Murdoch's World
The empire after the phone-hacking scandal.
Summary
David Folkenflik, media correspondent for National Public Radio, examines News Corporation as an institution and asks how its editorial practices are set. He wrote in the aftermath of the British phone hacking scandal and organises the book around the question of whether the practices exposed there were exceptional.
His method is reporting on individual newsrooms across the company: the British tabloids, The Times of London, The Wall Street Journal after the 2007 acquisition, Fox News, and the Australian titles. He documents how Murdoch's known preferences propagate without explicit instruction, through editor selection and through the understood consequences of departing from them. He gives detailed attention to the changes at the Wall Street Journal after the acquisition, including shortened stories, more political coverage, and the departure of editors who resisted, and to the operation of Fox News under Roger Ailes.
Folkenflik is a competitor reporting on a media organisation, and he is transparent about it. The book is critical throughout and readers should weigh its perspective. Its most useful content for a business reader is the account of how editorial direction is transmitted in a large media company without written instruction, which is a general management question rather than a Murdoch-specific one. It predates the Fox News defamation litigation and the succession events.
Key takeaways 7
- Editorial direction in News Corporation propagated through editor selection and understood expectations rather than through explicit instruction.
- The phone hacking practices in the British tabloids reflected competitive pressure and management indifference rather than isolated misconduct.
- Ownership changes at the Wall Street Journal altered story length, subject selection and political framing within a few years.
- Fox News operated as a commercially successful product built on an identified audience whose preferences determined coverage.
- Folkenflik argues that Murdoch's business interests and his outlets' editorial positions have aligned too consistently to be coincidental.
- Journalists adapt their output to what they believe their proprietor wants, which makes explicit direction unnecessary.
- Media assets in a group can be used to advance the group's regulatory and commercial interests in other jurisdictions.
Who should read it
Investors in media companies and operators interested in how editorial or cultural direction transmits through a large organisation without formal instruction.
Where it sits in the reference 2
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