Anyone but Rupert Murdoch might have been shamefaced over an article that appeared March 9 in his New York Post. It announced, in the tone of chest-thumping bravado identified with the paper, that the movie Titanic

(which happens to be a co-production of Murdoch's Twentieth Century Fox) "is believed to be the first Hollywood film" to be endorsed by a Chinese leader. The writer characterized the Chinese masses as clamoring for the film -- though it was not scheduled to open in Beijing for another month.

To even a slightly trained eye, this article, which bore none of the signs of traditional reporting, was a disturbing non-coincidence. Contemporaneously, Murdoch was under heavy criticism after his publishing company, HarperCollins, cancelled a book by former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten, that was critical of the Chinese leadership. Nor was this the first time that Murdoch had been accused of placing profit before principle with regard to China. In 1994, he removed the BBC World Service from his satellite broadcasts into China at the request of the authorities there, who did not like a program BBC aired about Mao Tse-tung. Murdoch also had been reproached for giving Deng Xiaoping's daughter a huge (reportedly $1 million-plus) HarperCollins book contract for a fawning -- and historically flawed and commercially nonviable -- portrait of her father at a time when Murdoch was seeking approval to expand his broadcasting ventures in China. The book was pure propaganda, less suited to American nightstands than to udspeakers in Tiananmen Square.

If there was ever an enterprise that needed a Chinese wall -- in this case literally -- it is Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Yet the very concept of such a wall, meant to protect one part of a large conglomerate from the depredations of another, seems foreign to News Corp's chief. Rupert's Rule appears to be that all lines are permeable. And the notion of synergy, so logical and beneficial in many commercial enterprises, takes on a cynical and even malevolent cast when the corporation is a multimedia empire with Murdoch at the helm. This is particularly so in view of News Corp.'s recent boast that through its satellite, broadcast, and cable units, it will soon be able to reach more than three-quarters of the wired world.

 Murdoch uses his diverse holdings, which include newspapers, magazines, sports teams, a movie studio, and a book publisher, to promote his own financial interests at the expense of real newsgathering, legal and regulatory rules, and journalistic ethics. He wields his media as instruments of influence with politicians who can aid him, and savages his competitors in his news columns. If ever someone demonstrated the dangers of mass power being concentrated in few hands, it would be Murdoch.

To understand the effects of Murdoch's special brand of synergy, one must begin where it all began for Keith Rupert Murdoch -- in Australia. Down under, Murdoch owns half of a major airline group, co-owns one of the country's pay TV operators and a Rugby league, and controls more than 60 percent of the country's metro, regional, and suburban newspapers, from an upscale national broadsheet, The Australian, to mass-market daily tabloids.

Murdoch's taste for corporate cross-pollination was never more apparent than on March 3, 1995, when readers of his hometown paper, the Adelaide Advertiser, might understandably have mistaken the front page for a paid ad. An article told them they could soon enjoy the most advanced pay television channel in the world, including sports and the latest releases from Twentieth Century Fox; it was a "gateway to a new era." The newspaper neglected to mention that many of the same movies had already been shown on free channels. Murdoch's other Australian papers ran similar, ad-style copy. The Herald-Sun of Melbourneheadlined, finally, a clear vision on pay tv. Then, the paper cheekily asked readers to call in on its "Vote Line," and answer the question, "Do you plan to subscribe to pay TV?" (The paper then actually charged for each incoming call). Even Murdoch's quality paper, The Australian, ran eleven full pages on the non-story.

A Murdoch financial columnist went as far as to advise readers to buy stock of News Corp., claiming both objectivity and insight. "I do have that insider's advantage of knowing what's it all about," wrote Terry McCrann in the Daily Times-Mirror of Sydney. Four days later, he popped up in Murdoch's Adelaide Sunday Mail interviewing the boss: "You've certainly led one of the most extraordinary lives in the twentieth century and it's been entirely of your own making. Can you accept the accolade that you are probably the most remarkable Australian in about 200 years?" "Oh, I don't believe that for a minute," a modest Murdoch demurred.

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