"Ripped from today's headlines." That phrase applies to many TV dramas, and, to a certain extent, the latest James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies. Bond's foe, Elliott Carver, bears a striking resemblence to media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose news organizations not only cover the news, but make it as well. Carver may be a ficticious character, but the creative minds at Eon Productions have given him just enough of a dose of reality. Carver runs a vast media empire. So does Rupert Murdoch. Carver's baby is the launching of a global satellite network that will rival CNN. Murdoch has already launched his own satellite networks in Britain and Asia. Murdoch also owns the Fox TV Network in America, so he has truly the power to influence what millions around the globe see and hear. Both men inherited the business from their father's and then expanded the empires to truly gigantic proportions. They did so through greed, ambition and ruthlessness. The difference is Rupert Murdoch's father died of old age, Elliott Carver's father committed suicide, forced to do so by his scheming, illigitimate son (a common trait, it seems, among Bond villans!) Both Murdoch and Carver are essentially anti-establishment outsiders. Elliott Carver grew up in Hong Kong, despising the British. Rupert Murdoch grew up in Australia and went to Britain, where he developed a strong distaste for the British ruling class. Young Murdoch was a fan of socialism and even kept a statue of Lenin in his room. Murdoch in later years swerved drastically to the right and embraced Thatcherism. Murdoch has made his career out of taking on the elite in media and government; it's reflected in his tabloids that primarily cater to the lowest common denominators of sex and violence. "Headless Body Found in Topless Bar" is one of the more famous headlines from the New York Post which Murdoch owned. We get a glimpse of Elliott Carver's tabloid approach when we see the headline screaming "British Sailors Murdered" in the his paper Tomorrow. Elliott Carver is certainly a hands-on boss, even changing the headlines or writing them himself. (Notice the pleasure he takes writing James Bond's obituary). As he was building his newspaper empire in Australia and Britain, Murdoch would occasionally write the headlines himself! Both Murdoch and Carver use underlings and then toss them aside when they have outlived their usefulness. With Carver, like many other Bond villans, henchmen like Gupta are really eliminated! Former employees of Murdoch describe how he charmed the socks off them to lure them to his empire, but then let them go when they no longer served his purpose. Murdoch's purpose is where fact and fiction really separate. Carver learned what CNN found out earlier in the decade: you can't beat a war for increasing ratings. Carver saw war as a way to make his network the choice of millions and perhaps billions by getting the Chinese tuned in. So what better way then to start a war between the Chinese and the despised British! Rupert Murdoch hasn't started any wars that I'm aware of, but he has used his empire to position himself as a major player in the information people receive and in the process he has made himself a global powerbroker. The real threat a man like Murdoch poses is that ability to control a good portion of what we read, see, and hear. Murdoch entered broadcasting in a big way in the 1980's when Wall Street discovered that broadcasting was a cash cow. From that point on, the industry has undergone a dramatic change, as power increasingly is ending up in the hands of just a few. Murdoch dismisses such criticisms, pointing out that he is printing and broadcasting what the masses really want. The danger of that thought means the public wants nothing but a steady diet of shows like Studs and papers that scream headlines like "Your Ancestor May Have Been A Fish." According to Elliott Carver, "There's no news like bad news." For his critics around the world and his enemies in the media, Rupert Murdoch is bad news! Elliott Carver's obituary is already written. The jury is still out on Murdoch. ©1998 by Fraser Engerman Fraser Engerman was formerly an anchorman for the NBC News affiliate in Peoria, Illinois. The transcript of his TV interview with Raymond Benson is available for viewing at HMSS.