The Murdoch Method: Observations on Rupert Murdoch's Management of a Media Empire by Irwin Stelzer

Author:Irwin Stelzer [Stelzer, Irwin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Industries, Media & Communications, Biography & Autobiography, Business, Leadership
ISBN: 9781681778051
Google: xO8_DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2018-05-01T20:29:28.913081+00:00

CHAPTER 6

RESPONSIBILITY

Big Julie (a gangster at a crap game): I’m rollin’ the whole thousand. And to change my luck, I’m going to use my own dice.

Nathan Detroit (the defenseless host and gambler): Your own dice?

Big Julie: I had ’em made especially in Chicago.

Nathan: I do not wish to seem petty, but may I have a look at those dice? But these dice ain’t got no spots on ’em. They’re blank.

Big Julie: I had the spots removed for luck. But I remember where the spots formerly were. Nathan: You are going to roll blank dice and remember where the spots were?

Big Julie: Detroit … do you doubt my memory?

Nathan: Big Julie, I have great trust in you.

From Guys and Dolls, Frank Loesser, 19551

“A paper must be fearless, and sometimes even offend its friends and supporters, but if it is founded upon truth, it will entrench itself more and more in the confidence of the public”—Keith Murdoch, 19212

“Just produce better papers, papers that people want to read. Stop having people write articles just to produce Pulitzer Prizes. Give people what they want to read and make it interesting”—Rupert Murdoch, 20083

Rupert Murdoch is well aware of the Rudyard Kipling/Stanley Baldwin jibe about power without responsibility, and believes it has nothing to do with him. He is right—sort of. Anyone who knows Rupert even moderately well knows that one of his greatest ambitions is to live up to the injunction laid down by his father, the legendary Sir Keith Murdoch, to use newspapers as a force for good, a force with which to challenge government overreach and “establishment” orthodoxy. This was reinforced by his formidable mother, a force in Rupert’s life until her death at the age of 103, who said she “did long to be able to help Rupert prove worthy of his father in the newspaper world.”4 Not to be ignored, as events were to prove, was Rupert’s grandfather’s exhortation to Sir Keith, “Don’t lack cheek.”

That Rupert has succeeded in the cheeky bit there is no doubt. Whether he has succeeded in discharging the responsibility laid on him by Sir Keith is a question the answer to which depends on the point of view of the observer. My belief is that he has, with certain exceptions. Dame Elisabeth once complained about “all those horrid papers you’re putting out” and urged her son to publish “something decent for a change.”5 Which, to her delight,6 he proceeded to do the following year, 1964, creating The Australian, a serious national broadsheet, and the first newspaper Murdoch had created rather than inherited or purchased. Rupert told its editor, “I want to be able to produce a newspaper that my father would have been proud of.”7 “It was my father’s dream.”8 Like the tabloid New York Post, which has rolled up hundreds of millions of dollars of losses, like Sky, like Fox News, the broadsheet Australian burned money in its early years.9 No matter: “Publishing is not about making money; it’s about achieving things and improving society,” Rupert announced to the staff when he regained control of the New York Post.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.