Nieman Foundation at Harvard
It looks like some sort of mistake, a bizarre multi-paragraph typo: The New York Post endorsing Jimmy Carter, less than an inch below a masthead that proclaims “RUPERT MURDOCH, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief.”
But it really happened. In 1980, the Post (arguably the most right-wing newspaper in America) and Rupert Murdoch (inarguably the most important right-wing media mogul in the world) lined up their editorial weaponry in favor of the Democratic icon lying in state in the Capitol today. It threw the kitchen sink at his opponent and praised Carter’s “ability to digest and recall the most detailed intelligence” and his “tested character and physical strength for the role.”
The only question was: Did Murdoch endorse Carter because he really supported him? Or did he endorse Carter in order to secure a low-interest loan from the federal government to buy jumbo jets, saving him millions of dollars in the process?
It’s nearly forgotten today, but this unusual chain of events — connecting these oddest of political bedfellows — raised alarms at the time. It led to a multi-month Senate investigation and two days of hearings on Capitol Hill. One congressman labeled the whole imbroglio “Nixonesque” — a stinging charge only six years after Watergate. It was a pivot point for how Rupert Murdoch used his growing media empire to affect American politics, and the first time many Americans saw the way he could use his platforms in his own self-interest. On the eve of a second Trump administration — as the nation’s media and tech billionaires race to see who can kiss the ring most vigorously — it’s worth revisiting.
You could say Rupert Murdoch and Jimmy Carter took power in America at the same time.
On November 2, 1976, Carter defeated incumbent Gerald Ford and was elected president of the United States. Two weeks later, longtime New York Post owner Dorothy Schiff announced she would sell the New York Post to the brash Australian publisher. Until that day, Murdoch’s largest media properties in the United States were the morning and afternoon dailies in San Antonio and the supermarket tabloid that would become Star.
On January 20, 1977, Carter was inaugurated as 39th U.S. president — a young outsider who promised to bring a new tone to Washington. By then, Murdoch had taken possession of the Post and bought both New York magazine and The Village Voice. The 45-year-old Australian was now a major player in America’s metropolis. Who was Time magazine’s cover star three days before Carter took the oath of office? The man from Melbourne, not the man from Plains.
Murdoch was already well known in the news industry for his low-brow tabloid tastes, heavy on sex, crime, and scandal. “We’re not interested in the publishing judgment of Madison Avenue or professors of journalism,” Murdoch had said, decrying American dailies aimed at “the rich and the intellectual.” The New York Times reported that some in San Antonio called his paper there “The Rape Register” for its devotion to splashing sex crimes across its pages.1 His biggest paper in the U.K., The Sun, was best known for the topless young women it put on Page 3 daily.
But everyone said the right things about staying the course at the Post, America’s oldest daily newspaper. The outgoing owner, Schiff, called Murdoch “a man of strong commitment to the spirit of independent, progressive journalism” who will “carry on vigorously in the tradition I value so deeply.” Murdoch pledged to “maintain its present policies and traditions.” “Post’s Prospective Owner Plans No Basic Changes in Newspaper,” the Times headline read. “The format will stay the same and the political policies will stay unchanged,” he said. Murdoch’s biggest planned changes: “more photographs and shorter stories.”
He first flexed the Post’s political muscle in the 1977 New York mayor’s race, in which Murdoch pushed hard to elect the more conservative candidate, Ed Koch. Along with a front-page endorsement, the Post unleashed a torrent of pro-Koch coverage. “Murdoch did something that we hadn’t seen since the days of the press barons,” remembered Clyde Haberman, a Post reporter before a decades-long stint at the Times. “He decided, ‘I’m going to make this guy mayor.'”
Newsroom staffers were outraged and circulated a petition to complain about the obvious slant. As one of the paper’s lead political reporters put it, “my copy was not touched, but it was surrounded by, in
effect, Koch propaganda.” One columnist described it as “sort of like Sid Vicious taking over the Philharmonic.” But it worked: Koch beat Mario Cuomo in the primary and the general and became mayor.
Because New York City Democrats outnumbered Republicans by nearly 5-1, and Murdoch was focused on growing circulation, the Post mostly continued endorsing Democrats in local elections, as it had under previous ownership — even picking Democratic incumbent governor Hugh Carey over a Republican in 1978.
But the 1980 presidential race offered opportunities to pivot — first, in the Democratic primary. Carter faced an unusually strong challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy, raising the stakes for the New York primary on March 25. And Murdoch had a non-newspaper problem to solve.
A year earlier, he had acquired a controlling interest in Ansett Airways, one of Australia’s two major airlines. In need of new airplanes, Ansett wanted to buy 18 new Boeing jets for $290 million, but it needed a loan to make the deal. Otherwise, it would have to buy the planes from Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturer, which had already offered financing. And with sky-high interest rates at the time — around 19%! — getting a loan was a costly endeavor.
So Ansett went to the Export-Import Bank, a government agency that specializes in loaning foreign companies money to purchase American-made products — like, say, Boeing jets. Murdoch was seeking an unusually sweet deal. He wanted an interest rate well below market — below even the rate the bank itself paid to access the money. And he wanted a process that usually takes weeks to be finished within days.
On February 19, Murdoch had two important meetings in Washington. The first was with the Export-Import Bank, to convince officials there to loan him the money as he wanted. The second was lunch at the White House with Jimmy Carter. The meetup was arranged (at the request of the man running Carter’s primary campaign in New York) to let the president know the Post would endorse him in the Democratic primary.
Three days later, Murdoch’s Post gave Carter that endorsement — more than a month before Election Day. It called the president “a fast learner” who
has gained strength and confidence in his handling of both domestic and foreign affairs and brings to his exacting task a zeal and dedication which are often awesome — long hours, an open mind, an ability to digest and recall the most detailed intelligence about current crises. He has the tested character and physical strength for the role. His renewed appreciation for the fundamental American values which he brought with him to Washington is now his greatest asset as he begins the long haul through the primaries. In this demanding endeavor he deserves the fullest support of all Democrats.
And six days after that — despite reservations expressed the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, bank staff, and even its own board members — the Export-Import Bank approved a $206 million loan to Ansett at an interest rate of 8.1%, lower than it had offered on any similar loan.
It’s not hard to see why this series of events turned a few heads. Here you had the publisher of a major newspaper seeking special treatment from the federal government. Right after he does so, he heads over to the White House for a private meal with the president, where he raises the prospect of an endorsement. Shortly after, the paper gives the president that endorsement, and the federal government grants the favor. It smells — especially for a president like Carter, who had earned a reputation for moral probity and personal integrity.
But it wasn’t until The New York Times broke the story on March 18 that the broader political world took note. An article by Judith Miller — yes, that Judith Miller — laid out the chain of events. Both Murdoch and the White House described the timing of the deal and the endorsement as purely coincidental. But the story made enough waves to prompt the Senate Banking committee, led by Democrat William Proxmire, to investigate.
Meanwhile, the Post kept hammering Ted Kennedy in its pages, blaring headlines like “DESPERATE TED STORMS NEW YORK,” “TED KENNEDY’S SECRET PARTIES,” and “TED CHEERED NEAR GRAVE OF MARY JO.” Michigan Sen. Don Riegle described the Post as having “criticized Senator Kennedy more thoroughly than any other paper in the country…The Post had decided to really work Senator Kennedy over quite thoroughly.”
The Senate committee held two days of hearings in May, featuring testimony from Murdoch, bankers, and Carter’s political team, all of whom insisted there was no quid pro quo. “I am most sorry that the coincidence of timing has created such misunderstanding,” Murdoch testified. When the Senate committee released its findings, it had found “no evidence” of any deal, spoken or unspoken, and no suggestion that Carter had tried to influence the loan. (And in truth, no conspiracy was needed for Murdoch to at least prefer Carter over Kennedy, the more liberal candidate.) But it sharply criticized the head of the Export-Import Bank — an old Carter ally from Georgia — for running a slipshod process.
Perhaps most interestingly, the Post’s endorsement wasn’t the boon Carter might have expected. By mid-March, Ted Kennedy was on an epic losing streak, having won only one of the 20 primaries and caucuses held to date — his only win coming at home in Massachusetts. But when voters went to the polls in New York on March 25, they gave Kennedy a landslide win, 59% to 41%, with an even larger margin within the city and its suburbs.
His campaign was revitalized, no thanks to Rupert Murdoch. Kennedy won a total of 12 contests, letting him push all the way to the Democratic National Convention, where he didn’t concede until the second night.
Jimmy Carter mentions Murdoch twice in his published White House diaries. One came the day of their lunch date, February 19, 1980: “I came back and had lunch with Rupert Murdoch, the Australian news publisher, and really liked him. He was interesting, friendly, and promised me full support of the New York Post in the primary campaign.” The other was four months earlier, on October 4, 1979: “I called Rupert Murdoch, publisher of the New York Post, to tell him I want to have lunch with him when he gets back from Australia. His paper is potentially a great ally or a great knife in the back. We prefer the former.”
If the Post had been a great ally in the Democracy primary, the knife came out for the general election. Whatever kind words the paper had in the primary evaporated on October 17, when the Post picked Ronald Reagan for president. But as written, the editorial was less an endorsement of Reagan than an excoriation of Carter. (It mentions Carter’s name 24 times, Reagan’s only 10.)
President Carter has shown himself to be indecisive, incompetent, and weak, even if hard-working…There is hardly a single foreign leader, industrialist, businessman or trade union leader concerned for the state of the free world who has any respect for the Carter Administration. This is not a secret. It is well known not only to our friends but also to our enemies who day after day are taking advantage of it. They have perceived that a seemingly nice man in the White House is, in fact, a weak man…
It’s sad to have to list this record of almost total failure. We do so more in sorrow than in anger. Carter has certainly worked hard in his exacting post at the White House — but he has worked unsuccessfully.
Carter didn’t write about Murdoch in his diary that day.
Here’s how Andy Soltis, a New York Post editor from 1967 until 2014 (and chess grandmaster), remembered the endorsement switch in last year’s oral history of the Murdoch Post, Paper of Wreckage:
In the spring of 1980, the Post endorsed Carter in the Democratic primary in New York. The fall comes around. I’m backing up Steve Dunleavy on the city desk. It’s the night of the Al Smith dinner in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria, the big political and Catholic charities dinner of the year. Both Carter and Reagan were there. [Post political reporter] Deborah Orin calls in and says, “There’s a crazy rumor going around the room. Is it possible the Post is going to endorse Reagan tomorrow?”I laughed. I said, “Debbie, Murdoch has owned the Post for four years and the Post has not endorsed a single Republican for any significant office. Why would he suddenly do that now?” She said, “You got me, but the Republicans are being coy. I need to know, is this happening?” I said to Dunleavy, “Debbie wants to know, are we endorsing Reagan?” Dunleavy said, “Yes, mate. Tomorrow.”
That absolutely shocked me. People are going to say, “Well, the Post endorsed Koch, and Koch was right wing.” That’s nonsense. Koch often had a 100% rating from the Americans for Democratic Action, which was the litmus test in those days. He was about as pure a liberal as you could be at that time. Four years into Murdoch’s ownership, the Post had swung around and changed politics.
Did Rupert Murdoch endorse Jimmy Carter in the primary in order to get a cut-rate loan from his administration? He says no, and we’ll probably never know for sure.
Did Jeff Bezos kill a Kamala Harris endorsement at The Washington Post to pave the way for government contracts in a second Trump administration? He says no, and we’ll probably never know for sure.
Did Mark Zuckerberg kill off fact-checking on Facebook (claiming “fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created”) in order to curry favor with Trump, who has threatened to throw him in jail? Or did Amazon pay $40 million for a Melania Trump hagiography, much of which will go to her, to get on the family’s good side? Or did Patrick Soon-Shiong tell the L.A. Times editorial board to “take a break” from writing about Trump because he might have some business to do with his administration? How about that editorial cartoon that got killed at the Post? Or the billionaire owner of Time going out of his way to say Trump’s election brought “a time of great promise for our nation” and “we look forward to working together”?
Something struck me in reading a lot of early American coverage of Rupert Murdoch the past few days. The concerns other journalists had about him were not, by and large, about his political conservatism — it’s not even mentioned in most early pieces I saw. The worries were twofold: one, that he debased the high-minded world of journalism with his focus on sex and crime; and two, that he was a throwback to a century-old model of newspapering, the media boss who used the power of the press to advance his own interests.
It is well known that the New York Post loses millions of dollars, year after year, and has for as long as Murdoch has owned it. (When it recorded a profit for a single fiscal quarter in 2021, the CEO of News Corp hailed it as “the first profit in modern times, at the very least.”)
But the Post isn’t for making money. And it’s not for supporting civic-minded, socially valuable journalism. It’s for power — for advancing Murdoch’s interests. And the problem (well, one of the problems) with billionaires is that they have a lot of interests.
Jimmy Carter is dead. Rupert Murdoch is 93 years old and spending his final years feuding with his own children to ensure his power extends beyond the grave. But if the past two months tell us anything, he needn’t worry: There’s a whole generation of self-serving billionaires coming up behind him, ready to follow his lead.
