Never let the facts get in the way of a good blurb. The dust jacket claims: "This book exposes for the first time the extraordinary relationships between our postwar political leaders and the great media proprietors." Huh?
These relationships are scarcely virgin territory. We know this from the numerous books, articles and documentaries on the topic, most of which are listed in the blurbed book's bibliography.
We know this because the author, Bridget Griffen-Foley, has already written two comprehensive books on the Packer family and its media empire that chart this territory.
We know it because powerful media proprietors doing deals with powerful politicians is a modern cliche, one that The Simpsons both mocks and bows to through occasional guest appearances by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of its parent network.
Perhaps the publisher "sexed up" the book's contents. It would not be the first time. It is a pity, though, because media people are notoriously picky and prickly about anyone, especially outsiders, studying their work as Griffen-Foley experienced in the reception to her earlier books.
It is doubly a pity because although many in the media may well dismiss Party Games on the ground that it contains little "news", the book does unearth interesting information that broadens and deepens what is already known.
Equally important, it documents its claims; much that is written about the media relies on journalists' memories, which are sometimes accurate and sometimes apocryphal. A diligent researcher, Griffen-Foley has plumbed archives around the nation, drawn on other researchers' unpublished theses plus the National Library's valuable collection of oral history interviews with various politicians and journalists.
The relationships between leading politicians and the nation's major media companies - the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, John Fairfax and Sons Ltd (publisher of The Sunday Age), News Ltd and Australian Consolidated Press - is outlined through examination of key episodes between 1945 and 1975.
Among these are: the remaking of Robert Menzies' image from silver-tongued, patrician ex-barrister to avuncular PM always known as Bob Menzies; the carving up in the 1950s of the fledgling commercial television industry for existing newspaper proprietors; the Fairfax company's atypical support for Labor in the 1961 federal election primarily because government policies that induced a credit squeeze had sharply affected its classified advertising revenue; and Frank Packer's leave-no-stone-unturned approach to installing "his man" Billy McMahon as prime minister instead of John Gorton.
Later chapters deal with Rupert Murdoch's zealous barracking, and more, for Labor to win the 1972 election and his about turn against Labor in the lead-up to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's dismissal by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr, and the ensuing bitter election campaign.
Equally bitter was the reaction by journalists working at Murdoch's The Australian to real and perceived interference with their copy so as to present Whitlam in a poor light. As the then treasurer, Bill Hayden, commented, if the prime minister had walked across Lake Burley Griffin, the national daily's headline would have read: "Whitlam can't swim."
Murdoch may be a global media behemoth these days, but in the early 1970s, according to John Menadue, who worked closely with him for a time, he relished the role of kingmaker. "The fact is that Mr Murdoch cannot keep off the telephone and has a great desire - almost a compulsion - to talk to politicians, and particularly people in power."
As Griffen-Foley notes in an epilogue: "Australian media proprietors and their executives, editors and journalists have implicated themselves in inter-party contests, expressing not just editorial support for one party but at times funding federal and state election campaigns, writing speeches for politicians, advising parties on policies and platforms, and skewing news coverage.
"Various factors - genuine ideological commitment, commercial self-interest, a desire to be involved with the powerful at the highest level and, every so often, even a mischievous sense of fun - have propelled Australian media dynasties into the political arena."
Party Games is valuable for gathering together such information in one easily accessible volume, but is less successful in analysing the nuances of the relationships between media companies and politicians. Such discussion is sorely needed because the role of the media proprietor seems to be a lightning rod for an inordinate amount of tosh.
Some claim they are all-powerful, others that it is not proprietors but journalists who wield the real power. While the image of a journalist telling Kerry Packer where to get off seems strangely elusive, the power of proprietors can be overstated.
Consider that barometer of popular culture, James Bond. In Tomorrow Never Dies, the villain is a media mogul, Elliott Carver, whose convoluted efforts to boost ratings on his cable TV network not only risk nuclear war but seem a rather wan version of the Bond villain's standard quest for world domination. Why all the pussyfooting? Why not just take over the world and be done with it?
Party Games: Australian Politicians and the Media from War to Dismissal By Bridget is published by Griffen-Foley Text Publishing, priced at $32
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