Rupert Murdoch: The Man Who Owns The News
According to Michael Wolff’s supercilious yet star-struck portrait of Rupert Murdoch, the planet’s most notorious press baron has a crude, simple, primordial idea of a good time.
“Being warlike is his point,” Mr. Wolff writes. “He likes to be the cause of the conflict. He likes to set the house on fire and watch all the fire engines drive maniacally down the road.”
“The Man Who Owns the News” is larded with examples of that incendiary Murdoch behavior. One of the most illuminating is Mr. Murdoch’s stealth campaign to acquire The Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones, from the Bancroft family, which controlled them. (“Somewhat hilariously,” Mr. Wolff writes, Mr. Murdoch quells the Bancrofts’ doubts by suggesting they “should just ask around to see if he is a trustworthy person or not.” )
