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Black Berates Newser Founder From Jail

News mogul attacks biography's depiction of rival Murdoch

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 17, 2008 1:40 PM CST

(Newser) – Convicted felon Conrad Black has skipped time in the exercise yard to pen a review from prison of the new biography of his old rival Rupert Murdoch. Black complains that biographer Michael Wolff is at once too deferential and takes "extreme psychological liberties" in The Man Who Owns the News. In reality, Murdoch “is quite pleasant,” Black writes for the Daily Beast, “though he is also one of the very few completely ruthless and totally cynical people I have known.”

Black also denies the book’s assertion that he and Murdoch struck a deal to go easy on each another—claiming that he did in fact have a conversation with Murdoch, but his outlets "only became nastier, and vastly exceeded the eventual mendacity of the lawless prosecutors" who put Black in prison—though he never uses the p-word. Wolff is right to call Murdoch a “manipulative bastard,” he says, but he’s more than that. He’s a classic “great, bad man,” and may be truly evil.

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (3)]

In this Dec. 10, 2007 file photo, Conrad Black arrives at the federal building in Chicago for sentencing in his racketeering and fraud trial. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)

In this Nov. 2, 2008, file photo, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch delivers the 2008 Boyer lecture series "A Golden Age of Freedom" in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File)

The cover of "The Man Who Owns the News" by Michael Wolff.

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Murdoch is, as Wolff writes, in sum, "a manipulative bastard" who believes in nothing except himself and his company, and eventually double-crosses almost everyone. - Conrad Black

Personally, Rupert Murdoch is quite pleasant, though he is also one of the very few completely ruthless and totally cynical people I have known. - Conrad Black

I think The Simpsons reflects his world-view: Public officials are crooks and the people are idiots. - Conrad Black on Rupert Murdoch

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Black Berates Newser Founder From Jail