MEDIA STUDIES
A Chinese storm is about to break over Mr Murdoch
STEPHEN GLOVER
This story was a tip-off from a freelance. By any standards it was a sensation. On the day it appeared an item was published by the Mail on Sunday which carried an entire- ly different, indeed precisely opposite, interpretation. Black Dog, the paper's diarist, agreed with the Sunday Telegraph that Mr Patten's book East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong was no longer likely to be published by HarperCollins, but offered quite another explanation. It had been 'dumped for being too boring', The Paper wrote that 'with matchsticks prop- ping up their drooping eyelids, editors at top publishers HarperCollins realised that the flat, turgid tome was beyond salvage'.
The first thing to say is that, at the time of writing, no newspaper has followed up either story apart from the Mirror, which broadly followed the Sunday Telegraph line. This is very strange. Here we have two opposing interpretations of the same set of circumstances. Either way it is a ripping tale. If we believe one version; poor old Christopher Patten couldn't write his way out of a paper bag, and has been sacked by his publishers. If we believe the other, Mr Murdoch has been caught redhanded trying to suppress opinions which don't suit his interests. Even his bitterest critics cannot point to many examples of the man actually censoring things he doesn't like.
So which version is true? It is certainly not the Mail on Sunday's. Mr Patten may not be Balzac but he can turn a perfectly good phrase, and has already written one book besides many newspaper articles. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, the Mail on Sunday's Black Dog has been sold a pup, probably by a Murdoch PR company in the United States. It knew a scandal was about to break — the Sunday Telegraph's story was the first wave — and so some pre- emptive rubbishing of Mr Patten was thought desirable.
I telephoned Mr Patten at his house in France, where he is putting the finishing touches to his oeuvre, and found him uncus- tomarily taciturn. Perhaps a little unsporting- ly, he declined my invitation to speak to me off the record, saying that lawyers were involved and he felt a little cut off on the other side of the Channel. However, when I asked him whether the Sunday Telegraph's account was broadly correct, he said that `there was much more to it than that'. He added that it 'would all come out within the next 24 or 48 hours', possibly through some sort of statement. I am writing this on Wednesday morning, and it may be that I am telling the reader what he has just learnt, Other sources have been more forthcom- ing than Mr Patten. The following things seem clear. Mr Murdoch did try to suppress anti-Chinese elements in Mr Patten's book. He regards China as potentially a huge market for his media interests and is anx- ious not to be associated with anything that might offend the country's communist lead- ers. In 1994 he stopped the BBC, which is vilified by the Chinese government, from using his Far East satellite. On this occa- sion he was determined to tone down Mr Patten, and Mr Proffitt was instructed to oversee the necessary changes.
To his great credit, Mr Proffitt would have nothing to do with this plan. The man who is regarded as one of the most able non-fiction editors in the country has left Harper- Collins's offices and gone to ground. If you ring him at his old office a secretary's record- you realise, Bond, that i fyou fail to get a knighthood, we can't help you?' ed voice says that he will ring you back. He seems not to have reached any kind of settle- ment with Harper-Collins but, given what has happened, it is difficult to believe that he could return to his old employers. He is the hero of this story. He appears to have sacri- ficed his job for his principles, though I expect he will find another one.
At the end of last week Mr Murdoch woke up to the horrific public relations dis- aster that faces him. After advice from a close colleague, he made an attempt to build bridges with Mr Patten, but it was too late. Mr Patten had by this time decided that he wanted nothing to do with Harper- Collins and would seek another publisher, which I am sure he will easily find. Mur- doch's idiotic PR machine was cranked into action to spread disinformation to journal- ists at the Mail on Sunday. But nothing it or anyone else can do will protect Mr Mur- doch from the storm that is about to break.
Why did he do it? Because business with a communist regime is more important than letting even so eminent a person as Mr Pat- ten write what he wants. Mr Murdoch does not usually tell his editors what to put in and what to take out. He expects them to know what to do without day-to-day instruction. In this case that system broke down. I do not know whether Eddie Bell, chairman of HarperCollins, had told Murdoch that Mr Patten had been commissioned to write the book. Given the former governor's known views about China, and Mr Murdoch's extreme sensitivities so far as that country is concerned, it seems a very odd decision on HarperCollins' behalf to take it on. Whether Mr Murdoch was party to it or not, it is a fair bet that Mr Bell will now take the rap.
Mr Patten is said to be furious about the Murdoch-inspired slur in the Mail on Sun- day and his general treatment by the Mur- doch organisation. This is understandable, but in the fullness of time he may reflect that all the publicity will probably do his book some good. Although his supporters, like Mr Patten himself, hint that they have more damning information about Mr Mur- doch's role in trying to suppress parts of the book, the essential story is clear. The Mur- doch machine will continue to assert that the book was dropped because it was bad, but the truth is that Mr Murdoch put unwarranted pressure on the ex-governor and former Tory minister — besides misus- ing Mr Proffitt — in furtherance of his own business interests in communist China.
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