News Corp AGM questions and more debate suppression

How Rupert suppressed free speech at his 2020 News Corp AGM

By Stephen Mayne

Rupert Murdoch continued his long and shameless record of suppressing shareholder participation and debate at this morning's News Corp AGM when his company secretary abruptly terminated the virtual meeting after just 26 minutes when there were still numerous unanswered written questions.

At its first ever virtual meeting, the News Corp board served up meeting rules on the day which limited shareholders to just two questions each, but these weren't spelt out in the notice of meeting.

After emailing the company and requesting a 16 digit “control number” to access the virtual meeting (ASX listed companies don't provide this obstacle), I'd prepared 9 written questions to lodge once the online portal opened just 15 minutes before the AGM started at 7am AEST.

However, the Murdochs never miss an opportunity to suppress participation, so their online question system didn't allow you to cut and paste. Every question had to be typed out directly into the system.

Rather than listening carefully to the deliberately rushed 8 minutes of formal presentations, this time was spent tapping out questions into the online system.

The operator declared that where a shareholder lodged more than two questions, they would be read out in order of being lodged. But even that rule wasn't followed as my first question was as follows and it was ignored:

"News Corp and Fox Corp have provided stronger support to Donald Trump than any other major media companies. Could Rupert comment on whether it is time for Donald Trump to concede defeat and support a smooth transition to President Biden?"

Instead, this was the first question read out although there no disclosure on who had submitted the questions:

James Murdoch resigned from the News Corp board earlier this over "disagreements with certain editorial content". Could Rupert and Lachlan comment on why we did not accommodate some of James' views on climate change and Donald Trump such that he didn't feel the need to completely walk away from the company?"

Lachlan Murdoch didn't say a word for the whole meeting and Rupert's response, unlike his formal address, was barely audible as The SMH noted today, although he did say “we do deny climate change, we are not deniers”, in a similar move to last year's AGM when he said “there are no climate change deniers around, I can assure you of that”.

Having censored question 1 on Trump, the operators also censored question 3 which read as follows:

Could Rupert and Lachlan please provide a summary of their connections to and associations with the Trump administration over the past 4 years, including with the President himself. In hindsight were we too close to the Trump administration preferring pro-Trump propaganda over traditional balanced journalism and are we worried Mr Trump will launch a media outlet to compete with the Murdoch interests in 2021?

Question 4 on when Rupert will retire was also skipped, another one related to James Murdoch's resignation as question 5 was censored and instead they opted to read out question 6 which was submitted as follows but they removed the bit about the Murdoch family being worth more than $U20 billion.

Question: News Corp stopped printing more than 100 regional and suburban titles earlier this year, costing the company an estimated $US111 million in revenue on an annualised basis. The Murdoch family are worth an estimated $US20 billion, surely the family can afford to bring back the print editions of some of these titles, ending the news deserts that have been created across Australia.

CEO Robert Thomson denied News Corp has created news desert and asserted that the titles were just as vibrant online, which is rubbish, of course.

Companies often dangle a distracting news hook for the media to latch onto at AGMs and in News Corp's case it was Robert Thomson's strong attack on the idea that Bertellsman , would win the current auction of published Simon & Schuster.

Thomson called for competition regulators to block such a move saying it would create a dominant global book publisher.

All up, it was a predictably undemocratic AGM season from the Murdochs. The Fox Corp AGM in Los Angeles last week was a physical meeting at the Fox Studios lot. It appeared that no independent shareholders turned up, no questions were asked and even online questions were banned at the 19 minute meeting.

And, of course, the thousands of Murdoch journalists across the world will not report a word of this, even as they regularly flog elected politicians who not being accessible or accountable.

If News Corp journalists were ever told they were limited to just two question in any public setting, they would be outraged, but they turn a blind eye when the boss does it.

This is understandable because any Murdoch journalist who publicly pointed out this hypocrisy would be instantly sacked.

Rupert Murdoch is an unaccountable dictator who doesn't really believe in free speech – certainly not when it comes to scrutiny of his own actions. Maybe it really is time to bring on that Royal Commission.

The 8 questions which were lodged by Stephen Mayne at the 2020 News Corp AGM

Question 1 (ignored)

"News Corp and Fox Corp have provided stronger support to Donald Trump than any other major media companies. Could Rupert comment on whether it is time for Donald Trump to concede defeat and support a smooth transition to President Biden?"

Question 2 (read out but no disclosure as to who had asked it)

James Murdoch resigned from the News Corp board earlier this over "disagreements with certain editorial content". Could Rupert and Lachlan comment on why we did not accommodate some of James' views on climate change and Donald Trump such that he didn't feel the need to completely walk away from the company?"

Question 3 (ignored)

Could Rupert and Lachlan please provide a summary of their connections to and associations with the Trump administration over the past 4 years, including with the President himself. In hindsight were we too close to the Trump administration preferring pro-Trump propaganda over traditional balanced journalism and are we worried Mr Trump will launch a media outlet to compete with the Murdoch interests in 2021?

Question 4 (ignored)

Mr Murdoch, you are about to turn 90 in March next year. Is it still realistic to remain chairman of two public companies. Please provide a summary of your health and cognitive abilities after a record-breaking 58 years as CEO of a public company and also a likely timeline on when you will be succeeded as the chairman of News Corp?

Question 5 (ignored)

James Murdoch told New Yorker magazine in July: "I think at great news organisations, the mission really should be to introduce face to disperse doubt - not to sow doubt, to obscure fact, if you will." Why does James Murdoch feel our journalist standards have fallen so low, that he can no longer serve on the News Corp board? Has Rupert spoken to James Murdoch about these issues recently?

Question 6 (read out but removed reference to family's worth)

News Corp stopped printing more than 100 regional and suburban titles earlier this year, costing the company an estimated $US111 million in revenue on an annualised basis. The Murdoch family are worth an estimated $US20 billion, surely the family can afford to bring back the print editions of some of these titles, ending the news deserts that have been created across Australia.

Question 7 (ignored)

The American people would never tolerate a voting system which almost 70 per cent of citizens couldn't vote. Could Rupert and lead independent director Peter Barnes comment on whether it is time to get rid of our undemocratic voting gerrymander which sees the Murdoch family control 40% of the votes but only about 15% of the total shares on issue?

Question 8 (ignored)

Murdoch men have been paid more than $US1 billion in salary and bonuses by public companies over the past 20 years. Could the remuneration chair address the question of whether it is time for the Murdoch men to work for free in light of these excessive salary payments over a long period of time?

Copyright © 2022 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved

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