Why Rupert Murdoch's News International Big Business Is Too Big

There's nothing new in the idea that big business, big media, and big pharma are not necessarily good for society. Arguments against big business run along the lines of consolidation of wealth in a few hands, the homogenization of society, exploitation of scarce resources, and risks associated with single supply.

The scandal that has engulfed Rupert Murdoch and News International hint at another consequence that might be of direct concern to business owners rather than markets customers governments and suppliers. The elephant in the room involves the capability of any business owner to be in touch with what their business is doing operationally.

Taylorian approaches to management have implied that division of labour and hierarchical structures will solve that problem. Corporate Governance rules approach the solution to size from legislative point of view. These mechanistic processes have little hope influencing human action on the ground in advance of mistakes. Large corporates and large institutions per se are in this fundamental sense un-manageable.

Financiers and economists will hanker after economies of scale. This excludes any conversation to be had about the organisational downside of scale. Systems have a way of re-balancing themselves. This homeostatic effect seems to have tripped in with News International. Too big, too obsessed with profit, and too out of control. Put arguments about monopoly to one side and business leaders need to think about the size of an organization in proportion to capability to manage what it does.

There are unintended consequences for any action. Owning a big business means less awareness of the specifics, more distance from the sharp end, more chance of the organisation doing something you didn't expect. The bigger the barrel of apples the more probability you will find some bad ones. Big organizations mean that their owners and senior executives are pre-disposed to reactive fixing rather than proactive leadership and management. Setting up management reporting structures, delegating responsibility doesn't mean a business owner can delegate accountability. Omnipotence doesn't necessarily mean you are omniscient or omnipresent.

Rupert Murdoch Goodbye And Thankyou

What do think this image by the Daily Telegraph of Rupert Murdoch arriving in the UK portrays? Some will clearly think its the cyncial PR stunt of a bare knuckle fighter cum entrepreneur. Others might think its the feeble act of an old man who has lost touch with reality. But...


As media experts know, images have more than one connotation and as psychologists know behaviors are invariably founded upon sub-conscious attitudes.

Just ask yourself what has happened over recent years, and more particularly to the News Of The World News Paper. Now look again at the photograph. This is the picture of a businessman who has arbitrarily shut down a newspaper that was a profitable going concern and put hundreds of people on the dole.

Might it be the case that the picture symbolizes a callous disregard for the social welfare of other human beings? Might it be prima facae behavioral evidence of a person that shows absolutely no compassion for the feelings and opinions of others?

It seems that nobody needs to point anything out here because the act speaks for itself. Anybody working for News International might take stock and consider the nature of their employer at this time.

Open Letter To The Staff Of The News Of The World

Like many people I have read and followed with great interest the developments leading to the final publication of the News Of The World. Like many people I have been astounded at the lack of compassion ex-employees of the newspaper have displayed in their zeal to get a story.

I have also heard and seen the anguish and upset that the closure of the newspaper has created for a huge number of people at the publication and have no reason to doubt whatsoever your journalistic credentials and enthusiasm for your profession. You must also have realised just how expendable the News International organisation has regarded you. It is in situations like this that scales fall off the eyes of many of us who have been loyal servants of organisations, passionate about the brand, and committed to quality only to find that the rhetoric of organisational loyaty and being a team is a shallow facade.

It is a common belief that we depend on organisations for our livelihood and therefore we must be fore-lock touchingly grateful for the employment provided. The organisations in their turn dupe they talent they employ into feeling this is true and they totally depend upon the organisation for their survival. Of course there is reciprocity here. However when talent is treated in the way you have been treated it must be obvious who really needs who.

Today you and only you produced the final edition of the News Of The World. Your talents and know how created the content and brought it publication. News International its founder and his acolytes didn't do this. This means that real value of the News Of The World was its people and that the paper was an manifestation of your capability.

I would urge you to set up independently. Capitalise on your talent. Never again become beholden to a vast organisation that treats your talent with contempt and places before you a senior executive who bumbles managerialist patronising rhetoric at you. The world of media is changing and it is changing the model of reader engagement.

Have faith in your capabilities. Pursue your journalism on the principles you have stated. Set up on your own and your readers and advertisers will follow. Good luck to you all.

The News Of The World Does A Ratner

The instances of phone hacking allegations that are being associated with the News Of The World newspaper seem to be confronting the newspaper organization with a Ratner Moment. The ruthless competitiveness of the newspaper industry clearly creates circumstances in which certain individuals might be pre-disposed to deceptive, ethically questionable behaviour.

If the allegations are proven (invariably there is no smoke without fire) then I would like to see the culprits questioned on live TV in order that we can hear their rationalisations, ans so that their ethical credentials can be exposed for eternity. It is significant that the Royal British Legion has dropped the News of The World whilst allegations that the paper hacked the phones of families whose family members were killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan serving their country. Unlike the News Of The World journalists who seem to prefer to serve their own interests.

If the phone hacking allegations are proven then the roaches who committed the act should be castigated for betrayal and dealt with accordingly. Here Hugh Grant reveals how he identified and trapped a roach reporter.
Paul McMullan and Andy Coulson stand at the centre of the NOTW firestorm which seems set to engulf the total management structure of the News International group, it will be interesting to see the outcome.

News Update at 20.00 pm 7th July 2011 - News Of The World Prediction Comes True.

The News Of The World is now Old News

News of the World to close amid hacking scandal

The following book probably has too many big words in it for a News International journalist.

 

Money Making Wizzley Article Writing That Pays

If you are into article writing then you are probably familiar with sites like Squidoo and Hubpages. These sites are communities of article writers that build article pages using content modules which are then published as micro-sites.

The latests article writing community to gather some traction is Wizzley. Similar to Squidoo and Hubpages you are responsible for generating article content on topics that you know about or find interesting. Your hard work as an article writer is rewarded by getting income from context adverts via Adsense that are placed with your articles and also through affiliate modules such as Amazon Associates, Zazzle the print on demand site and Allposters.

The user interface is really easy to use, you can add your photos and images to text modules to really bring your writing to life and there is a rapidly growing and vibrant community of supportive and friendly writers there too. It seems cliched to say it but of course 'content is king'. Why else would anyone want to search for and read what you have to say?

One of the good things about Wizzley as an article writing platform is that is emphasizes content. You are given a word counter that requires a decent amount of article content wordage before your article can be published. And that's not all the revenue share set up is favorable to the article writer.

The Wizzley Facebook community can be reached here. You can sign up for Wizzley for free.

Is University Knowledge The Same As Knowing?

The BBC reports that India aims to be the next university superpower and the metric chosen to indicate this 'super-powerness' is the number of graduates.

Just stop and think for a minute. Is that really the most appropriate measure of how intellectually powerful your nation is? It's the same as a student claiming that an assignment of 10,000 words is better than than an assignment of 2,000 words.

The other issue is that churning people out of university with extant knowledge is not really an adequate measure either. What about new ideas, new ways of characterising problems and deriving solutions? As Casanova might claim 'its not the size of the boat, its the motion on the ocean'

Knowledge is a crude nominalisation of the adverb knowing. Knowing implies insight and wisdom. Knowledge implies collecting and hoarding. Knowing implies an awareness of one's own pre-suppositions and how they affect our approach to the world, the nature of reality and what are claims to certitude are based on. I wish India all the very best in her ambitions. She should not mistake the filling of undergraduate heads with 'stuff' as an indicator of knowing, and then multiplying the amount of stuff collected by the number of people with that stuff as how good her universities are.

Is A Degree Worth It?

If you think a university degree is going to get you a job just because you have got one then you might be very gullible. The BBC report today that the Graduate Jobs Market Is Tough Competition. I have problem with the whole idea of a 'graduate jobs market' because it suggests that it is somehow separate and different from any other form of employment. A job is a job is a job.



 An investment in a higher education is simply a personal investment that is about developing your intellectual capability. There are of course 'practical' elements to most courses, but the point of higher education is to develop the way you think about the world, problems and yourself.  This might have a tendency to set you apart when applying for a job but it can never guarantee a job. It might make you more employable but it will never get you employed. You can also create a mistaken sense of superiority (hubris) by thinking that there are 'graduate jobs' and other jobs. There are plenty of good forms of employment that demand every day practical knowledge. A higher education provides a capability for conceptual thinking and of sure many courses include lots of applied work too.

The fundamental point is that assuming you stand more chance of getting a job because you have a degree is misleading. Sure the big corporates sift applicants for their corporate 'soldier' jobs by 2:1 status. If ever there was an example of like recruiting like by like there it is. Of course many Public Service roles filter applicants by educational level,  to develop an academic career you need academic qualifications, and vocational professions demand higher education qualification is a necessary part of the professional career.  This I suppose is what is meant by the 'graduate job market'. But think small medium sized enterprises (where many graduates go job hunting) and they'll foreground 'you' and background your certificates.

For holders of more general social science based degrees its easy to be duped into thinking that we should 'love' our work (and the the employer will love us back). Nonsense. A job is primarily to earn a living. Now that said if you have a university degree, they can't take it away from you. Use it to your advantage. The priority is to get into paid work first, then use your education and that income stream as a platform for change. And if you land a corporate job? beguiled with promises of bonuses and fast track managerial careers? and corporate cultures that emulate the some of the excessive behaviours of The Apprentice then keep this blog in your bookmarks and come back when your 35 and tell me all about it.

Oh yes, and natural science degrees are different. Aren't they? If you do choose to go to a university then it is wise to find out more about them, hopefully this free Best University Guide will put you on the right track. If recently graduated, then how about using all that intellectual horse power to start your own business. Now that would be standing out from the crowd!

The Mistakes Of Headline and Copywriting

It's funny how meaning is made and how it relies on the correct context. The BBC science and nature website link headline of 6th May 2011 read Mass culling 'may be unnecessary'

I thought immediately that Richard Dawkins had perhaps made a U Turn. The idea that either the religious act itself was deemed necessary for culling or that the people who attended them needed culling seemed like a very extreme idea indeed.

Now recognising that there is always a 'hidden agenda' and that I do not suffer from 'critico-deductive minimilisitis' or gullibility as it is termed in psychology circles, I reckon a bored copywriter at the BBC knew exactly what they were doing. It worked, because I then went on to read the article, which is further proof of Eagly and Chaiken's dual process model of information processing.

Someone Has Explained The Gullible Mind

I was delighted to read this article called The Gullible Mind Explained by Mike Adams.

Mike has captured several aspects of gullibility in this piece. The lack of critical thinking, undue deference to authority, not suspecting hidden agendas etc. This is a good article. It does of course emphasise the angle that its the failing of the individual that creates gullibility. I still feel that situation plays a major part. That said you are always cruising for a bruising if you have misplaced confidence in your own infallibility.

Also like any social phenomenon Gullibilty might be better explained by Structuration Theory which accounts for both agency and structure.