Rupert Murdoch: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Media Wizard (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "WHEN THE STORM BROKE in the newsroom of the New York Post in midtown, the staff broke into the defensive huddles that mark a newspaper..." (more)
Key Phrases: debt override agreement, reverse ferret, satellite license, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Veteran Aussie journalist Chenoweth impressively surveys Murdoch's decades-long business career, rendering in great detail the many bidding wars for acquisitions that have resulted in the behemoth News Corp and other Murdoch holdings. Yet this is hardly an "untold story," judging by the lengthy citations in the book's end notes, not to mention the author's previous investigative reporting on the Murdoch empire. However, Chenoweth's business-writing experience (he is a senior writer for the Australian Financial Review) makes him an ideal candidate to explain the tricky deals and slick legal maneuvers that are commonplace for Murdoch's global business. Murdoch has tremendous access to and influence on a variety of people and topics, and many readers are already familiar with Murdoch's deep pockets and insatiable interest in growth that have made him one of the world's great business legends. They will learn more about his business doings, among them the 1996 launch of Fox News and his interest in purchasing the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, despite having "hated sports as a boy" (alas, he "realized that sports stories sold newspapers"). But sadly, the subject does not come alive here, and the reader begs for details that might have illuminated him and his decisions. Chenoweth purports that an "anti-Murdoch factor" exists, but any animosity seems very distant in this account. And the tycoon's personal life, including his late-life divorce and second marriage, is glossed over, only getting some attention in the second-to-last chapter. The decision to limit discussion of his private life is a weakness, since Murdoch the man might have shed light on Murdoch the businessman.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The author, an Australian newspaperman, tells us, "In a society marked by impermanence, where the form of things is more significant than the substance, Murdoch is a shape-shifter, a conjurer of realities." In his research the author found his subject to be a creature of the cash trails that wind through the tax havens of the world. Following those trails, Chenoweth recounts what he considers a devastating series of consequences resulting from Murdoch's global manipulation. The book takes us through Murdoch's three great campaigns: his launch in the 1980s of an American television network that overturned the media industries of three countries, his takeover in 1997 of every broadcasting group in the U.S., and his frantic efforts to set up a global satellite network based on DirecTV. This book is a fascinating look at a man the author concludes is the most significant media player on the scene today. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; 1 Amer ed edition (November 12, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609610384
• ISBN-13: 978-0609610381
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,150,963 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)