Elisabeth Murdoch takes aim at brother on media morality | Reuters Thu Aug 23, 2012 | 4:39 PM EDT Elisabeth Murdoch takes aim at brother on media morality Elisabeth Murdoch (L) talks to her brother James Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corp, Europe and Asia, at Cheltenham Festival horse racing meet in Gloucestershire, western England March 18, 2010. Reuters/ Eddie Keogh By Paul Sandle | EDINBURGH EDINBURGH Elisabeth Murdoch urged the media industry on Thursday to embrace morality and reject her brother James's mantra of profit at all costs, in a speech seen as an attempt to distance herself from the scandal that has tarnished the family name. Addressing television executives, she said profit without purpose was a recipe for disaster and the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World tabloid - which has badly hurt her father Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire - showed the need for a rigorous set of values. The comments from a woman who has powerful friends in the British establishment and the support of her PR husband Matthew Freud, are likely to be examined for whether she could one day run News Corp instead of her brothers whose chances have faded.

"News (Corp) is a company that is currently asking itself some very significant and difficult questions about how some behaviors fell so far short of its values," she said in the annual television industry MacTaggart lecture. "Personally I believe one of the biggest lessons of the past year has been the need for any organization to discuss, affirm and institutionalize a rigorous set of values based on an explicit statement of purpose," she said in remarks which drew applause. Elisabeth Murdoch - a successful television producer who was overlooked for senior jobs at News Corp that went first to her brother Lachlan and then James - said a lack of morality could become a dangerous own goal for capitalism. Rupert Murdoch last year closed the News of the World, which was owned by a News Corp unit, amid public anger that its journalists had hacked into the voicemails of people from celebrities to victims of crime. A number of former executives have appeared in court over the case and the government set up a judicial inquiry into press standards. "There's only one way to look at this," Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff told Reuters.

"This is part of a strategic repositioning of Liz Murdoch within the media world, with the business world and within the family." The often humorous lecture delivered at the annual Edinburgh Television Festival came three years after James Murdoch used the same platform to confront a largely hostile audience with his vision for the industry. Elisabeth, 44, and 39-year-old James had been very close, according to sources close to the family, but their relationship became strained by the hacking affair. "Writing a MacTaggart (lecture) has been quite a welcome distraction from some of the other nightmares much closer to home. Yes, you have met some of my family before," she said to laughter, in a rare speech for the founder of the successful television production company Shine. Stewart Purvis, the former head of broadcast news provider ITN, said on Twitter that the speech should be called "Why I am not my father or my brother". Her highly personal speech appeared designed to win over any doubters, with references to childhood conversations at the breakfast table with dad to her continuing affection for the much-loved British playwright Alan Bennett.

She even lavished praise on the state-owned BBC, previously the butt of jokes by her brother but which also regularly airs programs made by her Shine company. RECIPE FOR DISASTER Referring to her younger brother James's 2009 speech, Elisabeth said his assertion that the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of media independence was profit had fallen short of the mark. "The reason his statement sat so uncomfortably is that profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster," she said. "Profit must be our servant, not our master," she added. "It's increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose - or of a moral language — within government, media or business, could become one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and for freedom." British tabloids have been accused of producing ever-more salacious stories before the scandal broke in an effort to maintain circulation. Rupert Murdoch admitted that the scandal had left a serious blot on his reputation. The sharp change in tone, with its emphasis on personal responsibility, underlined how much had changed since James Murdoch used his own MacTaggart lecture to accuse the BBC of having "chilling" ambitions.

That speech, delivered in his role as chairman of the pay-TV group BSkyB and head of News Corp in Europe and Asia, consolidated James's position as heir apparent to his father's role. It also echoed Rupert Murdoch's own 1989 speech that broadcasting was a business that needed competition. Since then, both men have been chastened by the fallout of the phone hacking affair. At the height of the scandal News Corp had to halt a $12 billion bid to buy the rest of BSkyB it did not already own, angering investors and sowing doubts as to whether James had what it took to run the $55 billion empire. News Corp announced in June that it was splitting off its newspaper business. While brother Lachlan was often pictured with the family last year, Elisabeth stayed in the background. Lachlan stood down from his role as News Corp deputy chief operating officer in 2005 after clashing with senior executives. Now James Murdoch's fall from grace has turned the spotlight onto Elisabeth in the long-running debate over who will one day replace their 81-year-old father at the head of the company.

"I think she was trying to put her mark on where she had come from and where she fits in," Enders analyst Toby Syfret told Reuters after emerging from the speech. "She made it clear where she didn't agree with James, and she made clear the things about her father that she admired. "From a political level it was quite interesting." Stressing her links to her father and the vision he espoused when he built his company over 60 years ago, she spoke in glowing terms of his 1989 speech. "A quarter of a century later, I am still wholly inspired by those words and they are still deeply relevant today," she said.

"I understood that we were in pursuit of a greater good - a belief in better." (Writing by Kate Holton; editing by David Stamp) ADVERTISEMENT Elisabeth Murdoch rounds on brother in MacTaggart lecture | Media | The Guardian Elisabeth Murdoch rounds on brother in MacTaggart lecture Rupert Murdoch's second daughter attacks News Corp values in keynote address at Edinburgh television festival Thursday 23 August 2012 14.07 EDT First published on Thursday 23 August 2012 14.07 EDT Close This article is 4 years old Tensions within the world's most powerful media family were dramatically laid bare on Thursday when Elisabeth Murdoch set out her own vision of media leadership, emphasising humanity over profit and criticising her father's News Corporation for operating with an absence of values. Giving the keynote MacTaggart address at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival , Rupert Murdoch's second daughter also explicitly contradicted her brother James, chose to praise the BBC, and argued that the Olympics experience demonstrates that television is a force for storytelling rather than a route to political power.

Speaking in public for the first time about the phone-hacking affair, which prompted her to fall out with her brother a year ago, Elisabeth Murdoch said that News Corp had to ask "significant and difficult questions about how some behaviours fell so far short of its values" in the wake of what happened. She said the lesson from the affair was that any organisation needed to "discuss, affirm and institutionalise a rigorous set of values based on an explicit statement of purpose" – in contrast to News Corp's traditional mode of governance based on executives second-guessing what Rupert would do. The cri de coeur from the 44-year-old, who runs Shine Television, the News Corp-owned maker of programmes such as Masterchef and Merlin, will be interpreted as a bid for power at her father's company – although her friends insisted she had no desire to lead the company her father built, which spans from Fox News in the US to the Sun in Britain. Elisabeth Murdoch took aim at her younger brother James in an extended passage that referred to his own controversial MacTaggart lecture given three years ago . That speech ended with James – weeks before the Sun switched to the Conservatives – observing that "the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit".

Elisabeth said that while loss-making media organisations had their independence "massively challenged", her brother's statement nevertheless "left something out". Making little effort to soften the rift with her younger brother, she added: "Profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster." In marked contrast to the dry economic rhetoric preferred by both her father and brother, she said that people needed to "reject the idea that money is the only effective measure of all things or that the free market is the only sorting mechanism" and said that "the absence of purpose" could be "one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and for freedom". Her speech contained few references to her father's newspapers, but in a paragraph that referred to the Leveson inquiry, she said that "an unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions" meant that it was "very difficult to argue for the right outcome, which must be the fierce protection of a free press and light touch media regulation". The 14-page, often-humourous speech was largely written by Murdoch herself – with much of the drafting work taking place during the wet jubilee bank holiday weekend – and with no input from other family members.

Instead her husband, Matthew Freud, and a small team of advisers largely from within Shine helped check facts and polish the speech – the first time a woman has given the television industry's signature address since Janet Street-Porter in 1996. It was hailed with warm applause and whistles from the audience, by contrast with the BBC-bashing speech of her brother James, three years ago at the same event, which was greeted coolly. Elisabeth is the second oldest of Rupert Murdoch's six children, and the eldest by his second marriage to Anna. While brothers Lachlan and James have at various times worked directly for News Corp in the past decade, Elisabeth only rejoined her father's company last year after it bought Shine in a £290m deal just before the phone-hacking affair broke. She had set up Shine in 2001 and banked about £150m from her father's company once the takeover was completed. But she turned down a seat on the News Corp board in the wake of the Milly Dowler hacking scandal. There was conspicuous praise for the BBC, which frequently airs Shine programmes, in marked contrast to her father and brother.

"Let me put it on the record that I am a current supporter of the BBC's universal licence fee," she said. She also praised outgoing director general Mark Thompson for working collaboratively across the television industry. Three years ago, James Murdoch accused the BBC of expansionist plans that had "a chilling effect" on the rest of the British media, but his sister's only critical observation about the national broadcaster was that the incoming director general had "to demonstrate how efficiently that funding is being spent on actual content on behalf of the licence fee payers". There was little overt politicising in Elisabeth Murdoch's speech – another contrast with her brother's effort, which was widely seen as setting the template for Conservative media policy before the most recent general election. But she repeatedly gestured towards liberal values with references to progressive political figures, including "one of my heroes" Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela whom she watched walk from prison "through my tears". There was even praise for another former MacTaggart lecturer, the late Dennis Potter, who famously named the cancer that killed him "Rupert".

She said she was "firmly with" the television playwright who said "the job of television is to make hearts pound" – a vision of the medium whose core purpose is "to form human connections" as opposed to a vehicle for the exercise of raw political power. But she did defend her decision to sell Shine to her father's company – even if, as she acknowledged, it appeared to be a "no shit, Sherlock" decision – because News Corp was first and foremost a content company which had backed The Simpsons, Glee and the blockbuster films Titantic and Avatar directed by James Cameron. While there was no shortage of criticism for her brother, there was praise for one Murdoch, her father. "My dad had the vision, the will and the sense of purpose to challenge the old world order on behalf of the people," she said, before adding: "But back even then, I understood we were in pursuit of a greater good, a belief in better." Full coverage as the annual industry shindig begins and Elisabeth Murdoch delivers the MacTaggart Lecture Published: 23 Aug 2012 Rupert Murdoch's second daughter also confirms she asked for Rebekah Brooks to resign as NI chief executive last year.

By Dan Sabbagh Published: 24 Aug 2012 Media Industry figures including Alan Rusbridger and Richard Bacon, respond to Elisabeth Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture at the 2012 Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival Published: 24 Aug 2012 Brother James target of broadside at MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival Published: 23 Aug 2012 Elisabeth Murdoch Revolts Against Family In MacTaggart Speech | The Huffington Post Elisabeth Murdoch Revolts Against Family In MacTaggart Speech 08/23/2012 02:14 pm ET | Updated Oct 23, 2012 930 By Paul Sandle EDINBURGH, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Elisabeth Murdoch urged the media industry on Thursday to embrace morality and reject the pursuit of profit at all costs, which her brother James championed before scandal engulfed News Corp. In a speech offering a chance to show her credentials to take over her father Rupert's empire, she said profit without purpose was a recipe for disaster, and the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World newspaper showed the need for a rigorous set of values.

Elisabeth Murdoch - a successful television producer who was overlooked for senior jobs at News Corp that went first to her brother Lachlan and then James - said a lack of morality could become a dangerous own goal for capitalism and for freedom. She made the remarks in the MacTaggart Lecture at the annual Edinburgh Television Festival, three years after James Murdoch used the same platform to confront a largely hostile audience. "News (Corp) is a company that is currently asking itself some very significant and difficult questions about how some behaviours fell so far short of its values," she told the packed and receptive audience of British media executives. "Personally I believe one of the biggest lessons of the past year has been the need for any organisation to discuss, affirm and institutionalise a rigorous set of values based on an explicit statement of purpose." Rupert Murdoch closed the News of the World last year amid public anger that its journalists had hacked into the voicemails of people from celebrities to victims of crime. A number of former executives have appeared in court in connection with the case, which prompted the government to set up a judicial inquiry into press standards.

The comments from Elisabeth Murdoch, who has powerful friends in the British establishment and the support of her PR husband Matthew Freud, are likely to be examined for whether she could one day run the News Corp empire. She has rarely spoken in public, despite her role as the founder of the successful production company Shine. Her highly personal speech appeared designed to win over any doubters, with references to childhood conversations at the breakfast table with father to her continuing affection for the much-loved British playwright Alan Bennett. She even lavished praise on the state-owned BBC, previously the butt of jokes by James Murdoch. RECIPE FOR DISASTER Referring to her younger brother James's 2009 speech, she said his assertion that the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of media independence was profit had fallen short of the mark. "The reason his statement sat so uncomfortably is that profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster," she said, perhaps in an allusion to charges that News of the World journalists broke the law to produce ever-more salacious stories and maintain circulation. "Profit must be our servant, not our master," she said, adding that colleagues needed to accept that they had a responsibility to each other and not just the bottom line.

"It's increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose - or of a moral language - within government, media or business, could become one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and for freedom." It also underlined just how much has changed since the now 39-year-old James Murdoch used his own MacTaggart lecture to accuse the BBC of having "chilling" ambitions. That speech, delivered in his role as chairman of the pay-TV group BSkyB and head of News Corp in Europe and Asia, consolidated James's position as heir apparent to his father's role, with its echoes of Rupert Murdoch's own 1989 speech that broadcasting was a business that needed competition. Since then, both men have been chastened by the fallout of the phone hacking affair which has damaged the reputation and value of the company and the family name in Britain. At the height of the scandal they had to halt a $12 billion bid to buy the rest of BSkyB they did not already own, angering investors and sowing doubts as to whether James had what it took to run the $55 billion empire. While brother Lachlan was often pictured with the family last year, Elisabeth stayed in the background.

Lachlan stood down from his role as News Corp deputy chief operating officer in 2005 after clashing with senior executives. Now James Murdoch's fall from grace has turned the spotlight onto Elisabeth in the long-running debate over who will one day replace their 81-year-old father at the head of the company. Stressing her links to her father and the vision he espoused when he built his company over 60 years ago, she spoke in glowing terms of his 1989 speech. "A quarter of a century later, I am still wholly inspired by those words and they are still deeply relevant today," she said. "My dad had the vision, the will and the sense of purpose to challenge the old world order on behalf of 'the people'. "I understood that we were in pursuit of a greater good- a belief in better." Also on HuffPost: Scotland Tonight - Elisabeth Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture - YouTube Scotland Tonight - Elisabeth Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Published on Aug 24, 2012 Elisabeth Murdoch has warned "profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster" in a wide-ranging speech to television executives. She became the third member of her family - following father Rupert and brother James - to give the celebrated MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. She also warned of the threat to press freedom from "enemies within" - a remark which will be widely seen as a criticism of News International employees caught up in the phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the business. Speaking at the annual industry get-together, she said News Corp was "currently asking itself some very significant and difficult questions about how some behaviours fell so short of its values". She said "one of the biggest lessons" was the need for "a rigorous set of values based on an explicit statement of purpose". After the speech, Scotland Tonight spoke to media commentator Steve Hewlett and deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman who were both in the audience. Mr Hewlett said Ms Murdoch used her speech to make sure she was distinguished from her family. He said: "She was saying I'm a Murdoch but I'm a different kind of Murdoch. I'm a Murdoch but I'm not one of them.

She put herself forward as a Murdoch who is untainted by all that's gone before." However, Ms Harman said she was disappointed Ms Murdoch did not say what the next step for media regulation should be. Ms Harman said: "What she didn't go on to do was to say how you prevent that sort of thing from happening in the future." Ms Murdoch touched on the subject, but said it was up to the Leveson Inquiry to come up with answers. She said in her lecture: "Let's see what the Leveson Inquiry recommends but, when there has been such an unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions, it is very difficult to argue for the right outcome - which must be the fierce protection of a free Press and light-touch media regulation.

Sadly, the greatest threats to our free society are too often from enemies within." Partner rating Murdoch's daughter aiming for the top Murdoch's daughter aiming for the top Elisabeth Murdoch: 'Profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster.' Photo: AFP ELISABETH MURDOCH'S attack on the values of News Corporation is part of a ''strategic'' plan by the family to retain power over the $US55 billion media empire and was a ''significant Murdoch moment'', says a keen observer. Ms Murdoch, the second-eldest of Rupert Murdoch's six children, emphasised humanity over profit in a keynote address to the TV industry that is being widely read as her pitch to lead the family business. In a speech that attacked free market capitalism and the idea that ''money is the only sorting mechanism'', Ms Murdoch, 44, outlined her vision for leadership. Michael Wolff, the author of an authorised biography of Rupert, said the speech would have been written with the full support of her father and all but one of her siblings - James - who control the majority of voting stock in News Corp. ''Nobody in the Murdoch family does anything unilaterally.

Clearly she has swayed the votes and they are supporting her,'' said Wolff, journalist and author of The Man Who Owns the News. In her MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh international TV festival on Thursday night, Ms Murdoch also appeared to criticise James, which will serve only to deepen the rift that opened up between them over the phone-hacking affair. Advertisement Ms Murdoch said News Corp had to ask ''significant and difficult questions about how some behaviours fell so far short of its values'' following the scandal. She said the lesson from the affair was that any organisation needed to ''discuss, affirm and institutionalise a rigorous set of values based on an explicit statement of purpose'' - in contrast to News Corp's traditional mode of governance based on executives second-guessing what Rupert would do. ''Profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster,'' she said, in a direct reference to a speech by James at the same industry gathering three years earlier in which he extolled the idea that profit was the only ''guarantor of independence''. Wolff said that now James has been effectively sidelined in the company, the speech marked Ms Murdoch's return to power, most likely as the head of the entertainment business once the organisation splits next year.

Ms Murdoch rejoined the family business last year after she sold her TV production company Shine to News Corp for $440 million. Wolff also predicted Lachlan Murdoch would head publishing, as much of its operations are based in Australia. Lachlan's spokesman told the Herald last week his focus was on building up his own business, through his private investment vehicle Illyria. ''I think you will end up with two Murdochs heading up the two companies. This [speech] was a very significant Murdoch moment,'' he said. with Guardian News & Media Elisabeth Murdoch slams brother over ‘profit at all costs’ belief | Toronto Star World Elisabeth Murdoch slams brother over ‘profit at all costs’ belief Elisabeth Murdoch denied on Friday she wanted to succeed her father as head of the News Corp media empire, but acknowledged her role in forcing out one of his favourite newspaper executives over a phone hacking scandal. Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival, she said that as a daughter it had been heartbreaking to see Rupert Murdoch humbled by the scandal which engulfed his News of the World newspaper, but played down her own ambitions. Sun., Aug.

26, 2012 EDINBURGH—Elisabeth Murdoch denied on Friday she wanted to succeed her father as head of the News Corp media empire, but acknowledged her role in forcing out one of his favourite newspaper executives over a phone hacking scandal. Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival, she said that as a daughter it had been heartbreaking to see Rupert Murdoch humbled by the scandal which engulfed his News of the World newspaper, but played down her own ambitions. Murdoch had previously urged the media industry, on Thursday, to embrace morality and reject her brother James’s mantra of profit at all costs, in a speech seen as an attempt to distance herself from the scandal that has tarnished the family name. Addressing television executives, she said profit without purpose was a recipe for disaster and the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World tabloid showed the need for a rigorous set of values. Elisabeth Murdoch: Scandal underlines need for 'rigorous values' - CNN.com Elisabeth Murdoch: Scandal underlines need for 'rigorous values' By Peter Bale, CNN Updated 9:03 PM ET, Thu August 23, 2012 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger.

Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. Elisabeth Murdoch says British newspapers controlled by her father Rupert have shown a lack of integrity.. Story highlights Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert, wades into the debate about newspaper ethics Says the behavior of News International papers has fallen short of ethical standards Her comments will be interpreted as implicit criticism of the media culture her father created Elisabeth Murdoch has stepped publicly into the debate around media morality, saying newspapers controlled by her father Rupert's company had fallen short of the values he had taught her at the breakfast table. In a deeply personal speech about her passion for the power of television to media leaders in Scotland on Thursday, she critiqued her brother James's championing of the profit motive at the same event three years ago. She also defended the positive role of the British Broadcasting Corporation in public life and as a "catalyst" to the British creative economy. But it will be her comments on the hacking scandal swirling around her father's British newspaper empire that will get most attention in reporting her lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival. Previously only overheard comments attributed to Elisabeth had surfaced, suggesting she believed her brother and former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks had ruined the company.

News Corporation, she said, "is currently asking itself some very significant and difficult questions about how some behaviors fell so far short of its values," referring to a crisis which has enmeshed the company in accusations of illegal phone hacking, improper payments to officials and excessive political influence. JUST WATCHED MUST WATCH Gordon Brown fights back against Murdoch 03:00 She said the affair and the subsequent judicial inquiry into the British print media, its behavior and connections to politicians had exposed "an unsettling dearth of integrity" across many institutions. She hoped a new regulatory regime would be light touch and protect a free press. A major television producer in her own right whose company, Shine, creates or owns shows such as "Ugly Betty," "The Hour," "Spooks" and "Masterchef," Elisabeth is the third member of the Murdoch family to deliver the annual MacTaggart lecture after James three years ago, and her father in 1989. British media writers will seize on her comments about her brother's attack on the BBC in 2009, in which he branded it a "chilling" influence because of its massive backing from a tax on TV owners.

In remarks reminiscent of individualist philosopher Ayn Rand, James had said "the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit." Elisabeth took a different tone from her brother's, saying profit was not a goal in itself and that "profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster." In another subtle twist in her speech, Elisabeth said she ascribed to the view of renowned British television drama writer the late Dennis Potter that "the job of television is to make hearts pound." Observers with long memories recalled that Potter died of a cancer which he said he had nicknamed "Rupert" because of his dislike of Murdoch and his influence on British culture. However, Elisabeth far from disowned her father or her brother. She said how much she had admired her father's determination to "challenge the old world order on behalf of the people" and that she had learned over the breakfast table the importance of a life of purpose and "a belief in better" - echoing the slogan of the Sky satellite network her father created in Britain and where she worked before founding her production company, also now owned by News.

In comments on the future of television, likely to be less well covered than the hacking scandal and critique of James, she urged independent television producers to scale to reach a global market and to embrace the internet and the importance of social networking and technology more than they had. "There is no reason for us to be afraid if we learn and learn quickly," she said to a home audience of television executives almost universally afraid of YouTube, Google and the internet itself. "We need to adapt as fast as the audience," she said. 'We need honesty and integrity...' Was this Liz Murdoch's pitch to take over? | The Independent 'We need honesty and integrity...' Was this Liz Murdoch's pitch to take over? Thursday 23 August 2012 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online Elisabeth Murdoch tonight presented herself as a champion of “honesty”, “integrity” and moral “purpose” within the famous Murdoch media dynasty which has seen its reputation besmirched by the phone hacking scandal. PA Elisabeth Murdoch tonight presented herself as a champion of “honesty”, “integrity” and moral “purpose” within the famous Murdoch media dynasty which has seen its reputation besmirched by the phone hacking scandal.

Delivering the prestigious James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture to the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Ms Murdoch, 44, distanced herself from her younger brother James, 39, who has been embroiled in the hacking scandal. She disputed his words in an aggressive speech to the same audience three years ago. James, who was seen as the heir to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire, had argued that the only guarantor of independence was profit but Elisabeth said he had been wrong. "Profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster," she said. Ms Murdoch's speech will be taken as an indication that she is positioning herself within the News Corp empire as the Murdoch sibling best placed to carry forward her father's work. The British-based television company Shine Group, which she founded and leads, is now a part of News Corp, after her father's company paid £415 million for the business last year. Discussing News Corp's recent problems she said they had come about because "some behaviours fell so far short of its values".

She said: "Personally, I believe one of the biggest lessons of the past year has been the need for any organisation to discuss, affirm, and institutionalise a rigorous set of values based on an explicit statement of purpose." Ms Murdoch addressed the Leveson inquiry that has resulted from the hacking affair and noted that there has been "an unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions" which, she regretted, now threatens the freedom of the press. She talked of the continued "scrutiny into our media standards and the sometimes self-serving relationships between the great institutional pillars of our society be they police, politics, media or banking". Ms Murdoch concluded her speech by quoting the words of her father Rupert from his own MacTaggart Lecture a generation earlier, in 1989, when the mogul had talked of "freeing" broadcasting from the bureaucrats and "placing it in the hands of those who should control it - the people". Ms Murdoch said she had learned that "vision" from her father over the family breakfast table and "even back then, I understood that we were in pursuit of a greater good - a belief in better".

Those last four words mirrored the catchline of BSkyB - from which James stood down as chairman in April amid ongoing criticism of his handling of the phone hacking affair while in charge of News International, his father's British newspaper stable. As chairman of BSkyB, James had attacked the "chilling" ambition of the BBC. His sister, who is a far more popular figure within the British television industry, took a different approach, saying she was a "current supporter" of the BBC licence fee and praising the track record of the departing Director-General Mark Thompson - James's great strategic foe - for his "vision and leadership" in positioning the organisation for future challenges in media. Using subtler language than her confrontational brother she identified Google's YouTube and other new media platforms including Amazon, Netflix and Twitter as the threats to the established television industry and tactfully appealed to broadcasters and producers to work together for a common good. "Ours is a business of mutuality - all of the tribes gathered at this festival are reliant on the health of each other," she said. Addressing an audience where liberal values are usually to the fore, she quoted Nelson Mandela, Aldous Huxley, Alan Bennett and Voltaire.

She mildly berated the festival organisers for not having appointed a woman to give the MacTaggart since 1995. And though she was born in Sydney and grew up mostly in New York, watching shows such as "The Brady Bunch" and "I Love Lucy", she spoke of "our great British producers" and took every chance to bathe in post-Olympics euphoria. "As our Olympians have inspired a generation so should we be inspired by our forefathers. We can be a new Britain born out of the best of the old Britain," she said. But most of all she seemed to want to take on the baton of her own father, and to help improve his company's reputation. "A great creative organisation is like any successful community," she said. "It's a place of honesty, integrity, and an environment where curiosity and enthusiasm are the norm. It's a place that demands personal accountability, collective responsibility and true self-determination." What she said...and what she meant “James…left something out: the reason his statement sat so uncomfortably is that profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster.” I am not James.

Elisabeth Murdoch declares support for BBC licence fee - BBC News BBC News Elisabeth Murdoch declares support for BBC licence fee 24 August 2012 Close share panel Media captionElisabeth Murdoch: "It's because the fee is universal that the BBC has a unique purpose" Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth has used a speech to voice her support for the BBC and urge the media to focus on morals as well as profit. The TV producer sought to distance herself from brother James, an executive at News Corp, which has been embroiled in the phone hacking scandal. Ms Murdoch delivered the keynote speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival. She said writing the lecture had been "a welcome distraction from some of the other nightmares much closer to home". Giving the annual MacTaggart lecture, Elisabeth Murdoch - whose production company makes Masterchef and Merlin for the BBC - also praised the corporation for its creative leadership. That was in contrast to James, who called the BBC's size and ambition "chilling" when he delivered the lecture in 2009. Ms Murdoch also criticised the "dearth of integrity" highlighted in the Leveson inquiry into press standards.

She said the exposure of the "sometimes self-serving relationships" between great pillars of society such as police, politics, media and banking served as a reminder that "with great power comes responsibility". Referring to the Leveson Inquiry, she said the result should be the "fierce protection of a free press and light touch media regulation". She added that it was hard to argue for this because of the "unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions". "Sadly, the greatest threats to our free society are too often from the enemies within," she said. 'Recipe for disaster' Independence from regulation, she added, "is only democratically viable when we accept that we have a responsibility to each other and not just to our bottom line". Image caption MasterChef is one of the programmes made by Shine, where Murdoch is chairman Ms Murdoch is chair of the Shine Group and is only the fourth woman to deliver the speech since the festival's inception in 1976. The last woman to do so before her was Janet Street Porter in 1995. She used her speech to challenge her younger brother's assertion three years ago that "the only reliable guarantee of editorial independence is profit".

She said he was "clearly being provocative" but insisted that "profit without purpose - or of a moral language - was a recipe for disaster". While praising the BBC for its Olympic coverage and creative partnerships, Ms Murdoch added: "The BBC needs ITV and Sky to thrive so that they can [all] maintain a position of equality rather than dominance." After speaking in support of the "universal licence fee", she mentioned that the "biggest challenge" facing the BBC's new director general George Entwistle "may be to demonstrate how efficiently that funding is being spent on actual content". Independent success Before the phone-hacking scandal, James Murdoch had been widely considered to be the front runner to take over his father Rupert's media empire. But the row raised questions over his suitability, despite his repeated denials of any knowledge of the illegal practice at the News of the World. Image caption Elisabeth Murdoch said she harbours "absolutely no ambition for the top job" at News Corporation In contrast, Ms Murdoch has distanced herself from the scandal that enveloped her father and brother. It was she who suggested to her father that James should take a leave of absence from the corporation and step aside.

Having bought and sold US TV stations before a brief stint working at Sky in the early 1990s, she left the family business to build her own successful TV production company. Although Shine has now been bought by News Corporation, she has made a point of ploughing her own furrow, away from the rest of the family. Despite Ms Murdoch's personal ambition and independent success, she does not make many public appearances and her profile is not as high as that of her brother James. 'Nightmare year' Following her lecture, former ITN editor-in-chief Stewart Purvis wrote on Twitter that it should have been titled: "Why I am not my father or my brother." Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff said there was only "one way" to look at what she had said. "This is part of a strategic repositioning of Lis Murdoch within the media world, with the business world and within the family," he told the Reuters news agency. Ms Murdoch returned to the stage to give a Q&A on Friday morning.

In answer to suggestions that she may be positioning herself for a leading role at the top of News Corporation she said: "I harbour absolutely no ambition for the top job." She explained her motives for giving the lecture by saying "it's been a bit of a nightmare year for the family and I thought it right to stand up and be counted." Elisabeth Murdoch decries 'profit without purpose': Shine chief criticizes media environment in Edinburgh speech - tribunedigital-chicagotribune Elisabeth Murdoch decries 'profit without purpose': Shine chief criticizes media environment in Edinburgh speech August 23, 2012|Steve Clarke | Variety EDINBURGH -- In a remarkable critique of her younger brother James, Shine chair Elisabeth Murdoch declared that "profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster." Her keynote speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival on Thursday is being read as an application for the job of succeeding father Rupert as head of News Corp. Three years ago at the same gabfest, James Murdoch, then chairman of U.K.

paybox BSkyB, infuriated many Brits by insisting that "profit is the only guarantee of independence" and accused the BBC of "mission creep." Elisabeth Murdoch said that capitalism without a moral purpose was worthless. She broke with family tradition by praising the BBC and its license fee funding in her wide-ranging MacTaggart lecture, an annual fest highlight. Murdoch also criticized the "dearth of integrity" that had led to the phone hacking and police corruption scandal at her father's U.K. tabloid the News of the World, which ended James Murdoch's tenure as chairman of News Group Newspapers and executive chairman of News Corp.'s newspaper arm. And, for a Murdoch, Elisabeth mounted an astonishing critique of unbridled, free-market capitalism. "As an industry -- and indeed as a global society -- we have become trapped in our own rhetoric," she said. "We need to learn how to be comfortable with articulating purpose and reject the idea that money is the only effective measure of all things or that the free market is the only sorting mechanism. "Do we have such faith in the imperatives of the market that we need have no will of our own other than to succeed on its terms?

It is increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose -- or of a moral language -- within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and freedom." Referring to "the dearth of integrity" across so many institutions, Murdoch said that "without a common statement of purpose there is no credible answer to the Occupy Wall Street movement." She justified her own decision to sell Shine to News Corp. on the grounds that in the digital age it was crucial to operate companies that possessed genuine scale. Murdoch also warned traditional broadcasters not to get caught out by new platforms like Twitter and Netflix that are building intelligent relationships with their auds. Lavishing praise on the BBC, she claimed the pubcaster was the furthest ahead in understanding new eco-systems. She praised outgoing director-general Mark Thompson's "purposeful mentality" for enabling the Beeb to claim pole position in the emerging connected world. Elisabeth is the third member of the Murdoch family to give a MacTaggart lecture. In addition to James' 2009 speech, Rupert Murdoch presented the lecture in 1989 to coincide with the launch of U.K. paybox BSkyB. Click here for more television news on Variety.com. MORE:

Question: What member of the Murdoch media family said in 2012, "Profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster"?
Answer: Elisabeth