Chenoweth, Neil. Rupert Murdoch: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest
Media Wizard. New York: Crown Business (Random House), 2002. 398 pages.
Sydney-based investigative journalist Neil Chenoweth has been on the
case since 1990, when he triggered an Australian government inquiry into
Rupert Murdoch's family companies. Murdoch, who parlayed family money into
a media empire in Australia, Britain, and the U.S. (and is still trying to
take over China), became a U.S. citizen in 1985. Born in 1931, he's still a
one-man show, and his son Lachlan will be the successor. Murdoch's tangle of
some 75 cross-border News Corporation companies are the bane of regulators,
tax-collectors, and competitors alike. He enjoys high-risk corporate
wheeling and dealing, much like a poker player might enjoy high-stakes
games. More than once he has come very close to losing, only to pull it out
at the last minute. You either hate Rupert Murdoch, or fear him, or both.
But few have the stomach to try and out-maneuver him.
His commitment is to money, not to quality media. Between his racy
British tabloids and his knee-jerk Fox News, Murdoch is eager to dumb-down
the masses as long as there's money to be made while doing it. In 1999 he
married for the third time, to a woman 37 years younger. Can someone find a
tranquilizer for this guy? Maybe he will die of old age someday, but don't
count on it.
ISBN 0-609-61038-4
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