Murdoch interferes around the world

IT HAS passed into Fleet Street legend that on his first night as owner of the Times, Rupert Murdoch was being shown around the building when he came across the reading desk where proofs of the next day's newspaper were piled up. After reading the leader which related to his own acquisition of the paper - and listed the holdings of other newspaper groups - he took a pen from his pocket and inserted the words "The Star" into the Express Group's list.

This tiny act took place just hours after he had promised that he would not interfere with the editorial content of the newspaper and was a sign of things to come.

"The most charitable explanation of Mr Murdoch's attitude to a promise was that he meant it when he made it," wrote former Times editor Harold Evans in his memoir Good Times Bad Times. And given all the promises of non-interference that Mr Murdoch has made in his career it is incredible that anyone ever believed him.

Even those such as former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil who are credited with making his empire millions never become important enough to avoid interference. In 1994 the Sunday Times spent months investigating and harassing the government of Malaysia over payments made in aid by Britain to get building contracts for the Pergau Dam.

These stories ran with other tales of corruption from Malaysia which irritated the country's Prime Minster Mahathir Mohamed. This irritation was passed on to Mr Murdoch, who needed Malaysia's permission for the expansion of his Asian satellite television station Star TV. Mr Neil left Mr Murdoch's employ with a pounds 1m payoff and Star could broadcast in Malaysia.

So it is hard to see how Mr Patten could be surprised by Mr Murdoch's willingness to sacrifice editorial integrity to the needs of Star TV. In 1994 he dropped the BBC from Star's Chinese broadcasts at the behest of the Communist leadership.

And HarperCollins' author list is not immune. Not for nothing have the daughter of Deng Xiaoping and Republican senate leader Newt Gyngrich received fat advances.

The importance of Star to Mr Murdoch's empire was underlined when he forecast in a biography that:"in 10, maybe 15 years I hope it will be a bonanza". That bonanza has presumably helped him forget that he also once said satellite television was: "an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere."