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

Shrew and model businessman for some, amoral and vulgar technocrat for others, Rupert Murdoch is not the kind of person to leave indifferent! Michael Wolff, author specialist of mass media and himself a journalist, delivers here a direct, blunt, portray of the man, not sparring his words even if, at times, clearly transpires some sort of admiration and respect.

Written at the time when Murdoch was buying the 'Wall Street Journal' (an epic transaction!) he delves as much into his professional as his personal journey, both inextricably linked, to show not only how ambitious, aggressive, cynical, opportunistic such successful man is, but, also, how massive will be his impact. Like it or not, Rupert Murdoch indeed radically transformed show more journalism. One of the first to understand, as early as in the 1970s, that the medias were about to become global, he started then to build a mediatic empire stretching from his native Australia to the United States and Great Britain. Not limiting himself to that, he also changed how content itself is delivered, mixing news and entertainment in a confused blend. Tabloid culture? Well, that's him.

Efficiency, speed, and constant buzz news rightly going straight to the emotions for some, idiotic vulgarity which turned out to be a disease having contaminated what journalism should entail in the first place for others (think about from the topless girls in 'The Sun' to celebrity gossips sold as if they were newsworthy...) his 'philosophy -'sell to the consumer what the consumer wants'- is controversial enough as it is, yet there is more worrying. The man also carries in his trail a series of scandals which are quite chilling if you care for civil liberties. If you ever though that the transformation of the 'Times', or, the scam that were the supposed 'diaries' of Hitler to be polemical, then brace yourself for more -his approach will contaminate even the political arena. The Gough Whitlam Affair in Australia, how Fox News reported on the war in Irak, his close relationship with Tony Blair... Here was a man with power and influence, and not shy to use it for interested gains.

This is undeniably a long book to go through, not in terms of length per se but because it can be very boring at times (Wolff doesn't spare us his detailed transactions, nor the biographies of those businessmen who will cross his path!). Nevertheless, this is an invaluable outlook upon one of the most important media baron of our era. Like him or despise him, there is no denying indeed that journalism never was the same once Rupert Murdoch started to dig his claws into it. We might live in an era of frenetic buzz, when mass medias became as reliable as some are shamelessly biased, but, beyond the gossipy and vulgarity also lurks chilling questions when it comes to the safety of democracy. show less