At an event held this morning in midtown Manhattan and webcast to all News Corp. employees, Murdoch launched a company-wide plan to address climate change that includes not only a pledge to reduce the company's emissions (which has come to be expected at such biz-greening events) but also a vow to weave climate messaging into the content and programming of News Corp.'s many holdings.
"The challenge is to revolutionize the [climate change] message," Murdoch told the crowd. He emphasized the need to "make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun. We want to inspire people to change their behavior."While not groundbreaking, Murdoch's strategy to cut News Corp.'s own emissions is nothing to sneeze at: The company will reduce its carbon footprint 10 percent by 2012 via energy-efficiency efforts and use of renewable energy, and it will become carbon-neutral even sooner, in 2010, by buying emission offsets from projects such as wind farms in India.
But Murdoch said that News Corp.'s hundreds of millions of viewers and readers represent the most fertile ground for change: "Our audience's carbon footprint is 10,000 times bigger than ours ... Imagine if we succeed in inspiring our audiences to reduce their own impacts on climate change by just 1 percent. That would be like turning the state of California off for almost two months."
I've always maintained that Murdoch isn't nearly the ideological zealot that so many believe him to be. The man's motivator is profit, pure and simple. Think about his two major TV networks here in the US. On the one hand, Fox churns out a constant stream of some of the worst programming on TV. On the other hand, Fox News decries the way the liberal Hollywood elite are trashing our culture. Its pure marketing genius.
So no, it doesn't really surprise me that Murdoch would make this move. There is, after all, tons of money to be made here. Why not join the green rush?
On a related note, I can't help but wonder.... if and when this country backlashes against Republicans and moves back to the left, will Murdoch create a news offering designed to meet that new dominant political coalition's needs? Given the way the man works, I can't say I'd be all that surprised.
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