8 Great Reads on Murdoch

The News of the World phone-hacking saga has, ironically, inspired stellar works of journalism. From a former Murdoch editor to a fallen newspaper magnate, read eight writers on the scandal.

Hack Work

by Anthony Lane

The phone-hacking scandal was a long time coming, writes Anthony Lane. Rupert Murdoch and his tabloids created a news culture of brazen disrespect for privacy that made the current imbroglio all but inevitable. He writes: “If your attitude toward the lives of others is that of a house burglar confronted by an open window; if you consider it part of your business to fabricate conversations where none exist; and if your boss treats his employees with a derision that they, following suit, extend to the subjects of their inquiries—if those elements are already in place, then the decision to, say, hack into someone’s cell phone is almost no decision at all."

Read it at The New Yorker

Murdoch’s Chinese Adventure
by Jonathan Mirsky

Rupert Murdoch’s claim before Parliament to be a hands-off boss came as a surprise to Jonathan Mirsky. Mirsky says Murdoch frequently interfered with his work as East Asia editor for Murdoch’s Times while the News Corp. chief was trying to break into China’s media market. Mirsky’s critical stories were killed so frequently a deskman told him, “I don’t know why you bother.” His story about cannibalism during the Cultural Revolution was delayed until after his editor had lunch with the Chinese ambassador. After the Times editor rebutted Mirsky’s claim that his stories were rejected at Murdoch’s behest, Mirsky wrote a reply, which the Times edited into oblivion before stating on its front page that there was nothing to his allegations.

Read it at The New York Review of Books

Murdoch, Like Napoleon, is a Great Bad Man
by Conrad Black

Black, a former publisher who found himself embroiled in a scandal that landed him in hot water (and jail), is in a unique position to comment on the trials of the man who runs News Corp. In an article that both praises and skewers Murdoch, he asserts that "Mr. Murdoch has no loyalty to anyone or anything except his company. He has difficulty keeping friendships; rarely keeps his word for long; is an exploiter of the discomfort of others; and has betrayed every political leader who ever helped him in any country, except Ronald Reagan and perhaps Tony Blair." He goes on to remind readers of Murdoch's "downmarket" instincts, even while saying his purchase of The Wall Street Journal improved the paper. "It is wrong to dispute his greatness or his badness."

Read it at Financial Times

News of the World’s Desperate Final Hours
by Paul McNamara

Many News of the World journalists ended up victims of the scandal as well, Paul McNamara points out. McNamara, the former defense editor of News of the World, tells about getting called back from Libya to learn that the paper he grew up with and loved was closing. Former employees were crying, or furiously questioning Rebekah Brooks--who got to keep her job, for the time, while they all lost theirs. His final task was to donate the $4.5 million proceeds of their final issue to charity, which proved difficult when no one would take the tainted money. In the end the newspaper’s editor, Colin Myler, stood on his desk to give his farewell speech before pounding on the top of it as everyone filed out--an old Fleet Street tradition for departing legends.

Read it at The New York Times

Wendi Murdoch and a Train Crash
by Evan Osnos

China’s press has been recounting and analyzing Wendi Murdoch, Rupert’s China-born wife, ever since she took down her husband’s pie-wielding assailant. But it’s only the latest angle in China’s exhaustive coverage of News of the World, whose phone-hacking scandal is being touted as a lesson in the drawbacks of a free press. Chinese reporters have been explicitly ordered to report as much as they can on News of the World. And this mandate happens to come after China’s highly symbolic high-speed rail program just had a deadly crash.

Read it at The New Yorker

Letting Murdoch in Through the Back Door
by Geoffrey Wheatcroft

The real scandal isn’t that Rupert Murdoch’s papers hacked phones, writes Geoffrey Wheatcroft, it’s the political influence Murdoch wielded through those papers. Tony Blair set the standard for political alliances with News Corp., frequently spoon-feeding stories to its publications. But Cameron followed suit with his hiring former World editor Coulson. “There is every reason to think that Cameron actually wanted a liaison officer with News International, a direct link to Murdoch,” writes Wheatcroft. “Well, he got that, and look where it landed him.” With Cameron in hot water, Ed Miliband has his first chance to strike a blow for the opposition--but he can’t take the moral high ground, because his communications director is Tom Baldwin, of Murdoch’s Times.

Rest at The Book Beast