The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch

If Rupert Murdoch isn’t making headlines, he’s busy buying the media outlets that generate the headlines. His News Corp. holdings—from the New York Post, Fox News, and most recently The Wall Street Journal, to name just a few—are vast, and his power is unrivaled. So what makes a man like this tick? Michael Wolff gives us the definitive answer in The Man Who Owns the News.

With unprecedented access to Rupert Murdoch himself, and his associates and family, Wolff chronicles the astonishing growth of Murdoch’s $70 billion media kingdom. In intimate detail, he probes the Murdoch family dynasty, from the battles that have threatened to destroy it to the reconciliations that seem to only make it stronger. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews, he offers accounts of the Dow Jones takeover as well as plays for Yahoo! and Newsday as they’ve never been revealed before.

Written in the irresistible stye that only an award-winning columnist for Vanity Fair can deliver, The Man Who Owns the News offers an exclusive glimpse into a man who wields extraordinary power and influence in the media on a worldwide scale—and whose family is being groomed to carry his legacy into the future.

Big Shots: Business the Rupert Murdoch Way

Now brought completely up-to-date for this new edition, Business The Rupert Murdoch Way not only reveals the secrets of Murdoch’s remarkable success but also draws out the universal lessons and identifies strategies that can be applied to any business or career. From thriving on risk to hard selling, and from loving the detail to betting big on the future, Business The Rupert Murdoch Way is a fascinating insight into what it takes to create a global business empire.

Murdoch

It was Rupert Murdoch who invented the modern media empire. Now his reach includes two thirds of the Earth’s population. In this revised and updated edition, William Shawcross brings Murdoch’s story up to date. “Of all the biographies on Murdoch, this is the most comprehensive and balanced and comes closest to explaining a bundle of contradictions.”–Edwin Diamond, New York magazine.

Dreamblog: Having a Ball

Two nights in a row I had dreams about attending balls. The first dream had me hanging out with Count Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy in 1700s. This is pretty easy to explain — I am reading a book about the Tolstoys.

This morning I had another dream, where I was at a Newscorp ball at the Hilton and talked to Rupert Murdoch. He completely agreed with all the things that I proposed to be done at TV Guide and I woke up very pleased with myself.

“I’m Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire tyrant. And this is my sky-box.”

You see, ordinarily I have the most horrible memory for faces and names. Just terrible. It’s because my brain is a bit lazy. So I decided to work on that. I bought a book about remembering faces and names and started paying attention.

Something slightly surreal happened to me today. Rupert Murdoch said hello to me in an elevator. You see, I was reading Murdoch’s biography a while back and studied the pictures well enough to recognize him. So I guess he noticed the look of dumb recognition on my face and said “Hello”. I said “Hi”. Probably I’ve seen him many times before in the elevator – his office is a few floors above.

This is approximately how it went down:

Here’s the soundtrack.

NYYC part II

Remember I wrote about New York Yacht Club building? Well, I could not find any decent photos of the building, so I decided to take some myself. I cant’ say I am very pleased with the results, but what the hey.


In a sea of taxicabs.

Baron Harkonnen would have liked this

Just a regular vomiting fish. They seem to be pretty common.

I would really like to take a look inside. Maybe if I rise high enough in corporate ranks Rupert Murdoch will take me there. :)

Unfortunately I haven’t read the Commodore’s biography yet. I think his yacht was a lot like him – ugly, but impressive.