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December 2, 2008 7:28:25 PM CST

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'Rupert Murdoch Is Becoming a Liberal'

Posted Sep 2, 08 9:00 AM CDT in Politics,  Glossies,  Arts & Living 

(Newser) – Rupert Murdoch isn't what you've been told, Michael Wolff writes in Vanity Fair. He's not a destroyer of journalism—he is perhaps the last great lover of newspapers. And he’s actually turning liberal. Yes, he’s still a free-marketeer, but Murdoch has been seduced by his second wife’s liberal social circle, and "the angry outsider, the anti-elitist" is becoming one of them. Which explains why he overpaid for the Wall Street Journal and fantasizes obsessively about buying the New York Times.

Murdoch hosted a secret meeting with Barack Obama this summer, including a face-to-face with Fox chief Roger Ailes, which started acrimoniously but ended in a “tentative truce," writes Wolff.  After spending 9 months interviewing the mogul for an upcoming book, Wolff finds him the opposite of the corporate man—"maybe the last troublemaker in the holier-than-thou, ethically straitjacketed news business." But he thinks Murdoch is actually becoming embarrassed by Fox, his former alter ego.

Source Vanity Fair

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News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch gestures during the launch of Dow Jones India Titans 30 in Mumbai, India, Monday, Aug. 4, 2008.   (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
Rupert Murdoch arrives at the News Corp. building in New York Wednesday morning Aug. 1, 2007.   (AP Photo/David Karp)
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He’s a troublemaker—maybe the last troublemaker in the holier-than-thou, ethically straitjacketed news business. - Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair

I was warned about his charm by many other journalists—warned not to fall victim to it. So the surprise was his lack of it. - Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair

The angry outsider, the anti-elitist, has become part of the achieving, glamorous, clever, socially promiscuous set. Davos, Cannes, Sun Valley, Barry Diller’s yacht—this is now Rupert Murdoch’s world. -

Fox has been his alter ego. And yet now the embarrassment can’t be missed—he mumbles even more than usual when called on to justify it. - Michael Wolff, Vanity Fair

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Barack Obama • Rupert Murdoch • News Corp • Wall Street Journal • newspaper • Fox • liberal • Roger Ailes


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