Customer Reviews

Rupert Murdoch: Ringmaster of the Information Circus

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3 star:		(5)
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Murdoch is, to say the least, one of the more controversial figures in media today. His name still inspires visions of the pitched battles that have arisen around the pieces of his empire and the ethical debates about the role of journalism and issues of media ownership. There is a tremendous amount to be learned from studying Murdoch and the way he built his kingdom, and this book is not to be missed, particularly for people studying media history or the media industry.

Shawcross presents a very balanced picture, light on both censure and praise, and manages to give enough personal detail to illuminate the public Murdoch without veering into a personal melodrama. The writing is occasionally a bit dry, but generally of a high quality & the source notes and bibliography are quite valuable in and of themselves.

Straightforward journalistic over view of Murdoch's career while also giving useful insight into the print and media worlds of Australia and the UK in the 50s to 80s.

However, little comment ventured as to Murdoch's underlying motivations or his relationships with family or friends.

Stops in early 1990s, so an update or second edition would be good.

Author seems a bit infatuated with his subject and reserves his criticism for Murdoch's competitors and critics like Maxwell and Harold Evans.

I'll state from the beginning; I think this is the best book ever written, about one of the most fascinating men in the history of the world.

I have read a number of Murdoch "biographies", including, Murdoch: The Great Escape and Andrew Neil's view of Murdoch in "Full Disclosure". Neither of them have the depth and detail that this book does. But it is more than depth and detail which makes this book truly great. It is William Shawcross' ability to capture the feeling of enormous vision and ambition that Rupert Murdoch has which makes this book unique.

The story describes how his father built one of the greatest news networks in the Australia, the Herald & Weekly Times, yet had few significant assets of his own, as he was an employee of the company.

Thus, while a young Rupert dreamed of ringing the world with satellites that would brodcast news, information and communication around the world, it would be a company owned by his family which would be the beneficiary.

Upon his father's death, he moved to Adelaide, where he took over the Adelaide News, which he built into a formidable earner. He then bought numerous papers around the world, continuing is his dream until he had amassed a huge network of newspaper, television, theatrical and television assets around the world.

One of the most brilliantly told tales of the book is when Rupert went back to the Herald & Weekly Times in his home town of Melbourne and made an offer for the company. After much toing and froing, he bought the company for several billion dollars. "He bought the house his father built".

What makes this book a must buy is that it reads like a long term plan of the News Corporation. You can see how, as a person, Rupert Murdoch is an outstanding manager, visionary and businessman, but you can see that while he manages such a remarkably huge company such as News Corp, he is able to allow in his staff and business units a sense of freedom and entrepeneurial spirit.

This book is perfect for people who love business books, or motivation books, or family tales, or media junkies, or any consumers of FOX, News, BSkyB, HWT, TV Guide, FOXTEL, The Simpsons etc. etc. etc.

I will finish by saying that immediately after I read this book, I bought News shares at $A5.60. They are now around $A18.00 - I am not surprised. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, BUY IT!

Excellent review of easily the most powerful media baron in the world. The author has presented a very brilliant but more importantly, non biased biography that will take you through the rise and rise of Rupert Murdoch. Even if you're in the anti-Murdoch camp, you can't help but to admire this man for what he has created and for what he is today. If you read this, Murdoch, here's to you!

When I read William Shawcross' "Murdoch" back when it was originally published (early 90s), I thought it was one of the best biographies I had read. I especially liked the author's focus on his subject's "pre-News" days, most notably a very memorable discussion on Murdoch's infatuation with Marxism during his university days.

Murdoch explains that period away with the following answer: "If you're 20 and not a communist, you have no heart; and if you're 40 and not a capitalist, you have no head."

Shawcross then painstakingly builds a portrait of a man who - over the next 30 years - slides clear across the spectrum to become Maggie Thatcher's biggest champion. There's a great blow-by-blow of Murdoch's battle with the press unions at Wapping, with Thatcher's tacit support.

Of course, things in Murdoch's world move quickly, so Shawcross put out an update edition (this one) in 1997. Now, we need an update to the update. So much has transpired in these six years. We need Shawcross' take on:

- The continued rise of the Fox Network (expecially Fox News)
- Lachlan and James Murdoch's increasingly large roles at News Corp.
- The DirectTV takeover attempts (Part 1 and 2)
- Continued efforts to penetrate India and China
- Wife #3 Wendy Deng + two new young children

...and much, much more. Never a dull moment with the man who fellow (now ex-) mogul Ted Turner heads up the world's leading "evil empire."

billy shawcross - thank god you wrote this book. you'll never look at the media the same after reading this. if you work in media, or busniess for that matter, this is a must.

Rupert Murdoch is one of the most interesting business men of our day. His growth at the Fox Network and other various news outlets has made him one of the most powerful men on the planet. Shawcross does an excellent biography telling about his life in Australia up through his dominant position in America today. It covers the start of the fourth network as well as the New York post and battles with government regulators. It stops before the Fox News Channel really gets going but this still remains the best biography on Murdoch that has been done to date.

Our world is dependent on broadcast media, and the more rapid our lives change, the more we depend on impersonal and mass-produced flows of information. Mr. Shawcross gives a deep look into the world of information flow, a flow that is not manipulated by evil, maniacs, but rather a world of flow that is about making money for owners and investors of information service providers. Presenting both the history of commercial media development and also interpretation of the personalities involved, I highly recommend this book to see beyond the hysteria of anti-media communications and see that one person can make a difference in how information is procured, packaged, and sold.
A few of my favorite quotes are:
--the new world favors those who pursue policies of which the traders approve.
--The Disruption of 1843 had little to do with theology. It was the culmination of 130 years of a bitter dispute in which the English crown had sought to control the Scottish Church by the appointment of ministers loyal to London. In the early nineteenth century a new generation of younger, more radical men had emerged in the Church of Scotland; they were known as "the wild party," or "the popular party," or the Evangelicals. Ecclesiastically and theologically conservative, yet socially and politically liberal (and some of the downright radical), they hated the controls imposed by London through the Scottish lairds.
--Free Church ministers and elders like James Murdoch tended to be active, hard-headed, well-educated, practical men who knew how to make money and how to use it wisely.
--The debate on the free flow of information would be settled by engineers, not by politicians. Governments would not for long be able to conceal the evidence of their crimes.
--"The very existence of new information channels, operating in real time and across all frontiers, will be a powerful influence for civilized behaviour. If you are arranging a massacre, it will be useless to shoot the cameraman who has so inconveniently appeared on the scene. His pictures will already be safe in the studio five thousand miles away and his final image may hang you."
--Information was being presented as entertainment.
--A really integrated media company has to be in the production of entertainment. It also has to be in news reporting.
--Nations are now increasingly defined by the extent to which knowledge is a tradable commodity in their economies.

This is not a great, classic book, but it does give valuable snippets of how global media systems operate and manipulate and are manipulated.

Very well documented personal (a combination of gambling instinct and dour puritanism) and business biography of the media tycoon. The rise of Murdoch from an owner of a small newspaper in Australia to a global media tycoon. His motif: "power, not money." The power to influence political/social history through his colossal media empire. Murdoch believes that the Americanizing of the world is not only profitable for his business, but a great good in itself.
The author situates the ascent of Murdoch within the world political history (cold war, Thatcher, Reagan ...) and gives an incisive portrait of some of his collaborators: Barry Diller and Kelvin Mac Kenzie (editor of his milk cow 'The Sun').
Written with a good sense of humour, e.g. "... Giles should assume the title of Editor Emeritus ... Giles asked Murdoch what this title really meant . It's Latin, Frank. E means exit and meritus means you deserve it." Or, after Murdoch banned alcohol on the working place, someone replied "Free drunks produce better newspapers than sober slaves". The tycoon was even asked by the Vietnamese government to make communist-controlled television more popular!
Besides, the author gives a sneer at Unesco for attacking freedom of information. One minus point: on different occasions, the author refers to big financial troubles for the media empire without giving the numbers.

This a good look at the life and business career of Rupert Murdoch, which still left me with a lot of questions about the man. I certainly admire his business acumen, but I am still not sure whether he is an unscrupulous, immoral shark or simply a good businessman driven by much more ambition than most, and simply doing what is necessary to feed this ambition. Possibly this makes it a good book: Shawcross does not attempt to influence the reader, and sticks to the facts.

However, I did not find the book all that engaging. The section about the near-collapse of News is very engaging, though. It is so exciting that it is almost difficult to believe that it is not fiction.