Taming News Corp’s toxic culture
‘‘When someone tells you who they are,’’ counsels the novelist Maya Angelou, ‘‘believe them the first time.’’ The same advice applies to companies. Yet, though Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has been telling us about itself for years, many, from board members to regulators, have been effectively covering their ears.
Consider Fox News, a News Corp subsidiary. Despite the racist and sexist messages that have been a staple of Fox News’s reporting and commentary since the network was launched in 1996, it took more than 20 lawsuits alleging racial and sexual discrimination to bring real recognition to the problem. The unsurprising truth is that the company has long prioritised profit over ethics, treasuring the men who bring in the money, however badly they behave – or however flagrantly they violate the rights or dignity of their less lucrative colleagues.
During his 20-year tenure, Roger Ailes, the former chief executive of Fox News, fostered an environment rife with bullying, harassment, and misconduct. And, apparently, he led by example. Before he died earlier this month, 10 women publicly accused him of sexual harassment, while at least 20 more privately accused him of some kind of workplace harassment. Those accusations got him forced out of Fox News last year.
One person who eagerly followed Ailes’ example is Bill O’reilly. During O’reilly’s 21 years at Fox News, the network’s biggest star and its parent company paid five women a total of US$13 million to drop litigation or remain publicly silent about their sexual-harassment allegations against him.
The corporate culture that enabled Ailes and O’reilly to behave as they did was apparent even during their exit. Both were forced out only after they became liabilities.
The problem pervades News Corp. The long-serving editor of the United Kingdom-based Sun newspaper was recently dismissed for a column making a racist comparison between a soccer player and a gorilla. In 2011, employees of the United Kingdom tabloid News of the World were accused of engaging in phone hacking, police bribery and exercising improper influence.
After the hacking scandal erupted, the board was uncritically supportive of Murdoch. Though Murdoch stepped down as News Corp’s chief executive in 2015, he remains executive chairman.
Not much has changed since then. While board members have come and gone, the lax attitude to oversight and accountability remains as entrenched as ever. News Corp’s board apparently fails to grasp that corporate governance is not just about protecting the company’s bottom line. It is about detecting and addressing problems affecting all of those who interact with the organisation, including, for example, the family of Seth Rich, the murder victim around whom Fox News host Sean Hannity has spun a bizarre – and thoroughly refuted – conspiracy theory.
Given News Corp’s far-reaching influence, the failure of its board is all the more consequential.
News Corp has shown us who and what it really is. It is an organisation that wields massive power and influence, which it has no qualms about using. It has hacked people’s phones with reckless abandon. It has stuck by employees who behave in unethical ways, while punishing their victims. Most important, even after a major scandal, it has always reverted to business as usual as soon as public attention has waned.
It is time for us to believe what News Corp is saying. More to the point, it is time for those in a position to rein it in to believe what News Corp is saying.
News Corp should serve as a cautionary tale for regulators, independent board members and investors alike. When dealing with major companies and the sometimes-formidable figures who run them, vigilant and rigorous oversight is vital.
Lucy Marcus is chief executive of Marcus Venture Consulting.