# ‘Getting Murdoched’: How the Murdoch media attacks its targets

An episode of [7am](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1461999702), 13 Aug 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/62723a1f-3e96-4fc4-882c-b25e0181da4d/11f67c6e-ea7d-4c1d-985f-b4a5005dd4d5/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=70f29d90-2a63-48aa-bf8f-b25e0181da70

For decades, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has helped shape politics and public debate, and in doing so, has often left lasting consequences for some of the people caught in its sights, from politicians, to public figures to everyday people. The consequences can be devastating. Journalists Matthew Ricketson and Andrew Dodd have a name for what happens when that attention becomes a campaign, they call it ‘getting Murdoched’. Today, co-author of their new book Getting Murdoched, Matthew Ricketson on the people who’ve found themselves on the receiving end, and the media culture that could outlast Rupert Murdoch himself. If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram Guest: Co-author of Getting Murdoched Matthew Ricketson Photo: AP Photo/Jason Reed, Pool, File See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. For decades,
[0:11] Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch's Betty V Empire has helped shape politics and
[0:14] Speaker 1: public debate, and in doing so has often left lasting
[0:18] Speaker 1: consequences for some of the people coordinate sites, from politicians
[0:22] Speaker 1: to public figures to everyday people. The consequences can be devastating.
[0:28] Speaker 1: Journalists Matthew Richardson and Andrew Dodd have a name for
[0:31] Speaker 1: what happens when the attention becomes a campaign. They call
[0:34] Speaker 1: it getting murdocked. Today, co author of their new book
[0:39] Speaker 1: Getting Murdocked, Matthew Richardson on the people who found themselves
[0:43] Speaker 1: on the receiving end and the media culture that could
[0:46] Speaker 1: outlast Rupert Murdoch himself. It's Friday, August fourty eight. Matthew,
[1:01] Speaker 1: thanks so much for speaking with us in seven AM.
[1:04] Speaker 1: You've witnessed up close and you've even experienced it. So
[1:08] Speaker 1: what exactly do you mean by getting murdocked?
[1:11] Speaker 2: Getting murdock is when a person is the kind of
[1:13] Speaker 2: subject of hostile attention from the Murdoch media, usually based
[1:18] Speaker 2: on what you say or you believe that doesn't accord
[1:22] Speaker 2: with what they say or believe. You can get monstered
[1:25] Speaker 2: by one media outlet owned by Murdoch, or you can
[1:28] Speaker 2: get monstered by what Stephen Man calls the full Murdoch symphony,
[1:33] Speaker 2: the tabloid newspapers Sky after Dark, And since the late
[1:38] Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, Rupert Murdoch has owned around about two thirds
[1:42] Speaker 2: of the daily and Sunday newspapers in this country. Now
[1:47] Speaker 2: newspapers are not as influential or as large a part
[1:50] Speaker 2: of the media ecosystem these days as they were, but
[1:53] Speaker 2: they all have online editions, they all have kind of
[1:56] Speaker 2: reached into social media and so on, and so it
[2:00] Speaker 2: fair to say that Murdoch, along with the ABC, has
[2:03] Speaker 2: the biggest media footprint in the country.
[2:06] Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about some of the targets of
[2:09] Speaker 1: some of these prolonged campaigns, some of whom people would remember,
[2:13] Speaker 1: like Britney Higgins and Yasmin abdul Mage, Scott McIntyre. What
[2:18] Speaker 1: are the stories out of all the people that you've
[2:20] Speaker 1: spoken to for this book that stay with you the most.
[2:23] Speaker 2: Well, the Britney Higgins story has stayed with us. I
[2:26] Speaker 2: mean it has its origins back in twenty nineteen when
[2:31] Speaker 2: she claimed and then was proven in a civil court
[2:34] Speaker 2: to have been raped on a minister's couch in the
[2:38] Speaker 2: Federal Parliament. When I say it's a complicated story, it's
[2:42] Speaker 2: because it's spawned a kind of almost a cottage industry
[2:45] Speaker 2: of legal actions. And what we were interested in, not
[2:50] Speaker 2: to the exclusion of the other, but to investigate how
[2:53] Speaker 2: one newspaper and in particular one columnist one newspaper that
[2:56] Speaker 2: is The Australian. The newspaper and the columnist is Robertson,
[3:01] Speaker 2: have focused inordinately on the Britney Higgins case.
[3:05] Speaker 3: I think at The Australian we have done such a
[3:07] Speaker 3: tremendous job of making sure that we have covered this
[3:10] Speaker 3: case from just about every angle that we could, because
[3:13] Speaker 3: it seemed to us that much of the media we're
[3:17] Speaker 3: not interested in hearing from other women in this case,
[3:21] Speaker 3: that believa all women only applied to Britney Higgins.
[3:24] Speaker 2: What happens in the process, as she writes about one
[3:27] Speaker 2: hundred and twenty three articles over two and a bit
[3:30] Speaker 2: year period, is that most of the articles are very
[3:34] Speaker 2: critical of Brittney Higgins and treat Bruce Lehman and his
[3:39] Speaker 2: claims and so on very lightly.
[3:41] Speaker 3: From the moment that this case started. I was never
[3:43] Speaker 3: and I don't want this to sound callous, but I
[3:46] Speaker 3: was never terribly interested in what happened that night. I
[3:49] Speaker 3: was interested in whether there could be a fair trial.
[3:52] Speaker 3: And I think the moment that it became trial by media,
[3:56] Speaker 3: trial by parliament, trial by just about it every institution
[4:00] Speaker 3: in this country that coalesced against the presumption of innocence,
[4:05] Speaker 3: including a Prime Minister at the time who got up
[4:07] Speaker 3: in Parliament and said that he was apologizing for things
[4:10] Speaker 3: that had happened that night.
[4:11] Speaker 2: The effect of that is to tilt the scales very
[4:14] Speaker 2: heavily against Brittney Higgins and in favor of Bruce Lehman.
[4:18] Speaker 2: And then at a more human level, there's a question
[4:21] Speaker 2: of what impact that coverage has had on Britney Higgins.
[4:25] Speaker 2: And we interviewed her partner, David Sharaz, and he told
[4:30] Speaker 2: us that it has had a profound impact on her
[4:33] Speaker 2: mental health. I don't think that's all that surprising. I mean,
[4:36] Speaker 2: we're talking about not only the volume of articles, but
[4:39] Speaker 2: you know, we're talking about front page news stories and
[4:42] Speaker 2: long columns, investigations and so on.
[4:44] Speaker 1: What about some of the longer term impacts on some
[4:47] Speaker 1: of the other people you spoke to you, Matthew.
[4:49] Speaker 2: Well, in the case of Yasmin abdul Majid, there was
[4:52] Speaker 2: a period and it's died away a little bit, but
[4:55] Speaker 2: not entirely, where anyone who said anything that News Corp
[4:59] Speaker 2: people didn't agree with on Anzac Day got it in
[5:02] Speaker 2: the net. Let's go back to this Shla Yasmin abdil Margid,
[5:05] Speaker 2: I've mispronounced, but her kids.
[5:07] Speaker 1: So she posts less we forget on Facebook?
[5:10] Speaker 2: Can we show this again? So she posts less we
[5:13] Speaker 2: forget manis Narrusiria, Palestine, kubboom.
[5:16] Speaker 1: I got that one in there, all the lefty talking points.
[5:18] Speaker 2: She tweeted, lest we forget, and she added she was
[5:22] Speaker 2: thinking also about refugees on Manus Island and other places.
[5:26] Speaker 2: A friend of hers said, oh, you know that's not
[5:28] Speaker 2: going to work out. Well, it looks like you're hating
[5:30] Speaker 2: on the diggers, and she said, oh, okay, I hadn't
[5:32] Speaker 2: really seen it like that, but I'll take that tweet down,
[5:35] Speaker 2: which she did. Didn't stop the pylon. Then she became
[5:39] Speaker 2: a target, if you like, and so just about anything
[5:41] Speaker 2: she did was put under the microscope.
[5:43] Speaker 4: Abdil mcgid was invited to the Australian National University to
[5:47] Speaker 4: discuss leadership if no, she's no leader, and she joined
[5:52] Speaker 4: a panel of professors and department heads even though she
[5:55] Speaker 4: herself is no academic. Again, identity politics being invaded had
[6:00] Speaker 4: she not been a blacks and a woman.
[6:03] Speaker 2: So she was onder Council for Australian Arab Relations, which
[6:06] Speaker 2: is a government related body. She was tasked with going
[6:09] Speaker 2: overseas and talking about, you know, both the virtues of
[6:12] Speaker 2: democracy and trying to take that to various countries that
[6:16] Speaker 2: weren't democracies in the Middle East and elsewhere. That got
[6:20] Speaker 2: turned into this is a kind of a taxpayer funded
[6:23] Speaker 2: jaunt where she's going to go over and spread propaganda
[6:27] Speaker 2: about Islam and so on.
[6:29] Speaker 5: Thousands of dollars of taxpayers money by the Department of
[6:32] Speaker 5: Foreign Affairs and Julie Bishop to send her all around
[6:36] Speaker 5: the Middle East to preach from her book about how
[6:39] Speaker 5: wonderful Australia is to women and Muslims and a whole
[6:42] Speaker 5: range of other things. She then says it's a feminist religion.
[6:44] Speaker 5: She does all of this, I mean, she is absolutely
[6:47] Speaker 5: without credibility.
[6:48] Speaker 2: I mean, this was a very smart, energetic, vivacious vibrant
[6:52] Speaker 2: young woman. She described herself as a smart mouth and
[6:56] Speaker 2: a hejab. That was her phrase. Not a sin or
[7:00] Speaker 2: a crime as far as as far as I can see,
[7:02] Speaker 2: to be either vibrant or to express yourself fully and
[7:07] Speaker 2: briskly and violently and so on. And she got the
[7:10] Speaker 2: full Murdock symphony. She got it from a range of outlets,
[7:13] Speaker 2: and she got pounded over a period of time, and
[7:17] Speaker 2: she eventually left the country. And this happens to ordinary
[7:23] Speaker 2: people as well. The worst example is the thirteen year
[7:26] Speaker 2: old schoolgirl Millie Dawlo. She went missing in two thousand
[7:29] Speaker 2: and two and her phone was hacked by a private
[7:32] Speaker 2: investigator operating for News of the World. This was happening
[7:37] Speaker 2: while her parents were absolutely devastated and desperately anxious to
[7:42] Speaker 2: see whether she was alive or not, where she was
[7:45] Speaker 2: and so on, And as it turns out she had
[7:49] Speaker 2: been murdered during this period. At around this time, one
[7:53] Speaker 2: of the senior editorial executives at the News of the World,
[7:56] Speaker 2: he spelt out very clearly what the practices of the
[8:00] Speaker 2: paper were at this time when he was talking to
[8:03] Speaker 2: a reporter who was kind of asking questions about why
[8:05] Speaker 2: he had been asked to do a particular story, this
[8:08] Speaker 2: executive said, Listen, what we do is we go out
[8:11] Speaker 2: and destroy people's lives. That's what we do. Be it's
[8:15] Speaker 2: rare to see it all put that bluntly, but that
[8:18] Speaker 2: kind of level of cruelty and disregard for other people,
[8:22] Speaker 2: for other people's lives and for the effect of their
[8:26] Speaker 2: coverage on other people's lives.
[8:32] Speaker 1: Coming up? Can you still get murdered without Rupert? So,
[8:49] Speaker 1: given the lives you've seem destroyed by this global empire
[8:52] Speaker 1: which for decades has struck fear into the hearts of
[8:55] Speaker 1: even the most powerful, aren't you poking the bear with
[8:58] Speaker 1: this book? What makes you decide to write it? Risk
[9:00] Speaker 1: the empires of rash.
[9:03] Speaker 2: Look, there is a reason why a book of this
[9:06] Speaker 2: kind has not been written before. There are now about
[9:09] Speaker 2: nine biographies of Rupert Murdock out there probably forty other
[9:14] Speaker 2: full length studies of Murdoch and News corporation. And what
[9:17] Speaker 2: it does, very little of It pays attention to the
[9:22] Speaker 2: effect of what the Murdoch media outlets have been doing
[9:25] Speaker 2: now for seven decades plus, and as you say, across
[9:29] Speaker 2: three major countries Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States,
[9:34] Speaker 2: and even less attention has been paid to the impact
[9:38] Speaker 2: of their murdocking as we are calling it on individuals.
[9:43] Speaker 2: We were particularly concerned about the impact on ordinary people
[9:47] Speaker 2: who whether it's because they have a view that doesn't
[9:50] Speaker 2: line up with what news corps view is on a
[9:52] Speaker 2: particular issue, who they are, that is, they might identify
[9:55] Speaker 2: as a trans person, and particularly if they've identified as
[10:00] Speaker 2: trans younger in their earlier years. These are people who
[10:03] Speaker 2: are in a vulnerable state, and if nothing else, you
[10:07] Speaker 2: would hope that the media's coverage of that issue would
[10:10] Speaker 2: recognize the complexities of the issue and the sensitivities around
[10:14] Speaker 2: it for both the individual and their family and others.
[10:17] Speaker 2: We are not in the heads of either Rupert Murdoch
[10:21] Speaker 2: or his family or his editors, so we don't know
[10:24] Speaker 2: why exactly they do what they do, But consistently, going
[10:29] Speaker 2: back decades now, Murdoch's media outlets have been hostile towards
[10:33] Speaker 2: and targeted vulnerable and minority communities.
[10:37] Speaker 1: Matthew, in the book you look at how much of
[10:39] Speaker 1: this murderch culture is actually driven by Rupert Murdock himself,
[10:42] Speaker 1: So can you tell us a bit more about that?
[10:45] Speaker 2: It is in the sense that he has said. He
[10:48] Speaker 2: said this at an annual general meeting of News Corporation
[10:51] Speaker 2: in the mid ninety nineties, that the company is an
[10:54] Speaker 2: expression of his views, his beliefs, his ideas, and he's
[10:59] Speaker 2: proud of that. He's not kind of, you know, Lord
[11:02] Speaker 2: Voldemort sitting in the corner somewhere directing every single person
[11:06] Speaker 2: in that sort of way. What has happened is that
[11:09] Speaker 2: over time he's moved from hiring editors some of whom
[11:13] Speaker 2: disagreed with him, who he then sat, to hiring people
[11:17] Speaker 2: who either agree with him already or come to agree
[11:21] Speaker 2: with him. A former editor of The Sun newspaper in
[11:23] Speaker 2: the UK, David Yelland, is on the record saying that
[11:27] Speaker 2: as a kind of Murdoch editor, one of the things
[11:30] Speaker 2: you do is you wake up in the morning and
[11:31] Speaker 2: you say, what would Rupert think about that? Or what
[11:34] Speaker 2: would Rupert think about this? So it's become a kind
[11:37] Speaker 2: of self reinforcing company now in that sense, that doesn't
[11:41] Speaker 2: mean that they're all doing everything identically. Possibly a better
[11:45] Speaker 2: way to think about it is to think of News
[11:47] Speaker 2: Corp As a federation in that sense, which holds together
[11:50] Speaker 2: but has different kind of aspects and needs and purposes.
[11:54] Speaker 1: How much has this way of doing news impacted the
[11:58] Speaker 1: media landscape more broadly, do you think MESSI.
[12:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good question, because I think that's
[12:03] Speaker 2: actually the way in which Murdoch's tabloid outlets in the
[12:07] Speaker 2: UK operated, I'm talking about The Sun and the News
[12:10] Speaker 2: of the World, had the effect of dragging other tabloid
[12:14] Speaker 2: newspapers further down with them. And the reason that's a
[12:18] Speaker 2: critical point is that they're so aggressive and they're so
[12:22] Speaker 2: dogged in pursuing sensational material, often with a very cruel
[12:27] Speaker 2: edge to it. I mean, the phone hacking scandal is
[12:29] Speaker 2: the most egregious example of that. There's a moment that
[12:32] Speaker 2: we're now living in a social media age where so
[12:35] Speaker 2: much of the newspapers, as we talked about earlier, a
[12:38] Speaker 2: smaller part of the media ecosystem. There was an opportunity,
[12:42] Speaker 2: it seems to myself and Andrew, where Murdocks outlets could
[12:47] Speaker 2: have led a some kind of more considered and purposeful
[12:53] Speaker 2: and positive way of doing media in the mid two
[12:56] Speaker 2: thousands to combat the kind of flood of misinformation disinformation
[13:01] Speaker 2: that you see on social media, which was starting then
[13:04] Speaker 2: and is now rampant. They chose not to. They chose
[13:08] Speaker 2: to both perpetuate it and to be in the swill
[13:11] Speaker 2: alongside it. And so there's a sort of feedback loop
[13:15] Speaker 2: often between either Mrrock's media outlets put something out there
[13:19] Speaker 2: which gets picked up by social media and amplified and extended,
[13:23] Speaker 2: or vice versa. Some troll in social media will pick
[13:27] Speaker 2: something up, say some small item about a climate scientist paper,
[13:32] Speaker 2: a minor error. It'll be brought to the attention of
[13:34] Speaker 2: it Andrew Bolt or someone like that, and they will
[13:36] Speaker 2: then start to bloviate about it. As a result. We're
[13:40] Speaker 2: in a media ecosystem now where people think about notions
[13:45] Speaker 2: of whether it's balance or fairness, or simply investigating and
[13:48] Speaker 2: putting out a range of perspectives on an issue as
[13:52] Speaker 2: somehow quaint or old fashioned or whatever. And I'm absolutely
[13:57] Speaker 2: not persuaded that it much value. Would that in fact,
[14:00] Speaker 2: we need more of that and less of this kind
[14:02] Speaker 2: of intense anger and rage and yelling and screaming at
[14:07] Speaker 2: people on a personal basis. I don't see how that
[14:09] Speaker 2: is helping us at all.
[14:10] Speaker 1: I mean, are we stuck with this permanent changes part
[14:14] Speaker 1: of a new outrage industry, Matthew, or is there something
[14:17] Speaker 1: that can be done in a regulatory sense to stop
[14:19] Speaker 1: this type of pylon, given the impacts it can have
[14:23] Speaker 1: on people's lives, health, and reputations.
[14:25] Speaker 2: The short answer on regulation is that there should be,
[14:28] Speaker 2: but there hasn't been, and it's not for want of
[14:31] Speaker 2: various people advocating for it, including myself, but also many others.
[14:35] Speaker 2: It's an area where there's few votes because politicians are
[14:39] Speaker 2: very wary about doing it because they don't want to
[14:41] Speaker 2: upset various powerful media people. People in the media don't
[14:46] Speaker 2: want you to do it because you know, at the
[14:47] Speaker 2: basic level, nobody likes being regulated, nobody likes being scrutinized.
[14:52] Speaker 2: But most people in their saner moments, except that some
[14:56] Speaker 2: level of scrutiny and regulation is needed because that's how
[15:00] Speaker 2: you make various people and institutions accountable for what they're doing.
[15:04] Speaker 2: So it hasn't worked, unfortunately. I would love it if
[15:08] Speaker 2: it did, but it hasn't. I think if we've got
[15:11] Speaker 2: to the position we're in now, we should be able
[15:13] Speaker 2: to get out of it. At least partly, though, it's
[15:16] Speaker 2: got to come down to individual people actually making their
[15:19] Speaker 2: views known that this is not the kind of media
[15:22] Speaker 2: they want. If you're not shown other ways in which
[15:25] Speaker 2: to do media, you know. I mean, I'm obviously talking
[15:28] Speaker 2: to you on this podcast, and there's there are other
[15:30] Speaker 2: ways of doing media than simply looking at the ABC
[15:34] Speaker 2: or the Sydney Morning Herald or whatever. Then those need
[15:38] Speaker 2: to grow, those need to be supported, and there is
[15:40] Speaker 2: some attempts by government to do that, but it's partly
[15:44] Speaker 2: at least our own responsibility to kind of make our
[15:47] Speaker 2: views known. And what we hope is our book makes
[15:49] Speaker 2: some kind of contribution to people being both informed about
[15:52] Speaker 2: the issues, you know, debating the issues. I mean, like
[15:55] Speaker 2: this book, like any other, is open to debate and
[15:57] Speaker 2: argument and contest and having a proper discussion about these
[16:00] Speaker 2: things rather than yelling and screaming at each other.
[16:07] Speaker 1: Well, Matthew, the book is a value to contribution to
[16:11] Speaker 1: a national conversation on these very important matters. And we
[16:13] Speaker 1: thank you for coming on seven AM.
[16:15] Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.
[16:32] Speaker 1: Also in the news, What's the Blower, David McBride has
[16:35] Speaker 1: been released from a Canberra prison, granted parole after more
[16:38] Speaker 1: than two years behind bars. The former Army lawyer was
[16:42] Speaker 1: sentenced to five years and eight months jail for leaking
[16:44] Speaker 1: the classified documents behind the Afghan files. What's exposed alleged
[16:48] Speaker 1: war crimes by Australian special forces. He'll serve the rest
[16:51] Speaker 1: of his state to under supervision in the community, and
[16:54] Speaker 1: it's revealed he's been treated for lung cancer and will
[16:57] Speaker 1: need an extended period of recovery. Thousands of high school
[17:01] Speaker 1: and university students have walked out of class today protesting
[17:04] Speaker 1: Pauline Hanson and One Nation. Organizers say One Nation's stance
[17:08] Speaker 1: on issues like immigration, multiculturalism and student debt is harmful
[17:13] Speaker 1: to young people. Politicians, including the Victorian Premier our liberal
[17:17] Speaker 1: senator alexanderik have criticized the walkout, saying, Kingschen stay in school.
[17:22] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James, thanks for listening to seven AM. We'll
[17:25] Speaker 1: be back tomorrow

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