Man Who Owns the News (eBook)

In a career spanning four decades Rupert Murdoch has built News International into a $70 billion corporation. Through a series of breathtaking gambles he expanded from his base in the Australian newspaper business to achieve a preeminent position in the UK's media, and to control a huge slice of Hollywood. Increasingly his company has built a presence in online and digital media, most recently through its acquisition of MySpace, and he is steadily expanding into Southeast Asia. But Murdoch is more than a predatory and merciless deal-maker. His company does not only generate dizzying profits and growth rates. His company generates the information that forms our understanding of the world. He presides over what we read, what we watch, what we come to believe about ourselves, to an extent that is without serious parallel anywhere on earth. In the words of Michael Wolff, Murdoch 'held more power over more time than any other contemporary figure'.Working with unrivalled access to Murdoch himself, his family, and his inner circle of advisors, Wolff shows how Murdoch came to wield this power and the uses he has made of it. Murdoch has become almost invisible behind the strong emotions he provokes. Now Wolff's account reveals the qualities that took Murdoch to the top of the world and have kept him there. In doing so he tells a business story that is also the story of a man's life, and the story of our times.

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From the author of the Sunday Times Number One Bestseller Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White HouseRupert Murdoch is one of the greatest deal-makers alive. His companies possess extraordinary political and cultural power. Whether it is the Sun and the rise of Thatcher, BSkyB and the transformation of football, or Fox News and the war on terror, we have been living in the age of Murdoch since the late seventies. But who is he? What drives him? With unprecedented access to Murdoch and his inner circle, Michael Wolff chronicles the astonishing growth of the mogul s giant media kingdom. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews he offers us a portrait of a Machiavellian titan; overbearing, but loving, father; love-struck husband; and a cynical and brilliant newsman. The resulting book is unrivalled in its intimacy and candour and tells a tale of business that is both the story of a man s life, and the story of our times.