

hM

urd

och

’s

asse

rtiv

ela

ngu

age

dis

pla

yed

thro

ug

ho

ut

the

lett

er.

#6

lin

e5

0

Fin

ally

,w

eto

ok

step

sth

isfi

scal

yea

rfo

rw

hat

Ib

elie

ve

isa

logic

alan

d

dis

cip

lined

pla

nfo

ru

sin

go

ur

cash

and

stro

ng

bal

ance

shee

t.W

eh

ave

mad

ean

attr

acti

ve

all-

cash

off

ero

f7

00

pen

cep

ersh

are

toac

qu

ire

the

61

%o

fB

Sk

yB

that

New

sC

orp

ora

tio

nd

oes

no

tal

read

yo

wn

.

Her

e,M

urd

och

asse

rts

his

per

son

alb

elie

fin

a‘l

og

ical

and

dis

cip

lin

edp

lan

…’

Lo

gic

and

dis

cip

lin

ear

ed

esir

able

qu

alit

ies

in(W

este

rn)

corp

ora

tele

ader

ship

,so

Mu

rdoch

isla

yin

gp

erso

nal

clai

mto

thes

eq

ual

itie

s.N

oeq

uiv

oca

tio

nis

(lin

gu

isti

call

y)

on

dis

pla

yh

ere.


123

Ta

ble

1co

nti

nu

ed

Inst

ance

‘I’:

inb

old

and

enla

rged

.B

LO

CK

CA

PIT

AL

Sin

dic

ates

‘cal

l-o

ut’

tex

tO

bse

rvat

ion

san

dan

alysi

s

#7

lin

e6

2

Th

eb

old

,st

rate

gic

mov

esth

atN

ews

Corp

ora

tio

nm

akes

thro

ug

ho

ut

the

yea

rput

us

squar

ely

inth

enew

ssp

otl

ight.

But

itis

the

consi

sten

cyof

our

Com

pan

y’s

core

stra

tegy,

and

the

clar

ity

itbri

ngs

toour

oper

atio

ns,

that

reso

nat

esw

ith

me

each

sum

mer

when

Isi

td

ow

nto

wri

teth

isle

tter

toy

ou

and

refl

ect

up

on

ou

rp

erfo

rman

ce.

OU

RC

ON

TE

NT

CH

AN

NE

LS

HA

VE

NE

VE

RB

EE

NS

TR

ON

GE

R,

OU

RV

IDE

OP

RO

DU

CT

ION

BU

SIN

ES

SC

ON

TIN

UE

ST

O

TH

RIV

E,

AN

DO

UR

NE

WS

PA

PE

RS

AR

EE

XP

AN

DIN

GT

HE

IR

BR

AN

DS

TH

RO

UG

HN

EW

TE

CH

NO

LO

GIE

S

Wh

eny

ou

hav

eb

een

inb

usi

nes

sas

long

asw

eh

ave,

yo

uar

en

o

stra

nger

toad

ver

sity

or

toin

stab

ilit

y.

We

hed

ge

agai

nst

unce

rtai

nty

by

inv

esti

ng

ind

iver

sifi

edas

sets

atal

lst

ages

of

gro

wth

.

Lak

off

’s(1

99

6)

‘Str

ict

Fat

her

’m

etap

hor

seem

sap

t.M

urd

och

‘sit

[s]

do

wn

tow

rite

this

lett

erto

yo

uan

dre

flec

to

no

ur

per

form

ance

’.T

his

isp

ater

nal

isti

can

dco

nsi

sten

tw

ith

his

use

of

‘I’

inin

stan

ce#

2,

wh

enh

e‘w

rote

toy

ou

atth

isti

me

last

yea

r’.A

sA

mer

nic

and

Cra

ig(2

00

6,p

.8

)obse

rved

about

Dis

ney

CE

OW

alt

Dis

ney

:‘C

EO

shold

pow

erover

man

y

oth

ers

and

oft

enb

ehav

eas

ifth

eyk

no

ww

hat

isri

gh

tfo

rth

ose

wh

od

on

ot

ho

ldp

ow

er—

that

is,

they

seem

toad

op

tth

e

mo

ral

con

cep

tual

syst

emo

fa

‘‘S

tric

tF

ath

er’’

’.C

uri

ousl

y,

Mu

rdo

ch’s

use

of

‘refl

ect’

seem

sin

apt,

asth

ece

reb

ral

imp

lica

tio

ns

of

‘refl

ect’

are

ato

dd

sw

ith

‘bo

ld,

stra

teg

icm

ov

es’

that

resu

ltin

‘us’

(Mu

rdo

ch?)

bei

ng

‘pu

tsq

uar

ely

in

the

new

ssp

otl

igh

t’.

His

use

of

‘refl

ect’

seem

sat

od

ds

also

wit

h‘t

he

con

sist

ency

of

ou

rC

om

pan

y’s

core

stra

teg

y’

and

‘th

ecl

arit

yit

bri

ngs

too

ur

op

erat

ion

s’.

Bei

ng

sosu

reo

fo

ne’

sp

ath

seem

san

tith

etic

alto

any

reas

on

able

inte

rpre

tati

on

of

refl

ecti

on

asa

men

tal

acti

vit

y(s

eeal

so#

5,

abo

ve)

.

#8

lin

e1

47

The

Fil

med

Ente

rtai

nm

ent

segm

ent

oper

atin

gpro

fit

gre

wto

are

cord

US

$1

.3b

illi

on

last

yea

r.I

amo

nly

hal

fjo

kin

gw

hen

Iw

on

der

if

ther

eis

any

on

ele

fto

nth

isp

lan

etw

ho

has

yet

tose

eA

vat

ar.

Th

at

gro

undbre

akin

gfi

lm’s

crit

ical

rece

pti

on

and

outs

tandin

gbox

offi

ce,

couple

dw

ith

the

thea

tric

alan

dhom

een

tert

ainm

ent

per

form

ance

so

f

Ice

Ag

e:D

awn

of

the

Din

osa

urs

,p

rov

eto

me

that

aud

ien

ces

ever

yw

her

ear

est

ill

hu

ngry

for

qu

alit

yst

ory

tell

ing

,p

arti

cula

rly

wh

en

it’s

mer

ged

wit

hth

ela

test

tech

no

log

y.

IsM

urd

och

hal

fse

rio

us

wh

enh

ew

on

der

sw

het

her

‘th

ere

isan

yo

ne

left

on

this

pla

net

wh

oh

asy

etto

see

[th

em

ov

ie]

Ava

tar?

’O

rdoes

this

com

men

tsm

ack

of

adel

iber

ate

or

unin

tenti

onal

‘outg

roup

pola

riza

tion’

(Van

Dij

k2

00

6)?

Th

at

is,

that

any

on

ew

ho

has

no

tse

enth

efi

lmis

ale

sser

per

son

and

sho

uld

be

shu

nn

ed?

An

earl

ier

exam

ple

of

asi

mil

ar

form

of

‘ou

tgro

up

po

lari

zati

on

’o

ccu

rred

atli

ne

23

:‘O

ther

sm

ayse

em

ore

po

siti

ve

sig

ns’

.B

yth

emse

lves

,th

ese

exam

ple

sse

emin

gly

appea

rto

be

just

inst

ance

sof

CE

O-h

ype,

but

looked

atin

com

bin

atio

nw

ith

all

the

oth

erin

stan

ces

of

gra

nd

iose

lan

gu

age

inth

isC

EO

lett

er,

they

seem

toen

cro

ach

on

hu

bri

s(O

wen

and

Dav

idso

n2

00

9;

Ow

en2

01

1).

Oth

erex

amp

les

of

gra

nd

iose

lan

gu

age

are

‘ren

aiss

ance

’(l

ine

19

2),

‘glo

bal

mer

itocr

acy

’(l

ine

19

3)

and

‘at

any

tim

ein

hu

man

his

tory

’(l

ine

19

3).

#9

lin

e1

47

#1

0

lin

e1

92

Ifi

rmly

bel

ieve

ours

isth

eer

aof

innovat

ion—

adig

ital

renai

ssan

ceth

at

isb

rin

gin

gu

scl

ose

rto

ag

lob

alm

erit

ocr

acy

than

atan

yti

me

in

hu

man

his

tory

.In

no

vat

ion

on

lyac

cele

rate

sas

hu

man

free

dom

adv

ance

san

dh

um

anb

eing

sh

ave

mo

rech

ance

sto

inte

ract

.

Mu

rdoch

’sas

sert

ion

regar

din

gth

isp

arti

cula

rfi

rmb

elie

fse

ems

inno

cen

ten

ou

gh

,if

rath

erv

acu

ous,

un

til

the

foll

ow

ing

word

sar

ere

ached

:‘…

ad

igit

alre

nai

ssan

ceth

atis

bri

ngin

gu

scl

ose

rto

ag

lob

alm

erit

ocr

acy

than

atan

yti

me

inh

um

an

his

tory

’.T

his

isa

hig

hly

con

test

able

asse

rtio

nan

do

ne

that

ign

ore

sa

mo

rech

illi

ng

ou

tco

me.

Th

e‘d

igit

alre

nai

ssan

ce’

that

Mu

rdoch

inv

ok

es(a

nd

wh

ich

he

leav

esil

l-d

efin

edan

dv

agu

e)is

no

tso

mu

ch‘b

rin

gin

gu

scl

ose

rto

ag

lob

al

mer

itocr

acy’

than

itis

enab

ling

the

conce

ntr

atio

no

fim

men

sece

ntr

esof

capit

alan

dpow

er—

such

asby

New

s

Co

rpo

rati

on

.

#1

1

lin

e2

09

As

Ig

lan

ceo

ver

the

ho

rizo

n,

Isu

spec

tth

atth

esu

cces

sfu

ln

ews

and

ente

rtai

nm

ent

com

pan

yof

the

futu

rew

ill

also

nee

dto

full

yem

bra

ce

tech

no

log

y.

To

pu

tit

ano

ther

way

,in

am

ark

etw

her

ese

llin

gq

ual

ity

con

ten

tin

crea

sin

gly

dep

end

so

na

kil

ler

app

,th

ed

ayh

asar

riv

ed

wh

eno

ur

med

iaco

mp

anie

sm

ust

fin

do

ur

med

iata

len

tp

artn

erin

g

wit

hour

engin

eeri

ng

tale

nt

tocr

eate

new

consu

mer

exper

ience

s.

InIn

stan

ce#

11

,M

urd

och

use

sth

ev

erb

‘gla

nce

’.A

cco

rdin

gto

ath

esau

rus,

this

sug

ges

tsa

‘pee

k’,

gli

mp

se’,

‘sk

im’:

that

is,

ale

ss-t

han

-th

oro

ugh

ob

serv

atio

n.

Th

isle

ss-t

han

-rig

oro

us

loo

k‘o

ver

the

ho

rizo

n’

com

bin

esw

ith

usa

ge

#1

2,

in

wh

ich

Mu

rdoch

‘su

spec

t[s]

’(o

rp

erh

aps

‘co

nje

ctu

res’

,su

ppo

ses’

).T

hes

etw

ote

nta

tiv

e,in

form

alfi

rst

per

son

pro

nou

n

stat

emen

tsse

emat

odds

wit

hth

ese

nte

nce

‘To

put

itan

oth

erw

ay…

new

con

sum

erex

per

ience

s’,

wh

ich

isd

efinit

ive

and

asse

rtiv

e(‘

the

day

has

arri

ved

…’)

.T

he

inco

nsi

sten

cyis

curi

ou

s.It

isal

soco

ntr

ary

toth

eea

rlie

rcl

aim

so

fcl

arit

y

(‘le

tm

eb

ecl

ear’

,li

ne

21

).

#1

2

lin

e2

09

#1

3

lin

e2

15

So

,fa

rfr

om

kil

lin

gu

so

ff,

Ise

eth

eg

reat

dis

rup

tio

ns

we

are

no

wg

oin

g

thro

ug

has

the

pre

lud

eto

an

ewg

old

ener

afo

rco

mp

anie

sli

ke

New

s

Co

rpo

rati

on

.

Fro

m‘k

ille

rap

p’

inli

ne

21

1to

Inst

ance

#1

3’s

‘far

from

kil

lin

gu

so

ff’,

the

lan

gu

age

evo

kes

imag

eso

fb

ruta

lity

and

the

hin

to

fa

per

secu

tio

nco

mp

lex.E

nti

ties

(‘u

s’)

may

be

‘kil

l[ed

]o

ff’.

Th

isis

sug

ges

tiv

eo

fa

vic

iou

s,h

ost

ile

env

iro

nm

ent

inw

hic

h,

acco

rdin

gto

Mu

rdo

ch,

just

ase

lect

few

com

pan

ies

(‘li

ke

New

sC

orp

ora

tio

n’)

wil

lo

ver

com

ew

ith

succ

ess

‘as

the

pre

lud

eto

an

ewg

old

ener

a’.

As

are

vie

wer

has

ob

serv

ed,

‘th

ere

isa

feel

ing

of

New

sC

orp

ora

tio

n/M

urd

och

agai

nst

the

wo

rld

(‘p

lan

et’)

…[a

nd

]…an

imp

lica

tio

nth

ato

ther

sh

ave

cau

sed

pro

ble

ms

for

New

sC

orp

ora

tio

n…

wh

ich

hav

e‘‘

dis

rup

ted’’

[ter

ms

wit

hth

isro

ot

stem

are

use

dth

ree

tim

es,

atli

nes

27

,2

9an

d2

15

]an

dp

ut

‘‘o

bst

acle

s’’

init

s

way

.T

her

eis

ato

ne

of

rese

ntm

ent…

’

#1

4

lin

e2

18

Ire

mai

nex

cite

dab

ou

to

ur

futu

rean

dse

eb

ou

nd

less

op

port

un

itie

sto

pla

yto

ou

rin

her

ent

stre

ngth

sas

the

wo

rld

’sle

adin

gco

nte

nt

pro

vid

er.

Tec

hn

olo

gic

alad

van

cem

ents

are

giv

ing

us

new

way

sto

sho

wca

se

ou

rst

ren

gth

s,en

han

ceo

ur

cov

erag

ean

den

cou

rag

ein

tera

ctiv

ity

.

Th

isco

mp

lem

ents

Inst

ance

#1

.M

urd

och

dis

pla

ys

ah

yp

erb

oli

cse

nse

of

op

tim

ism

(‘bo

un

dle

sso

pp

ort

un

itie

s…

the

wo

rld’s

lead

ing

con

ten

tp

rov

ider

’)an

dh

ed

eplo

ys

wo

rds

con

sist

ent

wit

hh

ub

ris,

per

hap

sev

env

erg

ing

on

the

nar

ciss

isti

c,in

sofa

ras

tex

tm

ayb

esu

gges

tiv

eo

fsu

chco

nd

itio

ns

(see

Ow

enan

dD

avid

son

20

09;

Russ

ell

20

11;

Cra

ig

and

Am

ernic

20

11).


123

Further ‘Close Reading’ Analysis of Murdoch’s 2010

CEO Letter

This second stage of our ‘close reading’ of Murdoch’s 2010

CEO letter is more broad-based than the first stage. Rather

than focusing simply on the pronoun ‘I’, we draw upon our

analysis of ‘I’ to help identify important, fruitful metaphors

and to direct further wider-ranging examination of other

language use. In adopting such an approach we are con-

sistent with Amernic et al. (2007).

A broad metaphoric image Murdoch has of his com-

pany, as revealed by the language in his CEO letter, is that

NEWS CORPORATION IS A GLOBE GIRDLING

ALL-CONQUERING GOLIATH.

Murdoch gives the overriding impression of being a supre-

mely confident, arrogant CEO who is the all-seeing leader of a

forever-successful company. Murdoch glows in having led the

company (by his own, at least implied, assessment) brilliantly

during a ‘digital renaissance’ (line 192).

Murdoch views News Corporation and its constituent

companies as ‘vast’ (line 103), ‘well-run’ (line 55), ‘vibrant’

(line 81); possessing the capabilities required to lead markets

(lines 105–106) and its industry (line 176). News Corporation

is ‘bold’ (line 60) and resilient, able to ‘endure’ economic

downturns and survive them to ‘thrive’ (lines 32–33). It is a

high energy and hyperactive company that never remains still,

as evidenced by numerous action words: it is a dynamic

company that engages in ‘negotiating’ (line 39), ‘delivering’

(line 44), ushering (line 45), ‘mov[ing] forward’ (line 59);

‘harness[ing]’ (line 187); ‘re-imagin[ing]’ (line 186); and

‘‘reinventing’’ (line 188). It does all of this while remaining

‘logical and disciplined’ (line 50), flexible (line 79), finan-

cially ‘well-managed’ (line 79), despite ‘fac[ing] continued

economic and competitive challenges’ (lines 124–125).

Murdoch’s fondness for overusing several keywords is

revealing too. He states persistently that News Corporation

is ‘strong’. Indeed, Murdoch seems obsessed with this

word and the image it conveys. Words with the stem root

of ‘strong’ or ‘strength’ appear 14 times. Murdoch appears

to be obsessed with ‘growth’ too. Words with the stem root

‘grow’ appear 17 times. The preponderant use of ‘growth’

is in connection with financial growth and profitability: we

have ‘operating income growth’ (lines 82 and 134); ‘rev-

enue growth’ (lines 90 and 141); ‘ratings [and advertising

revenue] growth’ (line 94); ‘profit growth’ (line 103); and

‘advertising [revenue] growth’ (line 105). Perhaps, as an

octogenarian,10 there are important image and impression

Ta

ble

1co

nti

nu

ed

Inst

ance

‘I’:

inb

old

and

enla

rged

.B

LO

CK

CA

PIT

AL

Sin

dic

ates

‘cal

l-o

ut’

tex

tO

bse

rvat

ion

san

dan

alysi

s

#1

5

lin

e2

24

New

sC

orp

ora

tion

has

alw

ays

bee

nat

the

fore

front

of

thes

e

op

po

rtu

nit

ies.

An

db

ecau

seo

fo

ur

tale

nt,

vis

ion

and

init

iati

ve,

Iam

cert

ain

we

wil

lm

ain

tain

ou

rle

ader

ship

po

siti

on

for

dec

ades

toco

me.

Super

fici

ally

,th

isuse

of

‘I’

seem

sli

ke

publi

cre

lati

ons

fluff

-em

pty

wo

rds

that

lack

sub

stan

ce.H

ow

can

any

on

e,in

the

real

wo

rld

of

‘tu

rmo

il’

that

Mu

rdoch

has

des

crib

edas

un

pre

dic

tab

lean

dd

isru

pti

ve,

clai

mto

be

‘cer

tain

’th

atth

e

com

pan

yh

e/sh

ele

ads

‘wil

lm

ain

tain

ou

rle

ader

ship

po

siti

on

for

dec

ades

toco

me’

?T

his

seem

sto

be

wis

hfu

lth

ink

ing.

Ho

wev

er,

we

mu

stk

eep

inm

ind

that

this

tex

tis

wri

tten

inan

ann

ual

rep

ort

CE

O’s

lett

er-

ash

ow

case

rhet

ori

cal

even

t.

Sin

cesu

chsh

ow

case

even

tso

ffer

lead

ers

wh

oar

ep

ron

eto

nar

ciss

isti

cex

cess

a‘s

tag

e’to

pro

clai

mth

eir

sup

erio

rity

,

could

this

be

ali

nguis

tic

sign

of

such

inap

tnes

s(C

raig

and

Am

ernic

20

11)?

Th

isis

imp

oss

ible

tote

lld

efin

itel

y,

bu

tit

isin

trig

uin

gly

sug

ges

tiv

e,es

pec

iall

yw

hen

con

sid

ered

inco

nju

nct

ion

wit

ho

ther

lan

gu

age

use

inth

ele

tter

.

10 Murdoch was born on 11 March 1931 (see http://www.biography.

com/people/rupert-murdoch-9418489, accessed 28 August, 2012). As

best we can ascertain, his letter was written in July or early August,

2010. Thus, at the time of writing, Murdoch was in his 80th year.


123

http://www.biography.com/people/rupert-murdoch-9418489

http://www.biography.com/people/rupert-murdoch-9418489

management advantages for Murdoch and his company in

asserting the company’s strength and growth?

Murdoch makes some statements that are incongruous

or highly ironic in light of the [then] subsequent emerging

revelations of the News of the World phone-hacking

scandal which exposed News Corporation’s abuse of pri-

vacy, and its unprincipled and unethical behaviour. The

phone hacking was done allegedly at the behest of, or

condoned by, News Corporation executives. At the time of

writing this article (September 2012) several high profile

former executives of UK-based News Corporation publi-

cations were among about 100 persons arrested and/or

charged with criminal offences by the police. These

include Andy Coulson and Neil Wallis (respectively, for-

mer editor and executive editor of News of the World);

Rebekah Brooks (former editor of News of the World, and

Chief Executive of News International); and Stuart Kutt-

ner, Greg Miskiw, James Desborough and Dan Evans

(respectively former managing editor, former news editor,

former show business reporter, and former reporter of

News of the World). Neither Rupert Murdoch nor any

member of the Murdoch family, nor any of the News

Corporation board, have been arrested.

Curiously, Murdoch’s assessment is that the company is

blessed with a remarkable staff, whose management can

demonstrate the ‘right leadership’ (line 121). He claims his

staff are variously capable of ‘clear vision’ (line 14),

dedication and innovation (lines 16, 56) and are ‘talented

and committed’ (line 55), with ‘extensive expertise’ (line

57). News Corporation staff have a capacity ‘to develop

market-leading capabilities’ (lines 105–106), presumably

because they possess ‘talent, vision and initiative’ (line

224).

Murdoch crows about the company ‘using rapid

advancements in technology to our [News Corporation’s]

advantage’ (lines 165–166); mentions the ‘tremendous

opportunity’ the company sees with mobile phone tech-

nology (line 170); claims the company knows how to

‘harness the power of technology’ (line 187); and makes it

clear that it knows what ‘quality journalism requires’ (line

179). One wonders whether his reference to the ‘killer app’

(line 211) could conceivably refer to the unscrupulous

phone-hacking practices and technology applications News

Corporation journalists engaged in, or commissioned.

Several revealing metaphors course through the letter—

although curiously, the very popular

THE COMPANY IS ON A JOURNEY

metaphor is absent (see Amernic and Craig 2006, chap. 8).

Perhaps the major coursing metaphor is

BUSINESS IS WAR

This metaphor is consistent with the metaphor




that emerged from our analysis of CEO Murdoch’s use of

the pronoun ‘I’ in the previous subsection. Thus, to survive

in such a hostile, changing environment, an entity must be

in a permanent state of war.

Murdoch makes it clear that News Corporation can win

in spite of adversity, economic turmoil, obstacles and

unpredictability (lines 21–25). The company can ‘capture

growth’ (line 108), operate in an environment in which

there are ‘winners’ (line 202), triumph over economic and

market adversities (lines 9–11), and outperform its com-

petitors (lines 90–91). It can do all this while exposing

itself to the risk of being ‘killed off’ (line 215). News

Corporation is a clear winner: it ‘will maintain [its] lead-

ership position for decades to come’ (lines 224–225).

Murdoch, like many narcissistic and self-obsessed CEOs,

sees himself (perhaps metaphorically) as a great seer and

visionary. Indeed, Murdoch seems to be in the vanguard of

such seers and visionaries: he possesses remarkable powers

and a supporting cast of managers who are prescient vision-

aries too (line 14). Murdoch announces himself as the arbiter

of what is, and what is not, an acceptable level of unem-

ployment in the US (line 22). Murdoch can ‘see boundless

opportunities’ ahead (line 218). Remarkably, he has super-

human powers as a visionary—he is capable of the impossible

for lesser (or any) mortals in being able to ‘glance over the

horizon’ (line 209).

As with Amernic et al.’s (2007) conclusion in respect of

former long-serving CEO of GE, Jack Welch, and consis-

tent with our earlier analysis,

MURDOCH IS A PEDAGOGUE

In avuncular style he uses folksy condescension to preach

to his audience: ‘When you have been in business as long

as we have…’ (line 75). Perhaps, as a reviewer has

suggested, Murdoch is trying to emulate Warren Buffet,

whose letters to stockholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc

attract such a ‘folksy’ following. Murdoch teaches the

world how News Corporation copes with adversity through

asset diversification (line 76). He gives us a lesson about

the need to innovate to survive (lines 204–205).

Murdoch’s letter features some extreme examples of

hyperbole. He claims that a subsidiary, FOX News channel, ‘is

simply unstoppable’ (lines 89–90). The company’s cable TV

presence includes launching ‘one of the most successful new

programs’ (lines 95–96, lines 100–101). In film production,

according to Murdoch, the company has produced ‘the most

successful film of all time’ (line 45); and has ‘ushered in a new

era’ of film and television (line 45). There appear to be no half

measures with News Corporation: it ‘provide(s) the highest


123

quality and the broadest array of content to the greatest

number of people, whenever and however they want it’ (lines

167–168); and it is ‘the world’s leading content provider’ (line

219). Even if Murdoch is ‘half-joking’ as he says, he reveals

hints of delusion in expressing his ‘wonder if there is anyone

on the planet who has yet to see [his company’s movie]

Avatar’.

Discussion and Conclusions

Murdoch seems to revel in the BUSINESS IS WAR met-

aphor. In combination with




this sets the ethical tone at the top of News Corporation.

Murdoch’s language suggests he believes that he and his

senior staff are gifted visionaries with the special abilities

needed to overcome and succeed in such an environment:

they can usher in a new era and provide the winning

answers in a ‘dog eat dog’ competitive business world.

Plausibly, such a tone appears to have bred a view that it

was acceptable for newspaper journalists and managers to

flout societal mores and ethical standards and to use that

‘killer app’[phone-hacking technology?] to get their sto-

ries, no matter what, and thereby to beat competitors.

We do not observe any overtly manic screed in what Mur-

doch writes. But perhaps the rhetorical power of Murdoch’s

letter arises from its attempt to ‘negotiate the power dynamics

of the network society to serve [his] overarching business goals’

(Arsenault and Castells 2008). Although the language and

metaphors he uses are perverse, such language choice is often

found in CEO letters more generally. Nonetheless, taken as a

whole, Murdoch’s language use is an outlier. But this is where

the power of CEO letters lies, because such letters can manu-

facture ‘normality’.

The rhetoric Murdoch used is tantamount to a perversion

of a human-centred society: it praises extremism in com-

petition and markets, and it asserts outlandish claims to

almost superhuman leadership abilities. Consistent with

various characterizations of Murdoch (see footnote #2 and

Lane 2011), there is a striking absence of humility. These

are all signs of a perverse culture that almost always will

lead to inapt ethical behaviour unless a countervailing

power, such as an independent board of directors, spots the

dysfunction and acts to remediate it.

CEOs of major corporations, especially those of mega-

media conglomerates such as News Corporation, should be

acknowledged more vigorously for their capacity to wield

‘enormous power to frame organizational reality for their

internal and external stakeholders [and to craft]… organiza-

tional cultures that reflect shared values, expectations and

values’ (Amernic et al. 2010, p. 157). CEO letters to stock-

holders ‘are a significant part of the ideological paraphernalia of

society … and deserve microanalysis [because] they are

accountability texts offering valuable insight to the motives,

attitudes, and ‘‘mental models’’’ of very influential CEOs

(Amernic and Craig 2006, p. 6). Importantly, in terms of the

setting explored, we should acknowledge the power of the CEO

to set an organizational culture that has ‘the potential to create

stifling organisational norms that facilitate corporate malfea-

sance and chicanery’ (Amernic et al. 2010, p, 157, italics

applied).

Close readings of CEO letters to stockholders (as illustrated

here) are especially important, as a countervailing discourse,

given the high levels of ownership concentration of global

media enterprises. It is important to promote (both inside

companies and in the broader community) an ‘awareness of the

role of CEO text in creating, often subtly and unobtrusively, a

shared social world … and [in] defining the public interest in a

narrow, self-serving and perverse way’ (Amernic and Craig

2006, p. 7). This is ever more so if we accept the view that ‘all

language is manipulation’ (Clark 2012, p. 121) and that the

language of an influential CEO such as Murdoch can possess

this characteristic.

A serious question arises as to the type of moral and ethical

code, if any, to which persons such as Murdoch should be

accountable. Do we need, as Clark (2012, p. 123) avers, ‘an

ethics of public language, which is necessarily an ethics of

public manipulation-through-language…’? This seems a par-

ticularly important question to ponder in the light of the growth

in CEO power in recent decades. This expansion of CEO power

has been characterized by a ‘growth of ‘‘heroic’’ models of

leadership [which have encouraged] many CEOs to exaggerate

their proficiency, level of insight, and ability to command

events (many of which are beyond their control)’ (Amernic

et al. 2010, p. v) and to develop a questionable, troublesome

‘tone at the top’.

Murdoch’s language, analysed here, reveals traces of

contempt for broader, society-based, ethical values. His hubris

seems to render him and his company [at least in his own

assessment] impervious to such broader values. In this con-

text, it is easy to accept that the tone he set at the top of News

Corporation was one in which his minions regarded the ‘killer

app’ [phone-hacking technology?] as an essential part of its

armoury in the war to achieve circulation sales and profit in a

highly competitive business environment.

Appendix

Rupert Murdoch’s 2010 Annual Report ‘Letter

to Fellow Stockholders’

[‘Call-out’ or sidebar text is shown in BLOCK

CAPITALS]


123


123

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