'For half a century, the Murdoch media empire and its polarising patriarch have swept across the globe, shaking up markets and democracies in their wake. But how did it all start?
'In September 1953, 22-year-old Rupert Murdoch landed in Adelaide, South Australia. Fresh from Oxford with a radical reputation, the young and brash son of Sir Keith Murdoch had arrived to fulfill his father's dying wish- for Rupert to live a 'useful altruistic and full life' in the media.
'For decades, Sir Keith had been a giant of the Australian press, but his final years were spent bitterly fending off rivals and would-be successors. When the dust settled on his father's estate, Rupert was left with the Adelaide-based News Ltd and its afternoon paper The News - a minor player in a small, parochial city.
'But even this inheritance was soon under siege, as the left-wing 'Boy Publisher' stared down his father's old colleagues at the city's paper of record, The Advertiser, and a conservative establishment kept in power by a decades-old gerrymander.
'Led by Rupert's friend, ally, and editor-in-chief Rohan Rivett, the fledgling Murdoch press began a seven-year campaign of circulation wars, expansion, and courtroom battles that divided the city and would lay the foundations for a global empire - if Rupert and Rohan didn't end up in custody first.
'Drawing on unpublished archival material and new reportage, Young Rupert pieces together a paper trail of succession, sedition, and power - and a fascinating time capsule of Australian media on the cusp of an extraordinary ascension.' (Publication summary)
'Two new books reveal the intriguing origins of Rupert Murdoch’s global empire'
'There’s an art to writing the journalistic yarn, and Walter Marsh has it. Young Rupert: The making of the Murdoch empire is his biography of the youthful Rupert Murdoch, documenting the kingpin’s rise and rise. In plain but far from dull prose, Marsh shows how Murdoch’s father, Keith, tried to leave his son an empire. Instead, young Rupert was the heir to a fight: “His father’s colleagues and rivals were descending on his inheritance like seagulls on a bag of chips.”' (Introduction)
'Walter Marsh charts the origins of Murdoch’s media playbook and political connections in 1950s Adelaide.'
One Man Control : An Enthralling Study of the Young Rupert Murdoch
2023
26601374
2023
single work
review
'There is every reason for wanting to get to the bottom of Rupert Murdoch. It is arguable that he has done more than any modern individual to shape public life, policy, and conversation in those parts of the Anglosphere where his media interests either dominate or hold serious sway. His influence is richly textured, transformative. Beyond bringing a populist insouciance to his host of print and television properties, he is also unafraid of using his reach as a political weapon, a tactic used with such vehement ubiquity that governments pre-emptively buckle to what they suppose is the Murdoch line. Debate is thus distorted and circumscribed. Public anxiety is co-opted as a cynically exploited tool of sales and marketing.' (Introduction)
One Man Control : An Enthralling Study of the Young Rupert Murdoch
2023
26601374
2023
single work
review
'There is every reason for wanting to get to the bottom of Rupert Murdoch. It is arguable that he has done more than any modern individual to shape public life, policy, and conversation in those parts of the Anglosphere where his media interests either dominate or hold serious sway. His influence is richly textured, transformative. Beyond bringing a populist insouciance to his host of print and television properties, he is also unafraid of using his reach as a political weapon, a tactic used with such vehement ubiquity that governments pre-emptively buckle to what they suppose is the Murdoch line. Debate is thus distorted and circumscribed. Public anxiety is co-opted as a cynically exploited tool of sales and marketing.' (Introduction)
'Walter Marsh charts the origins of Murdoch’s media playbook and political connections in 1950s Adelaide.'
'There’s an art to writing the journalistic yarn, and Walter Marsh has it. Young Rupert: The making of the Murdoch empire is his biography of the youthful Rupert Murdoch, documenting the kingpin’s rise and rise. In plain but far from dull prose, Marsh shows how Murdoch’s father, Keith, tried to leave his son an empire. Instead, young Rupert was the heir to a fight: “His father’s colleagues and rivals were descending on his inheritance like seagulls on a bag of chips.”' (Introduction)
'Two new books reveal the intriguing origins of Rupert Murdoch’s global empire'
