It's not about journalism or Murdoch, it's partisan politics

There are a great many problems with the media - but lack of comment isn’t one of them. Everywhere you go, there’s endless comment, and I freely admit I add to it. But at heart, I am a reporter and all good reporters want to report truth. Get too blinded by tinted glasses directed at that truth and it ceases to be reporting. The now defunct News of the World (NOTW) lost its way with reporting, driven more by profit and power, putting on glasses so tinted with thick black sludge of moral dubiety that they could not see that hacking into the phone of a murdered schoolgirl was wrong. Meanwhile, The Guardian used 20/20 vision to illuminate the truth of what the NOTW was up to. With the latest report into the phone hacking scandal released in Britain, now everyone is wearing blacked-out glasses. Rupert, head of News Corporation and the quintessential media mogul, was branded “not fit” to run a major international company in the report from British MPs on the Commons Media Committee on Tuesday. [caption id=“attachment_295164” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“AP”] [/caption] Some of the statements on three senior executives showing contempt for parliament were agreed unanimously. But the line about Murdoch was merely stuck in by the four Labour MPs and one Liberal Democrat, with Tories opposing. Labour MP and staunch Murdoch critic Tom Watson, in his speech following the launch of the report - which included a quote from Bob Dylan, - proved how thick the glasses have become. Any good investigative work by Mr Watson to force phone hacking into the public agenda goes to waste when he aims conclusions at Guardian headline writers . The committee found no evidence that either Rupert Murdoch or James Murdoch misled MPs. Instead, the language that Murdoch is “not fit” is plainly aimed at influencing the independent media regulator Ofcom, currently investigating whether TV firm BSkyB is fit to hold a broadcasting licence. News Corp owns 39 percent of BSkyB. The idea that Ofcom would switch off BSkyB is laughable. And for all the British public who might be disgusted by the phone hacking of murdered school girls and others, none of them would want to lose their TV channels or set-top boxes they switch on dutifully every night. So the MPs and the other Murdoch opponents must be calculating that they can force News Corp to fire Murdoch or sell off the Sun, Times and Sunday Times to protect their TV arm. And because Murdoch backs the Tories rather than Labour now, it’s a way to hurt Tory PM David Cameron. Fellow Tory MP and committee member Louise Mensch said that it was “a real shame” that the line on Murdoch being “not fit” was added, politicising an important report and preventing a unanimous verdict. News Corporation admitted they were too slow to sort out the problems within the company, but hit back at the claims about Murdoch as “unjustified and highly partisan” . The enemies of Murdoch are wringing their hands in glee, hoping to see him deposed from his firm, or at least forced to sell his beloved newspapers. Nobody is defending phone hacking or alleged bribery of officials or any other potential criminality. Anyone who knows me also knows I will rant endlessly about journalism ethics, of which all of these are clearly in breach. However, in the midst of real criminal and judicial investigations into allegations of wrongdoing, MPs and the commentators who support them, are content with using the very tactics they claim to loath in Murdoch: smears without facts. However much the Murdochs should have known everything that was going on, nobody has effectively proved they are knowingly lying to MPs, judges or others. It is not helpful to look through sludge-coated glasses at these cases of journalism ethics, criminality, corruption and the incestuous relationship between the media, politicians and police. We’ve lost clear vision of what happened, in favour of headlines. The Labour MPs and all those columnists who are wetting themselves in excitement at having a pop at Murdoch have actually lowered themselves to the partisanship and muddied “truths” they so despise in Murdoch. They loath his commercial success over decades with slightly right-of-centre views and celebrity crap, because really they loath that so much of the British public prefers buying that to their own perhaps more moral - or differently moralistic - version of reality. Rising above Murdoch isn’t just about repeatedly saying how bad he is. It’s about DOING better reporting and proving its worth. The Guardian did brilliant reporting to expose the phone hacking scandal in the first place. That’s where resources are needed - proper journalism. Nobody in Britain is really investing in that anymore - not the papers of News Corp and not their critics. And the MPs, by splitting so predictably along partisan lines, are feeding nothing but their own egotistical appetite for headlines. So basically, they’re acting like Murdoch. Same obscured glasses; different scented sludge.