Paper Giants: Magazine Wars - TV review

The success of Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War and Paper Giants: The Birth Of Cleo ensured a further excursion into the grubby pages of Australia’s recent media history. This latest chapter, Paper Giants: Magazine Wars (ABC1) might seem an unnecessary reiteration of dramas already amply ventilated, but often there’s juice to be found in a well-squeezed lemon.

Not that Magazine Wars is a lemon ­– but is its subject matter entirely worthy of the resources brought to bear in relating what is, essentially, a sordid story of opportunism and excess?

Oddly the answer is yes. This is absorbing and frequently rewarding drama – a two-part series recounting the fierce rivalry between pulp magazine editors, Dulcie Boling and her former protege, Nene King.

The editors' protracted fight for circulation supremacy involving New Idea and Woman’s Day parallels the struggle between their bosses Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer to re-define the lowest common denominator in terms of what might – in better days – have been called ethics, morality and the right to privacy.

Packer, again splendidly portrayed by Rob Carlton – continues to cast a long shadow over the landscape he dominated. Despite the character’s bulldozing vulgarity and contemptible bullying, a contradictory human empathy sustains. Even a discernible whiff of grace as Packer barges forward in his war by proxy with Murdoch.

William Zappa’s Rupert is a refined, if relentless buccaneer, cognisant of the value of the golden goose to his crown-of-thorns invasion of the global media landscape.

Implacable rivals and die-hard punters Packer and Murdoch wage a battle of wallets and dominance using Boling and King as their generals. The editors, like everyone else on the chessboard, are expendable.

Boling (Rachel Griffiths) – regal, gracious and loyal to Murdoch – appreciates King’s talent and drive, but is reluctant to change her tactics or modus operandi in retaliation.

King (Mandy McElhinney), is brash, volcanic and not averse to kicking heads – even her own. The contrast in styles couldn’t be more pronounced and, in this telling of events, is somewhat exaggerated.

Underpinning the mainline conflict, playing out over the decade 1987-97, is a tryst between resourceful snapper, Nick Trumpet (you may remember his father from The Bugle), and fragrantly ambitious hackette, Beth Ridgeway.

Their turbulent relationship reflects and amplifies social change and serves as a useful device in personalising the tempo of the times. Insights into Ms Boling’s personal life are given far less prominence than those of her rival’s relationship with Patrick Bowring.

Ultimately it’s a story of how recklessness and ruthlessness – financial and moral – promoted chequebook journalism, a preoccupation with intrusive tabloid gossip and growing indifference to the pollution of accepted notions involving personal privacy.

The point is rammed home in a coda in which King – for the first and only time in the drama – directly addresses the camera to remind viewers she merely obeyed the laws of supply and demand.

It is marginally more credible than Mr Murdoch’s sanctimonious mea culpa at high noon on “The Humblest Day Of My Life”. That graceless day is, perhaps, the ultimate destination of the series.

The acting here is good, the direction fluent and the writing generally astute. A sense of the times – little more than a decade ago in places – sustains admirably and the speed of change within that timeframe adds immediacy.

Social decadence, financial venality and political expediency are the real villains here, not just the immoral providores .

Meanwhile, florid journalism and equally strident fundamentalism collide as opposing social structures wrestle for relevance. Could the twain meet and if so, could such a fusion be prompted by a form of gonzo Islam?

That question is thrown up for consideration in Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam (SBS1).

Punk Islam? In 2002, disillusioned with orthodox Islam, young white convert Michael Muhhamad Knight wrote the provocative novel Taqwacores. Extolling the ideas of Malcolm X and the attitude of hip-hop bands like Public Enemy it fused the teenage angst of Catcher In The Rye with the bile of Hunter S Thompson - inspiring a slew of bands such as Kominas, Vote Hezbollah and Secret Trial Five which, in turn, proved inspirational to young American Muslims looking for a realistic voice. Three years in the making, this doco charts the progress of that idea from fiction to fact.